CRISIS BY DESIGN:
Gonzales Lays the Border Crisis Blame at Democrats’ Feet.
“Rep. Tony Gonzales is a GOP congressman from Texas’ 23rd district. His district covers an astonishingly huge space — roughly a third of the U.S.-Mexico border. So if anybody in Congress is aware of what’s going on at our Southern border, it’s Gonzales.”
The funny thing about the current inflation scare is...it all happened so abruptly.
As the first Covid wave ripped through the US last spring, more than 20 million Americans lost their jobs and the country entered its worst recession in history. With GDP tumbling 31.4% in Q2 2020, the last thing worrying economists was surging prices. After all, for a brief moment, oil prices had just plummeted below $0.
But it turns out the worst recession in US history was also the shortest—by far. Thanks to government stimulus to the tune of nearly $6 trillion, many Americans were able to weather the storm and, flush with cash but restricted to their homes, went full Extreme Makeover.
Consider this: Consumer spending on goods was nearly 26% higher in August 2021 than in January 2019.
And while demand for goods skyrocketed, supply was not ready to meet it. For a number of reasons—frequent Covid lockdowns in Asia, widespread labor shortages, poor planning—producers were unable to make and ship enough goods to satisfy the ravenous appetites of consumers.
So given this severe demand–supply imbalance, prices started to climb, slowly at first in late 2020 but then really picking up steam as the ball dropped on 2021. The consumer price index, which monitors the prices of a basket of consumer goods, grew 1.7% annually in February but by May had jumped 5%.
The higher inflation readings in spring 2021 were attributed to a few items that had an outsized impact on rising prices. You might remember all the fuss about used cars, which accounted for more than one-third of the monthly price increases in June. This weird dynamic lent ammo to the officials, Fed Chair Jerome Powell included, who argued that inflation was “transitory” and likely to subside once a few pandemic wrinkles had been ironed out.
But Team Transitory is on the back foot right now. This fall, inflation has spread from used cars and energy to items across the economy, from rents to food to apparel. At the same time, wages are surging, which is great for workers but also contributes to inflation, as companies must raise prices on their products to offset higher labor costs.
In October, consumer prices rose at their fastest pace in 31 years, and economists are still debating when inflation will peak.
So that’s how we got here.
Francis Scialabba; repurposed from Axios
A Swiss human experimenter, a Hungarian Nazi collaborator, and an Iranian tech tycoon walk into Washington D.C.
A Swiss human experimenter, a Hungarian Nazi collaborator, and an Iranian tech tycoon walk into Washington D.C. What do you call them? The absentee owners of the Democrat Party.
It’s not a joke. Unfortunately it’s grimly serious.
Politico recently reported that the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the leading dark money machine of the Left, had pumped $410 million into Dem 2020 efforts to defeat Trump and Republicans.
The Sixteen Thirty Fund had raised a record $390 million that year and half the money came from just 4 donors. While the names of the donors are secret, the article did note the names of three major known STF backers: Pierre Omidyar, Hansjörg Wyss, and George Soros.
Aside from their support for leftist causes, the three billionaires have another thing in common.
Hansjörg Wyss, the richest man in Switzerland, may not even be a United States citizen. The article notes that his $135 million in STF dark money donations were "earmarked for non-electoral purposes".
George Soros illegally immigrated to the United States in the 1950s. Aside from his history of Nazi collaboration which should have barred his entry and made him deportable, an account states that his visa was based on a false affidavit filed on his behalf.
His Open Society Foundations have invested an estimated $17 million into STF in 2020.
Pierre Omidyar, an Iranian immigrant, currently the richest man in Hawaii, is a Big Tech billionaire born to wealthy foreign students in Paris, who brought him here as a child. His mother, a Berkeley academic, heads a pro-Iran group financed by her son’s fortune.
Omidyar injected an estimated $45 million into an STF fund.
There is something remarkably striking about three foreign billionaires, two of whom have been accused of immoral atrocities, funding the dark money machine behind leftist politics.
Together the three men account for nearly $200 million in outlay just to STF.
The three men, two of them European and one Middle Eastern, are a study in contrasts and similarities. Wyss was born Christian, Soros was born Jewish, and Omidyar was born Muslim, only for them to have shed their past histories and adopted the generic identities of globalist megalomaniacs convinced that the fate of the planet and of humanity is in their hands.
The three immigrant billionaires inhabit estates in the ultra-luxurious Kahala neighborhood of Honolulu, in Wilson, Wyoming, and Bedford, New York and employ former Secret Service agents to guard them.
