RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/06/30/the-4-big-lies-and-1-terrible-truth-in-bidens-bidenomics-is-working-speech/

“I’m happy to call it ‘Bidenomics.’  And guess what?  Bidenomics is working.”

In a 30-minute speech in Chicago this week, President Joe Biden declared that his economic policies — which can charitably be summed up as “borrow and spend, tax and regulate” — are doing wonders for the nation’s economy.

Never mind that just 38% of Americans approve of the job Biden has been doing on the economy.

No. The only risk we face, Biden argued, was a return of that bogeyman known as “trickle-down economics.”

“Folks, let me say this as clearly as I can,” Biden said. “The trickle-down approach failed the middle class. It failed America. It blew up the deficit. It increased inequity. And it weakened the in — our infrastructure. It stripped the dignity, pride, and hope out of communities one after another, particularly through the Midwest, Western Pennsylvania, and heading west.”

Scary!

Or, it would be, if there was a shred of truth to it. The middle class made huge gains during the “trickle-down” Reagan boom and was making huge gains during the Trump boom until the Biden-backed COVID lockdowns gutted it.

Truth is, the only way Biden can make the case for “Bidenomics” is by lying. Examples:

“U.S. has had the highest economic growth rate, leading the world economies since the pandemic.”

Except it didn’t. The U.S. ranks 146th in real GDP growth in the world so far this year, came in 151st place last year, and was 66th in 2021, according to the International Monetary Fund.

“We created 13.4 million new jobs.”

Also false. Because almost 10 million of those were simply refilled jobs lost during the pointless COVID lockdown. Under Biden, the number of net new jobs is less than 4 million — which is nothing to brag about, given that the working-age population has grown by 6.8 million since Biden took office.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-long-road-to-racial-equality-affirmative-action-supreme-court-discrimination-race-diversity-f45c3b8f?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

EXCERPT

I strongly believe that the future of our country demands that we reject our endless pursuit of diversity and equity and claw our way back to our values and the vision embraced by Lincoln and JFK. Ending race-based affirmative action is an important first step in that mission. Over the past 20 years, voters in Arizona, California, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Washington backed ballot measures to prohibit racial discrimination—including preferential treatment for minorities. Officials in Idaho, Florida and New Hampshire did the same via legislation or executive order.

As one who was born in Jim Crow as a “colored” person and who has lived through all 62 years of affirmative action, my fear has been that this departure from one of America’s most fundamental values—over which we have fought a civil war—was becoming accepted as the preferred policy, rather than the exception, to our constitutional obligation of equal treatment for every person.

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of equal rights and against race-based affirmative action in college admissions, it is realistic to anticipate some pushback. Change after 60 years rarely comes easy. For my part, and that of the majority who believe in the ideal that has guided America since its inception, this is a time to rejoice, as America will come closer to living in accordance with its creed.

On the day before the high court’s oral arguments in the Students for Fair Admissions cases, I addressed a rally sponsored by Asian Americans for Equal Education. As I sat chatting with Ed Blum, whose organization was the plaintiff, a college student of Asian descent approached. I asked why she considered this case to be important.

“Because it would give me a chance to prove my merit, and the content of my character,” she said. Martin Luther King Jr. would have nodded even more vigorously than I did.

Mr. Connerly is president of the American Civil Rights Institute.

https://thespectator.com/topic/walls-closing-joe-biden-corruption-hunter-irs-white-house-trump/

Confronted with devastating evidence of Biden family grifting, the president’s advocates are abandoning their old defenses and trying some new ones. 

Some are attempting to change the subject. Nancy Pelosi offers a sterling example. Asked about the latest evidence connecting Joe Biden with Hunter’s corrupt schemes, she replied that she was too busy defending women’s reproductive rights. Not exactly a full-throated defense of the president. Still others are repeating the familiar refrain, “But Trump is worse.” (More on that in a minute.) 

Finally, a shrinking band of Biden supporters are sticking with their old line: you may have caught everyone who shares Joe’s DNA, but you haven’t caught ol’ Joe himself. That’s true, but the evidence of the president’s involvement is mounting and the allegations are detailed. The charges are so obvious and the evidence so serious that even mainstream reporters are asking about them. The president’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, stands mute. So does her more competent stand-in, John Kirby. KJP not only told the press she knows nothing, she told them she would not privately ask the president about the charges so she could respond to press inquiries. 

