Liz Peek: Biden loses control of inflation, and the trust of American people

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-control-inflation-trust-american-people

Remember how President Joe Biden wanted to be an historic president — pointedly hanging FDR’s portrait over the fireplace in the Oval Office?

Turns out, as we now officially fall into bear market territory and Americans are getting poorer by the minute, Biden’s dreams are coming true.

Already, Biden has notched some historical firsts.

For example, consumer sentiment plummeted in June to the lowest level ever recorded in the 70-year history of the University of Michigan index. It is a stunning collapse, not seen even during the darkest days of the COVID-19 scare. The index fell to 50.2 from 58.4 in May – already a recession-level reading – and was far below the 58.1 projected by economists.

Meanwhile, the New York Federal Reserve just reported that consumer expectations for inflation hit a record level in May, as did pessimism about the stock market.

It seems the country has never been so gloomy. Way to go, Joe!

These are remarkable achievements, considering that most people who want a job can get one. Almost half the respondents to the Michigan survey noted gasoline prices or inflation generally as a reason for their pessimism, but clearly there is something else going on.

Hydrogen Is Unlikely Ever To Be A Viable Solution To The Energy Storage Conundrum Francis Menton

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&id=93183ec05c

What I call the “energy storage conundrum” is the obvious but largely unrecognized problem that electricity generated by intermittent renewables like wind and sun can’t keep an electrical grid operating without some method of storing energy to meet customer demand in times of low production. These times of low production from wind and sun occur regularly — for example, calm nights — and can persist for as long as a week or more in the case of heavily overcast and calm periods in the winter.

If the plan is to power the entire United States by wind and solar facilities, and if we assume that wind and solar facilities will be built sufficient to generate energy equal to usage over the course of a year, we then need to do a calculation of how much storage would be required to balance the times of excess production against those of insufficient production in order to get through the year without blackouts. The challenge of getting through an entire year could require far more storage than merely getting through a week-long wind/sun drought, because both wind and sun are seasonal, producing much more in some seasons than others.

Previous posts on this blog have cited to several competent calculations of the amount of storage needed for different jurisdictions to get through a full year with only wind and sun to generate the electricity. For the case of the entire United States, this post from January 2022 describes work of Ken Gregory, who calculates a storage requirement, based on the current level of electricity consumption, of approximately 250,000 GWH to get through a year. If you then assume as part of the decarbonization project the electrification of all currently non-electrified sectors of the economy (transportation, home heat, industry, agriculture, etc.), the storage requirement would approximately triple, to 750,000 GWH.

January 6 for Non-Dummies The January 6 committee is pure political theater intended to crush the MAGA movement once and for all. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/13/january-6-for-non-dummies/

During another public hearing on Monday, the January 6 select committee featured a witness so irrelevant that his appearance should prompt even the most ardent defender of Nancy Pelosi’s illegitimate inquisition to question the committee’s real purpose. Former Fox News talking head Chris Stirewalt, fired by the network shortly after the Capitol protest for calling the state of Arizona for Joe Biden early on election night, told his sob story to a presumably slim viewing audience.

The washed-up commentator, however, is the last person with any insight into the events of January 6, 2021. Stirewalt’s performance—similar to the overwrought speechifying by committee members last Thursday—is another headfake designed to turn attention away from the truth about what happened that day and in the months leading up to the brief disturbance that resulted in the deaths of four Trump supporters.

A well-oiled fog machine operated by the Department of Justice, congressional Democrats, NeverTrumpers, and the national news media is once again pumping lie after lie into the body politic in a last-gasp attempt to destroy Trump and the powerful political movement he created.

For nearly 18 months, American Greatness has covered this issue like no other outlet. So, as the committee continues its dog-and-pony show on Capitol Hill this month with an eye toward producing a long list of legislative “fixes,” the Justice Department inexorably moves to criminally charge Donald Trump for his alleged involvement, and the media takes another extended nap on its purported fact-checking duties, American Greatness here provides the definitive list of what people need to know about January 6, 2021, and related hype.

Congress and D.C. city officials, not Donald Trump, were responsible for protecting the Capitol: It is the primary duty of the Capitol Police board—made up of the sergeant-at-arms for the Senate and the House and the architect of the Capitol—to secure the sprawling complex. The federal police force, with a budget of more than half a billion dollars, employs at least 2,000 officers and houses numerous bureaus, including an intelligence unit; the Capitol building should have been well-protected on January 6 during a controversial joint session of Congress with Vice President Michael Pence presiding.

What? Even Rachel Maddow Isn’t Drinking the J6 Committee’s Kool-Aid By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/06/13/what-even-rachel-maddow-isnt-drinking-the-j6-committees-kool-aid-n1605087

The January 6 Committee Hearings are just the left’s latest efforts to distract the public from the nation’s economic woes before the upcoming midterm elections, yet the made-for-TV event put on by the partisan committee has failed to impress even the most ardently leftist figures in the media.

