Military Veterans and Patriots

Tag: Politics

The Cabinet is Starting to Shape Up

President-elect Trump has started to name people to his cabinet and other key positions in his administration. Let’s tale a look at who’s going where.

Let’s start with the people from my home state of NY, Elise Stefanik and Lee Zeldin. They have been announced as UN Ambassador and EPA administrator respectively.

I have an issue with the choice of Stefanik. Not because she isn’t capable or qualified, she most certainly is both. Rather, I really, really think there shouldn’t be any selections from the House. The margins are too thin there to be pulling people that may be needed for the R’s to hold the Majority.

That concern also applies to the next individual on our little list: Mike Waltz, a House member from Florida, who has been named as National Security Advisor. Waltz is a former Green Beret, and served in the NatSec world before. I think, other than again losing a House seat, he’s an inspired choice. By the way, I am not the only one with that concern. Steve Scalise, the Majority Whip, voiced the same sentiments.

Tom Homan, the ICE director in Trump’s last administration has been named ‘Border Czar’ and will be responsible for all illegal immigration related things including the mass deportations. Homan is uniquely suited to this position, as he just DGAF about what anyone has to say about him.

Susie Wiles, who ran Trump’s campaign, has been named Chief of Staff. She is the first woman to hold that position. She is a long time republican operative, and I do not mean that in the perjorative sense.

Stephen Miller, who was previously a senior policy advisor has been named as the deputy chief of staff for policy. Miller is a hardcore border hawk.

Scott Bessent has been named as Treasury Secretary. Bessent is a billionaire hedge fund guy who has been a long time Trump supporter. He is pro crypto currency.

Now on to a couple that are reported but not confirmed.

Marco Rubio is allegedly going to be named Secretary of State. While I have little doubt about Rubio’s ability to manage State, I don’t think he has what it takes to remake it in the way it needs to be remade. By remade, I mean firing anyone who is in the least resistant to Trump’s agenda.

And our final person is rumored to be named DHS Secretary, Kristi Noem. While a marionette would be an improvement over Mayorkas, I expect Noem to be a transformative DHS secretary.

The key to all these appointments is going to be speed. As I’ve said before, Trump only has about 100 days to get his agenda implemented.

12 November 2024
Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post Op-Ed is a Remarkable Document

Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post Op-Ed Is a Remarkable Document

Mark Antonio Wright for National Review

The most interesting aspect of Jeff Bezos’s op-ed in the Washington Post Monday evening explaining his newspaper’s decision to decline to endorse presidential candidates is that it appears to have been written by an actual human being rather than by an AI chat bot or a crack team of drones at a crisis PR firm, but I repeat myself.

It turns out that Mr. Bezos — the mega billionaire famous for his monomaniacal drive, who over the last 20 years has quite literally transformed American retail and commerce and inserted himself into the daily lives of almost every last one of my countrymen, and who is ultimately responsible for the artistic murder-suicide that is The Rings of Power — is a human after all. Amazing.

Jokes aside, Bezos displays a remarkable amount of self-reflection for someone involved in one of the English-speaking world’s most important and most famous news organs. (You may have heard that honest self-reflection isn’t always the legacy media’s strong suit.) If you’re concerned about the long-term trajectory of the American press and the long-term decline in the public’s trust and confidence in institutions that were once extremely important to the functioning of our republic, it’s worth reading.

“Let me give an analogy,” Bezos writes. “Voting machines must meet two requirements.”

They must count the vote accurately, and people must believe they count the vote accurately. The second requirement is distinct from and just as important as the first.

Likewise with newspapers. We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.

Bezos adds: “Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, ‘I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.’ None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.”

I happen to think that decision makes a lot of sense for the Washington Post. If an endorsement at the top of the ticket isn’t changing any minds, and if it’s only serving to solidify a view that the paper is biased against one party, then it seems worth dropping — especially if the goal is to reach a broader audience, as Bezos says it should be. Indeed, Bezos notes that as recently as the ’90s, the Post “achieved 80 percent household penetration in the D.C. metro area.” He doesn’t say what the paper’s reach is these days, but the implication is that the numbers have cratered.

Now, I’m not against endorsements in all contexts. For example, I find my hometown paper, the Tulsa World, a very useful resource when it endorses in local races. Even if I don’t agree with an endorsement — and I often don’t — a well-written and well-argued endorsement of a city-council, mayoral, or other local race in which information can be relatively scarce can provide some insight that can be tough to come by otherwise. But a presidential race is one that is supercharged and oversaturated with information. And I agree with Bezos in that I don’t think any American is waiting around to be persuaded by what the Washington Post — as an institution — thinks, and it makes a lot of sense for it to keep its powder dry.

One other thing: It’s notable that Bezos twice mentions that so many Americans “are turning to off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts and other unverified news sources.” Is this a dig at Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk? I find it hard to see how it isn’t.

There’s no doubt in my mind that, at their best, newspapers — complete with careful editing and fact checking — benefit the public. At their worst, of course, they are next to useless.

