On August 24, President Joe Biden made the much-anticipated announcement of student loan forgiveness. Low- to middle-income borrowers will see as much as $20,000 erased from their federal loan balances in the coming months.
While the cancellation announcement comes as a victory for the Biden administration, there’s growing anxiety about how this could exacerbate an already bloated inflation rate. As high prices continue to stress wallets, nearly 3 out of 5 consumers say they worry that student loan forgiveness will worsen inflation.
But just how much the new loan forgiveness will affect inflation—and how its impact will make its way to consumers—is being debated by economists.
How Student Loan Forgiveness Could Affect Inflation
Americans collectively hold $1.75 trillion in student loan debt. In theory, less student debt to repay frees up cash that consumers could spend. This could increase demand and cause prices to jump. But economists remain divided over how much Biden’s plan will cause inflation to spike.
The few available estimates on Biden’s loan forgiveness program’s impact on inflation show a small impact, percentage-point wise, in the immediate future.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a nonprofit public policy organization, estimates that $10,000 of debt cancellation for borrowers making under $300,000 could add up to 15 basis points (0.15%) to the inflation rate “and create additional inflationary pressure over time.”
The CRFB’s estimate doesn’t factor in the income limits imposed by Biden’s newly released forgiveness plan. The relief targets individuals making less than $125,000 per year ($250,000 for those who file jointly).
“In the grand scheme of things, [the CRFB’s projection is] not that big of a deal. People aren’t going to notice,” says Patrick Gourley, associate professor of economics at the University of New Haven. “When you talk about even 10 basis points, that’s a tenth of a percent.”
Gourley adds that the forgiveness “isn’t going to generate large consumer spending,” which could be a factor to inflated prices.
This is because only 31% of borrowers would see their debt completely erased by Biden’s plan, according to a report from the New York Federal Reserve. That means the majority of borrowers will be again bound to monthly payments come January. Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, tweeted that the net factor of repayment and forgiveness combined “is largely a wash” on inflation.
Other economists have different takes. Jason Furman, professor of economics at Harvard and former economic advisor to President Barack Obama, described Biden’s student loan forgiveness program as reckless because people may expect debt forgiveness again in the future. He did add that the inflation impact will be “relatively small.”
As anyone who has looked at the rising gasoline prices might know, Biden’s inflationary continues
With Biden still directing energy policy and with a Democrat Senate, we can count on inflation. With Buttigieg available for paternity leave during shipping crises or as long as he does nothing about the issues with Southwest, we will have drivers for inflation.
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FDA launches study that could lead to removal of restrictions on blood donations by gay and bisexual men
Our purported friends at ABC and Good Morning America suggest that Biden’s FDA may find a way to allow men who have sex with men to contribute to the blood supply. This while they rename “monkeypox” to “m-pox” and try to convince us that there is no correlation between Democrat policies (like early release of felons, bail reform, …) and high crime rates in Democrat cities.
The FDA is sharing new details on a study it’s funding that could lead to the removal of longtime restrictions around blood donations by gay or bisexual men.
The first-of-its-kind pilot study aims to gather and present data to the FDA for review by late 2021, ABC News has learned exclusively.
A change in this FDA policy would mean that more gay and bisexual men would be able to give blood in the U.S. and end what critics have called discriminatory federal guidelines.
The U.K. announced on Monday it would lift its blanket blood-donation policy for all men who have had sex with men. The mandate, based solely on sexual preference, required all gay and bisexual men to abstain from sex with men for three months before being eligible to give blood.
The new criteria, hailed as “landmark change,” according to Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock, will instead focus on individualized risk-based assessments. The revised policy is designed to show that there’s no impact on the safety of blood donated in the U.K.
Just because Great Britian tried this and hasn’t yet collapsed isn’t enough of a reason to try it here
Great Britian’s healthcare system has been on a slow fail for at least 20 years. To ask us to follow their lead now is just stupid.
However, if there is a dedicated segment of the population that will vote for Democrats even after inflation flew from 5.75% to 11.5% over the past few years, then we may be able to also surmise that there is another group that is equally as stupid. And, of course, there is always the possibility that this all comes from a dedicated group of cheating idiots. Nonethless, it is all the same.
Who knows, with the 2022 midterms, we may find out all sorts of things to come. Biden’s coming term may be very revealing.
By the way, this post requires a hat tip to both Bunkerville (who commented on this topic two days prior) and The Lone Cactus (whose post was the genesis of this post).
Two years ago, with millions of people out of work and central bankers and politicians striving to lift the U.S. economy out of a pandemic-induced recession, inflation seemed like an afterthought. A year later, with unemployment falling and the inflation rate rising, many of those same policymakers insisted that the price hikes were “transitory” – a consequence of snarled supply chains, labor shortages and other issues that would right themselves sooner rather than later.
Now, with the inflation rate higher than it’s been since the early 1980s, Biden administration officials acknowledge that they missed their call. According to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the annual inflation rate in May was 8.6%, its highest level since 1981, as measured by the consumer price index. Other inflation metrics also have shown significant increases over the past year or so, though not quite to the same extent as the CPI.
Inflation in the United States was relatively low for so long that, for entire generations of Americans, rapid price hikes may have seemed like a relic of the distant past. Between the start of 1991 and the end of 2019, year-over-year inflation averaged about 2.3% a month, and exceeded 5.0% only four times. Today, Americans rate inflation as the nation’s top problem, and President Joe Biden has said addressing the problem is his top domestic priority.
But the U.S. is hardly the only place where people are experiencing inflationary whiplash. A Pew Research Center analysis of data from 44 advanced economies finds that, in nearly all of them, consumer prices have risen substantially since pre-pandemic times.
This stands in stark contrast to Biden’s claim “Our economy is as strong as hell”
For a “leader of the world” who was “elected by the people of the nation” to represent them, this guy misses the mark on numerous points.
Let me count the ways Biden goes wrong in this little clip:
Since his inauguration speech, Biden has made a practice of attacking those who voted for his opposition. Although he ran as a “great uniter,” Joe Biden
And screwed things up in so many more ways simply because either he is too old for the job or his handlers cannot step up to the task
Biden therefore also had the psyche of America misconstrued. Joe’s vision of America must be like looking into an arcade mirror. Hence, I had a desire to grab him by the collar and “implore” him to use some respect when addressing his superiors in the populace
Additionally, I would point him to data that shows how nations with worse inflation got it by doing what he is doing — they have just done it a bit longer. To say it bluntly, the ones that have worse inflation are placating their populations with printed money. They are buying off their voters with ever-more-expensive goods that “the government provides them.”
The nations that have lower inflation (with the exception of China — who has a stranglehold on their press), allow their populations to work and gather the rewards of their work.
So, here we are. “President” Slurp-and-Smack is bribing Americans with:
A massive influx of Latin American migrants in recent months has driven the city’s shelter system so close to collapse that Mayor Adams suggested Wednesday it’s warranted to reassess local homeless policies — including a long-standing law that assures the right to shelter for New York’s neediest.
The mayor floated the extraordinary proposal in a statement that also admitted his administration failed to provide shelter beds for roughly 60 homeless men on Monday night, forcing them to sleep on floors and benches at a Manhattan intake center. He said that was a result of the shelter system being overburdened by the arrival of more than 11,000 South and Central American migrants since May.
