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Daniel Perry, convicted in Austin for self-defense, is a free man
By Andrea Widburg
Hertz’s used EVs prove to be ‘glitchy, damaged nightmares’ for new owners
By Olivia Murray
Fans rally to Harrison Butker
By Monica Showalter
The NFL tried to cancel him.
The creeps running Kansas City tried to doxx him:
Kansas City DOXXES NFL Player Harrison Butker for Getting Out of Line with Non-Woke Graduation Speech
This is how the Woke left enforces cultural conformity.
After Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker gave a speech to college grads that was critical of Biden's leadership… pic.twitter.com/brfiHraWVN
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) May 16, 2024
Taylor Swift fans were outraged.
Some of the wokester Catholic press tut-tutted and got all snide and nasty to him instead of defend him for defending the Catholic faith.
Well, it isn’t the first time that Harrison Butker has missed wide right.https://t.co/qVGbkzQ1Iu
— America Magazine (@americamag) May 16, 2024
But Kansas City Chiefs Kicker and Superbowl champ's fans are rallying, too, in a great wave of counter-moves.
On social media, they demanded that his remarks not be taken out of context:
Two things.
1. Stand with Harrison Butker who spoke up so courageously in a culture that condemns Catholic & conservative values.
2. Share his FULL speech, so the left can’t edit it in a way to fit their agenda & attack Butker.
pic.twitter.com/syMslTKMZx
— Kristan Hawkins (@KristanHawkins) May 16, 2024
They pointed to the NFL's hypocritical double standard:
Don't forget the NFL allowed Kareem Hunt to play again after hew as caught on video assaulting a woman, but they are bashing Harrison Butker for supporting traditional vocational roles for women.pic.twitter.com/flvQ5rQowV
— Expose Them (@ExposeDarkDeeds) May 16, 2024
They put their money where their mouths were, and bought up his jersey to wear as a point of pride. Butker's jersey sales have soared, overtaking those of Chiefs' star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, according to the Daily Wire:
Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s jersey sales have soared following a leftist meltdown over his commencement speech that some have labeled misogynistic, “discriminatory,” and more.
Butker’s #7 jersey has catapulted to one of the top selling jerseys on Fanatics NFL shop site, according to Kansas City CBS affiliate KCTV 5. On the NFL site, the placekicker’s jersey is listed as “Most Popular in Jerseys,” putting his sales higher than that of Kansas City Chiefs star QB Patrick Mahomes.
They launched counter-petitions to cancel out a leftist call to cancel Butker, which seem to be growing, though they have not overtaken the initial wokester petition's calls.
The boss's daughter over at the Chiefs' headquarters stepped up for the man, too:
Gracie Hunt, daughter of the Kansas City Chiefs owner, defends Harrison Butker and praises her mother for being an amazing homemaker.
"I really respect Harrison and his Christian faith." pic.twitter.com/60lAtba8qJ
— David Hookstead (@dhookstead) May 17, 2024
Even Whoopi Goldberg defended him:
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Whoopi Goldberg defended Harrison Butker and totally nailed it. pic.twitter.com/NYEz72Y1PR
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) May 16, 2024
Glenn Reynolds, writing on his Substack, had the most interesting take, contrasting Butker's call to honor and become mothers with the ongoing population bust and the inevitable move towards motherhood that is going to have to follow, calling him a 'harbinger:
Over the past 50+ years, traditional ideas, like Butker’s, about marriage, child-rearing, and gender roles have been marginalized, in favor of those the put much less emphasis on, well, marriage, child-rearing, and traditional views about gender roles.
And now we’re facing a global baby bust, or as some are calling it, a “demographic winter” due to plunging birth rates worldwide. “Fertility rates have fallen way below replacement level throughout the entire industrialized world, and this is starting to cause major problems all over the globe. Aging populations are counting on younger generations to take care of them as they get older, but younger generations are not nearly large enough to accomplish that task. Meanwhile, there aren’t enough qualified young workers in many fields to replace the expertise of older workers that are now retiring. Sadly, this is just the beginning.”
Back in the 1960s we started to worry about a “population explosion,” and Paul Ehrlich’s highly influential bestseller, “The Population Bomb,” set the tone: Fewer people being born was better. All sorts of policies were driven by this concern, on topics ranging from sex, birth-control, and abortion, to the desirability of smaller, two-earner families, all the way to China’s disastrous one-child policy.
But it turns out that Ehrlich was criminally wrong, and now the chickens are coming home to roost, as we face what Brink Lindsey calls a global fertility collapse.
Butker's call is on the edge of where the future will have to go, if there is to be a future.
And here's a point he didn't bring up, but I will:
Kansas City has two parts, one of which is in Kansas.
Benedictine College, where Butker's remarks were made is in Atcjison, Kansas, too.
If Butker is a harbinger, Kansas is a bellwether, pointing to where the future is going.
I wrote about that discovery here, based on my visit to Topeka, Kansas, last year, when I wrote about a police raid on a small-town newspaper:
It's also notable that this happened in Kansas, which is a bellwether state for historically significant trends and showdowns. Kansas was a flashpoint in the Civil War. It was the staging ground of John Brown and his abolitionist raids with his "Beecher's bibles." It was the stomping ground of Carrie Nation and her misguided campaign to enact Prohibition. It was the site of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, which ended segregated schools. It was the home of Ike, Amelia Earhart, and Charles Lindbergh, all trailblazers in their fields.
Kansas is where a lot of things start.
Now we have Butker, the harbinger, speaking in the bellwether state and all sides are fully activated.
The NFL has got to be scrambling now that the fans are rallying to his defense. The traditionalist sentiments that Butker championed, alongside the rise of the Latin mass among Catholics, and Hollywood A-list actors such as Mark Wahlberg, Shia LaBoeuf, and Jonathan Roumie openly professing their faith, will only keep growing as the wokesters try to stomp it and Butker out. They're not succeeding.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/fans_rally_to_harrison_butker.html
Reuters hysteria: ‘Donald Trump wants to control’ the executive branch, and he already has a plan in place
By Olivia Murray
Joe pretends to own a plane and Hunter’s sugar daddy stops paying his bills
By Olivia Murray
We wanna hear you, Joe
By Silvio Canto, Jr.
We learned weeks ago from Special Counsel Robert Hur that President Biden, to be charitable, is an old man with a bad memory. Therefore, Mr. Hur decided not to indict the President because the jury might learn that the man with the last word on using nuclear weapons can't think straight.
So the GOP wants to hear the audio of that interview between the President and Hur. And AG Merrick Garland is objecting with that "executive privilege" card. The GOP wants to issue a subpoena. Here is the story:
The House Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio recordings of special counsel Robert K. Hur’s interviews with President Biden over his mishandling of classified documents.
The Republican-led panel voted 18-15 hours after the president sought to shield the attorney general. Mr. Biden asserted executive privilege over the audiotapes that Mr. Hur used during his two-day interview in October.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, said the president’s last-minute executive privilege assertion underscores the recordings’ “unique perspective” and that the panel wants to review them to determine whether Mr. Biden received favorable treatment by the Justice Department.
Okay. So what's going on?
The subpoena is proper if the DoJ continues to play the privilege card game. What happened to transparency or equal application of the law?
The larger issue is the President's mental state or that cognitive word that we hear often. Don't we have the right to know just how bad the president's memory is? Yes, we have a transcript but hearing his voice will tell us a lot more.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/we_wanna_hear_you_joe.html
GM Trinity-
Nice rant. Too bad the ones that could truly learn from it will ignore it like things like this never happen. Trump skipping his son's graduation is just the recent of a long line of bullshit from CNN and MSNBC to name a few that have been picked up by the wokeholes and spread as gospel. Seen lots of it right here on this board. Never an apology or a "gee I got it wrong". Yet they continue to believe the rumors and outright lies being spread by the fake news. I used to have pity for them with the hope that they could maybe see the light but seeing they can't seem to want to change the pity ran out long ago. I keep my powder dry.
..................al
Leaving the door wide open for a solar invasion
By Pete Colan
I was recently made aware by one of our staunchly conservative county council members Amy Drake that one can plant solar panels in just about any farm field you want in Indiana without any permitting or rezoning whatsoever. A solar field suddenly showed up near my shop in St. Joseph County, Indiana. I made an erroneous assumption this required permitting to convert valuable farmland to a worthless solar field.
Amy writes:
“Our current rules are wide open for solar. I wrote a few months ago how we received a special gold solar designation from a lobbyist organization, because our rules are so lax. We are highlighted on SolSmart's page here: St. Joseph County | SolSmart.
We currently have measly set-back rules, shockingly less than even state standards (and remember the state also considers itself open for solar). Most disturbingly, no extra step is needed to go from agriculture to solar. So, for instance, an agriculturally zoned property can go straight to solar without any zoning change or special permitting use required. Even though solar farming has nothing to do with agriculture, and if anything, is more of an industrial use.”