But, on the other hand, I think almost all Americans are beginning to realize that while social media can sometimes break news or highlight undercovered stories that are being ignored by the mainstream press, at its worst, social media is genuinely toxic to the body politic. Say what you will about the Washington Post or the New York Times, but even those sometimes very silly organizations are usually much, much better sources of accurate news than your Uncle Jerry’s Facebook feed or whatever trash the Twitter algorithm serves up on its “For You” feed. In all cases, of course, what’s needed is a layer of discernment on the part of the reader.

At the end of the day, Jeff Bezos is in the somewhat unique position of owning a major news organization while not needing it to actually make any money. That’s of course different from saying that Jeff Bezos wouldn’t prefer the Post to operate in the black. Naturally, he would. Billionaires don’t become billionaires by developing holes in their pockets. But it does mean that one of the two or three richest men on earth can afford to subsidize an organization dedicated to the pursuit of truth. And it seems that if Bezos is going to continue paying the bills, he’s going to insist that the Post start to change the way it does its work.

I don’t think there are very many conservatives who think that the Washington Post doesn’t have a long way to go on this front. But Bezos’s forthrightness and openness in explaining himself is as good a start towards the reputational rehabilitation that the Post requires as could be hoped for.

If Jeff Bezos wants to invest money, time, effort, and prestige into producing a better sort of legacy media organization, one that can reestablish trust across a broad spectrum of the American public, I’m not sure I’d bet the mortgage that he’s going to succeed — but I would at least like to see him try.

Below is the entirety of his opinion piece.

Opinion The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media
A note from our owner.

October 28, 2024 at 7:26 p.m. EDT
Jeff Bezos is the owner of The Washington Post.

In the annual public surveys about trust and reputation, journalists and the media have regularly fallen near the very bottom, often just above Congress. But in this year’s Gallup poll, we have managed to fall below Congress. Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working.

Let me give an analogy. Voting machines must meet two requirements. They must count the vote accurately, and people must believe they count the vote accurately. The second requirement is distinct from and just as important as the first.

Likewise with newspapers. We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.

Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, “I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.” None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one. Eugene Meyer, publisher of The Washington Post from 1933 to 1946, thought the same, and he was right. By itself, declining to endorse presidential candidates is not enough to move us very far up the trust scale, but it’s a meaningful step in the right direction. I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it. That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy.

I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision. It was made entirely internally. Dave Limp, the chief executive of one of my companies, Blue Origin, met with former president Donald Trump on the day of our announcement. I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision. But the fact is, I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand. Even Limp didn’t know about it in advance; the meeting was scheduled quickly that morning. There is no connection between it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any suggestion otherwise is false.

When it comes to the appearance of conflict, I am not an ideal owner of The Post. Every day, somewhere, some Amazon executive or Blue Origin executive or someone from the other philanthropies and companies I own or invest in is meeting with government officials. I once wrote that The Post is a “complexifier” for me. It is, but it turns out I’m also a complexifier for The Post.

You can see my wealth and business interests as a bulwark against intimidation, or you can see them as a web of conflicting interests. Only my own principles can tip the balance from one to the other. I assure you that my views here are, in fact, principled, and I believe my track record as owner of The Post since 2013 backs this up. You are of course free to make your own determination, but I challenge you to find one instance in those 11 years where I have prevailed upon anyone at The Post in favor of my own interests. It hasn’t happened.

Lack of credibility isn’t unique to The Post. Our brethren newspapers have the same issue. And it’s a problem not only for media, but also for the nation. Many people are turning to off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts and other unverified news sources, which can quickly spread misinformation and deepen divisions. The Washington Post and the New York Times win prizes, but increasingly we talk only to a certain elite. More and more, we talk to ourselves. (It wasn’t always this way — in the 1990s we achieved 80 percent household penetration in the D.C. metro area.)

While I do not and will not push my personal interest, I will also not allow this paper to stay on autopilot and fade into irrelevance — overtaken by unresearched podcasts and social media barbs — not without a fight. It’s too important. The stakes are too high. Now more than ever the world needs a credible, trusted, independent voice, and where better for that voice to originate than the capital city of the most important country in the world? To win this fight, we will have to exercise new muscles. Some changes will be a return to the past, and some will be new inventions. Criticism will be part and parcel of anything new, of course. This is the way of the world. None of this will be easy, but it will be worth it. I am so grateful to be part of this endeavor. Many of the finest journalists you’ll find anywhere work at The Washington Post, and they work painstakingly every day to get to the truth. They deserve to be believed.

I will give him credit for his effort. Having said that, one wonders if it may be self serving. Should Trump win, imposition of higher tariffs on imports from China would have an outsized impact on Amazon. Of other consideration is his positioning himself to be part of any “business roundtable”. Again, for his personal advantage.

1 November 2024
The Greatest Scandal in Modern History That No One Cares About

The Greatest Scandal in Modern American History That No One Cares About

By: Ben Shapiro

AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

A little over eight weeks ago, President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, despite being the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee and only true primary vote recipient. He was forced out by the party elite, who watched his debate with Donald Trump and saw what most of America already knew: that Biden is senile. Biden was promptly replaced by Kamala Harris, his vice president, who has since solidified Democratic turnout and is running neck-and-neck with Trump.