“The city’s system is nearing its breaking point. As a result, the city’s prior practices, which never contemplated the bussing of thousands of people into New York City, must be reassessed,” Adams said.
Though Adams’ statement didn’t explicitly mention the so-called “right-to-shelter” law, it’s the primary legal mechanism underpinning the city’s homeless policies.
But in a head-scratching twist, Adams spokesman Fabien Levy disputed the idea that the mayor was solely referring to the right-to-shelter law in calling for a reassessment of “prior practices.”
“We must reassess the entire situation,” Levy said. He would not say what rules besides right-to-shelter could fall within the scope of the mayor’s proposed reassessment.
Under the law, the city must provide a bed in a homeless shelter to anyone in need of one, regardless of immigration status or other circumstances. That has been the case since 1981, when the city entered a consent decree that established the right-to-shelter requirement. It’s unclear whether Adams would have authority to reassess right-to-shelter protocols, as the law is protected under the state constitution.
Advocacy groups, the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless, said Tuesday that Adams’ administration violated the right-to-shelter law when it didn’t provide beds for the approximately 60 men who were stuck at the intake center at 30th Street and First Avenue.
“Massive influx” in New York? As mentioned in other posts, New York has not seen 1/10th of one month of what Texas alone gets in a sector.
Over the past few months of complaining by the New York/Chicago/DC mayors, these “sanctuary cities” have only received 1/10th of the number of illegal aliens that came into one sector of Texas during one month.
Therefore, they’re not progressive, they’re pretenders. They’re not sanctuaries. They’re slaughterhouses of the souls.
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They could lower barriers to drilling and help build everything that gets shipped
Yellen says gas prices may spike again this winter as Europe cuts off Russian oil
Gas prices could jump again this winter following a monthslong decline in the United States, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Sunday, as the European Union plans to largely stop buying Russian oil in December as a gesture of disapproval of the war in Ukraine.
The EU hopes to cut off Russian oil tanker shipments to Europe and ban companies from insuring Russian ships that carry oil to other regions like Asia, where Russian imports have increased, a plan that could risk “a spike in oil prices,” Yellen said during a Sunday appearance on CNN’s State of the Union.
Yellen called the threat of rising oil prices “a risk that we’re working on,” adding that a proposed cap on the sale price of Russian oil would help contain costs in the U.S., which have finally fallen after skyrocketing earlier this year.
The price cap would help slash the revenue that Russia earns from oil—which Yellen said the country uses to “fight this illegal war” in Ukraine—while still allowing Russian petroleum to enter the global oil market and “hold down” prices.
Yellen states the obvious about Russia and Europe, but not the blatantly obvious about America
Yes, the Russian oil will become more scarce due to the geopolitical issues. Oddly, it seems that the Biden regime solution is to knuckle under (which would be the real effect of a “price cap” that would likely be quickly circumvented).
However, why doesn’t she mention that American drilling has dropped to the lowest level since Truman. Why not start up American drilling and fire up those American jobs?
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They could lower taxes on all of us and spur the economy
Inflation at 8.3% – the second drop in a row – but still sits near 40-year high
Inflation in the US dipped again in August to an 8.3 percent annual rate, thanks largely to falling gas prices, but remained near a four-decade high even as President Joe Biden says he is making progress on the issue.
The Commerce Department’s latest consumer price index report on Tuesday represented a drop from the 40-year high of 9.1 percent recorded in June and 8.5 percent in July — but the latest numbers were hotter than expected, and Wall Street dropped sharply in reaction.
The Dow dropped more than 1,000 points on Tuesday afternoon and the S&P 500 sank 3.9 percent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 4.7 percent.
The White House is planning a celebration of President Joe Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act” on Tuesday, even as consumer prices rose again in August, according to the latest numbers from the federal government.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index released Tuesday morning shows that inflation in August rose one-tenth of a percentage point from July and up 8.3 percent from the previous year.
Grocery prices continue rising fast, as prices rose 0.7 percent from July and 13.5 percent from the previous year. Restaurant prices are up 0.9 percent from July
The “Inflation Reduction Act” spends billions of dollars subsidizing green energy projects, subsidies for electric cars, and propping up government-subsidized health care. But the cost of health insurance and energy keeps rising.
Stocks suffered their worst day in more than two years after hotter-than-expected inflation data dashed investors’ hopes that cooling price pressures would prompt the Federal Reserve to moderate its campaign of interest-rate increases.
Investors sold everything from stocks and bonds to oil and gold. All 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined, as did all 11 sectors in the S&P 500. Only five stocks in the broad benchmark finished the session in the green. Facebook parent Meta Platforms dropped 9.4%, BlackRock declined 7.5% and Boeing fell 7.2%.
The Dow fell 1,276.37 points, or 3.9%, to 31104.97. The S&P 500 declined 177.72 points, or 4.3%, to 3932.69. The Nasdaq Composite slid 632.84 points, or 5.2%, to 11633.57.
All three indexes posted their steepest one-day losses since June 11, 2020. The declines left the Dow industrials down 14% in 2022, while the S&P 500 has lost 17% and Nasdaq Composite has retreated 26%.
Investors had eagerly anticipated Tuesday’s release of the consumer-price index, which provided a last major look at inflation before the central bank’s interest-rate-setting committee meets next week. Expectations for the path of monetary policy have held sway over the markets as investors factor higher rates into asset prices and try to project how well the economy will hold up as rates rise.
“It increases the probability of recession if the Fed has to move more significantly to address inflation,” said Chris Shipley, chief investment strategist for North America at Northern Trust Asset Management.
The new data showed the consumer-price index rose 8.3% in August from the same month a year ago. That was down from 8.5% in July and 9.1% in June—the highest inflation rate in four decades.
But on a month-to-month basis, the figures showed inflation accelerating in August, dashing investors’ hopes that price pressures would weaken, allowing the Federal Reserve to slow its pace of interest rate increases in the coming months.
Considering how all of the good news on Biden’s economy has been regime gaslighting and press gaslighting, the regime might want to consider voter intelligence
Rather than insulting voter intelligence, Joe might try telling the truth about his socialist policies.
Biden’s executive order this week canceling $10,000 in federal student debt for borrowers earning less than $125,000 a year and $20,000 for eligible Pell Grant recipients came after the White HouseOffice of Management and Budget‘s midsession review.
The OMB amended its projected budget gap this week to $1 trillion in fiscal year 2022, $1.7 trillion less than last year, $400 billion less than March, and the lowest deficit since 2019 before the pandemic. But that was before the White House bowed to pressure Friday and provided an estimated cost for Biden’s student debt forgiveness proposal. The administration predicts the program’s price tag will be roughly $24 billion a year for the next decade if 75% of eligible borrowers participate. That $240 billion number is short of the Penn Wharton Budget Model’s $300 billion to $980 billion forecast.
Bipartisan Policy Center Senior Vice President Bill Hoagland ripped the OMB’s update, which was due July 15, as unhelpful. That is because it does not account for new legislation, including the $280 billion manufacturing and innovation CHIPS and Science Act and the $430 billion climate and healthcare Inflation Reduction Act, in addition to the student debt cancellation scheme, according to Hoagland.
