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Liz Peek: Joe Biden’s odd but revealing claim about inflation

Posted By on August 20th, 2023

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4158523-joe-bidens-odd-but-revealing-claim-about-inflation/

President Biden brandished a brand-new claim in his recent talk about the wonders of the Inflation Reduction Act:

“Now, one reason we’ve seen inflation fall by two thirds without losing jobs is corporate profits are coming back down to earth. The excesses are being eliminated by the corporations.”

In other words, “excess” company profits are dropping, and that has brought price increases under control. By Biden’s logic, if Corporate America went bankrupt, the economy would really be humming.  

Hasn’t anyone ever explained to Biden that it is profits that lead to investment, to productivity gains and to higher wages? Apparently not. Biden thinks inflation stems from corporate greed, not too much spending — no wonder the White House got it so wrong.

Biden’s anti-business mindset reminds us of the Obama years, during which the country experienced the slowest-ever recovery from a recession. Liberals like Paul Krugman continue to argue that former President Obama’s failure to boost U.S. growth stemmed from an undersized stimulus program. No, the problem was that Obama stomped on the green shoots of economic revival with a tsunami of regulatory changes that confounded employers and decision-makers, stymied investment and prolonged the downturn.

We are seeing much the same today. Biden keeps talking about building the economy from the middle out; I doubt even he knows what he is talking about. In reality, he is building the economy from the top down, with the government at the tip of the pyramid, issuing ever-more rules and making significant decisions about the allocation of capital and direction of industry.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Biden Administration Funding Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program, Incentivizing Terror by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on August 19th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19906/biden-iran-nuclear-weapons

The Biden Administration has destabilized the Middle East, launched a potential international nuclear arms race, incentivized global terrorism, increased American taxpayers’ funding both sides of the Ukraine war, crushed even further a people fighting for their freedom and appeased yet another rogue regime — after Afghanistan, China and Venezuela – this time one that the US State Department itself has called the “top state sponsor of terrorism,” Iran, all in one week.

The Biden Administration reached a deal with the Iranian regime behind closed doors on August 10, in which the United States agreed to pay $6 billion dollars and release a handful of Iranian nationals who are serving prison sentences in the US, in exchange for the release of five Iranian-Americans imprisoned in Iran – more than a billion dollars per head.

Worse, more billions apparently, is waiting in the wings.

More importantly, “That [the deal] will encourage hostage diplomacy among our foes is the least of the problems.” — Richard Goldberg, former White House Security Official, thedispatch.com, August 15, 2023.

For a start, the Biden Administration, seemingly to avoid congressional oversight and a potential veto, essentially nullified the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 that requires Congressional approval of any Iran deal, and got away with it.

Moreover, as Goldberg notes, the price for Russia releasing Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich probably just went up, not to mention the extremely real danger of what China, based on its new laws that say might well be tempted to do to visiting American business leaders, or just any American outside wandering around outside the US. According to Voice of America, the new “anti-espionage” law, “relying on espionage organizations and their agents,” as well as the unauthorized obtaining of “documents, data, materials, and items related to national security and interests” can constitute a spying offense.

China’s new law also states that it has the right to “to take corresponding countermeasures and restrictive measures” against acts that violate international law and norms and that “endanger China’s sovereignty, security and development” – apparently meaning that a crime is anything the Communist Chinese government says it is.

The Obama administration shipped $400 million in an unmarked plane to Iran for the release of four Iranian-American prisoners. “Predictably,” Goldberg noted, “Iran took more hostages in the months and years thereafter, believing it could get an even better price from a future U.S. president.”

All this just so the Biden Administration will not have Iran introducing its nuclear weapons breakout while Biden is still in office, especially before an election. After that, thanks to the Biden Administration, unlimited nuclear weapons will presumably be a global free-for-all.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

How China Is Winning the Narrative War, and Who’s Helping By Janet Levy

Posted By on August 19th, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/08/how_china_is_winning_the_narrative_war_and_whos_helping.html

In their 1999 book Unrestricted Warfare, Chinese colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui posited that the battlefields of the future would be “virtually infinite.” Much of the fighting, they said, would be done without fighting: using ideological infiltration and propaganda to craft a narrative, the Chinese brand of communism could be made to find acceptance in the world of the free market and individual rights, ultimately causing the latter’s collapse. Expectedly, the chief target of this “smokeless war” is the U.S. 

How alarmingly successful the Chinese have been has been brought home by a recent New York Times exposé of the activities of Marxist millionaire Neville Roy Singham. China’s tentacles reach wide and deep to control newspapers, TV, the internet, non-profits and sundry groups espousing far-left causes – all in the service of China’s quest for global hegemony. Under President Xi Jinping, not only have state media operations been expanded, sympathetic foreign influencers and news outlets have been cultivated. It is in these operations that Singham plays a major role.