But something strange has happened since Biden’s ouster: the country went back to ignoring Joe Biden’s senility. Photographs and footage of Biden asleep at the beach in Delaware have filled X feeds for weeks since he dropped out of the race. Just last week, Biden turned over a full Cabinet meeting to his wife, Jill, who sat herself at the head of the table and proceeded to lecture Constitutional appointees on women’s health issues. Within 48 hours, Biden completely forgot the world leader he was supposed to introduce at a Quad summit, snarling at his aides, “Thank you all for being here and now, uhh, who am I introducing next? Who’s next?” The leader, as it turns out, was Narendra Modi, prime minister of the most populous country on earth, India.

So, why isn’t it something of an issue that the most powerful seat on the planet — the presidency of the United States — is being currently held as a sort of emeritus position by a doddering old fool? Why has an office once held by George Washington and Abraham Lincoln been treated as a sort of throwaway gift to a career corrupt politician, like a gold-plated watch or a set of steak knives handed to a past-his-prime salesman at a Motel 6 retirement reception?

The answer is simple: the person tasked with invoking the 25th Amendment so as to protect the presidency is Kamala Harris. And Harris cannot oust Biden. Were she to do so, that would lead to a pitched battle with Biden himself — and Biden is already fighting mad, during his waking hours, at his defenestration at her hands. But more importantly, Harris cannot oust Biden because were she to do so, she would make explicit that which has remained implicit: she is the sitting vice president of the United States and thus responsible for the actions of the Biden-Harris administration.

The entire Democratic Party gambit — their sleight-of-hand shell game — relies on Biden as the red herring. Were the American people to tie Harris to Biden’s record, she would lose the presidency. She has been, instead, proclaiming that she “isn’t Joe Biden” while at the same time dissociating from zero of his policies. It’s quite the trick. And it could only work with a compliant media and with Joe Biden still retaining the title of acting president. The minute she takes over, she becomes responsible for all of it. And Biden’s record is the shoddiest of any president of our lifetimes.

And so the presidency will be sacrificed in order to advance the ambitions of Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party. The world will continue to spiral into chaos thanks to the leadership vacuum at the helm of the United States. And the Democrat-media human centipede will continue to ignore the absolute scandal that takes place every day at the White House, where a clearly befuddled octogenarian staggers from his living quarters to make unintelligible sounds before the cameras as the world burns.

COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM

If Mr. Shapiro means the news media, then no they are not talking about and, even with a gun to their head, would ignore it. With Jill running the Cabinet meeting last week, one wonders are we on Edith Wilson, II? I recall her tweets about preparing for the G5, picturing her seated at the Presidential desk on AF1. She has probably acted more often than we can know. Remember all the long weekends at the beach? She was likely Edithing then.

27 September 2024
Under Weak Democrat Leadership, U.S. Unprepared For Looming WarWith China

Under Weak Democrat Leadership, U.S. Unprepared For Looming War With China

BY: HELEN RALEIGH for The Federalist

The Biden-Harris administration has hamstrung the U.S. military even as China’s army, navy, and air force are on the rise.

The Commission on the National Defense Strategy recently released a report warning that the United States faces the most severe and pressing defense challenges since 1945. The report not only emphasizes the potential for a near-term major war but also underscores the urgent need for action, making the gravity of the situation clear.

The commission, having meticulously reviewed both public and classified information, has identified China and Russia as major adversaries seeking to undermine the United States’ global influence. However, the commission’s greatest concern lies with China. Its report reveals that “in many ways, China is outpacing the United States and has largely negated the U.S. military advantage in the Western Pacific through two decades of focused military investment,” which is a cause for grave concern.

The commission estimates that China spends about $711 billion annually on defense, although some experts estimate it to be around $474 billion. The wide range of estimates for China’s defense spending is due to the Communist regime’s notorious practice of hiding the actual scope of its defense spending from its published government annual budget. Some speculate that Beijing might have underreported its past defense spending by as much as 40 percent.

One thing is sure: China’s yearly defense spending is climbing steadily upward, which poses a serious threat to the United States and its allies, as it allows China to further develop its military capabilities and potentially challenge the current global order.

The commission noted that China already has “the largest aviation force in its region” and the largest army and navy globally (with 370 ships and submarines). In its recent report, the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), a think tank based in Washington, D.C., points out that the Chinese military is on a war footing, as the regime “is heavily investing in munitions and acquiring high-end weapons systems and equipment five to six times faster than the United States … China is now the world’s largest shipbuilder and has a shipbuilding capacity roughly 230 times larger than the United States.”

Besides preparing for the war itself, China has been deepening its economic and military ties with other U.S. adversaries, including Russia, Iran, and North Korea, helping enhance their military and economic power to cause a menace to the U.S. influence worldwide. For example, China and Russia established a “no-limits” partnership in February 2022, right before Russia invaded Ukraine. Since then, through purchasing Russian oil and gas and agriculture products, China has been propping up Russia’s economy and minimizing the effect of economic sanctions the West has imposed on Russia.

On the military front, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified at a congressional hearing that “China’s provision of dual use components and material to Russia’s defense industry is one of several factors that tilted the momentum on the battlefield in Ukraine in Moscow’s favor, while also accelerating a reconstitution of Russia’s military strength after their extraordinarily costly invasion.”