“I don’t know what value it has other than, as I said, they can check the box that they released this report,” he told the Washington Examiner. “For those of us who follow these things, it’s not helpful but maybe for the PR purposes out there having another opportunity to say the deficit’s coming down. I just don’t know how they get away with that today when they turn around and potentially add back another $300 billion.”
For Hoagland, who did credit the OMB for “being more honest with the economic assumptions,” the next-best deficit projection would be published by the Congressional Budget Office in January.
“It’s come down, but I would be a little bit skeptical of how much of that reduction was associated with actual policy,” he said. “It was associated with not doing another stimulus package to deal with COVID.”
More broadly, Cato Institute’s tax policy studies director, Chris Edwards, dismissed Biden’s deficit messaging as “idiotic” and “bulls***,” agreeing with Hoagland that this summer’s legislative flurry will exacerbate it in the coming years.
Edwards, who similarly criticized former President Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) spending, compared the current political moment to the 1980s and ’90s, when lawmakers “feared running big deficits” in case they contributed to high inflation and interest rates. Consumer prices rose by 8.5% in the 12 months ending July 31, and Powell foreshadowed another 50 or 75 basis-point rate hike in September on Friday during a speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
“The landscape has changed so much in Washington now that, even with 9% inflation, politicians are opening the floodgates to spending,” Edwards said, contrasting Biden with former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. “That’s politically remarkable.”
“It’s completely wrong for the executive branch to take such a big spending action without the legislature being involved,” the Downsizing Government editor continued on student debt. “This is going to put $300 billion on the federal government’s tab that young people are going to have to pay back in the future in the form of higher taxes.”
Biden repeated his deficit talking points this week during his first Democratic National Committee fundraiser and rally of the 2022 midterm cycle after his summer vacation.
“You hear Republicans always talking about the deficit, right? About big-spending Democrats?” he said Thursday night during the Maryland rally. “Well, guess what? When the last guy was president, he increased the debt by $2 trillion in tax cuts, not a penny of it paid for. OK? Well, guess what we did? We’ve reduced the deficit.”
If you are voting for Biden, something other than everyday reality has your mind
If, after almost two years of Biden disaster, you are still considering Democrats, then what reasoning stands for you? Is it that you depend on government subsidies? Are you a self-loathing Fetterman-clone who lives off the family trust fund and bought your house for a dollar from your sister? Are you a single-issue voter that has decided to zone in on transgenderism, destroying the police, abortion through all nine months in all states, or some other nebulous Democrat cause?
Why, at this point, does anyone put any credit in the Democrat message?
The Dems decided they needed a little presidential revival before the midterms to fire up their base — which isn’t looking very motivated at the moment. They gave President Gremlin a few days of vacation to rest up, a couple of shots of Adderall to switch on long-dormant brain cells, and a few hits of oxygen so he could walk out onto the stage without collapsing.
They trotted Biden out to a friendly audience in a suburb of Washington, D.C., and he gave a real barn-burner of a speech. He was angrier than an old coot screaming at the neighborhood kids to get off of his yard. Apparently, the Democrats think that is a good look for them. I wonder if they’ve considered that this speech may come to define the Biden presidency?
The speech was about those that voted for Donald Trump, but it revealed a great deal more about our presidential sock-puppet himself. We learned that Joe has an advanced case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. He said:
We’re seeing now either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA agenda. It’s not just Trump… It’s almost semi-fascism.
Our uniter in chief believes anyone who could be counted among the MAGA movement is a fascist — sorry, semi-fascist, if that makes any difference. He doesn’t just hate Donald Trump. He hates anyone who doesn’t hate Donald Trump. And the Democrats endorse this attitude because they’re no longer in the business of winning the competition of ideas. They’re in the business of amassing and applying raw governmental power.
The only thing I have not seen so far has been a side-by-side video of Joe and Adolf
As you can see from the following tweets, the idiocy of Joe’s “Red Speech” was not well received by any but the dyed-in-the-wool (or would that be “died-in-the-wool” for the die-hards?).
Troy Nehls 🔥
“When you see Joe Biden, he gave the speech he looked a little bit like Adolf with the red background… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Lawmakers are outraged at the heavy redactions in the highly anticipated affidavit used to obtain a search warrant for the raid on Mar-a-Lago.
20 of the 38-pages that were released on Friday were either significantly or fully redacted. However, page-19 of the affidavit may point to the can of worms that the Department of Justice (DOJ) knows it opened by ransacking the 45th President’s Florida home earlier this month.
Page 19 cited a Breitbart article from May 5, 2022. That article stated that former Trump administration official, Kash Patel, said the 15-boxes of documents had already been declassified but that the classification markings had not been updated.
Patel maintained that President Trump retained and declassified those documents in anticipation of leaving government. He said that Trump did this because he thought the American public should have the right to read it for themselves.
“The President, by law, is the ultimate arbiter of the classification authority. If he says it, it’s declassified,” stated Patel. “It doesn’t need to go through the bureaucratic rigmarole (and) be written down in appropriate style. That’s not what the constitution says.”
Patel also vocalized that reports claiming that Trump took classified information are completely false and is just another disinformation campaign against him.
Trump appointed Patel alongside John Solomon in June as his representative for access to Presidential records. As the former Pentagon Chief of Staff, Patel explained that all previously classified documents have classification markings on them. This simply means they used to be classified. He added that “government simpletons” did not follow the President’s orders to have them marked as “declassified,” which he did and has the unilateral authority to do.
“When these rubes get in the way because they say ‘ohh well you know so-and-so didn’t sign the letter, White House counsel didn’t do this’ that’s a farce,” remarked Patel. “And not only did the President do it by writing in October of 2020, he did it verbally at least, to the best of my recollection, multiple times in the whole sets of documents.”
Patel did not go into specifics about the document, but he said they contain information on Russiagate and the Ukraine impeachment fiasco which Trump wanted the public to have access to. The former Pentagon Chief of Staff suggested that the documents may have selectively be leaked to advance a false political narrative. Patel posted a statement on Truth Social shortly after the redacted affidavit was released.
Because the press has continued to push the “Russia” angle for years after it was disproven by Mueller, just one admission in an affidavit will not be enough.
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Joe Biden mocks President Trump’s ability to declassify documents while in office and, when challenged, responds with “I don’t know.”
President Joe Biden on Friday mocked Donald Trump’s claim to have declassified all of the documents targeted in an FBI raid on his Florida estate earlier this month.
Under the statutory scheme established by the PRA, the decision to segregate personal materials from Presidential records is made by the President, during the President’s term and in his sole discretion.
(continued)
Since the President is completely entrusted with the management and even the disposal of Presidential records during his time in office, it would be difficult for this Court to conclude that Congress intended that he would have less authority to do what he pleases with what he considers to be his personal records.
Yep. Never mind legal precedent that has never been challenged. Just go with what these idiots say and apply it fully to them for eternity.
Despite her claims to support police, Kamala calls for supporters to “fight in the streets” to return to Roe’s killing
As noted by Red State and captured by the RNC Research video, Kamala Harris has been encouraging violence over the recent Dobbs decision in the Supreme Court.