What Joe’s defenders are increasingly reluctant to say is, “He had absolutely nothing to do with the vast sums raked in by his son, brother, daughter-in-law and minor grandchildren. He knew nothing. He had no knowledge of the intricate web of shell companies his family used to move money around and hide its sources and recipients. He doesn’t know any honest business people who have used these covert methods. He did nothing to help his son, Hunter, his brother, James, or other family members. The president is completely ignorant of anything they did and did nothing to help them.” That’s his story. 

Many of Joe’s defenders have backed away from a straightforward declaration that “he’s innocent,” and instead render the Scottish verdict, “Not proven.” So far, they are right — the case isn’t proven yet. But the walls are closing in, both on Joe himself and on his defenders at the Department of Justice, IRS and FBI. 

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/28/san-francisco-harbinger-of-democratic-horrors-to-come/

Earlier this month, President Biden held a reelection campaign rally in San Francisco. For a campaign that has already suffered numerous gaffes and scandals, and will likely suffer more, the choice of locale sent a powerful message. As a recent visit revealed to me, the City by the Bay is absolutely as bad as everyone says.

The downtown area, stretching down historic Market Street from the City Hall to bayside Embarcadero, is gutted, with 47% of businesses in the city having closed their doors since 2020. There and in the surrounding neighborhoods, commercial storefronts are almost all empty except for the occasional liquor store. After nightfall, the sidewalks are crowded by groups of homeless people living in makeshift encampments. Most looked like they were on drugs and/or severely mentally ill. The only people walking with purpose appeared to be selling drugs or women.

The ground was covered with all manner of filth. Being around it felt less safe than in any American city before urban governments adopted policies advocated by Black Lives Matter, which are now the heart and soul of the Democratic Party and anyone who aspires to leadership in it. Most notably, San Francisco gutted its police force’s budget and scaled back criminal prosecution of a wide range of crimes directly affecting quality of life.

A 26-year old tech executive friend who tolerates the city but, like many young people is looking to move, calls his fellow residents in this category “zombie people.” The number of people in his age group living in the city has fallen 21% since April 2020, while the number of San Franciscans in their thirties fell by 13% in the same period. Office attendance is hovering at about 45% of capacity. In the first quarter of 2023, the city’s murder rate was up a staggering 83% over the same period last year. This followed on an annual increase of 17 percent in 2021 and 20 percent in 2020.

This year’s victims included prominent tech CEO Bob Lee, who was stabbed to death in the once-posh Mission district. Entrepreneur Elon Musk, whose Twitter headquarters sits precariously on Market Street, has publicly stated that many people he personally knows have been violently assaulted. On the night I arrived, nine people were shot in a gang incident despite strict gun control laws that almost totally outlaw private gun ownership.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/06/the_controlled_demolition_of_nationstates.html

Generally speaking, central banks are empowered to control the supply of money by employing a number of tools that include buying government debt, selling government bonds, adjusting reserve requirements, and setting official interest rates.  Operating under various legal mandates to sustain an overall healthy economy, central banks ostensibly pursue policies that will produce relatively low inflation, steady economic growth, and low public unemployment.  

What if these stated goals are merely talking points meant to justify a central bank’s continued monopoly over a nation’s creation of money, and the true objective of any central bank is to maximize wealth for the wealthiest economic players?  Central banks, after all, are usually institutionally independent from government interference.  They are private firms managed by the world’s financial elite.  How might a central bank pursue a hidden agenda to grow the wealth of its friends at the public’s expense?

The easiest and most effective way would be to create artificial “boom and bust” cycles during which economies greatly expand and then quickly shrink.  How does this work in practice?  First, a central bank lowers interest rates — the cost of borrowing money — and thereby encourages ordinary citizens to take out loans.  These loans are used to buy houses and cars and start small businesses.  By artificially lowering interest rates below the natural market rate, central banks stimulate consumer purchases and small business expenditures beyond what Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” would have rendered on its own.  Investors who have an economic interest in selling houses, cars, and inventories for small businesses all benefit from the central bank’s intervention.