The commission is deeply troubled by the United States’ unpreparedness as the global security landscape grows increasingly perilous. The U.S. military, lacking the necessary capabilities and capacity, may be unable to confidently deter hostile nations or prevail in combat. This urgent and pressing situation, exacerbated by the Department of Defense’s convoluted “research and development (R&D) and procurement systems, reliance on decades-old military hardware, and a culture of risk avoidance,” demands immediate attention and action.

However, the major constraint of the U.S. military’s capacity and capability has been the Biden-Harris administration’s defense budget cut (after inflation) four years in a row. Take the administration’s 2025 budget, for example. The U.S. Army is asking for 442,300 troops, a decline from 485,000 in 2022. The U.S. Navy will have 287 ships in 2025, down from 296 today. Navy experts estimated that to defeat the Chinese navy in a battle at sea, the U.S. Navy “needs about 350 ships and another 150 unmanned or lightly manned vessels, for a total of 500.” The United States military has been on a trajectory of managed decline under the Biden-Harris administration. It is crucial that we advocate for increased defense budget allocation to address these issues.

The Biden-Harris administration’s decision to accumulate significant national debt on domestic initiatives like the Green New Deal while reducing U.S. defense spending is also a matter of urgent concern. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) has reported that the interest payment on our national debt has already exceeded government spending on national defense, a situation that demands immediate attention, especially as the potential for near-term major war has increased.

Another alarming sign of the United States’ unpreparedness for war is the negative effect its military support of Ukraine has had on U.S. military stockpiles. The support has led to a depletion of America’s inventory of certain weapons and ammunitions, underscoring that “the U.S. defense industrial base (DIB) is unable to meet the equipment, technology, and munitions needs of the United States and its allies and partners.” The DIB’s limited capacity to “produce, maintain, and replenish weapons and munitions” will severely hamper the U.S. military’s fighting capability.

Furthermore, the commission warns that a military conflict with a near-peer such as China will result in staggering military and economic costs. Even without a full-out war, “the global economic damage from a Chinese blockade of Taiwan has been estimated to cost $5 trillion, or 5 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP),” which will certainly affect American businesses and consumers.

The commission is concerned that “the U.S. public are largely unaware of the dangers the United States faces or the costs (financial and otherwise) required to adequately prepare. They do not appreciate the strength of China and its partnerships or the ramifications to daily life if a conflict were to erupt. They are not anticipating disruptions to their power, water, or access to all the goods on which they rely. They have not internalized the costs of the United States losing its position as a world superpower.” This concern is a serious one because the United States will not win an all-out war against adversaries such as China without the support and resolve of the American public.

The commission closes its gloomy report with a list of recommendations, two of which are notable. First, “Congress should pass a supplemental appropriation immediately to begin a multiyear investment in the national security innovation and industrial base.” Among other things, this supplemental appropriation would help “expand industrial capacity,” “harden facilities in Asia,” and “secure access to critical minerals.” Second, “for fiscal year 2025, real growth in defense and nondefense national security spending is needed and, at a bare minimum, should fall within the range recommended by the 2018 NDS Commission.”

Ultimately, the American public must be made aware of the potential grave threats we face and factor this into their decisions this November. Do Americans want to elect someone who will continue to impose policies that accelerate America’s economic and military decline and relinquish America’s global leadership role or someone who will stop America’s self-imposed decline, introduce policies that will strengthen this nation economically and militarily, and make America great again?

Make no mistake: An economically and militarily powerful America is the best deterrent of World War III.

The Democrats are to entrenched in their Russia, Russia, Russia mantra to worry about little ole China. My contention is they worry about Russia because Putin has a frowns face. Xi has a nice smile; therefore, we not worry about China.

25 September 2024
USA Today Attacks Caitlin Clark and Patrick Mahomes for Not Being Political

USA Today Attacks Caitlin Clark and Patrick Mahomes for Not Being Political, Jabs MJ for Good Measure

by Bryan Chai, The Western Journal Sep. 21, 2024

You truly don’t despise the establishment media enough.

That holds especially true when you’re dealing with a shamelessly liberal raglike USA Today.

The latest reminder about the stark decline of American journalism came on Sept. 13, when USA Today’s Nancy Armour penned one of the most inane, pathetic and infantilizing articles imaginable — the kind you actually have to read to believe.

The opening line alone deserves a hearty guffaw.

“Not every athlete can be LeBron James or Megan Rapinoe,” Armour wrote.

(And thank God for that. Those two are insufferable enough on their own.)

Armour then took a jab at NBA legend Michael Jordan, who infamously stayed away from politics, even to the chagrin of fellow prominent Chicagoan Barack Obama.

“Remember Michael Jordan’s comment about Republicans buying shoes?” Amrour continued. “There’s a long history of athletes putting as much space as possible between themselves and controversy, and what Caitlin Clark and Patrick Mahomes did this week was no different.”

Oh, brother.

For the blissfully unaware, in the week leading up to Armour’s hit piece, Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes both declined to offer any sort of statement on who people should vote for in the forthcoming election.