Harris recently fired her speechwriter (no one believes the resignation was voluntary) as part of an attempt to improve her public persona, and that’s been about as helpful as a sharp stick in the eye. No matter who is writing her material, the vice president is still the vice president–and that was apparent in her appearance at the National Urban League on Friday.
When Harris arrived, she hugged the host and then ripped off her mask. That’s noteworthy because the White House just announced on Thursday that she was a close contact of Joe Biden, who has COVID-19. I guess CDC guidelines don’t apply to the administration, though.
Biden encouraged abortion rights activists to “keep protesting”
President Biden on Sunday encouraged abortion rights activists to “keep protesting,” ABC News reported.
The big picture: Over 1,000 protesters marched to the White House on Saturday, calling on Biden to do more to protect access to abortion, according to the New York Times.
What he’s saying: “Keep protesting,” Biden told reporters while on a bike ride in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, ABC reported. “Keep making your point. It’s critically important.”
“We can do a lot of things to accommodate the rights of women,” he added, per ABC. “In the meantime, fundamentally, the only way to change this is to have a national law that reinstates Roe v Wade.”
Biden also said he is looking at the possibility of declaring a public health emergency over abortion access and “whether I have the authority to do that and what impact that would have.”
The night before the layoffs, hundreds of 7-Eleven corporate employees — including “superstars” who’d shined in recent years, newly promoted up-and-comers, and expecting parents — received meeting invites. Some were asked to show up at the “cantina,” an eatery on the ground floor of the company’s headquarters in Irving, Texas.
By the time those workers clocked in on Monday, July 18, it was clear that cuts were underway. Employees paced around the office, crying and commiserating. After arriving at their scheduled cantina appointments, they were ushered into offices usually occupied by the human resources department. There, they faced their managers, HR representatives, and a squad of unfamiliar security guards.
One laid-off employee who lost their job that Tuesday recalled to Insider that their manager said, “Take some deep breaths. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Rivian has started laying off about 6% of its workforce as part of a restructuring plan, according to an internal email from founder and CEO RJ Scaringe.
The companywide email, which was sent out Wednesday and viewed by TechCrunch, alerted all employees that those affected would receive an email invite from their manager with more context and details. Scaringe reiterated that the manufacturing operations team working at its Normal, Illinois plant would not be impacted.
“Over the last six months, the world has dramatically changed with inflation reaching record highs, interest rates rapidly rising and commodity prices continuing to climb — all of which have contributed to the global capital markets tightening,” Scaringe wrote in the email. “We are financially well positioned and our mission is more important than ever, but to fully realize our potential, our strategy must support our sustainable growth as we ramp toward profitability. We need to be able to continue to grow and scale without additional financing in this macro environment. To achieve this, we have simplified our product roadmap and focused on where it is most impactful to deploy capital.”
For Scaringe and the executive team, the priorities include ramping and enhancing the R1 (which is the electric truck and SUV), and the electric delivery van, accelerating development and launch of R2 and future platforms, ramping its go-to-market capabilities such as charging and service infrastructure and optimizing costs and operating expenses across the business.
Invitae announced it planned to lay off as many as 1,000 workers globally and Arrival, with a North American headquarters in Charlotte, announced it could cut 30% of its staff in the coming months.
Microsoft, which as recently as last month, told WRAL TechWire that it was hiring for hundreds of positions locally in the Triangle, has now also announced that it will cut hundreds of jobs, and the WRAL TechWire Jobs Report shows a drop off in the number of openings locally at the firm.
Peloton, which had something of its own pandemic boom and bought a North Carolina company previously, announced it would no longer manufacture its own stationary exercise bicycles, and would lay off some 600 workers.
And Biogen, which has a big presence in RTP, announced layoffs in a move to reduce costs last week, as well.
Earlier this month, technology startup Adwerx announced it would lay off 40 workers, citing “macroeconomic uncertainty.”
A Pennsylvania state representative is investigating material he says has been distributed by the Biden administration to his state’s department of education, which offers instruction on gender identity for six to seven-year-olds that includes a “Genderbread Person” and a “Gender Unicorn.”
GOP state Rep. Aaron Bernstine sent a letter last week to his state’s Secretary of Education Noe Ortega questioning the material he said he was notified had been “distributed” by the U.S. Department of Education to the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE), “and is an option to be used in curriculum for students in the 6-7 age range.”
Bernstine was alerted to the teaching material by attendees of a seminar held at Grove City College where, according to Bernstine, they were informed of the origins of such instructional material, and that they were given to his state’s department of education.
The gender identity teaching material included an exhibit displaying two diagrams, one of a “Genderbread person,” including labels identifying the differences between identity, attraction, sex and expression, as well as one of a “Gender Unicorn,” which display’s a double-helix between the character’s legs.
“There is no reason to be having these conversations with such young children, and it is unacceptable,” Bernstine stated in a press release. “The classroom is not the place to push this ideology onto them.”
In his letter, Bernstine asked Secretary Ortega whether such diagrams, or other similar diagrams, were part of any statewide curriculum endorsed or supported by his department, and if so, to provide documentation about when and to whom such material was distributed.
(Read more at KATV on denials by the DOE and digging by CBS)
This has also caught the eye of Young American’s Foundation
As illustrated in this lecture by Young American’s Foundation speaker Michael Knowles, this matter of the “gender unicorn” and the “genderbreadman” has become well known in conservative circles and a deserving target of ridicule of leftist/queer indoctrination.
President Biden really does not want the public to know about his federal takeover of election administration. Dozens of members of Congress have repeatedly asked for details, to no avail. Good government groups, members of the media, and private citizens have filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act. Not a single one has been responded to. All signs indicate a concerted effort to keep the public in the dark until at least after the November midterm elections. The lack of transparency and responsiveness is so bad that the Department of Justice and some of its agencies have been repeatedly sued for the information.
When President Biden ordered all 600 federal agencies to “expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process” on March 7, 2021, Republican politicians, Constitutional scholars, and election integrity specialists began to worry exactly what was up his sleeve.
They had good reason. The 2020 election had suffered from widespread and coordinated efforts by Democrat activists and donors to run “Get Out The Vote” operations from inside state and local government election offices, predominantly in the Democrat-leaning areas of swing states. Independent researchers have shown the effect of this takeover of government election offices was extremely partisan and favored Democrats overwhelmingly.
At the time the order was issued, Democrats were also hoping to pass H.R. 1, a continuation of the effort to destabilize elections throughout the country via a federalized takeover of state election administrations.
Biden gave each agency 200 days to file their plans for approval by none other than Susan Rice, his hyperpartisan domestic policy advisor. Yet fully nine months after those plans were due, they are all being hidden from the public, even as evidence is emerging that the election operation is in full swing.
Mobilizing Voters Is Always A Political Act
There are several major problems with Biden’s secret plan, critics say. It’s unethical to tie federal benefits to election activity. It’s unconstitutional to have the federal government take authority that belongs to the states and which Congress has not granted. And, given that all 50 states have different laws and processes governing election administration, it’s a recipe for chaos, confusion, and fraud at a time when election security concerns are particularly fraught.