Across the street from this blight, Microsoft is in the process of purchasing 900 acres of the most historic and prime farmland in this region to construct a data center right smack in the middle of a very rural and peaceful residential community. Zoning to “industrial” for this was just approved by the county council this week (6-3, three proper Republicans voting “no” but two “Republicans” joining all the Democrats in approval) despite a majority of local property owners objecting to it.
Surrounding these two developments are several thousand more acres of prime farmland that the county has decided is “best used” for industrial purpose. Of course, they didn’t ask anyone who actually lives here -- they made this decision from their offices in downtown South Bend. With the enormous power needs of this data center, availability of massive amounts of neighboring farmland easily convertible to glass panel fields and no requirement for permitting to install these panels on farmland, we fear this will forever change the landscape of the community.
While some are working feverishly here to hold the construction of solar fields accountable to the public by zoning or at least permitting, the proliferation of these useless eyesores will march forward everywhere there are no boundaries.
Elsewhere in Indiana, farmers who lease their land to these highly responsible solar companies can destroy the potential of the land to return to farming with impunity.
"Dave Duttlinger's first thought when he saw a dense band of yellowish-brown dust smearing the sky above his Indiana farm was: I warned them this would happen. About 445 acres of his fields near Wheatfield, Indiana, are covered in solar panels and related machinery -- land that in April 2019 Duttlinger leased to Dunns Bridge Solar LLC, for one of the largest solar developments in the Midwest. On that blustery spring afternoon in 2022, Duttlinger said, his phone rang with questions from frustrated neighbors: Why is dust from your farm inside my truck? Inside my house? Who should I call to clean it up? ...Crews reshaped the landscape, spreading fine sand across large stretches of rich topsoil, Duttlinger said. When Reuters visited his farm last year and this spring, much of the land beneath the panels was covered in yellow-brown sand, where no plants grew. 'I'll never be able to grow anything on that field again,' the farmer said. About one-third of his approximately 1,200-acre farm -- where his family grows corn, soybeans and alfalfa for cattle -- has been leased."
"...(W)hen he approached NextEra about the damage to his land, the company said it would review any remedial work needed at the end of its contract in 2073, as per the terms of the agreement." Repeat: 2073.
Within the linked Reuters article lies a gloomy statistic: “Researchers at American Farmland Trust, a non-profit farmland protection organization which champions what it calls Smart Solar, forecast last year that 83% of new solar energy development in the U.S. will be on farm and ranchland, unless current government policies changed. Nearly half would be on the nation's best land for producing food, fiber, and other crops, they warned.”
Solar power generation is not agricultural. It is industrial. Period. These are not solar “farms,” and using that language is both an insult to real farming and facilitates the notion that rezoning or permitting isn’t required to convert farmland to solar fields. I implore you all to reach out to your lawmakers to create boundaries in your own communities before a solar field pops up in your backyard, and you had nothing to say about it.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/leaving_the_door_wide_open_for_a_solar_invasion.html
Terror alert!
By Mike McDaniel
Back in January, AT posted Terrorist attacks in America: for what are they waiting? I noted:
The FBI has admitted they’re watching at least 300 people on the Terrorist Watch List (TWL). Never mind why people on the TWL were allowed into the country so they could be watched in the first place. That’s “need to know” and Americans don’t have a need to know. Our security apparatus has also admitted thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of military aged males from countries that would like every American dead have crossed the border. These are countries like Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, and many others. They’ve also grudgingly admitted it appears plenty of these military aged males, who happen to be Chinese, just might be members of the Chinese military.
That’s the military aged males with whom they briefly chatted before giving them free rides on buses or jets to their preferred destinations. There are loads more “gotaways”—people they saw but didn’t chat with or give free rides--and even more they never saw.
As I also noted in that article, the FBI, and other governmental agencies supposedly responsible for deterring and intercepting acts of terror, had begun warning there were probably people in America who kind of, sort of, maybe, represented a danger of terrorist strikes.
Since January, our feckless FBI Director, Christopher Wray, has, on multiple occasions, admitted the foreign terrorist threat level—inside America—is at unprecedented heights. For instance, two terrorists tried to breach a Marine base on May 3. All we know is they were caught, one is a Jordanian who recently crossed the northern border—probably illegally, but no one is saying—and the other, who remains unidentified, was on the Terrorist Watch List. Did they have guns? Explosives? Who sent them? We have no need to know.
Adding to the fun, our crackerjack State Department just issued a worldwide “caution:”
They just noticed traveling while American is dangerous? Since January, tens, even hundreds of thousands of terrorists, spies and Chinese military personnel have swarmed over our borders, unvetted, in many cases unobserved. They’re not here to defect or sell Girl Scout cookies.
Why is the world so dangerous for Americans? There are a number of simple reasons:
*The utter failure of Biden deterrence. Our enemies know Joe Biden—actually his handlers—not only negotiate with terrorists, he negotiates for terrorists. He pretends to support our allies while simultaneously funding their, and our, enemies. Whatever weak response our armed forces are allowed to make commonly involves bombing an empty warehouse because Biden warned our enemies beforehand. There is little, usually no, downside to attacking America, and perhaps a bit less to attacking America’s allies.
*It pays to threaten and harm America. Biden has paid billions for a handful of hostages, so our enemies, in the best capitalist tradition, know business is good and take more. They know Biden will eventually make them billionaires, and in the meantime, they have plenty of time to amuse themselves with rape and torture. Oh yes, they rape men, too.
*Beyond direct hostage payments, Biden directs billions to our terrorist enemies via the State Department, UN, NGOs and other useful idiots/enemies of America. Hamas, for example, takes virtually all the aid pouring into Gaza, and recently mortared the pier Biden sent to pour in more.
*Our enemies know Democrats/socialist/communists (d/s/cs), like those in power in the State Department, believe merely talking to one’s enemies is the highest diplomatic achievement. Not only do they care nothing for advancing America’s interests, they think the second highest diplomatic achievement is giving our enemies everything they want. Nor do our traitorous diplomats set any time limit on negotiations, particularly when they’re going badly for America, which is always.
It would be wise for Americans, in this at least, to take the government’s advice. They’re making these warnings because they’re scared to death there will be mass terrorist atrocities in America before the election, and they’ll take the electoral blame. They’re not worried about American casualties; they’re worried about losing power. At least with all the warnings, they can say: “see? We told you so! It’s Trump's, Traditional, Radical Catholic's and MAGA’s fault! The border is secure and the economy is great!”
Just this once, it might be a good idea to put off foreign travel until—if—we have a president who actually gives a damn about America and Americans. True, most of our blue cities and states are akin to third world war zones, but at least people can still escape to red America without having to dodge hordes of Islamist madmen. At least for the moment--and outside of Michigan.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/terror_alert.html
Minnesota jail paints over the Ten Commandments … because Karen is offended
By Eric Utter
In Itasca, Minnesota, the county jail just painted over its display of the Ten Commandments.
According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
DULUTH - The Ten Commandments display painted inside the Itasca County jail is no more, painted over with two coats.
The list of religious texts stood two stories high inside the jail's gym until earlier this month, part of a recently completed $75 million justice complex in Grand Rapids. Other inspirational and religious quotes painted inside the jail were also covered, said Brett Skyles, Itasca County administrator.
With two coats, no less, just to make sure a commandment — or part thereof — didn’t eventually become visible. Other religious and inspirational quotes were also slathered into oblivion.
I mean, why would somebody doing time need those, right? Truth be told, it would have been better for the jail’s inhabitants if they had read, say, “Thou shalt not kill” and “Thou shalt not steal” before they were incarcerated.
Why was the decision made to obliterate the Ten Commandments? Brett Skyles, an Itasca County administrator, told the Star-Tribune: “Ultimately, it just had to do with defending the situation and how many public dollars might be at risk there.” Huh?
In truth, the Freedom From Religion Foundation was involved.
Imagine that.
The Madison, Wisconsin-based organization claimed to have received 20 complaints about the jail’s pious and hope-inducing displays, most of them alleging they were unconstitutional due to violating the First Amendment’s establishment clause which states government must not advance any particular religion. I’m pretty sure “Thou shalt not kill” and “Thou shalt not steal” are tenets of most religions and not specific to Christianity and/or Judaism.
Itasca County commissioners recently informed constituents that they’d received hundreds of emails, calls and texts about the issue, the majority of them in favor of keeping the religious writing on the wall. Moreover, the jail’s voluntary faith-based programs are well attended, so it is unlikely the opposition came from inmates. But, as per usual, “authorities” bowed to the wishes of a tiny but aggressive minority, and to Hell with the majority.