Clark was dragged into this conversation when she liked a social media postfrom pop czarina Taylor Swift (Clark is a noted fan) touting her support for Vice President Kamala Harris, the topper of the Democratic presidential ticket. Clark has since declined to actually endorse a candidate.

Similarly, Mahomes was dragged into this cultural handwringing by virtue of his wife, Brittany Mahomes. She, not unlike Clark, liked a social media post, but in this case, it was a post in support of former President Donald Trump, the top of the Republican presidential ticket. When pressed on the backlash to that, Mahomes — just like Clark — effectively said he doesn’t care about a person’s politics, just how they treat other people.

These mature, thoughtful responses from Clark and Mahomes, however, don’t quite cut the mustard for Armour, who went seeking validation from David Niven, an associate professor of political science at the University of Cincinnati who teaches a course on sports and politics.

“It’s more than nothing, but it doesn’t put them on the front lines of the discussion,” Niven said.

“If you look at all this by the LeBron James standard, somebody who could not have been more outspoken … this looks like a little bit of a retreat,” Niven explained. “If you look at it by Derek Jeter and Michael Jordan’s standards, you’d say there’s still an awful lot of political activism out there.”

And that’s exactly where political activism should stay in sports, “out there,” because by definition, partisan politics will divide, or “part,” which is literally in the word.

Why is USA Today trying to encourage pro athletes to drive division?

Oh right, USA Today hates Trump and everything he stands for. Armour is trying so desperately to shame people for maybe-or-maybe-not supporting Trump, it’s actually somewhat embarrassing for her.

(And if there’s any question about where Armour’s politics stand, she dedicated entire paragraphs excoriating Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance in her asinine piece.)

“Elite athletes are born with unique physical gifts and singular dedication,” Armour wrote at the end of her idiotic thesis. “Moral courage is something they have to find for themselves, and this week was a reminder that not many do.”

Oh, bugger off, Nancy. If Clark and Mahomes are missing “moral courage,” you’re missing “moral intellect” for jeering athletes who want nothing to do with divisive politics.

As the great Charles Barkley once said, “I am not a role model. I am not paid to be a role model. I am paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. Parents should be role models.”

As long as Clark and Mahomes keep playing the way they do, that’s what matters most.

Leave the ideological and political equivocations out of sports. It’s really that simple, no matter how USA Today screeches about it.

As many know, I am a big Clark fan. Other than the fact it is no one’s business, another reason for her to stay silent is the fact it could adversely impact the huge influence she is having (financially) for the WNBA. Imagine the furor if she came out for Trump. They would be howling she should not have endorsed anyone.

23 September 2024
Post Turtle

Today’s amusement topic is all Kamala.

Examining a 75 year old farmer, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic turned to Kamala Harris and her role as Democrat Nominee for President.

The farmer said, ” Well, as I see it, Kamala Harris is like a ‘Post Turtle’.”

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a ‘Post Turtle’ was.

The old farmer said, “When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a ‘Post Turtle’.”

The old farmer saw the puzzled look on the doctor’s face so he continued to explain.

“You know she didn’t get up there by herself, she doesn’t belong up there, she doesn’t know what to do while she’s up there, she’s elevated beyond her ability to function, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with.”

5 September 2024
The Fed’s Fiat Money Is the Real Cause of Price Inflation

The Fed’s Fiat Money Is the Real Cause of Price Inflation

By: Tom Mullen for mises.org

During election years, incumbent presidents are routinely blamed for every societal ill during the previous four years. And almost nothing is riper for the picking than a significant rise in consumer prices. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), prices are currently increasing at a rate of 3 percent year over year and peaked at 8 percent during President Biden’s term in 2022.

That is significantly higher “inflation,” as the BLS defines it, than American consumers have experienced in decades. But as economically harmful as many of President Biden’s policies may have been, no president can cause prices in general to rise. Neither can Congress or “greedy corporations.”

Incidentally, “inflation” as an economic term originally meant the creation of new money and credit, not rising prices. Those wishing to confuse the public on which is the cause and which the effect has gradually redefined inflation as rising prices. Check any hard copy Merriam-Webster dictionary printed in the 20th century and see for yourself.

Only the Federal Reserve can cause a general rise in prices and only when it creates new US dollars that didn’t previously exist (inflation).

To further deflect the blame for rising prices away from the culprit, the public is constantly given other reasons for this phenomenon. Each one of them can be eliminated using a priori reasoning.

For example, energy policy is often blamed. President Biden restricted drilling on federal land and canceled the permits for multiple oil pipelines, thus decreasing the supply of oil.

Decreasing the supply of oil and gasoline causes their prices to rise. But without the creation of new money, it must necessarily reduce demand for everything else.

Consider a simple model. There is a total of $100 in the entire economy; $50 is currently being spent on Commodity A and $50 on Commodity B. If the price of A were to increase by 20 percent, then purchasing the same units of A would cost $60. That would leave only $40 with which to purchase B.

The economic actors in this imaginary economy could purchase less of A, less of B, or less of both. But they could not go one purchasing the same amounts of both goods because there are not enough dollars in the economy to make that possible.

