RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://americanmind.org/salvo/biden-plays-pretend/

The President is economically illiterate, delusional, a liar, or all three about the probability and causes of a recession.

The Biden administration has huffed and puffed its adherence to progressive dogma and, as a result, it is about to blow down the American economy. The situation won’t improve until the Administration resolves its catalepsy.

In March, I described the substantial risk that America was heading toward a recession. A recession may already have begun, and it will certainly soon do so if the Biden White House  does not immediately change course on energy and spending.

In June, U.S. and European economies slowed sharply as surging prices weakened demand. U.S. retail sales fell in May, and existing home sales have declined for four consecutive months. Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal put the risk of a recession in the next 12 months at 44 percent, a level usually seen only on the brink of, or during, recessions.

The classic definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters during which Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declines. The U.S. has just completed one quarter during which GDP declined at an annual rate of 1.5 percent. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is projecting a flat second quarter. If results tilt down by just one dollar, that would make two consecutive quarters of decline.

https://nypost.com/2022/07/03/get-used-to-suffering-at-the-pump-its-joes-world-order/

If you had the unpleasant experience this July Fourth weekend of paying close to $5 for a gallon of gas, you can always comfort yourself with the idea that your pain is for a good cause: the “liberal world order.” 

So said Brian Deese, White House director of the National Economic Council, when he was asked on CNN: “What do you say to those families who say, ‘Listen, we can’t afford to pay $4.85 a gallon for months, if not years. This is just not sustainable’?”

Deese, like his boss Joe Biden, is unmoved by the suffering of ordinary Americans, more than two-thirds of whom say gas-price increases are causing them hardship, according to a recent Gallup poll.

“This is about the future of the liberal world order, and we have to stand firm” until Ukraine defeats Russia, declared Deese.

He was echoing the president, who had referenced the Ukraine war a few hours earlier in Madrid, when he dismissed a similar question: “The war has pushed prices up. [Oil] could go as high as $200 a barrel . . . How long is it fair to expect American drivers and drivers around the world to pay that premium for this war?”

Biden responded with cold indifference: “As long as it takes,” he said.

Where’s the empathy?

That’s quite some take from a president who ran on the illusion that he possesses special empathy.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-supreme-court-for-the-constitution-originalism-dobbs-abortion-religious-liberty-11656711597?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

A funny thing happened on the way to the supposedly partisan Supreme Court finishing its term: It ruled for the Biden Administration on immigration. Somehow that case isn’t making the dastardly hit list of those eager to declare that the Court is now “illegitimate,” but the Justices applied the law regardless of the policy and decided for the executive branch.(See nearby for elaboration.)

This isn’t a partisan Court looking for preferred policy outcomes. It’s a Court that hews to the tenets of originalism, with different shades of emphasis by different Justices. The Court’s jurisprudence is focused more than anything else on who under the Constitution gets to decide policy, not what that policy should be.

This is the main reason Democrats and the press corps are furious about the Court’s decisions. For decades they have counted on a majority of Justices to deliver or bless the policy results they want: on abortion, voting rights, healthcare, racial preferences, climate and economic regulation. You name it, the Court found ways to deliver it with balancing tests, trimester analysis, and the discovery of unenumerated rights between the lines of the Constitution’s text.

For decades conservative critics have argued that the role of the Court should be different—supporting rights that are actually in the Constitution, but otherwise enforcing the separation of powers so each branch of government stays in its lane as defined by the Founders. With the arrival of three new Justices nominated by Donald Trump and shepherded to confirmation by GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell, that Court has arrived.

The result is the opposite of judicial imperialism. In the Dobbs abortion case, the Court is trying to extricate itself from abortion policy debates. As Justice Brett Kavanaugh put it, “the Constitution is neutral on the issue of abortion.” Policy will now be set by legislators in the states as informed by voters, subject to a low-level of legal review known as the “rational basis” test.

The political result may be surprising. The right-to-life movement now must persuade voters across 50 states, and most voters favor some limits on abortion but not an outright ban. If Republicans sound like moral scolds and can’t make their case with compassion for women, they will lose the debate. If Republicans seek a national ban on abortion via Congress, the Court could strike it down. The Court majority in Dobbs has invigorated democracy and federalism.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/07/poor_cassidy_hutchinson_nave_used_and_abused_or_shamelessly_ambitious.html

“She perhaps sought fame and fortune but she was, in the end, used and abused, by Cheney, the committee at large and by the media.”

The hapless Cassidy Hutchinson “testified” before the moonbat panel of Trump haters.  Her “testimony” was fraught with “I was in the vicinity of a conversation,” “I heard something to the effect of,”  “ I overheard,”…..the girl could testify only to hearsay.  Her performance was pathetic.  She was used and abused, most probably by Liz Cheney.  The other members of the committee seemed to know not a thing about what this “emergency witness” was going to say.  She was Liz’s surprise witness and, comically, no one thought to check her story which was chock full of lies, lies that were exposed within hours of that “emergency testimony.”   

So, who is this pitiful young woman?  She was an aide to Mark Meadows, about whom she lied as well; neither he nor Guliani sought pardons from President Trump.  The Secret Service agents she cited have both denied her claims that Trump “grabbed the steering wheel” or assaulted one of them in an attempt to go to the Capitol that day.  She even identified a note as one she had written that day when even Cheney knew that was a lie; it was written by Eric Herschmann.  She was apparently hoping for a job with President Trump at Mar A Lago but then was not hired for a position there.  Could she be mad?  

As Greg Gutfield commented, her appearance “made the Hindenburg look like a fender bender.”  Keep in mind that she had testified five times before this committee previously but then changed lawyers and suddenly came up with an entirely different story.  Was she threatened?  Paid a large amount of money? Promised fame and fortune?  Maybe she just wanted her five minutes of fame.  She got less than that before her tall tale was exposed as a tissue of lies.