NBC News’ Lester Holt conceded there wasn’t much new being presented in these public hearings. “A lot of these shots will seem familiar to people,” he observed.

But perhaps even worse for the J6 Committee was that not even left-wing firebrand Rachel Maddow was buying their narrative. She even admitted that the Trump rally did not directly cause the breaching of the Capitol.

“Yes, there was a pro-Trump rally, at which the President spoke, and we can absolutely talk about all the things the President said there. But the idea that that rally is the thing that got out of hand and that somehow resulted in the breaching of the Capitol—that rally was very far from the capital, and the people who […] did the initial breach that allowed everybody else to come in, they never went to that rally.”

Biden To World: Russia, Oil Sheiks, And China Control The U.S. Economy Margot Cleveland

https://thefederalist.com/2022/06/13/biden-to-world-russia-oil-sheiks-and-china-control-the-u-s-economy/

President Joe Biden turned America’s financial crisis into a national security one by telling the world that foreign leaders have near-total control over the U.S. economy.

On Friday, after news broke that inflation again accelerated to reach a 40-year high of 8.6 percent, President Joe Biden turned America’s financial crisis into a national security one by telling the world that foreign leaders have near-total control over the U.S. economy.

Shortly after the Bureau of Labor Statistics released May’s price report, which in addition to reporting an 8.6 percent annual inflationary rate showed a full 1 percent increase last month, President Biden began the spin: “Today’s report underscores why I have made fighting inflation my top economic priority. While it is good to see critical ‘core’ inflation moderating, it is not coming down as sharply and as quickly as we must see. Putin’s price hike hit hard in May here and around the world: high gas prices at the pump, energy, and food prices accounted for around half of the monthly price increases.”

The president’s entire pitch struck a chord conflicting with reality. “Biden hasn’t made inflation his top economic priority,” noted Katie Pavlich soon after. “For months, his administration denied inflation was happening, saying it wouldn’t be an issue, before calling it temporary and transitory last summer.” And the skyrocketing inflation began before Russia’s January 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Biden’s Real Deficit And his calculated deceit about it. John Stossel

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/bidens-real-deficit-john-stossel/

The president now brags that he cut the deficit!

“We’re on track,” he says, to have “the biggest decline in a single year ever in American history.”

It’s actually true.

But utterly deceitful.

President Joe Biden’s deficit will be down from last year, but that’s only because he spent such gargantuan amounts then.

For once, the media did not take his remarks at face value. Even CNN ran a “fact check” that quoted a Moody’s Analytics director saying, “The actions of the administration and Congress have undoubtedly resulted in higher deficits, not smaller ones.”

Much higher. Despite record tax revenues from last year’s booming stock markets, our national debt will increase by about $1 trillion.

Sadly, most people don’t care. These big numbers are too abstract. This will not end well.

ISIS Plotter in Hipster Brooklyn Proves Yet Again That Immigration Is a National Security Issue Why, exactly, is the Biden administration bringing jihad terrorists into the country? Robert Spencer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/isis-plotter-hipster-brooklyn-proves-yet-again-robert-spencer/

Dilkhayot Kasimov lived in Brooklyn, one of the nation’s leading hotspots for trendy young hipsters, but he had much more on his mind than checking out the street art scene in Bushwick or the Fort Greene Flea Market. Kasimov, 34, who was sentenced Friday to fifteen years in prison for aiding the Islamic State (ISIS), was involved in plots to strike within the United States, including possibly even killing Barack Obama. Dilkhayot Kasimov is a citizen of Uzbekistan, and so his case once again raises the question that Biden’s handlers steadfastly ignore: why is the U.S. bringing jihad terrorists into the country?

According to U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue, Kasimov “was part of a conspiracy in which he willingly and eagerly sought to help fund a foreign fighter’s travel and expenses in Syria to wage violent jihad.” When Kasimov was sentenced Friday, Matthew Olsen, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, said: “Kasimov is an ISIS supporter who collected and gave money to another individual to fund his travel to join the terrorist group.” Breon Peace, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, explained: “Kasimov was part of a group of individuals who sought to travel to Syria to join ISIS or to fund others who sought to become foreign fighters for ISIS.” But Kasimov wasn’t interested only in Syria.

When Kasimov was convicted in September 2019, UPI reported that he “was named in an indictment that charged three other men in a plot to assist the Islamic State.” Kasimov’s accomplices, “Akhror Saidakhmetov, Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev and Abror Habibov planned to travel to Turkey and then to Syria to assist the IS.” They also had a Plan B: “If their plan was not successful, they allegedly planned terrorist attacks on the United States. The men were each charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy and travel document fraud.” They “came to the attention of law enforcement in August 2014 after they allegedly posted on a Uzbek-language, pro-IS website saying they would kill former President Barack Obama if ordered by the IS. The plans included placing bombs on Coney Island.”