The 69-year-old Singham is the son of the late Archibald Singham, a Sri Lankan Marxist scholar who consorted with Fidel Castro and was committed to the “liberation of Third World peoples.” As a young man, the junior Singham joined the Maoist group League of Revolutionary Black Workers. After graduating from Howard University, he founded ThoughtWorks, a tech consulting firm, in 1993. It grew to employ 4,500 people across 15 countries, and made him a millionaire. From 2001 to 2008, he was a consultant to Huawei, which tested face recognition software used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to target Uyghurs for repression and is deemed a national security threat by the U.S.

Ironically, during this successful entrepreneurial journey, Singham seems to have concluded that the Chinese economic system was preferable to that of the West. In 2017 – also the year he married Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans – he sold ThoughtWorks for $785 million and devoted himself to leftist propaganda. He now works from offices in Shanghai and New York’s Times Square, playing benefactor to far-left groups, which he funds through a network of shell companies and NGOs. He denies the NYT allegation that he works closely with the Chinese government. 

Through the shell firms – some of which have no more presence than UPS store mailbox addresses – Singham bankrolls American leftist groups, a Massachusetts-based think tank, a political party in South Africa, and media groups in Brazil and India. His funds also support training for left-leaning activists and politicians across Africa. The common factor in all his beneficiaries is that they push Chinese propaganda, presenting China as benign even as it gobbles up land in Africa, bribes politicians, and creates debt crises in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan, many other countries, and virtually across Africa, to eventually gain strategic leverage.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Smiling Faces Lie Kenin M. Spivak

Posted By on August 19th, 2023

https://americanmind.org/salvo/smiling-faces-lie/

Merrick Garland’s placidity disguises evil within.

In 1971, The Temptations reminded us that smiling faces tell lies (Undisputed Truth’s version came out later that year, and the O’Jays’ “Back Stabbers” the following year). “Smiling Faces” attributes the lies and “evil that lurks within” to jealousy, misery and envy. That just might be Attorney General Merrick Garland’s motivation for appointing David Weiss to be the so-called special counsel. For an erstwhile appeals court judge, not becoming a Supreme Court justice must really sting.

Weiss’ appointment is a scam and a fraud on the American people. He is the opposite of what a special prosecutor is supposed to be.

When the independent counsel statute expired in 1999, the Justice Department adopted regulations governing the appointment of a watered-down successor referred to as a special counsel. The current regulations call for the attorney general to appoint a special counsel when he or she determines that a criminal investigation is warranted and that investigation or prosecution by a U.S. attorney’s office would present a conflict of interest. Here, that should have led to the appointment of a special counsel two years ago.

Section 600.3 of the special counsel regulations provides,

An individual named as Special Counsel shall be a lawyer with a reputation for integrity and impartial decision making, and with appropriate experience to ensure both that the investigation will be conducted ably, expeditiously and thoroughly, and that investigative and prosecutorial decisions will be supported by an informed understanding of the criminal law and Department of Justice policies. The Special Counsel shall be selected from outside the United States Government.

Weiss has few of these qualifications. He is a Justice Department apparatchik. He appears to lack integrity, impartial decision making, and an ability (perhaps, more fairly, an intention) to conduct the investigation ably, expeditiously, or thoroughly.

Weiss has been investigating for five years, long enough to run out the statute of limitations on many of Hunter Biden’s most serious crimes. It does not require much effort to identify that it is unlawful to deduct payments to pimps, escorts, and paramours as a business expense. While it requires greater effort to review statements from 20 bank accounts, it doesn’t take a year to determine that upwards of $20 million ran through accounts owned by Hunter, or for which Hunter had an obligation to report his share of income, which he failed to do.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Gen. Milley Admits Wokeness is Undermining Military Recruitment “Somehow the entire military went woke because a handful of drag queen shows” by Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on August 19th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/gen-milley-admits-wokeness-is-undermining-military-recruitment/

The Washington Post chatted with the outgoing chief of woke armed forces to hear his latest excuses.

Gen. Milley showed off his usual excuses, admitting and denying, spinning and blaming everyone else.

“There’s clearly a recruiting challenge ongoing and you saw numbers. And the Army is particularly challenged to meet its numbers.

So why is that? I think there’s a lot of reasons. There’s never a single causal factor. So anyone who out there is saying that this is the reason, I would challenge them on that…

I think another contributing factor is clearly this perception of quote, “wokeness,” and I personally think that it’s overstated. There are things that are done in the military that certainly, you know, raise that as an issue, but the actual facts suggests that it’s much less significant than perhaps the perception is.”

When Milley is admitting that perception of wokeness is the issue, he’s admitting it’s a problem while claiming it’s only a perception issue. Like most officials who have to argue that the issue is perception, not reality, it’s spin to cope with a real problem caused by those same officials.