If they do not reduce their demand for A at the higher price, they will necessarily reduce their demand for B and the price of B will fall. If they reduce their demand for A, the price of A will fall. If they reduce their demand for both A and B, the prices of both A and B will fall.

While it is true that the US economy is far more complex than this, the same principle still holds. Without the creation of new dollars, the increase in price of one or more products must be offset by a reduction in demand and therefore the price of others.

Assume the US economy is producing $30 trillion GDP per year and spends $6 trillion per year on oil and gasoline and $24 trillion on everything else. If government policy causes the cost of oil and gasoline to rise to $7 trillion per year, the economy can no longer continue spending $24 trillion on everything else because it will run out of dollars when the $30 trillionth dollar is spent.

Now, in reality, a rise in the price of oil and gasoline will necessarily reduce the quantity demanded for oil and gasoline as some spending on these is discretionary. But this doesn’t change the dynamic. It merely means the upward pressure on the price of oil and gasoline is muted a bit as is the downward pressure on the price of everything else.

“But wait,” some will argue, “higher oil and gas prices also raise the price of myriad other products, since they are all delivered to market using oil or gasoline.” This argument faces the same problem. The economy can only spend the dollars that currently exist. No matter how many different products are made more expensive by government policies, demand is limited to the existing dollars.

For the increased price of one or many products not to be offset by reduced demand for others, new dollars must enter the economy. This is the only way it is possible to spend more on A and go on spending the same or more on everything else.

New dollars can only be created permanently by the Federal Reserve. The reason prices have steadily risen over the past 111 years is because the Fed has constantly increased the supply of dollars over that period.

The reason prices rose so much more over the past four years than they had previously is the Federal Reserve created far more dollars in the past four years than it has on average during the past century.

One can verify this either by looking at the Fed’s balance sheet or the monetary base. Both are slightly different yardsticks for measuring the amount of new money created by the Fed. They both show massive increases over historical trends beginning in 2020.

It is true that commercial banks can increase the money supply due to fractional reserve policies. Because they can simultaneously lend out deposits and keep them available on demand for depositors, they create new money with each new loan. However, this ability is limited and ultimately requires new base money from the Fed to avoid reaching an equilibrium level.

There are several other arguments made for the cause of general price level increases that all suffer from the same problem as our example above.

One is that excessive government spending itself causes price increases. But while government spending often creates the conditions for new money creation by the Fed, it does not directly cause general price increases. Any money the government takes from taxpayers necessarily reduces their purchasing power and offsets the spending by the government.

Similarly, when the government borrows existing dollars from lenders, it necessarily reduces the purchasing power of the lenders.

It is only when the government borrows the money from the Fed, meaning the Fed buys government bonds with newly created dollars, that the government can spend more money without reducing the purchasing power of others.

By signing the CARES ACT and other Covid relief spending, President Trump authorized expenditures far beyond what the government could borrow from lenders of existing dollars. So, the Fed created trillions in new dollars to underwrite the difference.

President Biden also signed into law trillions more in excess government spending on the ironically named “Inflation Reduction Act” and other programs. Again, the Fed made the additional spending possible by buying government bonds with newly created dollars.

Trump and Biden’s spending created reasons for the Fed to inflate the currency, but it was the currency inflation and not the spending that caused the subsequent general rise in prices.

Rising prices have also been blamed on “supply shocks” due to the Covid lockdowns. By shutting down a huge percentage of businesses in the economy, the government drastically reduced the overall supply of goods and services. With lower supply, says this argument, comes increased prices, all things being equal.

But all things were not equal. Had the government merely prevented people from working, it wouldn’t have merely been supply that decreased but demand as well. As much as the Keynesians would like to ignore him, Monsieur Say was correct. People producing nothing would have no means to go on consuming.

They were only able to do so because the government paid them not to work. And they weren’t paid with existing dollars that would have reduced the demand of whoever provided them. They were sent newly created dollars to replace their lost wages.

Probably no argument for the cause of higher prices is more absurd than “corporate greed.” Politicians resort to this argument to deflect blame. But no matter how greedy corporations are or become, they have no power to increase general price levels.

First, every corporation always seeks maximum profit. If this is greed, then corporations are always greedy. There would be no reason for them to suddenly become greedier just at the moment when consumer prices are rising. On the contrary, corporations generally compete by trying to lower their prices to undercut competitors.

But even if corporations did suddenly all decide at once, through coincidence or collusion, to raise their prices at the same time, this could not cause prices in general to rise. It would merely force consumers to make different decisions on what they purchase and what they do not. Consumers would pay the higher prices for those products most important to them, then the next important, and so on until they ran out of money. They would forgo those items lower on their value scales they could no longer afford, putting downward pressure on the prices of those products.

There are many other non-monetary arguments made for what is commonly called “inflation,” but they all fail for the same reasons as those analyzed here. There is no way to increase the price of one product without a corresponding fall in the demand for others unless new dollars are added to the economy. It’s the Fed, stupid.

I have zero problem raising my hand and freely admitting my knowledge on this topic is slim to none. What I do know is Biden/Harris, et al use the trope inflation has declined to avoid the issue of costs for everyday necessities. According to them costs have not gone up because inflation is down. Keep in mind these are people who have no clue what everyday necessities cost as they do not manage their e eryday expenses.