Mobilizing voters is always a political act. Choosing which groups to target for Get Out The Vote efforts is one of the most important activities done by political campaigns. Federal agencies that interact with the public by doling out benefits can easily pressure recipients to vote for particular candidates and positions. Congress passed the Hatch Act in 1939, which bans bureaucrats and bureaucracies from being involved in election activities after Democrats used Works Progress Administration programs and personnel for partisan political advantage.
Executive Order 14019 ignores that the Constitution does not give the executive branch authority over elections. That power is reserved for the states, with a smaller role for Congress. With H.R. 1 and other Democrat Party efforts to grab more control over elections have thus far failed, Congress hasn’t authorized such an expansion.
As with previous efforts to destabilize elections, the chaos and confusion that would occur are part of the plan. The Executive Order copied much of a white paper put out by left-wing dark money group Demos, which advocates for left-wing changes to the country and which brags on its website that it moves “bold progressive ideas from cutting-edge concept to practical reality.” Not coincidentally, Biden put former Demos President K. Sabeel Rahman and former Demos Legal Strategies Director Chiraag Bains in key White House posts to oversee election-related initiatives.
(Read more on Rahman, Rice, and leftist group involvement at The Federalist)
If we are to have free elections, it must be without interference from federal forces
No matter how much Sleepy Joe wants to cheat to win a second time (and, to be clear, I think he cheated to win the first time), we cannot allow this. This needs to be stopped now — not later.
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On the inflation/gasoline supply front, Dementia Joe incoherently suggests something about drilling
The left-leaning press claims to actions that will save Biden from his previous stupidity
The Biden administration on Friday proposed up to 10 oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and one off the Alaska coast over the next five years, scaling back a Trump-era plan that called for dozens of offshore drilling opportunities, including in undeveloped areas.
Administration officials said fewer lease sales — or even no lease sales at all — could occur, with a final decision not due for months.
The Interior Department had suspended lease sales in late January because of climate concerns but was forced to resume them by a U.S. district judge in Louisiana. The Biden administration cited conflicting court rulings about that decision when it canceled the last three lease sales of the previous offshore leasing cycle.
That prior five-year cycle, a program adopted under former President Obama, expired Thursday.
There will be a months-long gap before a new plan can be put in place. The oil industry says the delay could cause problems and potentially lead to decreased oil production if sales are significantly delayed.
Even if this has some truth in it, it is too little/too late
Oil platforms, pipelines that cross the sea floor from those platforms, and refineries cannot be restarted in a day, month, or other short period. Once paraffin has been allowed to adhere to components within the thousands of valves, pressure regulators, step-down units, and other components — those parts are not brought back online without extensive cleaning and replacement.
Therefore, for Joe to dream that he can open up the American oil industry as quickly as he shut it down — well, he can dream, but that’s it.
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Economically right-leaning elements at Fox News review the energy-gutting and economy-killing features of Biden’s oil policy
The Biden administration published its long-awaited five-year offshore oil and gas leasing plan Friday one day after missing its June deadline.
The Department of the Interior (DOI) plan included the possibility of the federal government holding up to 11 lease sales off the coast of Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico over the five-year period between 2023-2028. However, the plan also put forward the option of the federal government holding no lease sales in that same time period.
“From Day One, President Biden and I have made clear our commitment to transition to a clean energy economy,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement. “Today, we put forward an opportunity for the American people to consider and provide input on the future of offshore oil and gas leasing. The time for the public to weigh in on our future is now.”
The plan didn’t include any potential sales in the Atlantic or Pacific, effectively blocking drilling off the east and west coasts. In the first version of the DOI plan, the Trump administration sought to hold a total of 47 sales across the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska’s coasts.
Under the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the federal government is required to issue offshore leasing plans every five years laying out prospective oil and gas lease sales. The current 2017-2022 plan expired Thursday.
“Against this backdrop, I am disappointed to see that ‘zero’ lease sales is even an option on the table,” Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Joe Manchin, D-W.V., said in a statement. “There is already more than enough flexibility in the program to adjust sales later, which the Administration has previously taken advantage of to cancel three sales earlier this year.”
“Our leasing programs are a critical component of American energy security,” he added.
The current and previous plans, both formulated by the Obama administration, included more than 10 offshore oil and gas lease sales each.
In May, the DOI canceled the three remaining lease sales scheduled under the current plan, one of which spanned more than a million acres in the Cook Inlet off the coast of Alaska. While the administration held a Gulf of Mexico lease sale in the fall, it chose not to appeal a federal court ruling striking the sale down over environmental objections.
(Read of the forecasts by industry leaders at Fox News)
A “plan” that says “this, but maybe that” is not a plan — it’s a waffle recipe
Although the futures market may have been encouraged by Joe’s promise to “maybe allow American drilling,” the purported plan that he presented would not fly in any business meeting room. Definite goals for production or shut down, not proposing both ends of the spectrum, would be needed for a business.
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On the dual fronts of destroying the economy and destroying the military, Dementia Joe focuses on selling off the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Dementia Joe damages American military preparedness and American petroleum prices by selling China the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a dizzying rate
The US has become the world’s oil barrel of last resort, single handedly keeping prices in the energy market from exploding even higher by selling a large chunk of its Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Washington can’t use the reserve forever: it’s a finite stockpile fighting a potentially unlimited flow shortage. More worryingly, the US is depleting its cache a lot faster than it looks.
And that matters. The International Energy Agency earlier this week warned that “global oil supply may struggle to keep pace with demand next year.” The SPR may be the final cushion late this year and in 2023 to put a lid on oil prices — and global inflation. What Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and his peers around the world do with interest rates hinges in large part on energy market developments.
To understand the limits of the SPR, one has to go into the plumbing of the reserve itself, and the inner workings of the US oil-refining industry. Over the past year, the White House has sold almost 115 million barrels from its hoard, with the releases surging to a record high of nearly one million barrels per day since mid-May. At the current rate, the US is selling more barrels from its reserve than the production of most medium-sized OPEC countries, such as Algeria or Angola.
Oil Piggy Bank
By October, the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve will shrink to a 40-year low as the White House taps it to put a lid on global oil prices
If Washington sticks to its current pace, the reserve will shrink to a 40-year low of 358 million barrels by the end of October, when the releases are due to stop. A year ago, the SPR, located in four caverns in Texas and Louisiana, contained 621 million barrels. As the oil market looks today, it’s difficult to see how Washington can halt sales in October. Removing that additional supply would mean commercial inventories quickly deplete, putting upward pressure on oil prices.
In theory,what’s going to be left beyond October would still allow the White House to sell more crude in November and December, and into next year. But there’s an important catch: Not all of the crude set aside is equal, and what’s left is, increasingly, far less useful than what’s already gone.
Broadly speaking, the SPR contains two kinds of crude: medium-sour, and light-sweet. The first adjective refers to the oil’s density, the second is about sulphur content. Typically, US refiners prefer medium-sour crude, which is denser and has more sulphur but is a variety they can easily process into gasoline and other products thanks to their highly sophisticated plants.
(Read more on the sour crude and the world’s reliance on America at Bloomberg)
Biden has limited pumping and production and is selling off our reserve to China
Rather than removing all restrictions a year ago (where things might be ramped back up to full production now), Biden has chosen to sell off our military’s reserves. So what could go wrong?