Solar Panels: Biden’s ‘Buy China’ Plan by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18609/solar-panels-biden-china

Beijing set out to destroy the American solar panel industry with subsidies that allowed Chinese companies to sell below the cost of manufacture — and, with the help of a series of neglectful American presidents, it largely succeeded.

Americans workers cannot compete with slaves. Chinese solar panels are often made with what is politely termed “forced labor,” Uighurs and other captive Turkic minorities transported around China to factories resembling concentration camps.

Now, thanks to Biden, products built by forced or slave labor will find their way into the United States tariff-free. Chinese producers have been shipping China-made products into Southeast Asian countries — most notably Vietnam — and exporting them to the U.S. with labels falsely showing manufacture in those other countries.

Biden “has opened the door wide for Chinese-funded special interests to defeat the fair application of U.S. trade law.” — Mamun Rashid, Auxin Solar’s CEO, NBC News, June 6, 2022.

“We have not invested in building up American capacity the way we should, and we have not addressed China’s repeated cheating,” [Senator Sherrod] Brown [D-Ohio] stated. “On all these decisions, American solar manufacturers and their workers must be at the table.” Biden, unfortunately, has taken away the seats of these domestic stakeholders.

The second implication is even more important. Biden with his tariff waiver, dog-whistled to American manufacturers to keep factories in China.

Biden always says he wants to support American manufacturers, but he keeps making decisions favoring Chinese workers. He did that June 6 when, with a single stroke of his pen, he devastated a U.S. industry, undermined the American legal system, and promoted slave labor in China.

On June 6, President Joe Biden, declaring a national emergency, granted a 24-month tariff exemption for solar cells and modules from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The biggest beneficiary of Biden’s move is none of those countries. It is China. The biggest victim is America.

We Salute Our Treasured Flag by Lawrence Kadish

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18614/flag-day-message

Today, June 14, is Flag Day across the United States.

It is a day that should compel us to pause, fly our nation’s flag from our homes, businesses, and public spaces in recognition of what our flag represents. Simply put, it has been a symbol of hope, freedom, and opportunity for hundreds of millions of people throughout the generations.

When our immigrant forefathers arrived at Ellis Island in hopes of starting a new life, many clutched small American flags in their hands. Today, newly sworn-in American citizens leave the ceremony proudly holding the colors of their newly adopted country: red, white, and blue.

When Americans liberated Western Europe during World War II, overjoyed civilians found the means to create handmade American flags, then draped them out their windows. It reflected their heartfelt appreciation that they were being rescued from the horrors of the Third Reich; displaying the American flag was the most powerful means they had to acknowledge the sacrifice of American GIs.

Today, American flags are still poised on the surface of the moon, planted there by heroic Apollo astronauts who also left behind a plaque reminding eternity that we “came in peace for all mankind.” These symbols have allowed the world to reflect on the fact that that a bold American adventure achieved the unbelievable and that we came not in conquest but to further expand our shared understanding of the universe.

The Pledge of Allegiance we recite today has seen several variations over time, but each word is a reminder that our nation is profoundly different from those came before it.

Words and Consequences: ‘West Bank’ vs. Judaea and Samaria By Victor Sharpe

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/06/words_and_consequences_west_bank_vs_judaea_and_samaria.html

When did it become an accepted truism that peace between Israel and the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians requires that Israel give to them its very own Biblical birthright in the Jewish heartland? When did the Oslo Accords supersede the eternal possession of the Jewish people to that God-given heartland of Judea and Samaria, the territory a hostile world insists on calling by its illegitimate Jordanian name; the West Bank?  

Who are they who dare divide the land that the Almighty bequeathed to Abraham and to his descendants through Isaac and Jacob? Who are they who would give any part of tiny Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) to the alleged descendants of Ishmael, who possess vast territories throughout the Middle East and North Africa?

Judeophobes (aka Anti-Semites) may not like being told this, but the following facts are truths that cannot shrivel away.

Unlike the deeply appreciated last incumbent of the White House, President Donald J. Trump, too many previous U.S. presidents displayed pro-Muslim Arab policies, which created clear and present dangers to the very existence of the reborn Jewish state. It is thus with the present Democrat president, Joe Biden. He, like his malign handlers, should take note of Genesis 12:3.

And then there was Barack Hussein Obama, whose hatred of the Jewish state surpassed even that of the lamentable Jimmy Carter. Remember Obama’s Secretary of State, John Kerry? He came numerous times to pressure and threaten Israel, thus ushering in an even more baleful time for the embattled Jewish state.