FFRF’s co-president, Annie Laurie Gaylor, told the Star-Tribune: “Even those who are incarcerated have the right to be free from religion.”
Nice take, Gaylor.
Sadly, there are a great many things we are no longer free from, that we should be free from. Religion isn’t one of them. And perhaps if the inmates weren’t already free from religion, they wouldn’t be inmates … and would be free.
An Itasca county resident named Karen Ferlaak was one of those who could simply not abide the religious nature of some of the jail’s quotes and art work.
She told the Star-Tribune, “I don't mind sayings on the walls if they’re accurate and they're not religious based.”
Karen? Of course. Yes, Karen is a stickler, as such “Karens” are for accuracy, going straight to tell the management.
But, even if the sayings are “accurate,” if they are religious-based, she won’t stand for them. Not on her walls, and not on anyone else’s.
Non-religious, secular sayings such as, say, “There once was a girl from Nantucket …” she can tolerate. Apparently, the authorities agree.
Though I don’t see how this potentially helps the inmates. Not that Karen, or the authorities, care … about anything but how they think others see them.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/minnesota_jail_paints_over_the_ten_commandments_because_karen_is_offended.html
What has Biden accomplished in his presidency? Devastation
By Patricia McCarthy
The Unbearable Lightness of Whiteness
By Pete McArdle
Biden Depression Syndrome: It’s the Economy, Stupid
Bidenomics is taking a dangerous mental toll on America.
by Sarah Cowgill | May 18, 2024
It’s no secret that most Americans wish to turn back the clock to the days of wine and roses. Instead, we’re stuck with Bidenomics – and 47% of US adults are deeply concerned about their financial security. Side effects include chronic anxiety, severe panic attacks, insomnia, and worrying thoughts. And, frankly, the Biden administration is complicit.
It isn’t the big-ticket purchases that have bank accounts depleted so much as the day-to-day necessities like food, housing, and phones – and the lack of any savings to act as a safety net in uncertain times is wreaking havoc on the psyche. A record number of Americans – more than 50,000 – committed suicide in 2023.
This is not to say that Joe Biden created the connection between money and mental health: The pandemic, of course, caused plenty of issues with isolation, loss of income, and fear of the virus. But Bidenomics continues to exacerbate that pain years later with no end in sight.
Breaking Biden
Bankrate’s latest Money and Mental Health Survey shows 65% of US adults cite inflation and/or rising prices as a serious concern. Liberty Nation’s own economics editor, Andrew Moran, connects the dots:
“It is not surprising that the American people are depressed. Economic conditions have not been great since January 2021. The cost of living has soared nearly 20%, real (inflation-adjusted) average hourly wage growth has been negative throughout Biden’s entire presidency, more household debt is transitioning to some stage of delinquency, the dollar has lost 18% of its value, and millions of Americans are working two or more jobs to stay afloat. What is there to be happy about? Why do you think more people are participating in so-called doom spending? They don’t have any hope for the future.”
Here’s where the generations differ: Gen X is in a panic, realizing retirement could be pushed, savings accounts are disappearing, and disposable incomes are not allowing for a treat here and there. Boomers are more worried about their health than money, but some have found themselves finding part-time jobs in retirement to make ends meet. Millennials can’t afford the fast food they were raised on, with what was once a $2 hamburger now costing $8.50. Good luck buying that first house with these interest rates; many remain basement-bound. Gen Z is “dealing with it,” but mostly out of ignorance of economics.
Financial insecurity and mental health are interconnected, and nearly half of Americans are suffering daily. Still, with grit, gratitude, guts, and a lot of humor, this country will muddle through. Americans are tough and, sometimes, a bit ironic when handling calamities. After the 1929 stock market crash, and down to a scant four pennies in his pocket, Wellington Lytle left the following suicide note in his Milwaukee hotel room: “My body should go to science, my soul to [Secretary of Treasury] Andrew W. Mellon, and sympathy to my creditors.”
https://www.libertynation.com/biden-depression-syndrome-its-the-economy-stupid/
Joe Biden Keeps Getting It Wrong on Inflation – Swamponomics
Getting it wrong? Bullshit, he's outright lying.....................al
Data and research proves the White House wrong again.
by Andrew Moran | May 18, 2024
The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it. So goes the mantra of the current administration, it would seem. Look no further than the inflation file to see how President Joe Biden and his White House team regularly perpetuate falsehoods to ensure voters question their own lying eyes. Remember, according to the latest establishment narrative, consumers never had it so good because the GDP is 1.6%, and their gripes over the cost of living are unfounded and unjustified.
Inflation, Bidenflation, and Lies
In a May 14 interview with Yahoo! Finance, President Biden claimed that the annual inflation rate was 9% when he came into office “and it’s now down around 3%.” In a CNN interview earlier this month, he made a similar claim, telling host Erin Burnett that inflation was also 9% when he started his presidency.
Come on, man! The consumer price index was 1.4% in January 2021. The Biden-era inflation rate touched 9.1% in June 2022, 16 months after he moved in at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This is outrageous, egregious, and preposterous when considering that one-fifth of Americans’ purchasing power has been eradicated in the last three years.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about these remarks, and, as usual, she served reporters a word salad at a May 15 press briefing. Here is what she said:
“The point that he was making is that the factors that caused inflation were in place when he walked in. When he took office, as you know, the pandemic caused inflation around the world … by disrupting our economy and breaking our supply chains, as you know, quickly on dealing with the supply chain, working together, task forces that … talks about inflation.”
But even this is misleading because the astronomical fiscal and monetary stimulus under both presidents ignited the inflation fire.
‘Greedflation’ Myth Debunked Again
The administration’s myth of corporate greed, also colloquially known as “greedflation,” was debunked on a few occasions in recent days.
First, the producer price index (PPI), a gauge of prices paid by businesses for goods and services, rose at a higher-than-expected pace of 0.5% in April. Core wholesale prices, which exclude the volatile energy and food sectors, also climbed 0.5%. If corporations purposely price-gouged consumers, the PPI would be deflationary compared to the consumer price index (CPI).
New banner Swamponomics 3Second, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Global Supply Chain Pressure Index further confirmed that pressures have subsided, even with chaos in the Red Sea and the Baltimore bridge disaster. Why does this matter? If supply chain snafus caused the pandemic-era price inflation, costs would return to pre-crisis levels.
Finally, the San Francisco Fed released a paper titled “Are Markups Driving the Ups and Downs of Inflation?” Put simply, economists determined if the claim that corporate greed is contributing to rampant inflation through markups, which are the difference between production costs and goods and services prices. The conclusion: While there has been an increase in markups, they have emulated previous economic recoveries. “Aggregate markups—the more relevant measure for overall inflation—have stayed essentially flat since the start of the recovery,” the paper stated. “As such, rising markups have not been a main driver of the recent surge and subsequent decline in inflation during the current recovery.”
Honey, We’re So Back!
Financial markets were ebullient on May 15 when it was learned the consumer price index, which was released 30 minutes before the typical publishing time, dipped to 3.4% in April and matched economists’ expectations. Core inflation also eased from 3.8% to 3.6%. Investors believe this would be enough to persuade the monetary authorities to pull the trigger on a rate cut.
But is it enough? Not really. If any observer pops open the hood, he or she will find that critical metrics are still elevated and heading in the wrong direction.
The three-month annualized headline CPI was unchanged at 4.6%, up from 1.9% in December. The six-month annualized CPI climbed to an eight-month high of 3.7%. The three-month annualized core inflation rate eased to 4.1%, while the six-month annualized core CPI advanced to a nine-month high of 4.1%. Additionally, the Fed’s preferred supercore inflation, which omits housing, edged up from 4.8% to 4.9%. Services inflation remained above 5%.
This has resulted in the real (inflation-adjusted) average hourly wage rate dipping 0.2% in addition to lower hours. Since January 2021, the real average hourly wage has diminished by nearly 3%.
Have the bumps in the road been removed? Investors, consumers, the US central bank, and the administration certainly hope so. Either way, a cumulative inflation pace of 19.5% is a calamity.
https://www.libertynation.com/joe-biden-keeps-getting-it-wrong-on-inflation-swamponomics/
House Republicans Pass ‘Symbolic’ Bill to Arm Israel
The bill will never become law – but perhaps it was never meant to.
by James Fite | May 18, 2024
The GOP-led House of Representatives passed a bill to “force” President Joe Biden to send weapons to Israel. The Israel Security Assistance Support Act cleared the lower chamber on Thursday, May 16, by a vote of 224 to 187 largely along party lines, but it’s unlikely to go much farther. Even if the Democrat-controlled Senate were to pass it, the president has promised a veto should the legislation make it as far as the Resolute Desk. And in any case, Biden had already agreed to send the next shipment of weapons despite Israel clearly planning to ignore his warnings and move into Rafah.