The three leftist billionaires made their money in transnational industries, finance, the internet, and medical technology that welcomed talented immigrants. Their allegiance to the country whose territories host their wealth and mansions varies from non-existent to outright antipathy.
Their true allegiance is to overriding social and technological philosophies, partly of their own devising, and they use their massive wealth to impose them on Americans. While their open advocacy has a fairly poor track record (how many people actually read Soros’ books, Omidyar’s thoughts on capitalism, or Wyss’ thoughts on environmentalism), they have learned that they can covertly buy influence by building their own manipulative political networks.
Dark money machines are unsurprising investments for men who avoid basic transparency and treat the American political system like a game of shadows that they can rig with their money.
Omidyar finances both Black Lives Matter and Never Trumpers. The eBay billionaire is the hidden hand behind the fake “Facebook whistleblower” advocating censoring conservatives. He has a project to “reimagine capitalism” while funding The Intercept which openly touts Marxism.
Soros is equally devious, having secretly funded J Street so that the anti-Israel group could pretend to be moderate opponents without being associated with a noted enemy of the Jewish State. Publicly, he bashes Xi and China, while his Quincy Institute defends the People’s Republic of China and advocates alongside the “Squad” against any anti-China measures.
Wyss has plowed a fortune into American politics without ever even going on the record as to whether he holds American citizenship. Meanwhile Wyss' Hub Project, operating out of STF, set up fronts like Floridians for a Fair Shake, Keep Iowa Healthy, and North Carolinians for a Fair Economy that went after Republicans. This isn’t politics: it’s a hostile foreign takeover.
Soros and Omidyar both benefited from economic disruption, technological and financial, that enabled them to get rich while inflicting heavy costs on existing industries and businesses. Like much of the Big Tech sector, they’re convinced that they’re geniuses and that their Nietzschean superiority gives them the right to destroy what exists in favor of their egotistical ideologies.
The two old men of the group, Soros and Wyss, have been accused of paving their path to wealth through horrifying crimes, whether it was Soros’ participation in the seizure of Jewish properties in Hungary, or the illegal medical experimentation on patients that sent multiple executives of the company that serves as the source of Wyss’ wealth to prison.
Wyss was reportedly “deliriously happy” when he learned that he would not be indicted over the experiments that had been tested on pigs, before killing the pigs, only to then be injected into human beings. “They do not have enough on me. They don’t have enough emails on me,” he reportedly boasted.
Their vast wealth and megalomania cannot be separated from the images of elderly patients dying on operating tables while representatives of Wyss’ company looked on and watched them suffer, or Tivadar Soros, the billionaire's father, writing that he sent George off to participate in antisemitic war crimes with a Nazi collaborator "to cheer the unhappy lad up" where "surrounded by good company, he quickly regained his spirits.”
“It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out,” George Soros once quipped.
Omidyar and Wyss seem to know better than to announce their megalomania quite as nakedly, and even Soros scaled back his more outrageous boasts after increasing public scrutiny.
The three foreign billionaires named in the Politico article shared a common megalomania, filtered through the lenses of their own ideologies, and little attachment to the United States. American industries and companies made them fabulously rich, but their horizons have always been international, and they view America as little more than just another tool for their visions.
When Americans, the ordinary sort of people, don’t go all along, they manipulate them. Despite their official fealty to democracy, to open societies, and public discourse, their dark money investments reflect their determination to sideline the public and impose their will on America.
Democrats often complain about money in politics, but they are the worst offenders. Some of the richest men and the wealthiest zip codes buy up elections for them across the country. And they seem uninterested whether the billionaires buying them even have American citizenship.
Three foreign billionaires are engaged in a hostile foreign takeover of the Republic. The Democrats call this democracy. The rest of us call it ideological imperialism and colonial tyranny.
MICHAEL WALSH:
Real Americans Not Being Fooled Anymore.
And for how much longer are real Americans going to stand by as COVID-masked gangs empty out everything from the corner drug store to Louis Vuitton and Nordstrom? The Democrats’ goal of decriminalizing underclass violent crime is now reaching its apogee, and even the least political among us have begun to notice.
Well, the Democrats have been begging for a major reduction in force at least since 1860. The question is, who should lead the Republicans?
Former president Trump has all but declared he’s running again—but three years is an infinity in politics, and Trump can only play coy for so long. As memory of him fades, and the nation’s hunger for leadership increases, all eyes will be on DeSantis and his re-election campaign next year. A decisive win will cement the current shadow president of the U.S. front-runner status as Americans look to the future.
All the GOP has to do is nominate someone of relative youth and vigor, who’s not afraid of entrenched Washington, who treats the media with the contempt they so richly deserve, and who’s proven himself in an executive capacity.