4 September 2024
Kamala’s Gospel of Envy

Kamala’s Gospel of Envy

Can you buy votes by attracting freeloaders?

August 29, 2024 by Terry Paulson for Frontpagemag.com

Winston Churchill warned the free world 80 years ago: “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Yes, a gospel of envy can be attractive to anyone who doesn’t have to pay for what they want. It’s easy to understand why “equity” is such a powerful word in the progressive world of the left. Equal opportunity is for conservatives. After hours of watching the Democratic National Convention, it’s clear that leftists feel they are entitled to equal results no matter how little people have to do to earn those results. Can you buy votes by attracting freeloaders? The left seems to think so.

It’s clear that many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, credit card debt is hitting record highs, and their savings have shrunk or all but disappeared. President Biden has boasted that wages are up, but when you take into account inflation, real wages have declined. The average household has lost nearly $2,000 of purchasing power since Biden and Harris took office. So, it is no wonder that “free” sounds pretty attractive. Maybe that is why Kamala Harris is calling herself the candidate of “joy” for all the people, but the Biden/Harris policies have ravaged the middle class she says she is here to serve. Her acceptance speech at the convention was an emotional message to fight for all, but her vicious and inaccurate attacks on Trump were so over the top and filled with lies that she proved to be the worst divider of all. She went from joy and love to anger and attacks without substance.

President John F. Kennedy campaigned with a message of personal responsibility—“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for our country.” Today’s leftists don’t want to hear about what they have to do for our country; they want to know what they are going to get from their government. The left feels entitled to the American Dream by just living here.

Many Democrats attack J.D. Vance, the GOP vice presidential nominee, calling him weird and judgmental. After all, Vance pulled himself up from extreme poverty to attend Yale, write a book, become the subject of a movie, be elected as a US Senator, and now campaign to become the next vice president. Democrats can’t stand anyone who dares to earn their American Dream.

Democrats want as many citizens as possible dependent on the government. How do you do that? You give them government freebies to feed their addiction to government entitlements. How do you win elections? You sell them on all the new free things they can expect if you win.

The Kamala Harris/Tim Walz ticket seems to have no qualms about promising the world if only they are elected. After all, even after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against it, the Biden/Harris administration searched for ways to authorize Uncle Sam to pay off dead beats who refused to pay back student loans. The Wallstreet Journal wonders why stop there. Why not bail out unpaid mortgages and credit card debts? Spread the joy, Kamala. Let me count the ways:

After opening the Southern border to let millions of illegals enter, why not give them Social Security, a free education, and Medicare while you’re waiting for them to have the right to citizenship…and then vote to keep Democrats in office out of gratitude?

But what about citizens who already vote? A call for a big raise in the minimum wage is just the beginning. Let’s up the promise of Republicans to expand the child tax credit to $5,000; let’s make it $6,000. Let’s promise price controls on rent, groceries, and drugs. Why trust capitalism’s supply and demand to make the economy work as it has for two centuries when you can trust Washington bureaucrats to control those greedy, price gouging pharmaceuticals, grocers, and apartment owners?

Democrats don’t want you to ask the uncomfortable questions about the consequences of such policies. Why invest billions in developing new drugs when many never make it to market and you can’t get the revenue to cover the costs? Why farm, package products, and stock your local grocery if bureaucrats won’t let you make a profit? Why build another home or apartment building to rent when you can’t charge enough to cover your investment?

It’s time for a little uncomfortable truth telling. Nothing is really free that comes from government. Someone is paying for the entitlement people are receiving. What about taxing the rich? Don’t let the fact that between 2001 and 2021, the top 5 percent of wage earners went from paying 52.2 percent to 65.6 percent of the tax load, while the share paid by all other taxpayers declined. To Democrats, they are still not paying their fair share!

Milton Friedman said, “The true cost of government is what government spends, not what is labeled as ‘taxes.’” After all, who needs taxes when you can keep expanding your national debt and pushing payments decades down the line. In Washington, the central bank printing press is active, and Kamala’s promises will move that printing into overtime. But thankfully, Republicans still believe in freedom, capitalism, lower taxes, and less government spending. Under President Trump, federal revenue increased even when taxes were lowered. Why? American energy independence kept energy prices lower and inflation in check. He cut many punitive regulations that encouraged small business growth.

Don’t fall for the freebies and lies. The American Dream has always been earned. Instead of looking to Washington, look at the mirror and elect a president who will help reward your efforts to seize your own opportunity in this amazing country. Join those working hard to elect Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. Settle for nothing less!

30 August 2024
Incompetence or Malice?

Incompetence or Malice?

Who ordered the hit on Donald Trump?

August 29, 2024 by Robert Spencer for Frontpage mag.com

Who ordered the assassination of Donald Trump?

The Secret Service has found its scapegoats. Fox News reported Thursday that “at least five members of the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) have been placed on administrative leave following the July 13 assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.” This means that “the five are still employed,” drawing your hard-earned money, “but are teleworking and are no longer allowed in the field. They cannot do any investigative work.” That’s good, but it’s not even close to being enough.