But this “symbolic” bill isn’t necessarily about enacting actual legislation so much as putting members of Congress “on the record” – in other words, it’s more electoral politics than policy making. Meanwhile, as America’s government wavers back and forth on whether to support Israel, the crisis in the Middle East continues to intensify.
Supporting Israel or Political Campaigns?
The Israel Security Assistance Support Act states that “no federal funds may be used to withhold, halt, reverse, or cancel the delivery of articles or defense services to Israel.” Additionally, no funds may be used to pay the salary of any DOD or Department of State employee who acts to limit these deliveries, and any unobligated operation and maintenance funds for the offices of the secretaries of Defense, State, or the National Security Council would be locked until each office certifies to Congress that any withheld deliveries have been released and completed.
The message is clear: Let any who attempt to block funding or delivery of weapons to Israel in turn feel the squeeze themselves. But bold proclamations aside, the legislation is all bark and no bite. It almost certainly won’t pass the upper chamber – indeed, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has already said he won’t even bring it to vote – and even if he did, the Biden veto would await it.
The bill passed the House with the support of 208 Republicans and 16 Democrats, with three Republicans joining 184 Democrats in opposition. A total of 19 representatives didn’t bother to vote. There are a lot of reasons this bill will never become law, and none of them come as a shock to the lawmakers who voted either for or against it. First, as previously stated, the president has promised to veto the bill – no great surprise, given that it’s clearly aimed directly at his administration for the decision to withhold precision guided bombs from Israel for refusing to comply with Biden’s warning not to go into Rafah. Then there’s the mostly-party-line vote in the House, the partisan divide on the issue, and the demographics of the Senate – namely, that the Democrats are in control and have already said they won’t even hold a vote. Finally, Biden rendered the legislation mostly pointless when he released the next shipment of weapons to Israel in spite of the fact the IDF is going into Rafah.
For these reasons alone, the bill was never destined to succeed as legislation. It has, however, achieved the more political goals one might assume actually inspired it.
“The Biden Administration’s decision to withhold weapons is catastrophic and goes directly against the will of Congress,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said in a statement, adding that the proposed act sends “a clear message of solidarity and support to Israel.” Whether Israel will feel the love or not, US voters certainly got the message that Republicans stand with America’s ally. The vote officially puts every member of the House on record in a way that those seeking re-election can use in the little time remaining to campaign. It also managed to splinter off 16 votes from the left, cracking the façade of unity House Democrats have worked so hard to create in the wake of Republican bickering over the speakership.
https://www.libertynation.com/house-republicans-pass-symbolic-bill-to-arm-israel/
An Inflation Conversation
John Mauldin John Mauldin
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May 17, 2024
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https://www.mauldineconomics.com/frontlinethoughts/an-inflation-conversation
Gee, I wonder what happened to all the reports right here on this board that Trump was going to skip his son's graduation to go to a campaign rally. They probably heard it on CNN or MSNBC and thought it was gospel. So sad. I pity those people.
...............al
An Urgent Matter
“If the government can suspend your rights anytime it deems something is a crisis, you don’t have rights. You have permissions.” — “Pismo” on “X”
James Howard Kunstler
May 17, 2024
While our country sleepwalks through the deadly aftermath of the evil Covid-19 operation, the World Health Organization (WHO) puts the final touches on a nice bit of fuckery called its Pandemic Treaty on International Health Regulations (IHR) or "One Health" initiative, a Globalist power grab disguised in the saintly white robes of public health medicine. The agreement, to be finalized at the end of this month, will cede what’s left of your liberty to this unelected bureaucracy for the sake of global “equity and inclusivity,” meaning more lockdowns, constant surveillance, forced “vaccinations,” restrictions on medications, and censorship of anyone who voices a contrary opinion of these actions.
Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s Covid-19 all over again, a second crack at controlling everything you do and every choice you might make by a cabal of governments and corporations, in other words, an international gang of fascists. The WHO is an agency of the United Nations, run out of Switzerland. You might recall this is the same place where the World Economic Forum (the WEF, a.k.a. “Davos”) has its headquarters. For years, the WEF has been issuing blueprints for a techno-fascist global regime under which, they state baldly, “you will own nothing and be happy.” (And eat bugs.)
These birds are not kidding around, though anyone can see the megalomania on display, the grandiose will-to-power that seeks to subjugate the plebes of the world — and radically decrease our numbers — so that a remaining tiny elite can enter into a post-modern, techno-transhuman utopia uncluttered with us “useless eaters.” The corporate money and organizational mojo out of Davos is behind what amounts to a homicidal racketeering scheme masquerading as disease prevention.
Of course, the pharmaceutical companies are front-and-center in the mix. They stand to make hundreds of billions of dollars distributing their mandated “vaccines” — which, you know by now, will not be properly tested, and, as currently being demonstrated by the Covid shots, are covertly designed to kill as many people as possible over a long period of time by switching off the natural defenses of your immune system, guaranteeing bewilderment and compliance by the hoodwinked masses. This might sound like a paranoid sci-fi movie, but, alas, the first phase has already happened starting in 2020. And since the pharma companies provide most of the advertising revenue for cable news media, you have been successfully mind-fucked into not seeing what is going on all around you: a whole lot of sickness and death.
Fortunately, it is the nature of megalomania that it always thinks too highly of its power and reaches too far. For one thing, this WHO “treaty” has to be signed by its member nations. Not all of them are eager to do that. One was Slovakia, whose prime minister, Robert Fico, was gunned down a few days after he announced his country would opt out. The coterie of the USA behind the senile and incompetent “Joe Biden,” is avid to sign us onto the treaty, largely because much of global Big Pharma operates out of our country, and rents so many members of Congress, especially most of the Democratic Party.
Under the US Constitution, the president can’t follow through on an international treaty without the Senate’s approval by two-thirds of its members. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) has been the most active figure in that body investigating the crimes of the Covid-19 op and organizing votes against the treaty, which he declares to be all 49 Republican senators. Thus, there can be no two-thirds majority ratification of the WHO treaty.
But note that the shadow government running “Joe Biden” has been doing all kinds of things in overt defiance of the Constitution and the rulings of the US Supreme Court on what is permissible under the Constitution, for instance, cancelling colossal sums of college loan debt. The “Joe Biden” regime is lawless. Anyone following the malicious prosecutions of candidate Donald Trump and the mass round-up of J-6 protestors can see how that works. So, you are advised to call and write your elected representatives in Congress to make sure that the executive branch (the White House and its agencies) gets the message: no deal on the WHO treaty.
There are other trends underway at this time that may assist us in escaping what amounts to a globalist coup d'état. One is that the economic and political crack-up of Western Civ is tending in the opposite direction of the extreme centralization of power that the WHO represents. Things are breaking down, especially things organized at the gigantic scale. Just look at the chaos overtaking corporatized doctor practices and conglomeratized hospitals in America. The corruption and degeneracy of national governments, with their colossal bureaucracies, has reached the stage that few among the people subject to them can fail to notice. That has sapped their legitimacy and prompted citizens to non-compliance with their increasingly insane diktats.
Under the Constitution, the duties not spelled out under federal authority are left to the states. Public health is one of these. Accordingly, the attorney-generals of twenty-two US states have declared their objection to the WHO treaty in a letter to “Joe Biden” and their intent to ignore its commands. What remains to be seen is whether the Globalists can use a new engineered pathogen out of their many bioweapons labs to stir up another pandemic scare to terrorize the world population into being pushed around. Don’t doubt that they will try it, especially in a year when many nations will be holding elections. And don’t get fooled again when they do.
https://jameshowardkunstler.substack.com/p/an-urgent-matter?publication_id=2076970&post_id=144723261&isFreemail=true&r=rd9j8&triedRedirect=true
Carrying Cerberus up out of the pit
By Clark Wren
According to the ancient myth, the twelfth and final labor imposed upon Hercules by Eurystheus, the king of Tiryns, was to bring back Cerberus, the three-headed cur with a snake’s tail, from the underworld. Hercules believed that this task was imposed upon him because Eurystheus thought it was impossible to do.
In our modern times, we have a much more vicious three-headed beast: the Svengali media (or the elite media), the global financial system (Wall Street for short), and the rule of lawyers (Harvard’s and Yale’s law schools).
These institutions are virtually unassailable and, technically speaking, immortal — like Cerberus. Attack one head of the vicious cur, and the other two will tear you to pieces. Is it a hopeless dream to be free when these institutions have grown and grown in power and are now practically omnipotent? Is submission to a corrupt society that they sustain all that is left?
And here is the worst possible conclusion: does it even matter? Does anything matter?