Additionally, because central banks have encouraged borrowing, they have pumped more money into the greater economy.  With the supply of money artificially increased, some individuals are willing to pay more now than before for the same goods or services.  Consequently, the prices of goods and services increase, producing inflation.  There are two important effects stemming from inflation: (1) a middle-class citizen on a fixed income must now pay more for living expenses, while (2) a higher-class citizen who owns stocks, homes, and other assets will see the currency-denominated value of those assets increase.  In other words, inflation acts as a tax on poorer individuals who own little and a supplement for wealthier individuals who own much.  While a middle-class citizen living paycheck-to-paycheck will effectively have less income, a higher-class citizen whose principal wealth exists in the form of assets will have increased net wealth.  Inflation effects a wealth transfer from the poor to the rich.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/06/29/the-democrats-definition-of-democracy-is-like-the-marxist-definition-of-peace/

‘The meaning of peace,” Karl Marx said, “is the absence of opposition to socialism.” To the Soviets, peace was the state in which resistance to their territorial and philosophical ambitions was not only futile, it was fatal. If Democrats were as straightforward as their philosophical consigliere, they would define democracy, which they refer to in worshipful tones, as the absence of any challenge to their political power. Given how that party has continually revealed its authoritarian core, there can be no other explanation.

We’ve argued before that the Democrats don’t want to govern under constitutional limits but instead rule without constraint, which can happen only when their power is unchallengeable. We could point to the current administration’s direct and proxy prosecutions of the previous president. Its effort to eliminate a threat to its agenda is without precedent in our country, primarily because in the past Americans avoided a never-ending cycle of persecution and prosecutorial paybacks in which political stability is undermined. We have a long tradition of primarily civil politics and the peaceful transition of power. 

The criminalization of politics is only one iteration of the left’s doctrine that politics are war by other means, though. The Democrats, with in-kind aid from the media, are also trying to bully the Supreme Court into submission to their will. Their message to the Court’s conservative justices: Rule our way or we will harass you until you resign.

In this war with multiple fronts, the Democrats are attempting to establish a permanent majority through a direct assault on elections. We’re talking about far more than the “cabal” that was mobilized in 2020 to guarantee the presidency for Joe Biden.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/27/the-trump-distraction/

Whether owing to his actual words and actions, or due to the endless, baseless assaults of the deep state and corporate media, or some combination of all of these things, there are millions of Americans for whom Donald Trump now has no credibility. Beyond the damage done to Trump’s personal brand and political future, this reality portends dire consequences for the nation. It has enabled the special interests who oppose the policies Trump champions to fatally stigmatize them by associating them with the man.

It’s a dirty trick, but politics is a dirty business. Every political sentiment at odds with the special interests that run the country is labeled “Trumpism,” and hence becomes toxic.

The Globalist Game of Distraction

This game of distraction is bigger than Trump. Americans are beginning to realize that they’ve been betrayed by their elites. The globalist agenda of open borders, unfettered movement of capital, rejection of traditional values, rejection of meritocracy, deliberate overreaction to “climate change,” and heedless accumulation of debt to fund the development of foreign economies—including the Chinese military—has been accepted and promoted by virtually every major institution in America: unions, corporations, academia, K-12 public education, the media and entertainment industry, Democrats, and even a majority of Republican politicians. They profit by advancing this agenda, and in so doing elevate the cost-of-living for all Americans while at the same time depriving them of good jobs.

When Trump entered politics in 2015, he exposed and rejected this agenda in its entirety. Within a few years, tens of millions of Americans who hadn’t considered these issues as part of a connected whole, if they’d even considered them at all, were awakened and voting for a politician who was committed to dismantling the entire globalist project.

Trump’s continued relevance promises to blur even further the conventional dividing lines in American politics. What is the significance of Left vs. Right, when communists and corporations in 21st-century America are working together to advance big government globalism? How do the old distinctions apply when they both support an authoritarian, collectivist, and micromanaged society? There is ample evidence for this seeming paradox.

On most of the big issues of our time, including the rejection of traditional moral values, the centrality of “climate change” as a transformative economic and political agenda, and the need for affirmative action, racial redress, and open borders, communists and corporatists share a surprisingly congruent agenda. Their only point of divergence concerns private property, and even that may be illusory when considering the realistic prospect of publicly held corporations with activist directorates and activist shareholders with virtual ownership and control of the entire economy.

Trump blew the lid off this whole artificial dichotomy, and from coast to coast, Americans are still digesting the implications.