Someone, in other words, exactly like DeSantis, who can also tap a plausible vice-presidential candidate with D.C. experience. Someone with military experience as well, and someone who’s already publicly eviscerated Harris on the national stage. A mixed-race woman who checks all the intersectional boxes. Someone exactly like Tulsi Gabbard.
And before you say that it can never happen, because Gabbard’s a Democrat—so was Donald Trump.
Read the whole thing.
Terror in the Capitol Tunnel (Jan6)
The D.C. Medical Examiner’s Office concluded Rosanne Boyland died of a drug overdose but that autopsy result is highly suspicious.
By Julie Kelly Nov 20
FaceBook now Biggest Censorship Weapon
Just as the Congressional Budget Office looks all set to present some very bad numbers about Joe Biden's porkulus social spending plan that Joe claims is "paid for," another Obama-era Democrat economist has bailed on the Biden plan, warning it's not "paid for" and will throw fat on the fire of inflation:
Steven Rattner, who served as counselor to the Treasury secretary during President Obama's administration, begins his New York Times piece with exasperation at all the Biden gaslighting:
Enough already about “transitory” inflation. Last Wednesday’s terrible Consumer Price Index news shifts our inflation prospects strongly into the “embedded” category: Prices are up 6.2 percent from a year ago, the largest increase in 30 years.
While not likely to morph into the double-digit inflation I covered for The New York Times four decades ago, prices may well rise fast enough to trigger higher interest rates. Higher financing costs make it more expensive for consumers and businesses to borrow, which, in turn, throttles growth.
And yes, he actually understands why:
How could an administration loaded with savvy political and economic hands have gotten this critical issue so wrong?
They can’t say they weren’t warned — notably by Larry Summers, a former Treasury secretary and my former boss in the Obama administration, and less notably by many others, including me. We worried that shoveling an unprecedented amount of spending into an economy already on the road to recovery would mean too much money chasing too few goods.
He even explains the political dynamics of the coming fiasco, perfectly accurately:
The administration wanted to claim a big policy win ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. But inflation worries are top of voters’ minds.
So the administration should come clean with voters about the impact of its spending plans on inflation. Build Back Better can be deemed “paid for” only if one embraces budget gimmicks, like assuming that some of the most important initiatives will be allowed to expire in just a few years. The result: a package that front-loads spending while tax revenues arrive only over a decade. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the plan would likely add $800 billion or more to the deficit over the next five years, exacerbating inflationary pressures.
Mr. Biden also insists that the much-lauded infrastructure bill he just signed is fully paid for — but it isn’t. Indeed, the infrastructure figures show $550 billion in new spending and just $173 billion of additional offsets.
Being a Democrat, he naturally thinks the solution is tax hikes instead of just scrapping the entire Goliath plan. But the fact remains: Government spending fuels inflation and there's already too much of it already, that's Economics 101 and Rattner refuses to argue with it.
He also notes that he's hardly the first to warn about this economic iceberg the money-burning ship U.S.S. Joe Biden is heading straight into. Former Obama Treasury Secretary Larry Summers cast his aspersions on the disaster earlier in the Washington Post. Both note the godawful impact on inflation on Joe's runaway government spending, and Rattner notes Joe's previous porkulus packages that are still coursing through the system aren't finished yet, yet we can already see what they have brought us: the current round of inflation, with $7 gas in California. Biden's $1-plus trillion social spending plan with its subsidized government daycare, its $10 billion in cash handouts to illegal aliens, and its green new deal cronyist spending will only add to the runaway inflation currently on offer.
He had to say that, same as Summers did, because it's going to happen no matter what he says, and being an economist of sorts, he recognizes that he's still got a reputation to defend. He, and Summers, and apparently many Obama economists who never made the kinds of messes Joe Biden is making, see value in distancing themselves from the coming inflation disaster. They don't want Biden's mud all over them as the problem inevitably shakes out. Some economists, such as Paul Krugman, don't really care that they are always getting it wrong as they chase clowns like Joe Biden and his ignorant notions of economics. But real economists do.
Leading economists unaligned to the Democrat agenda or even the Obamatons, such as Johns Hopkins University Professor Steve Hanke and Invesco of London top economist John Greenwood have already laid down what's happening, explaining in plain English for the Wall Street Journal's op-ed page that the "monetary bathtub is overflowing." They lay it out in baby English anyone can understand at the beginning, and then show with a wallop what's for certain to happen:
Let’s take a look at the U.S. bathtub. During the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, the faucet was wide open. Between December 2019 and August 2021, the U.S. money supply, measured by M2, grew by $5.5 trillion, a stunning 35.7% increase in only a year and a half, driven primarily by the Fed’s purchases of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities. In light of anticipated Federal Reserve tapering, we estimate that by the end of 2024 the money supply will grow another $5.1 trillion.