I cannot go through life with the feeling that nothing I do has any consequence at all. Therefore, I will not surrender to a cultural revolution that these three snapping, snarling power structures force upon the world that surrounds me.
If Hercules was able to drag the hideous beast up from the underworld, then so can we, but it will take a Herculean effort.
Change is always resisted. There are minions of feckless careerists who will always agree with the beast, no matter what it is. (Just watch CNN or Fox News, and you will see fecklessness in action.) Humanity is greater, though, than what the left head of Cerberus, the media, can spew at the world. Nevertheless, the cur is so arrogant that it believes that it can make 2 + 2 = 5 simply by saying “2 + 2 = 5” over and over again. The cur believes that it can convince mortals that the oceans are filled with red wine simply by saying “the oceans are filled with red wine” over and over again. We humans are not as stupid as the beast believes.
Wall Street, the right head of Cerberus, believes that everyone can be bought off. Once we lowlife humans realize that the global financial system is an omnipotent source of power in the world, we will give in and believe in nothing except our personal relationship with our wallets. Humanity is greater than this.
Then there is Harvard and Yale Law School, the central head of Cerberus, which snarls at any uppity human who dares to act out or voice heresy and not submit to the rule of lawyers. They threaten to build millions more prison cells for these hapless humans. (There are already almost two million souls incarcerated in the pit. Why not five million, or ten million? The left head of Cerberus will never call it what it is: a gulag.)
All these institutions are out of control and have perverted everything in life. It is not as the Irish poet says. It is not things fall apart. It is things get out of control.
The politically empowered beast is not invincible, but we must bide our time, make our plans, and strike at the right moment — just as Hercules did in the ancient myth.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/carrying_cerberus_up_out_of_the_pit.html
Biden’s betrayal of Israel sees the rise of the ‘Never Biden’ voters
By Andrea Widburg
Two scorpions in a bottle: Rep. Eric Swalwell scraps with Oakland's Soros D.A. Pamela Price
By Monica Showalter
Far-left Rep. Eric Swalwell seems to see some kind of writing on the wall.
He started a fight with Oakland's unpopular Soros-backed district attorney, Pamela Price.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle:
An online feud has erupted between two East Bay Democrats, Rep. Eric Swalwell and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price. Swalwell criticized the embattled prosecutor as “soft on crime,” and Price implied in a retort that his remarks were racist.
The battle comes at a time when Price is politically vulnerable and could use all the help she can muster, particularly from an East Bay House member like Swalwell who regularly appears on national media. The Alameda County Board of Supervisors is set to decide Tuesday when to schedule a recall election for Price.
Swalwell hasn’t officially endorsed recalling Price, according to the recall campaign, but his online criticism is highlighting how Democrats, even in deep blue Alameda County, are divided over the controversial prosecutor.
Tweet less. Prosecute more. https://t.co/S2OB0kaw52
— Eric Swalwell (@ericswalwell) May 14, 2024
He'll probably endorse her as the Democrat machine commands, but at that point, no one will be paying attention. The damage is done.
Obviously, Swalwell is reading some kind of bad wind blowing ever since Oakland went to hell based on Price's failure to prosecute criminals and the city itself being led by a very unpopular wokester mayor, Sheng Thao, who remains clueless about any problems in her city. The Chronicle reports that Price is so unpopular she's now up for a recall.
It's not hard to see why.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that crime is soaring (and they have good charts at the link):
Overall, reported crimes in Oakland rose 18% in 2023 compared to 2022, with violent crime up 21% and property crime up 17%.
If you lived there, you'd feel that difference and that's just reported crime; with not enough cops to answer calls, many don't bother reporting crimes anymore.
As a result, the city lost 3.2% of its population in the last year, while homelessness has risen 9%.
Sound like a well-managed city?
Actually, it's one of these, according to Wikipedia:
According to the California Secretary of State, as of February 10, 2019, Oakland has 245,111 registered voters. Of those, 159,771 (65.2%) are registered Democrats, 9,544 (3.9%) are registered Republicans, and 65,416 (26.7%) have declined to state a political party.[185] Oakland is widely regarded as being one of the most liberal major cities in the nation. The Cook Partisan Voting Index of Congressional District 12, which includes Oakland and Berkeley, is D+40, making it the most Democratic congressional district in California and the fourth most Democratic district in the US.[186]
Rather than reassessing the situation and recognizing that it's usually a small group of habitual criminals who are creating the biggest plagues on society and going after them, Price claims that Swalwell's complaint about her is racist. Get a load of her "logic" as the Chronicle reported:
“Since when did Rep. Swalwell start blaming the Alameda County DA for mail carrier robberies in the East Bay? When Alameda County residents historically elected the first Black woman as District Attorney, that’s when!” posted an account run by Price’s campaign team Monday.
The account posted links to stories about mail carriers being attacked during O’Malley’s tenure.
“As you can see from these links to news stories dating back to 2019, Rep. Swalwell did not blame the previous DA for mail carriers being robbed in the East Bay,” Price’s campaign team wrote. “These news reports clearly indicate that crimes against postal workers in the East Bay are a long-standing problem that predates the current DA. So, I guess that makes the previous DA ‘soft-on-crime,’ too, but for some reason, you never attacked her politically for it.”
See, he's only attacking her because she's a "historic first," not because she's a lousy district attorney. If she's a "historic first" she couldn't possibly be a bad D.A., which is utter nonsense.
Swalwell at that point told her to tweet less and prosecute more.
But that doesn't excuse Swalwell, who's been silent about this incompetence for years and supported Price otherwise even as the city fell apart on Price's watch.
Seems that Swalwell is reading the writing on the wall about Price being a goner at this point, now that the recall is chugging ahead, and knows very well what happened when Chesa Boudin got his recall on the ballot in nearby San Francisco. He doesn't want to be on the losing side.
Which suggests he reads political reality better than Price does, but not because he cares about what's happening, but because he's a political opportunist who seeks to steer clear of the excesses of Soros-backed district attorneys. Now that Price is turning on the spit, Swalwell is pretending he was always against her formula for Oakland.
What a nasty mess, except that for Republicans, it's nice to see these leftists eating their own now. That's what happens when you run a one-party state, and all it does is open a few political doors for breaking that hammerlock and getting some actual diversity of opinions in that city. Let's hope this shoutathon continues and more blue cities fall into this kind of blue-on-blue warfare.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/two_scorpions_in_a_bottle_rep_eric_swalwell_scraps_with_oakland_s_soros_d_a_pamela_price.html
Harrison Butker, supervillain
By Blaise Edwards, M.D.
Harrison Butker, supervillain. He needs to be fired from the NFL and canceled from the world. If you haven’t heard, his crime was giving a commencement address at Benedictine College, a small Catholic school in Atchison, Kansas. In that address, he unapologetically stood up for traditional Catholic values.
If you read the internet, he is misogynistic, anti-LGBTQ, homophobic, sexist, and a myriad of other generic insults. The solution to his “intolerance” is to cancel him. There are petitions to remove him from the NFL (so much for tolerance), and have the college refund all female students for their education (because the solution to hearing a challenging speech should be a full educational refund).
It took about five minutes to grow tired of the cancelists going full apocalypse, so I decided to sit down and listen to and read his entire address. And the reactions are a microcosm of the problems plaguing the world. There is not a single thing in his address that is contrary to Church teaching. The Catholic church has clear stances on IVF, homosexual activity (and any sexual activity outside of the marital covenant), abortion, and most of the other issues he covered. So I guess what the mainstream media is saying is, “Go to your Catholic college and get your education, but don’t you dare ever embrace the teachings of that religion, or we will cancel you.”
In regards to women, they (the lamestreamers) are saying he is calling for women to be barefoot and pregnant, reinventing The Handmaid’s Tale. So let us look at his words:
For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives. I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you, how many of you are sitting here now about to cross the stage, and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you’re going to get in your career. Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world. But I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world. I can tell you that my beautiful wife Isabelle would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.
Wow, just wow! What a jerk! He acknowledged that many women are going to lead successful careers, but talked about being excited to be a parent, then stressed how important that was in his personal life. I can see why he should be canceled. It seems almost like he really believes in traditional values and was fortunate enough to have a marriage that allows for that. I mean, he got choked up talking about his wife and her importance in his life. Do we really want a bunch of men who care about their wives, and a bunch of women who care about their children and families running around this world? God knows where that might lead.
So to all those who want to cancel Harrison Butker for his commencement address, I advise you to read/listen to the whole address with honesty and openness. And for those who still want him canceled, you may want to start checking all the posts on your social media, because I would venture that many of you are far more deserving of cancellation.
Congratulations Harrison Butker, on a job well done. You spoke truth, and the world hates you for it. You are following in the tough footsteps of our Lord.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/harrison_butker_supervillain.html
From inside the mind of a would-be mass shooter: ‘I am certain nobody there is armed’
By Olivia Murray
Come Mister Alvin, tally me banana
By Silvio Canto, Jr.