In the short term, he could sell down the reserves and oil prices could then jump back up from the artificial drop caused by his sale
The economy could worsen and more oil/gas companies (or even electric car companies) could bite the dust, sending prices higher for those commodities
In the long run, he could sell down our reserves to the point where there might not be enough to run the tanks, jets, ships, and other military equipment necessary to execute a war
Wall Street banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., are facing calls from shareholders to take faster action to address their role in financing climate change.
The SEC is debating the extent to which it can compel companies to disclose details about how much energy they buy and how they handle climate risks. Such self-reported disclosures to investors have already become commonplace in business, and adding government-mandated ESG disclosure rules is a big goal for the administration.
The SEC has been working on the disclosure rule for months now, with Chairman Gary Gensler initially announcing that the draft would be released by October and then later pushing that deadline back to January. Now it is unclear when exactly it will be unveiled, although some are beginning to get restless, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who called for “quick action” on the matter earlier this month.
(Read at the Washington Examiner to see how this rule forces investors and insurance companies to comply with Biden’s climate agenda)
Biden started restricting financing to oil and gas firms in April 2021
SECRETARY KERRY: What it means is that we’re going to be investing. This is not an ex- — you know, this is not a throwaway. This is an investment in new ways of getting energy to people that’s more efficiently delivered; that’s lower cost, in the long run; and that it’s — it’s really going to open up a whole group of employment opportunities that we know — that are beginning to be seen in America today.
And it’s not because the government is directing those things to happen; the marketplace is doing this. You can’t build a coal-fired power plant in the United States with a bank funding it, and no individual is going to throw their money down there.
Same thing in Europe today. Now starting in other countries — you just heard Korea to say, “We’re not going to fund any external coal.”
So there’s a transition that the market has undertaken, well before anybody proposed the program or anything. This is a transition that’s taking place. And we’ve historically always gone through these periods when, in America, we innovate, and we do the R&D, and we come up with a new product of some kind or another.
You know, I lived and represented for years — had the privilege of representing communities like Lowell and Lawrence and Brockton and plenty of places — you know, Fall River — that have these huge mills that were, you know, teeming with people working in the early 1900s, and then that changed. And it went south in our America — in our country, and then it went abroad.
Because that’s the transition in economies. And it happened in the Industrial Revolution, it happened in the revolution of technology in the 1990s, and it’s going to happen now. We always replace it with a different kind of — or some, you know, new opportunity.
And I don’t think it’s going to mean that much dislocation, frankly. It’s going to mean some greater opportunity.
So you have your permit and $20 million in funding. With Biden’s inflation issues, steel (a major part of drilling operations) gets more expensive daily
As one industry outlet attests (Gaubert Oil), there is almost a symbiotic relationship between oil and steel. Hence, when one gets more expensive, so does the other.
Since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, the oil, gas and steel industries have been intertwined. These industries depend heavily on one another, as they each possess materials that the others need. This shared reliance has frequently been put to the test over the decades, the most recent being the drop in oil prices. Let’s discuss how the industries are connected today.
OIL AND GAS’ DEPENDENCE ON STEEL
According to Zach’s Investment Research, the energy sector accounts for 10% of United States steel consumption. Steel mills make components called oil country tubular goods (OCTGs), which are steel tubes and fittings used in oil and gas rigs. The International Molybdenum Association(IMOA) divides these goods into three categories:
Due to the oil and gas boom in the United States, the OCTG business has been one of the most profitable in the steel industry.
Other metals are added to steel alloys, adding functionality to components used throughout the oil and gas industries. The Houston Chronicleexplains that nickel alloys are used in the valves and pipes that go over a wellhead. Chromium increases adds heat resistance to pipe used in deep oil wells. Molybdenum serves as a catalyst in oil refining to help derive environmentally friendly fuel sources. Titanium alloys are used in tubing and compressor parts, and are resistant to seawater and low temperatures.
Drill pipe rotates drill bits and distributes drilling fluids
Tubing captures oil and gas from the wellbore
While steel is vital to oilfield drilling equipment, steel isn’t dependent on oil as a vital energy source.
According to the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA), steel’s top four energy consumption sources as fuel are coke and breeze, electricity, natural gas and “other.” The “other” category consists primarily of blast furnace and coke oven gases. In particular, natural gas contributes 33% of steel energy fuel consumption, the highest of all energy sources.
Other issues created by liberals like Joe and Barack
Add to that Biden’s supply chain problems, and you might have a perfect storm in the making.
Biden’s inflation kicks up the cost of hiring new employees. Additionally, you will probably have to pay a premium to get employees who will work in extreme weather, in the backwoods areas of the country, often in areas that have no paved roads, in conditions where they will be sprayed with drilling mud or crude oil (unprocessed petroleum as it comes out of the ground). Finally, you will probably want to pay extra for employees who know how to use the tools of the trade.
Then don’t forget that Biden’s OSHA requires you to provide Transgender-sensitivity training to all employees. Obama’s Affordable Care Act requires you to subsidize health insurance for your employees.
What’s more, don’t forget that Biden will not allow your drilling vehicles (even your pickup trucks) to cross federal lands in order to get to your drilling permit. Therefore, if you have a drilling permit in New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Montana, or anywhere West of those states, you had better have a helicopter.
And though the price of oil will benefit you as soon as you can start pumping it — before that, you will use copious amounts of diesel to power the generators that will power the systems to lift the two-ton drill bits and strings of pipe that descend a mile or so into the earth.
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Biden regime cancels Alaska oil and gas lease sale
The Biden administration has canceled one of the most high-profile oil and gas lease opportunities pending before the Interior Department. The decision, which halts the potential to drill for oil in over 1 million acres in the Cook Inlet in Alaska, comes at a challenging political moment, when gas prices are hitting painful new highs.
In a statement shared first with CBS News, the Department of the Interior cited a “lack of industry interest in leasing in the area” for the decision to “not move forward” with the Cook Inlet lease sale. The department also halted two leases under consideration for the Gulf of Mexico region because of “conflicting court rulings that impacted work on these proposed lease sales.”
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has previously canceled lease sales in Cook Inlet three times — in 2007, 2008, and 2011 — also citing “lack of industry interest” at the time as the reason for scrapping the sales.
But Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, released a statement Friday rejecting the administration’s contention that there was not much interest from the industry in the lease sale.
“Citing a ‘lack of industry interest’ is nothing more than fantasy from an administration that shuns U.S. energy production. Cook Inlet is the sole source of the natural gas that more than 400,000 people in Southcentral Alaska—and significant military bases that are critical to our national security—depend on,” Senator Murkowski said. “I can say with full certainty, based on conversations as recently as last night, that Alaska’s industry does have interest in lease sales in Cook Inlet. To claim otherwise is simply false, not to mention stunningly short-sighted. The Biden administration needs to recognize how this decision is going to hurt Alaskans, reverse it immediately, and get the federal oil and gas program back on track now.”
Federal law requires the Department of the Interior to stick to a five-year leasing plan for auctioning offshore leases. The administration had until the end of the current five-year plan — set to expire at the end of next month — to complete these lease sales.
(Read at CBS how this cancellation keeps a Biden political promise to environmentalists)
Don’t forget that Obama set aside more than ten times more land as federal land as had been previously designated
As reported by a 13 February 2016 UPI article, Obama started with 2.6 million acres of federal land (to which he protected an additional 265 million acres during 7 years).