These five agents are not responsible for the Secret Service’s July 13 debacle. There were just too many inexplicable mistakes, all committed by veteran agents, including the head of the agency — all of whom were Democrats — for this not to have been a set-up. So why isn’t the “news media” asking the real question: who ordered the hit on President Trump?

The Secret Service, says Fox, has “concluded internal interviews to understand how Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to fire several shots from the AGR building in Butler,” a building that was so close to Trump that there should have been no question of the Secret Service securing it. Yet Crooks was able to climb onto its roof and shoot at Trump despite being spotted by numerous individuals long before he got off his eight shots. Even worse, “text messages sent by local law enforcement responsible for monitoring the rally flagged Crooks to colleagues as suspicious at least 90 minutes before he opened fire. Despite this, he was still able to shoot at Trump and the crowd.”

Crooks should have been spotted before then as well. CBS News reportedon July 24 that FBI director Christopher Wray “told members of the House Judiciary Committee that the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, flew a drone near the site of the rally roughly two hours before he opened fire. Wray said investigators recovered the drone in Crooks’ vehicle, and the bureau believes he was watching video streamed from the device to scout the area.”

This murderous leftist was flying a drone at the site where the focus of the left’s furious hatred was about to speak, and then ambled onto the site heavily armed, and still the would-be assassin wasn’t stopped. Yet even that is not the end of the Secret Service’s failures on July 13. National Review noted Friday that “another hinderance to the Secret Service’s communications was the poor phone service at the Butler rally, Rowe said. The lack of bandwidth delayed the Secret Service’s deployment of drones, and prevented them from detecting the drone Crooks flew around the perimeter of the rally at roughly 3:51 p.m. on the day of the shooting….Rowe could not explain how Crooks was able to fly his drone but the Secret Service could not, and he expressed regret for the agency’s choice to decline local law enforcement’s offer to fly drones overhead.”

Is the Secret Service really that incompetent, or did its top officials want Trump dead? Could it be that Crooks could fly his drone and the Secret Service couldn’t fly theirs because someone powerful wanted Trump’s assassin to be able to do his work without hindrance?

In light of that being a valid question, is it even possible for the Secret Service to conduct an adequate investigation? The evidence that the assassination attempt took place with the collusion of its top officials is mounting up. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on Friday “revealed that a Secret Service whistleblower has come forward to claim that officials at Secret Service headquarters encouraged agents in charge of the rally not to request any extra security assets in their formal planning request.”

Hawley also noted that “counter-snipers were ultimately approved but only a day before the event and that a separate whistleblower claimed previously that CSD [Counter Sniper Division] personnel would have handcuffed the gunman after he was spotted in the parking lot with a rangefinder.” Yet he wasn’t.

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on July 30, Acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe admitted that he “cannot defend” the long list of the agency’s July 13 security failures. Yet nearly a month has passed since then, and no one has been fired; there are just a handful agents who are working from home. That doesn’t seem like an agency that is mortified over its abject failure and determined to clean house.

The problem that the American people face in asking all these questions is the same one we face in demanding accountability for the crimes and corruption of leading leftist politicians, from Old Joe Biden on down: the people who would hold them accountable are also corrupt leftists, and have no interest in seeing the full truth revealed or justice done. Consequently, we may never know the full story of what happened on July 13. Our only hope is that the Secret Service and the people who are giving it orders are stopped, perhaps on Nov. 5 and in a subsequent housecleaning, before they can do very much more damage.

Shortly after the ‘event’ there was an article titled “Incompetent or Complicit”. Now, we have this article. I am going to go with maliciously complicit as my judgment.

30 August 2024
Strong Capable Woman Asks Man To…

Strong, Capable Woman Asks Man To Come With Her To Job Interview In Case They Ask Any Hard Questions

From The Bee

U.S. — A strong, capable, independent, girlboss of a woman that “don’t need no man” has reportedly asked a man to accompany her on a job interview in case there are any hard questions.

Tim Walz, running mate for Kamala Harris on her 2024 presidential campaign, didn’t need any further explanation. “Yeah, okay,” he sighed. “I knew what I was signing up for.”

According to sources, the pair prepped for the softball interview long into the night. Walz had hoped to prepare her enough that he wouldn’t have to go, but reluctantly, he called it a night after she failed to answer a question about her favorite ice cream flavor.

“Come on, this is easy,” said Walz.

“Well, there’s just so many flavors!” Harris said, unable to contain her laughter. “There’s chocolate, of course; always a classic. And vanilla! Right? But what is flavor? The flavor is what our tongue likes. If it likes something, right? Then we like it. You know? And ice cream is more expensive these days. It’s getting harder and harder to put ice cream on the table. And I know that because I also have a table. I have a house. I have a car. But some people don’t have those. So basically, that’s bad.”

At publishing time, Kamala Harris had been asked about Israel but fortunately Tim Walz had interrupted just in time by shouting, “I like dogs!”

A Babylon Bee subscriber contributed to this report. If you want to pitch your own headline ideas to our staff, click here to check out all of our membership options!

This was simply to timely andgood to pass up posting.

29 August 2024