The world is watching New York City turning into a banana republic. A lot of investors and job creators are watching too. They are wondering about their money, and what a partisan AG and DA will do to their investments if they don’t want to pay to play. I remember a Mexican investor once telling me that he invests in the U.S. because he trusted the judicial system, no matter who was president. My guess is that investors are looking at New York City now and wondering, “Why?”
Believe it or not, but New York City may be arresting an ex-president over a bookkeeping entry. It’s a bad plot but it may happen. The case is weak but there are lots of Trump haters out there who can’t get enough of him, as Eli Lake wrote:
But missing from this wall-to-wall coverage is any mention of the underlying crime that Trump falsified business records to advance his campaign. And that is a fatal flaw in the case, because New York law stipulates that falsifying business records can only be charged as felonies (as Bragg has done) if it’s done to further another crime. Trump has not been charged with another crime, though Bragg has floated the theory that the business records were falsified to deprive 2016 voters of information about his tryst with Daniels.
A crime based on a theory? Stalin would be proud. Did you hear the one about show me the man and I will find you the crime?
Is the public going to accept this type of justice? I don’t think so, which is why President Trump’s ratings are up. The combination of a more successful Trump presidency and these banana republic tactics will make 45 number 47.
My guess is that Alvin Bragg didn’t think that this “hush money” would be the only one that got a court date in 2024. He probably thought that his case would be an appetizer to the Big Three: Georgia, the documents, and January 6. Unfortunately, Mr. Bragg has picked a legal fight with Republican presidential nominee over “an untested legal theory premised on the testimony of a convicted liar.”
Mr. DA, tally me banana.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/come_mister_alvin_tally_me_banana.html
I smell a rat
By Pete Colan
Joe Biden suddenly anxious to debate Donald J. Trump seemingly out of the clear blue doesn’t smell right. His Fraudulency (H/T John Nolte) can’t put two sentences together much less navigate an intelligent debate with a seven-year old.
Clearly we know ol’ Joe didn’t call for this. He’s happy sitting in his basement or on the beach, eating ice cream and falling off his bike at every opportunity. We all know he doesn’t want this. Who set him up and why?
I preface the following suggestions on the fact that the Left has already demonstrated how elaborately sinister they can be with the election theft of 2020, the staging of January 6 with pipe bombs as “plan B,” and the endless lawfare attempts to incarcerate the former (and hopefully future) President with made-up crimes they’re not even attempting to hide anymore behind a veil of legitimacy. No conspiracy theory is off the table any more, therefore we must all proceed ever so cautiously. We cannot assume everything is as it seems.
One theory is that, failing the first debate miserably and in front of the public, offering a Full Monty view of how badly he would lead the country during the next four years gives the Democrats reason to replace him before or during the convention, not only with the consent of Biden’s former adoring followers but instead with their insistence.
Another theory is the (il)legal warfare being played against Donald Trump might just time itself ever so fortuitously so that he won’t be able to make it to the debate(s). In fact, he might just be in jail or somehow otherwise confined. Darn the luck, right? This would save Biden from the embarrassment of actually debating Pres. Trump while at the same time proclaiming his heroism by putting up the challenge in the first place, and if Trump weren’t such a criminal, he’d be free to come to the venue, but instead, lookie here at Trump in the jump suit.
Yet another theory, and I’ll end with this one, is that on the condition of having no audience in the debate(s), there would be little collateral damage from a “surprise” terrorist attack that solves two problems at once. We all saw the guy set himself on fire outside the courthouse with Pres. Trump inside, and how long it took for the police to respond. So much for tight security. And, we all know that additional security requested by the president himself (who is, BTW, the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in the world) on January 6 was denied to facilitate the peaceful intrusion into the Capitol Building, so why would we be surprised that the debate venue might have a bunch of “holes” in it? Yeah, I know that sounds really grim, but let’s face it, I’m not the only one who’s called out that possibility and I pray daily that President Trump is able to stay safe through the election.
I hope I am wrong, I will be making fresh popcorn for the first debate, and hope for the best.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/i_smell_a_rat.html
Geert Wilders represents the rescue of Europe from socialist open-borders disasters
By Barry Shaw
The drift of European countries away from the failed immigration policies of their socialist predecessors reached the Netherlands with the election of Geert Wilders as their new leader.
Wilders will lead a coalition of four parties with a clear agenda of sweeping away the disastrous results of an open border that has flooded the Netherlands with a mass migration from the Middle East. That in turn has brought lawlessness from the rising migrant count leaving the silent majority exposed to behavior that they objected to with their votes.
Wilders announced that his country is in an asylum crisis which requires stronger border controls and internal changes.
The Netherlands will opt out of the E.U. open border asylum system.
It will introduce a tougher approach to terrorism including local street terrorism. That will include deporting criminal migrants in order to make life safer for the Dutch people.
Wilders announced that he will set his country on a new course based on "Hope, Courage and National Pride."
Geert Wilders is also a longtime friend of Israel. He has stated that he will move his country's embassy to Jerusalem.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/geert_wilders_represents_the_rescue_of_europe_from_socialist_open_borders_disasters.html
With Trump’s tax cuts set to expire, media runs offense for Joe Biden
By Jack Hellner
The mean (and crazy) girls of the left
By John Dale Dunn
Biden’s Climate Change Scare Tactics Aren’t Working
By Warren Beatty
The Two Public Opinions on Race
By Robert Weissberg
There is an old puzzle about if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear the crash, does it make a sound? A similar, though more serious question, concerns public opinion: if people have opinions on a subject but the pollsters ignore these views, is there still a “public opinion” on that subject? The answer is that “yes,” in the narrow sense that people do have an opinion, but since they are not solicited on that topic, there is no public opinion.
This quandary highlights the role of pollsters who devise and ask survey questions and thus define public discussion. In principle it is no different from how mass media and social media shape public discourse by covering some topics, ignoring others and censoring what they deem objectionable.
On abortion, for example, is “abortion” a women’s choice about reproductive health, or infanticide? The pollster, not the respondent, chose the words and permissible alternatives so pollsters, unlike the telephone-like transmitters of information, are not neutral. Given that few rules govern poll construction, the ideologically minded pollsters can invisibly guide the data toward a pre-determined conclusion without anybody noticing the bias.
In the 2024 presidential election polls on issues resemble a fast-food menu usually limited to the economy, the border/immigration, inflation, abortion, crime, and occasionally, the direction of the country. Respondents can prefer Trump or Biden from this policy menu, but they cannot opine on anything beyond the survey’s limited bill of fare.
This pollster-defined menu is also self-reinforcing by guiding media discussions. If the media’s talking heads rely on poll data, they frame the discussion entirely in terms of what the polls provide, and this heightens public awareness of the issue which, in turn, confirms the pollster’s menu. Social scientists label this “agenda setting.” Note how Biden’s bribe-taking has now vanished from the polls and thus from public discussion.
Agenda setting awards pollsters immense power or, more accurately, those able to finance the polls. Naturally, pollsters insist that they only reflect, not decide, what deeply concerns Americans. This is, however. misleading since people may have strong opinions on a topic, but these views can be irrelevant to those controlling surveys.
This agenda power is most relevant for “controversial” topics that do not lend themselves to frank public discussion, especially issues involving race. Recall the old joke about how nudists dance -- very carefully. Americans surely have lots to say on racial issues, some of it “offensive, but the pollsters decide what is off-limits. Thus, when media pundits touch on race, some topics are pushed aside and “public opinion” on them thus becomes sanitized or nonexistent.
Consider, for example, the current demonization of whiteness, i.e., whites, regardless of their individual behavior or views, are evil, a threat to people of color and thus should be punished. The head of the CDC claimed that white superiority was a public health crisis (p. xi) while President Biden called white supremacy the greatest terrorist threat to America. This is hardly abstract ranting by a few race hustlers, Thousands of whites are annually “detoxified” by trained black experts to cure them of their “whiteness.” Of the 97 federal judges appointed by Biden in his first two years, merely five were white males despite white males being 50% of the legal profession.
What about questions regarding government coerced diversity and inclusion to, supposedly, eliminate historical injustices? Again, the issue is an important one insofar as countless whites are denied jobs, promotions, admission to elite schools, and other benefits since, allegedly, “diversity is our strength.”
What about policies that go lightly on black miscreants in the name of “equity”? What about local district attorneys who let serious black criminals escape punishment but then arrest a white ex-President for a very iffy minor offense?