At that time, 2.6 million acres of public lands had been permanently protected during the Obama administration by both the president and Congress. Of that, 186,000 acres were protected by the president using administrative authorities under the Antiquities Act, which allows the president to declare a national monument without congressional approval.
In his seven years in office, Obama has established 22 national monuments and expanded others to set aside more than 265 million acres of land and water.
The designations Friday were the single most significant action to preserve California desert in more than two decades, forming one of the largest desert conservation reserves in the world, said David Lamfron, director of California Desert and National Wildlife Programs.
“Local communities, businesses, and organizations have worked for years to preserve these critical lands, and tens of thousands of [National Parks Conservation Association] members and supporters have petitioned the president and their members of Congress to make these monuments a reality. This is not just a win for the desert—it’s a win for the people who live in and love this unique part of the country,” he said.
With the uptick in federally protected status for some lands comes criticism that the federal government is overstepping its bounds.
Rep. Bob Bishop, R-Utah, chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, said in a statement: “This is presidential bullying. The intent of the Antiquities Act is not to act as the president’s magic wand to commandeer land. In order to be good stewards of our environment, we need to allow people to have a say in how they recreate and conserve their land. This doesn’t. It’s an authoritarian act that ignores people under the guise of preservation. The land will not be better protected and people will be harmed.”
Recent moves to intervene in air pollution fights—including a rare order to shutter the oil-spewing Limetree Bay refinery—show the Biden administration is willing to take bold steps to crack down on polluters on the edge of marginalized communities.
The Environmental Protection Agency this month temporarily halted operations at the St. Croix facility in the U.S. Virgin Islands, using an emergency shutdown order under the Clean Air Act that’s only been invoked a handful of times.
Days before EPA’s decision on Limetree, Administrator Michael Regan wrote to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot with a concern about the placement of a metal shredding facility on the city’s Southeast Side. Though the letter wasn’t a direct enforcement action, it prompted the city to delay the controversial permits.
“That’s a good sign that the administration is aware of powerful enforcement tools in its arsenal, and it is prepared to use them,” Natural Resources Defense Council attorney John Walke told Bloomberg Law.
This type of active intervention also shows the EPA is poised to take a more “aggressive” approach to enforcement in the name of climate change and environmental justice “than we’ve ever seen before in any prior administration,” said Craig Johnston, a Lewis & Clark law professor and former EPA assistant regional counsel in the Reagan administration.
(Read more liberal bloviation on the virtues of Biden’s environmentalism at Bloomberg)
This closure contradicts Biden’s claims of “doing everything he can to lower gasoline prices” and points toward raising the prices without need
If this truly was an “active intervention” (see the last paragraph) where Dementia Joe took a “more ‘aggressive’ approach to enforcement in the name of climate change and environmental justice,” then his claims to doing “everything” he could to lower gasoline prices were a lie.
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Joe’s solution to the mess he created
Biden suggests that gasoline stations to work without profit
Biden: "My message is simple. To the companies running gas stations... bring down the price you are charging at the… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) June 22, 2022
″[M]y message is simple: to the companies running gas stations and setting those prices at the pump, this is a time of war … these are not normal times. Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you are paying for the product,” the president said.
Biden said these actions could lead to prices at the pump dropping by $1 per gallon or more. “It doesn’t reduce all the pain, but it will be a big help,” he said.
The White House web page provides more damning information
At the Biden regime site, additional words to the speech are provided:
Today, I’m calling for a federal gas tax holiday, state gas tax holiday for [or] the equivalent relief to consumers; oil companies to use their profits to increase refining capacity rather than buy back their own stock; gas stations to pass along the decree — excuse me, not the decree, but the decrease in oil prices to lower prices at the pump.
And together, these actions could help drop the price at the pump by up to $1.00 a gallon or more. It doesn’t reduce all of the pain, but it would be a big help.
Let’s break down Biden’s words
Phrase by phrase, let’s examine what he said (since words mean things):
“[T]his is a time of war” — No. Congress has not declared war. You, Dementia Joe, may feel like you are under attack, but feelings don’t count here.
[T]hese are not normal times — You have that right, since you have done everything to destabilize America. Baby formula shortages, tampon shortages, high gas prices, inflation, supply chain issues, and the list goes on.
Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you are paying for the product — Correct me if I am wrong, but working at no profit constitutes slavery. Are Democrats seriously re-instituting slavery?
And together, these actions could help drop the price at the pump by up to $1.00 a gallon or more — If they would, that might be a starting point. However, gas prices have gone up $2-$4 since you came in a year and a half ago.
And yes, prices have drifted down under the uncertainty of your speech (as they did under the sale of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to the Chinese), but it will not last.
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In case you don’t understand the cognitive dissonance between Biden’s claim that he has done something to lower gasoline prices and his actions, watch the following video
Voters say that economic issues are their top priority heading into the 2022 midterm elections as only 37 percent say they approve of how President Joe Biden is handling economic recovery – and even less approve of gas prices and inflation.
A whopping 83 percent of Americans say that the economy is either an extremely or very important issue in determining how they will vote, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll published on Sunday.
But Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg assured ABC News in a Sunday morning interview that inflation is Biden’s ‘top economic priority,’ despite record-setting hikes and record-low approval.
‘I’m sure additional ideas will be welcomed,’ Buttigieg said on the continued effort to improve the economy.
When it comes to inflation, only 28 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the issue compared to the 71 percent who disapprove.
The survey, taken among 542 American adults on June 3-4, shows Biden underwater is every area related to the economy.
Of those polled, 80 percent say that inflation is either an extremely or very important factor in how they will cast their ballot in the 2022 midterms, where predictions already show a Republican bloodbath. When it comes to gas prices, 74 percent say the issue will be at the top of their mind when they vote.
When it comes to economic issues, Biden scores the worst on gas prices, which have reached a national average of $4.84 per gallon as of Sunday.
Seventy-two percent of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of gas prices – as the administration continues to call it the ‘Putin gas hike,’ and places the blame on the conflict in Eastern Europe.
Only 27 percent of Americans approve of how Biden is handling gas prices.
The reason that I mention this is that our press rarely mentions anything that reflects negatively on Democrats
The press seems all too happy to parrot the regime if Joe claims jobs have been gained, but conveniently forgets to correct the record when real numbers get published in either the conservative press or foreign media. Therefore, I have started ignoring our main stream media.
Additionally, the main stream media cannot seem to let go of its corrupt practices as they protect their select groups.
This dishonest press will not even drop the “allegedly” when the illegal alien criminal was killed
Texas prison officials have suspended inmate transports after a convicted murderer allegedly killed a man and his four grandchildren after escaping from custody.
Gonzalo Lopez, 46, escaped a prison bus after stabbing the driver in the hand and chest on May 12. Lopez was serving a life sentence for capital murder in Hidalgo County and an attempted capital murder in Webb County.
“TDCJ has temporarily suspended the transport of inmates as the agency conducts a comprehensive review of its transportation procedures. If it becomes necessary to do a transport such as releasing or an emergency medical appointment, additional security measures will be implemented,” the TDCJ wrote in a statement to ABC News Houston station KTRK. “The agency is conducting an internal Serious Incident Review and also intends to bring in an outside firm to conduct an independent review to identify factors that may have lad to the escape of (Gonzalo) Lopez.”