“I’ll use drag queen shows as an example. That’s been out there. I don’t agree with drag queen shows being on military bases. I don’t think that’s appropriate. And neither does Secretary Austin. So Secretary Austin put a stop to it. How many times it happened? It happened a few. That’s true. Probably shouldn’t happen. But it did. But to say that that is, you know, somehow the entire military went woke because a handful of drag queen shows that shouldn’t happen to begin with, I think is an overstatement.

The drag shows are the least of it. As is the whole Pride Month mess. It’s top military officials like Milley’s replacement, Gen. Brown, giving talks about how racist America is. It’s the push for racial and gender quotas. It’s the injection of radical political indoctrination amid the so-called ‘stand down’ on racism.

Milley knows all this and just keeps spinning.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Nikki Haley Is Hillary 2.0 By: Eddie Scarry

Posted By on August 19th, 2023

https://thefederalist.com/2023/08/18/nikki-haley-is-hillary-2-0/

Nikki Haley has microwaved Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and made her own all about being a woman, as if Republicans care.

Of all the terrible things about Nikki Haley — her enthusiasm for more foreign war funding, her deference to corporate cultural assault — the cringe-worthy attempts to hype her status as a woman (A mom! A wife!) and Indian (“I’m a minority first!,” “I’m as diverse as it gets!”) are the least offensive. But it’s still really, really bad.

Her whole campaign is Hillary 2.0.

Haley currently polls nationally at less than 5 percent, and it’s the same in early Republican primary states Iowa and New Hampshire, so there aren’t a ton of reasons to spend time thinking about her. But it’s truly awe-inspiring that there exist Republicans who still believe there’s anything to gain from the party’s voters by rubbing their faces in identity politics rot.

When have Republicans ever showed any appetite for it? They haven’t. They don’t care. It’s only interesting to the extent that ethnic minorities and women who run for office as Republicans are contrary to the racist media’s preferred narrative. Outside of that, it’s meaningless and has no bearing on a voter’s decision to trust any given candidate with power.

Haley has already disqualified herself for the nomination by cheering on more war between Ukraine and Russia, stupidly undermining the only Republican senator trying to uphold the law that abortions not be funded with taxpayer money, and ceding authority to corporations that promote gross left-wing social causes.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Trump To Skip First GOP Debate, Will Do Interview With Tucker Carlson: Report The news comes less than 24 hours after Trump asked on social media, ‘why would I debate?’

Posted By on August 19th, 2023

https://themessenger.com/politics/trump-to-skip-first-gop-debate-will-do-interview-with-tucker-carlson-report

Former President Donald Trump plans to skip the first GOP debate next Wednesay in Milwaukee and will instead do an online interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, according to a report in the New York Times.

Sources close to the former president told The Times he has told those close to him he will skip the debate and do the sit down with the former top-rated Fox News host.

The news comes less than 24 hours after Trump wrote on Truth Social that he is polling well ahead of the other candidates, adding, “Reagan didn’t do it, and neither did others. People know my Record, one of the BEST EVER, so why would I Debate?”

The Trump campaign refused to confirm or deny the report to The Messenger. 

“Tucker has been the plan for some time. But Georgia might change that. Don’t be surprised if he shows up in Atlanta on debate night,” said a Trump adviser who recently spoke with him about the options of his debate night whereabouts.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

GOP Primary Obviously Isn’t Over, but the First Debate Is Crucial Republican voters want someone who will fight for them By Josh Hammer

Posted By on August 19th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/08/18/the-gop-primary-obviously-isnt-over-but-the-first-debate-is-crucial/

If one is to believe the prevailing narrative from Donald Trump’s current campaign to retake the White House, the 2024 Republican presidential primary might as well be over. The former president has been consistently dominating the top-line horse race polling for months now, the argument goes, despite (or perhaps because of?) the fact he has now been criminally indicted four separate times, by three different prosecutors, in four different jurisdictions. Therefore, the Trump triumphalists shout from their rooftops, the other candidates should just drop out right now. “Spare your dignity and coronate Trump today!!!”

This argument is absurd for approximately a million different reasons.

First, and perhaps most important, the last time I checked the calendar, it still said, “August 2023.” While commentators, campaign operatives and political junkies with apparently nothing else better to do in their free time are already intensely following the Republican presidential primary, the same is simply not true for the vast majority of Americans who largely tune out the news during the dog days of summer. A political party’s first televised presidential primary debate marks the unofficial beginning of its normal, non-activist voter base paying attention in earnest. Yes, Trump has maintained a stubborn lead in the national horse race polls for months now. But it is still ridiculously early.

Second, and perhaps next important, it is totally unclear what shape Trump might find himself in six months from now, to say nothing of one year from now. Many of the former president’s “coronate him today!”-style enthusiasts tend to suppose, because of the thoroughly unjust nature of the ruling class’s sprawling multistate legal persecution of Trump, that he will be inevitably exonerated from all charges and acquitted of all legal woes.