There are additional items on this no-go list, such as reparations, rampant black-on-white crime, and drug legalization where many whites (and Asians and Hispanics) likely have strong negative views on these issues. Nevertheless, media pundits will seldom dwell on them for the simple reason that pollsters usually avoid hot-button racial issues. A search for “polls on interracial rape” (and variants) using three separate search engines found zero results. Perhaps elicited negative responses explains this neglect -- pollsters are reluctant to expose widespread public “racism.” Nor are pollsters anxious to reveal that many of a candidate’s white supporters hold socially unacceptable views on race. No polling organization wants to embarrass those funding the poll.
Fortunately, other mechanisms exist to assess public thinking on “sensitive” topics when people are afraid to talk openly. Will Rogers once quipped that Oklahomans would vote “dry” (banning alcohol) so long as they can stagger to the polls. For many whites holding “forbidden” views, actions speak louder than words.
Behavior often reveals the truth avoided by pollsters. Consider those whites fleeing when blacks move nearby. “White flight” has existed for decades but recent events, notably the “George Floyd riots” of 2020 and surging violent black crime has invigorated this exodus. The upsurge of in-migration of people from “Blue” to “Red” states suggests racial hostility given that many Blue States either have large minority populations or, like California, have enacted laws facilitating black crime. Similarly, despite all the effort, racial segregation in public schools is on the rise Red States are also facilitating racial separation by promoting private schools, even subsidizing them. Since voting with one’s feet or wallet is more burdensome than answering a 10-minute telephone inquiry, this behavior speaks loudly.
Racial animus is also displayed in entertainment that is captured by the expression, “Go Woke, Go Broke.” Walt Disney, in particular, has lost tons of money by “blackening” its films and otherwise catering to black audiences. Put bluntly, many (though hardly all) whites don’t want blacks in role traditionally played by whites. Similarly, merely adding blacks to TV commercials can help if viewers see a reason for this diversity, but it can backfire if the placement appears gratuitous.
Despite evidence of growing racial turmoil, election campaigns remain careful in exploiting racial strife for electoral advantage, but indirect appeals abound. Accusations that Donald Trump and other Republicans engage in “dog whistle” appeals are credible. Plausibly, the expression “Good, safe schools” means all-white schools. Or the phrase “tough on crime” prompts white fears of black violence. Recall how Ronald Reagan used “Welfare Queen” as an implicit attack on blacks living off the government without explicitly mentioning race. Ditto for the Willie Horton TV ad in the 1988 presidential campaign stoked fear of black crime by highlighting brutal black-on-white sexual violence.
In today’s America, two “public opinions” on race co-exist. One comes from pollsters who dance like the preverbal nudists at the nudist camp. When asking about crime, for example, questions might ask if respondents “fear crime” but who specially they fear is not mentioned. Women carjackers? The other is what millions of Americans, who in practice, express their opinions by relocating to all-white area or buy guns for self-defense against black criminals. That government must vigorously enforce anti-discrimination laws only confirms the reality of deeply rooted racial hostility. It remains to be seen if the two worlds will collide and what will then happen.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/05/the_two_public_opinions_on_race.html
January 6, Covid Stir the Fascist Soul of the Educated Liberal Female
By Jack Cashill
Against the New Holocaust
By Elise Cooper
Which Makes Better Soldiers: DEI or Assimilation?
By Maj. Gen. Joe Arbuckle (USA, Ret.)
Open Borders America: Eric Adams Has a Job for Migrants in NYC
More than 100 Dems vote against the bill to deport illegals who attack law enforcement.
by Kelli Ballard | May 17, 2024
Editor’s note: Join Liberty Nation each week to stay up to date on the nationwide ramifications of an open borders America.
Adams Called Migrants ‘Excellent Swimmers’
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is catching some heat after making a remark that has people on both sides of the political spectrum upset. During a weekly press conference, Adams was asked about the shortage of lifeguards in the city. In his response, he insinuated that migrants would be a good choice because they’re excellent swimmers. “How do we have a large body of people that are in our city and country that are excellent swimmers, and at the same time we need lifeguards?” he said on May 14.
“We have all these eligible people waiting to work with the skills we need to fill the jobs but we are unable to allow them to work because bureaucracy is in the way,” Adams continued. “The only obstacle is that we won’t give them the right to work to become a lifeguard. That just doesn’t make sense.”
NYC, like many other cities, is struggling to find enough lifeguards to keep its pools and water parks open. Recently, a raise to $22 per hour was approved, and returning seasonal lifeguards who work through the peak season will receive a $1,000 bonus. Still, there are a lot of tower chairs to fill. While Adams’ idea to have migrants take some of the positions may have merit, the way he proposed it has thrown him into the spotlight once again.
Murad Awawdeh, president and chief executive officer of the New York Immigration Coalition, said the mayor’s comment implied “that because some folks had to swim or wade through water on their dangerous journey seeking safety here in the United States,” that would make them good lifeguards. He added that the comment is racist and that the mayor needs to stop using dangerous language like this.
Some Republicans took offense as well. Senator Marsha Blackburn (TN) asked on her social media page whether it was okay Democrats and President Joe Biden thought that breaking the law by crossing into the country illegally was “qualification for employment in our country.”
New Bill to Deport Illegals Who Assault Law Enforcement
A bill that would deport illegal migrants if they assault a police officer passed the House of Representatives on May 15 with a vote of 265 to 148. While 54 Democrats voted with the GOP in favor of this measure, 148 voted against it.
Introduced by Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), the legislation is called the “Detain and Deport Illegal Aliens Who Assault Cops Act.” In February, he said, “There is no reason that an illegal alien who attacks our law enforcement should remain in our country; that shows zero respect for our rule of law or our institutions, and they will not be positive contributors to society.”
The bill would create a new category for migrant inadmissibility, Van Drew explained, dealing with illegals who assault police and other civil employees. Supporters of the bill say it is needed, given the recent attacks against peace officers by those in the country illegally. Still, a majority of Democrats voted against it. The bill still has to go to the Senate for approval.
By the Numbers
Fox News released data on May 15 it had obtained regarding a more accurate count of illegal migrants evading Border Patrol agents, which the outlet says, “skyrocketed under the Biden administration.” The information was gathered by a Freedom of Information Act that detailed immigrants who were able to avoid agents but were detected by other surveillance forms, such as cameras and sensors.
In 2020, there were 136,808 gotaways at the border, according to the report. In 2021, the number rose to 387,398, “which coincided with the last months of the Trump administration and the first months of the Biden administration.” In 2022, that number was 606,131, and in 2023 it was 670,674. “This means that there were more gotaways in FY21-23 (1.6 million) than the decade of FY 2010 and FY 2020 (1.4 million).”
Notable Quotes
Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens expressed his concern to the House committee about gotaway migrants:
If a person is willing to put themselves into harm’s way crossing through very remote, very dangerous conditions to evade capture, you have to ask yourself why. What makes them willing to take that risk? That’s of concern to me. What’s also of concern to me is I don’t know who that individual is. I don’t know where they came from. I don’t know what their intention is. I don’t know what they brought with them. That unknown represents a risk, a threat. It’s of great concern to anybody that wears this uniform.”
What will next week bring us in Open Borders America?
https://www.libertynation.com/this-week-in-open-borders-america-eric-adams-migrants-comment/
AG Garland Faces Contempt of Congress Over Hur-Biden Recording
Can anything come of a House vote against Garland, or is it all just sound and fury, signifying nothing?
by James Fite | May 17, 2024
Two House committees – Judiciary and Oversight – voted along party lines Thursday, May 16, to hold US Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress. His offense? Refusing to submit to a congressional subpoena for audio recordings of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s interviews from the investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents.
While the full House must still vote before Garland is officially “in contempt,” the Republican majority in the lower chamber makes the outcome all but a foregone conclusion. It likely doesn’t matter, however, as Biden invoked executive privilege over the recordings, validating Garland’s refusal to comply with the subpoena. Can he still be in contempt of Congress? Absolutely – but nothing is likely to come of it.
A Get Out of Jail Free Card for Garland
What exactly is contempt of Congress, and what consequences might Merrick Garland face? Well, the short answer in this case is not much – and probably nothing. According to the Congressional Research Service, criminal contempt of Congress is a process by which the House or Senate can try to hold a witness accountable for failing to comply with a committee subpoena. Congress criminalized such refusal to cooperate back in 1857.
However, a vote to hold someone in contempt doesn’t directly result in any real consequences. Rather, once someone is officially in contempt, a federal prosecutor must then prosecute. If found guilty, the defendant could face a fine of up to $100,000 and imprisonment “for not less than one month nor more than twelve months.”
That’s a lot of potential liability for most people – but not for AG Merrick Garland. He has a presidential get out of jail free card. Assuming the full House votes to hold the attorney general in contempt – and it likely will, given the party-line vote in each committee and the Republican majority in the chamber – it then falls to US Attorney Matthew Graves to decide whether to file federal criminal charges. Is that possible? Of course, but it’s far from probable.