State Sen. John Whitmire, chair of the Texas Senate’s Criminal Justice Committee, said the Texas Department of Justice should suspend transports until safeguards are in place.
A George Soros-backed group of predominantly Hispanic investors has purchased 18 Spanish-language radio stations in 10 cities for $60 million.
The Latino Media Network is led by Obama administration official Stephanie Valencia and received financing from Lakestar Finance LLC, an investment firm associated with liberal billionaire George Soros.
“We believe in the power and reach of radio and it remains a main source of media for a significant number of our community,” Jess Morales Rocketto, a veteran of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns, said in a statement. “We hope to create relevant content for radio and other audio platforms with content that our community can trust and rely on.”
One of the stations included in the deal is Radio Mambi, a conservative talk radio station in Miami, Florida, that Democrats have long accused of spreading “misinformation” in the Hispanic community.
“In the 2020 election, we saw this — really a compelling rightward shift among the Latino electorate and in South Florida,” Huffington Post reporter Lautaro Grinspan recently told NPR. “And it lends credence to the notion that Spanish-language misinformation is playing a role in shaping folks’ political perceptions.”
But is “misinformation” really to blame for the recent rightward drift of Hispanics? Or are more and more Hispanics realizing that the Democratic Party simply doesn’t share their values.
“Everybody was a liberal Democrat — in my neighborhood, in the Bronx, in the local government,” Florida Republican Erik Ortiz recently told the New York Times. “The welfare state was bad for our people — the state became the father in the black and brown household and that was a bad, bad mistake.”
Add this to the above: Inflation and gas prices are a visible tax on each of us
Just as no sitting president and no member of Congress had to sit for hours waiting for medical treatment or give up half of a month’s pay for said treatment when it fell outside of an insurance company’s guideline — none of them will have to endure gas prices or food prices that they have foisted on us.
As soon as humanly possible, we must remove all those who have imposed this system where gas price hikes and inflation has become a mainstay.
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House Republicans announce a push against Liz Cheney’s and Nancy Pelosi’s narrative
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said that House Republicans would be “pushing back” against the Jan. 6 Committee in an effort to tell the American people how the committee’s efforts have been “unconstitutional and illegitimate.”
She said Republicans would be countering the messaging from the panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol amid a series of nine primetime public hearings over the next few weeks, starting with one on June 9 at 8 p.m. Washington time.
During the hearings, the panel will “present previously unseen material documenting January 6th, receive witness testimony, preview additional hearings, and provide the American people a summary of its findings about the coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power,” the committee said in a statement.
“We’re working very closely with President [Donald] Trump and his team, with [Republican] Leader Kevin McCarthy, with [Rep.] Jim Jordan, and really all of the House Republicans, we’ll be pushing back in a rapid response fashion,” Stefanik told Breitbart News.
“You will see us all over the airwaves, we’ll be setting the record straight, we’ll be telling the truth to the American people, sharing the facts, and also really pointing out how unprecedented and unconstitutional and illegitimate this committee is,” she said.
“We have lots of media bookings already set. I know that many of our members are going to shine in this moment. But similar to impeachment sham one, and really, impeachment sham two, just out there, every single day,” she said, equating the Jan. 6 panel to previous Democratic-led efforts to impeach former President Donald Trump on two separate occasions, which both resulted in Trump being acquitted.
(Read about the 6 January timeline and more at The Epoch Times)
The proof of the pudding isn’t in the announcing
“The proof of the pudding is in the eating” is how the adage goes. So, I don’t criticize the Republicans for announcing that they will oppose the Democrats (not only the official ones like Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Occasional Cortex, but also the effective ones like Liz Cheney).
Announce all you want, but only follow-through counts.
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After the Uvalde attack, Biden prioritizes gun confiscation and then DeSantis pushes for school safety
The administration of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is prioritizing school safety in the wake of national tragedies and the left’s anti-Second Amendment push.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Thursday signed the state’s “Freedom First Budget,” which includes an increase in funding for school safety and mental health initiatives. Both are significant, as a plurality of voters blame mental health issues for mass shootings, while far-left Democrats continue to focus on guns.
“If you look at our budget … we had another major increase in funding for school safety and for mental health and, you know, when you’re talking about school security, the thing is, is for whatever reason — I think going back to Columbine — this has become something where these deranged psychopaths have certain targets and some of them go to schools as a way to kind of maximize the trauma to a community,” DeSantis said during Friday’s press conference.
Taking the power of self-protection from law-abiding citizens does not solve anything
However, only guarding the gates does not solve the entire problem
From Columbine to Sandy Hook to Parkland to Santa Fe and now at Uvalde, the shootings (or, especially in reference to Harris and Klebold, the killings — since their attack included poorly-wired bombs in the cafeteria and their cars) were perpetrated by:
Boys in the bloom of testosterone
Boys who had been taught that, in opposition to the second law of thermodynamics (where things go from order to disorder), human evolution went from disorder to order (from slime to a baby). (In other words, they were taught to abandon their logic, embrace the liberal talking point labelled “science,” and repeat the mantra of evolution in order to pass a class.)
Boys who had been taught that there was no God (or at least that God had been kicked out of school)
Boys who had experienced numerous brushes with the law only to be let go by the system or bailed out by their parent(s)
Boys who had been taught that life had no meaning (since a baby was nothing but a choice for a girl)
Therefore, to follow Biden’s suggestion and to remove every law abiding citizen’s guns will not really effect these future murderers: we already have laws against murder and that does not stop them. As noted previously, gun laws in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, and Venezuela don’t really have much affect.
However, since the attacks come from students of the schools, rather than doing more to protect the schools from without, maybe we should protect them from within. Maybe we should seek to change the minds of the students. Maybe we might look to the wisdom of our founding fathers who observed our system of self government and noted:
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
Although I am not suggesting outlawing of non-Christian religions, I am suggesting that more freedom and power be pushed down to the local levels. Further, I am suggesting that God be returned to the classrooms (with parental consent).
A massive influx of Latin American migrants in recent months has driven the city’s shelter system so close to collapse that Mayor Adams suggested Wednesday it’s warranted to reassess local homeless policies — including a long-standing law that assures the right to shelter for New York’s neediest.
President Joe Biden
The Dems decided they needed a little presidential revival before the midterms to fire up their base — which isn’t looking very motivated at the moment. They gave President Gremlin a few days of vacation to rest up, a couple of shots of Adderall to switch on long-dormant brain cells, and a few hits of oxygen so he could walk out onto the stage without collapsing.
A Pennsylvania state representative is investigating material he says has been distributed by the Biden administration to his state’s department of education, which offers instruction on gender identity for six to seven-year-olds that includes a “Genderbread Person” and a “Gender Unicorn.”
GOP state Rep. Aaron Bernstine sent a 
Voters say that economic issues are their top priority heading into the 2022 
Gonzalo Lopez, 46, escaped a prison bus after stabbing the driver in the hand and chest on May 12. Lopez was serving a life sentence for capital murder in Hidalgo County and an attempted capital murder in Webb County.
Mark 1:1 
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