Trump’s supporters are right on the unjustness of the Regime’s jihad against Trump – though the former president’s often-myopic conduct, from his ignoring a grand jury subpoena in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents retention case to the outlandish, infamous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in the Fulton County, Georgia case, makes it all-too easy for his foes. But Trump’s supporters are wrong about the very nature of these four indictments, each one of which necessarily involves a different judge and a different juror pool, and all of which present differing likelihoods of guilt, acquittal or some sort of ultimate plea deal. In the interim, furthermore, Trump will be strapped for time as he is forced to physically jet off to courtrooms in four jurisdictions, and his campaign and supporting super PAC will continue to have their coffers bled dry with ever-mounting legal bills.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Smoke and Mirrors Middle East Diplomacy The Biden administration manufactures ‘wins’ to bolster its abysmal foreign policy record By Fred Fleitz

Posted By on August 19th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/08/18/smoke-and-mirrors-middle-east-diplomacy/

Despite recent media stories about two supposed Biden Administration foreign policy “wins” in the Middle East, a closer look indicates these wins are not what they seem and may harm U.S. national security.

One of the alleged wins concerns the Biden Administration’s effort to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. On August 9, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. and Saudi officials agreed to a framework for a deal under which Saudi Arabia would recognize Israel in exchange for Israeli, Saudi, and American concessions. Although Biden Administration officials said this agreement would take nine months to a year to finalize and faced long odds, they also described it as potentially “the most momentous Middle East peace deal in a generation.”

Another alleged Biden foreign policy win, announced on August 10, is a tentative deal to swap American and Iranian prisoners in exchange for unfreezing $6 billion of Iranian assets held by a South Korean bank. Biden officials said these funds would go through a Qatari bank to ensure they are used only for humanitarian purposes. Five Americans have been released from an Iranian prison under the deal but are under house arrest in Iran until an agreement allowing them to leave the country is finalized.

On the surface, both initiatives appear to be diplomatic breakthroughs. But a closer look indicates the Biden Administration is trying to claim credit for dubious, unfinished agreements and hide some dangerous details from the American public and Congress.

The alleged Saudi/Israel normalization agreement is years away if it ever occurs because it is based on many conditions that will be impossible to meet. Although Congress might agree to the enhanced security assurances that would be part of the agreement, it is very unlikely to approve Saudi Arabia’s demand that the U.S. help it develop a nuclear power program that includes uranium enrichment.

There are other major obstacles to a normalization agreement. For example, the Saudis want concessions from Israel to advance an eventual peace agreement with the Palestinians. Israeli officials say they are open to this but will not agree to a Saudi demand for Palestinian statehood. It is improbable that Palestinian leaders will agree to a new deal without this concession and probably will not agree to any agreement because of their long history of rejecting Israeli peace offers.

The Biden Administration also wants Saudi Arabia to substantially cut back its growing relationship with China as part of a normalization agreement, including not permitting China to establish military bases in the country, not using sensitive technology from Chinese companies like Huawei, and not allowing China to purchase oil with Chinese currency.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Do conservatives know what time it is? John Fonte

Posted By on August 19th, 2023

https://americanmind.org/salvo/freecons-vs-natcons/

What time is it? Are we living in normal times or revolutionary times? Is the greatest threat to American conservatism today a Walter Mondale-style big-government liberalism? Or is it a woke revolutionary progressivism that seeks to utterly transform the American way of life—our politics, culture, economy, law, education, morality, manners, and mores? A recently-issued Statement of Principles, co-signed by a group of advocates for Freedom Conservatism, assumes we are living in the world of the former: the world of Reagan vs. Mondale.

To be sure, the FreeCon statement is benign. Friends with whom I agree on 95 percent of all issues have signed the document. It affirms the principles of individual liberty, the pursuit of happiness, private enterprise, the free market, the rule of law, equality of opportunity, secure borders, and a “rational immigration policy.” That is the text. What’s not to like? There is, however, a subtext, explained by Avik Roy (the main organizer of the statement) in a National Review essay. 

Roy makes it clear that the purpose of the document is to repudiate the National Conservatism Statement of Principles (issued last year), of which I was a signatory, along with the tenets of National Conservatism and the New Right more broadly. And so, as Roy suggested, let us examine the significant differences between what is being touted as Freedom Conservatism (or what in Europe and Canada would be liberal conservatism) vs. National Conservatism.

Neither the FreeCon statement nor Roy’s essay evinces any awareness of the powerful adversary that American conservatives and “Americanists” more generally face in the summer of 2023. By “Americanists” I mean those conservatives and patriotic liberals who advocate the affirmation, improvement, and perpetuation of the American way of life. The opposite of an Americanist would be a Transformationist, one who seeks to fundamentally transform the United States of America.