Though Garland is likely to be held in contempt, it is for withholding evidence that his boss – the president of the United States – authorized him to withhold by claiming executive privilege.
“Because of the president’s longstanding commitment to protecting the integrity, effectiveness, and independence of the Department of Justice and its law enforcement investigations, he has decided to assert executive privilege over the recordings,” Edward Siskel, counsel to the president, wrote in a letter to Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and James Comer (R-KY), chairmen of the Judiciary Committee and Oversight Committee, respectively.
The chances that the Biden administration will turn around and charge its own attorney general for obeying presidential orders are slim to none. In short, House Republicans can hold Garland as contemptible as they like, but it will amount to nothing.
What Could It Hurt? Depends on Who You Ask
Special counsel Robert Hur’s report is already a matter of public information – as are the text transcripts of the interviews. What could it hurt to grant Congress the option of reviewing the audio recordings as well? All factual information that might “jeopardize future sensitive operations,” as Garland put it, is already out there, available to anyone savvy enough to work an internet search engine.
So, what harm could releasing the audio actually do? well, despite DOJ claims that the recordings themselves might somehow reveal more of the law enforcement process and jeopardize future investigations than the verbatim text transcripts that are already available, there is another reason Democrats don’t want these recordings to be made public.
“The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal,” Siskel wrote in his letter to the Republican House leaders, “to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes.” Siskel refused to adequately rebut the legitimacy of the stated reasons for the request – that the audio would allow Congress and the American people to hear the tone of voice and any verbal pauses not revealed by the transcripts. In doing so, he perhaps reveals the Biden campaign’s greatest fear in all this; that the American people might – for any reason, legitimate or not – see the president as a feeble old man who is unfit to lead.
The Republican response doesn’t exactly refute this, though it does present it in a much less nefarious light. “The American people will not be able to hear why prosecutors felt the President of the United States was, in special counsel Robert Hur’s own words, an ‘elderly man with a poor memory,’ and thus shouldn’t be charged,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said during a press conference. After what many contend was a presidency full of gaffes, blunders, and more switchbacks than an old backcountry mountain road, the last thing Biden needs going into an election against Donald Trump is more evidence of his cognitive decline.
https://www.libertynation.com/ag-garland-faces-contempt-of-congress-over-hur-biden-recording/
Michael Cohen Cross Examination Highlights His History of Lies
Cohen may not turn out to be the witness prosecutors hoped for.
by Liberty Nation Authors | May 17, 2024
Disgraced lawyer and star witness for the prosecution Michael Cohen endured more than seven hours of cross-examination Thursday, May 16. And he isn’t done yet; the trial will resume Monday when the defense will wrap up its questioning of Cohen. Thursday’s theme was the witness’s credibility – or lack thereof – based on his own past crimes and lies. Did former President Donald Trump’s old lawyer help or hinder the prosecution’s case? We spoke with Liberty Nation Legal Affairs Editor Scott D. Cosenza, Esq. to find out.
A Credibility Problem for the ‘Fixer’
Graham J. Nobile: Michael Cohen, who has often been described as Donald Trump’s former “fixer,” was considered to be the prosecution’s star witness. Scott, did anything he said from the witness box advance the prosecution’s case against the former president?
Scott D. Cosenza, Esq: Strictly speaking, yes. While Mr. Cohen was revealed by his own words to be a self-interested liar with a grudge against Donald Trump, his testimony was perhaps valuable beyond headline fodder. One of the required elements for a conviction is that Trump directed payment to Stormy Daniels for the purpose of keeping her quiet about an alleged tryst – and, thus, influencing the 2016 election. While Cohen’s testimony went nowhere near dispositive proof of that, it added some evidence to that side of the scale.
Graham: Cohen’s testimony appears to have been entirely undermined by his former attorney, Bob Costello, who testified before a House subcommittee on Wednesday, May 15. Costello claimed that much of what Cohen said in the Manhattan courtroom the previous day was not true. Given Cohen’s reputation for dishonesty – and the animus he has towards Trump, saying he very much wants to see his old boss behind bars – did prosecutors shoot themselves in the foot basing their case on his testimony?
Scott: Graham, it depends on what their goal was. Were the charges issued to ensure no one is above the law, rich or poor, powerbroker or peon? Or has Democrat District Attorney Alvin Bragg applied the law in a totally new way to this defendant for a different reason? If his goal was to consume Trump with this trial to hinder his ability to campaign for president, it might be called a big success. It’s harder for Trump to address issues like inflation or border security in the vital battleground states while being required to sit in a New York courtroom.
Was the Cohen Testimony Necessary?
Graham: Although Mr. Cohen was at the very center of the so-called “hush money” payment to Stormy Daniels, could the prosecution have moved forward without actually calling him to the stand?
Scott: Prosecutors absolutely did not have to put Stormy Daniels up. Micheal Cohen is a bit different, however. He is an awful witness, with his perjury conviction and a mountain of prejudice against the defendant – and any prosecutor would work overtime not to present him. Yet he is the prime actor in most central events in the case. Proceeding with this prosecution probably did require calling him to the stand.
Graham: During cross-examination on Thursday, May 16, Trump’s lead defense lawyer, Todd Blanche, seemed to have a bit of a field day with Mr. Cohen while questioning him about a certain October 2016 phone call. Cohen said he called Trump’s former bodyguard, Keith Schiller, intending to speak with Trump about Stormy Daniels. Records show that the call lasted less than two minutes, however, and largely concerned an unrelated matter. Blanche told Cohen in the witness box, “That was a lie. You did not talk to President Trump,” to which Cohen responded, “I’m not certain that’s accurate.” How damaging was this to the prosecution’s case – Cohen either making up a story or being “not certain” about what transpired?
Scott: That was a big moment for the defense. A truthful retelling will undoubtedly contain mistakes and errors in any story with many details. However, Cohen’s reputational stench infects anything that conflicts with the record, arguing for an interpretation of his error as fabrication, rather than confusion.
Graham: Lastly, Scott, this case is all about knowledge and intent. For a guilty verdict, prosecutors have to show Trump knew he violated federal law by altering or falsifying certain financial records – and that he intended to keep Stormy Daniels from going public to protect his 2016 presidential campaign. Has the prosecution managed to prove this knowledge and this intent on Trump’s part?
Scott: Considering the legal requirement is proven beyond any reasonable doubt, the answer is no. However, the prosecution hasn’t rested yet. Secret witnesses may still be called to wrap it all up with a bow for them. That would be refreshing for advancing the prospect that it wasn’t all a cheap political stunt, frustrating our democratic republic’s political system while undermining the criminal justice system to boot.
https://www.libertynation.com/michael-cohen-cross-examination-highlights-his-history-of-lies/
Friday's Energy Absurdity: Corporate Media Verklempt Over DeSantis Energy Law
David Blackmon
May 17, 2024
Ron DeSantis DELETES mentions of 'climate change' from Florida's laws
Some energy-related good news, this time out of Florida, where the best Governor in America today, Ron DeSantis, signed a new energy bill that de-emphasizes climate change, outlaws offshore wind farms in state waters, and places the emphasis of state energy policy where it should be: On the promotion of affordability and reliability.
Naturally, legacy media outlets are throwing a hissy fit.
Here’s an excerpt from the story at the Washington Post:
“In addition to removing the term climate change, the new law would make affordability and reliability the focus of the state’s energy policy - an echo of conservative talking points…”
So, “affordability and reliability” for your power grid are now nothing more than “conservative talking points”, folks. Who knew?
This excerpt is from a story at NPR on the same topic:
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Climate change will be a lesser priority in Florida and largely disappear from state statutes under legislation signed Wednesday by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that also bans power-generating wind turbines offshore or near the state's lengthy coastline.
Critics said the measure made law by the former Republican presidential hopeful ignores the reality of climate change threats in Florida, including projections of rising seas, extreme heat and flooding and increasingly severe storms.
It takes effect July 1 and would also boost expansion of natural gas, reduce regulation on gas pipelines in the state and increase protections against bans on gas appliances such as stoves, according to a news release from the governor's office.
[End]
That second paragraph, highlighted in italics, is a real gem of climate alarmist talking points, isn’t it? Note it’s always “predictions of” things like “rising seas, extreme heat and flooding and increasingly severe thunderstorms,” and, I guess, “Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!” as well. But it’s never actual observations of any of those things.
Kudos to Gov. DeSantis for taking the lead to do what every GOP governor in America should be doing.
Your turn, Greg Abbott. We’re all waiting.
That is all.
https://blackmon.substack.com/p/fridays-energy-absurdity-corporate?publication_id=712558&post_id=144719881&isFreemail=true&r=rd9j8&triedRedirect=true