Out of the total $10.6 trillion in new money, real GDP growth will drain roughly $1.4 trillion. Another $1 trillion will flow down the money demand drain. Since the amount of money flowing into the bathtub far exceeds the two outflows, the excess money in the tub—around $8.2 trillion—will hit the inflation overflow drain.
The huge monetary expansion—$5.5 trillion already in the bathtub—is starting to reach the overflow. Persistent, not transitory, inflation will be with us for the next two to three years.
Descriptions like that can't be ignored and they don't even amount to forecasts, they describe actual monetary and fiscal behavior as it has been studied over decades.
Those are the kinds of economists that Obama-linked economists such as Summers and Rattner likely don't want to become laughingstocks around by touting Joe's inflationary spendathon fantasies. Those kinds of economists amount to their academic peers, and they don't want to look like idiots in their presence, because they are persistently right.
That may well be why any economist who wants to maintain respect is now speaking out against Joe's spending plans. They have to if they don't want to look like morons when what happens, happens. That list includes Democrats.
Image: Daphne Borowski, via Wikipedia // CC BY 2.0
To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.
How Dem's Project Blame for the Casualties
of Their Anti-People Policies
RIGHT ON CUE: Biden asks FTC to check for “illegal conduct” on high gas pricing.
Husbands forgetting things is one of those tropes that is embarrassingly true. We often do a horrible job of listening to our wives, so we tend to forget the conversation we had yesterday, or the thing she asked us to grab in the kitchen, or that one thing she asked us to get at the grocery store. All that is frustrating, for sure, but it’s relatively minor.
However, there are things men forget that are much more serious. These are the types of things that can utterly ruin a marriage if we can’t recollect them. So allow me to create for you a cheat sheet. Here are 5 things most husbands forget that can wreck a marriage.
There’s a famous passage in the Bible that lays out a definition for love. The writer says, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud … it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” Whenever I officiate a wedding for a couple, I emphasize the fact that none of these are things you feel. They are things you do.
We often think of love as a feeling, but it’s not. Don’t get me wrong—feeling attracted to someone is important in romantic relationships. But it’s not love. Love is something you choose. And in marriage, you choose it again and again.
You thought you were marrying your soul mate. Then she changed. Or maybe you changed. Or wait—did you both change? The answer is yes. Duke ethicist Stanley Hauerwas said, “Marriage, being [the enormous thing it is] means we are not the same person after we have entered it. The primary challenge of marriage is learning how to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married.”
One of things men forget is that they aren’t signing up to marry a static individual, but rather a dynamic, growing, changing person. And men are also dynamic, growing, changing people. This is one of the reasons this next point is so important.
When we get married, why do we exchange vows rather than share our hopes for our lives together? Because marriage is hard. Despite what your neighbor’s Instagram feed tells you, the vast majority of marriages do not come easy. It requires a regular willingness to set aside your preferences for the good of another. It presses you to accept that your wife will not live up to your expectations (nor will you live up to hers). In all of this, we promise to stick with each other, love one another, and work for the good of our partners.
This can be hard work. It’s worth it, like working out is worth it if you want to be healthy or studying is worth it if you want to be a doctor. But it takes a commitment bigger than hope. It takes a willingness to dig in when the gratification is delayed.
We are all biased toward our own perspectives. We only see what we see. It’s difficult to see another’s point of view. One of the things men forget is that there are two sides to every story. Your experience of your wife is not absolute truth. You think she’s bossy or overly critical or distant or angry? She might be. But it’s also possible that you are behaving in ways that exacerbate those things. And it’s not only possible but almost certainly true that your marriage is the way it is because you are part of it.
With few exceptions, difficulties in marriage are never the fault of one person. If there’s something your wife is doing that drives you crazy, the first question you should ask is, “What change could I make that might move us in a positive direction?”
As Pippin warns Frodo in Tolkien’s brilliant Fellowship of the Ring, “Shortcuts make long delays.” Most men are motivated toward action. We want things to change yesterday. But one of the things men forget is that the best things in life often take quite a bit of time. There’s a reason why the fastest food is the cheapest or why aged wine is better. The best things take time. This is certainly true for your marriage.
If you want your relationship with your wife to thrive, it won’t happen if you won’t put in the time. Lean in when she’s upset; don’t deflect or change the subject. See a counselor when things get hard. Don’t be satisfied with ignoring what’s difficult. In the end, if you want to get to the promised land, you’ve got a journey in front of you. But the land is a good land. It’s worth the trip.
