Liberalism, or progressivism, is a wide one-way road that leads to destruction.  Gas prices are high* because liberals are opposed to every practical source of energy,* including offshore oil drilling* and oil production in Alaska.*  Electricity is expensive because liberals are engaged in a war on coal.*  It's nearly impossible to run a business because of all the red tape generated by the EPA, IRS, ADA, EEOC, NLRB, and of course, Obamacare.  New York City has bedbugs because liberals got DDT banned in the 1970's.*  Unemployment is high because the minimum wage is too high,* and because it's easier just to live on food stamps and "disability" checks.*  Millions of children have never met their fathers, because the welfare state rewards illegitimacy.*  Many others have been abandoned* because of the belief that a baby is just a growth or piece of tissue that's part of a woman's body, which she can dispose of as she pleases.*  Over 54 million people have been killed (so far) because of that kind of thinking.*  That's why the Social Security ponzi scheme is falling apart — there are fewer young workers.*  Drunkenness and gluttony are now considered diseases instead of being evidence of bad decisions, because political correctness* has done away with stigma.*  The public schools are mass-producing dimwits who don't speak intelligible English*, can't write a coherent paragraph, don't know American history, don't know the difference between facts and opinions, can't make change without a cash register, and can't multiply or divide without a calculator.*  They are being taught that styrofoam, oil, guns and Christianity are bad,* but animal rights,* car pooling* and Islam* are good.  (Don't bother to bring your lunch to school.*  You can eat out of Big Brother's hand.*)  Billions of dollars are being wasted on solar panels* and windmills,* because of a baseless fear of "global warming"* — even though global warming stopped, all by itself, before the end of the 20th century.*.  The goal of progressivism is the abandonment and destruction of traditions, rules, standards, conventional wisdom, common sense and common knowledge.
This is a copyrighted original compilation, © 2020 by Andrew K. Dart

One glaring example of the Democrats' impact is the over-abundance of homeless bums in big cities, especially on the west coast.

And you would already know all this, except that the so-called news media are now just producing infomercials for big government.*  America is being destroyed from within (much like Detroit or California) by left-wing tax-and-spend socialist Democrats, and here are the results:

Overview articles:

(Scroll down for timely news, or click here.)

What the Left Did to Our Country.  [Scroll down]  What we are witnessing seems to be utter nihilism.  The border is not porous but nonexistent.  Mass looting and carjackings are not poorly punished, but simply exempt from all and any consequences.  Our downtowns are reduced to a Hobbesian "war of all against all," where the strong dictate to the weak and the latter adjust as they must.  The streets of our major cities in just a few years have become pre-civilizational — there are more human feces on the sidewalks of San Francisco than were in the gutters of Medieval London.  The FBI and DOJ are not simply wayward and weaponized, but corrupt and renegade.  Apparently the perquisite now for an FBI director is the ability either to lie while under oath or better to mask such lying by claiming amnesia or ignorance.  Immigration is akin to the vast unchecked influxes of the late Roman Empire across the Danube and Rhine that helped to finish off a millennium-old civilization that had lost all confidence in its culture and thus had no need for borders.  In other words, the revolution is not so much political as anarchist.  Nothing escapes it — not ceiling fans, not natural gas cooktops, not parents at school board meetings, not Christian bakeries, not champion female swimmers, not dutiful policemen, not hard-working oil drillers, not privates and corporals in the armed forces, not teens applying on their merits to college, not anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Who Will Say No More to the Current Madness?  [Scroll down]  Like Britain from 1939 to 1940, America is in existential danger.  The Biden administration has utterly destroyed the southern border — and immigration law with it.  Biden green lighted 7 million illegal aliens swarming into the U.S. without legal sanction or rudimentary audit.  China spies inside and over the U.S. with impunity.  Beijing has never admitted to its responsibility for the gain-of-function Covid virus that killed a million Americans.  President Biden printed $4 trillion at exactly the wrong time of soaring post-COVID consumer demand and supply shortages.  No wonder he birthed the worst inflation in 40 years.  In response, interest rates tripled, gas prices doubled.  Our military is thousands of recruits short.  It lacks sufficient munitions.  Following Biden's humiliating pullout from Afghanistan, vast troves of arms were abandoned in Kabul.  Billions more in scarce weapons were sent to Ukraine. [...] The Biden renegade Department of Justice, CIA and FBI have become weaponized.  Ideology, politics, and race — not the law — more often guide their investigations, intelligence operations and enforcement.  The downtowns of our once majestic major cities are becoming unlivable.  They are mired in refuse and trash, violent crime and homelessness.

Sorry, DC — Too Many Americans Remember.  [Scroll down]  Conversely, we could boil down all of the various Machiavellian plans being unfurled today by Western governments seeking our surrender into a single order:  forget.  Forget your history and your ancestors' sacrifices.  Forget your religious convictions.  Forget your natural rights and freedoms.  Forget the importance of personal liberty, property, and privacy.  Forget the sanctified bonds of marriage.  Forget the unbreakable bonds of families.  Forget the sacred duties of parents.  Forget that forced experimental medical treatments are crimes against humanity.  Forget that climate cultists were warning about global cooling just years before warning about global warming.  Forget that one-world-government types who wish to control all farming methods and hydrocarbon energies have depended on climate models that have been consistently wrong.  Forget that race relations had drastically improved during the last century before the callous race-hustlers re-emerged with new intensity to divide human beings again.  Forget that paper money backed by gold once had value.  Forget that warrantless government surveillance is a sign of tyranny.  Forget that J6 election protesters have been persecuted as "insurrectionists" while Antifa and Black Lives Matter domestic terrorists have been protected from prosecution.  Forget the lies told to justify earlier wars so that new lies can be told to justify the next.  Forget that a government's legitimacy comes from the people's consent.

The quiet riot against insanity in America is gaining strength.  How have we gone from America's low-inflation, high tax revenue, full employment economy, with an expanding middle class, energy independence and rock solid military to the kowtowing disaster of the last two years?  The only possible conclusion is that this is a long-term and well-planned operation to kneecap America.  Accepting that the most prosperous nation on earth is suddenly falling into poverty, crime and wokeness, and our citizens are happily voting for more, requires a level of insane thinking that is unprecedented, yet we now have...
  •   Ballot counting machines that can't count ballots
  •   Judges who refuse to judge
  •   Anti-American American presidents
  •   Prosecutors who don't prosecute
  •   Peaceful protests labeled as domestic terrorism and domestic terrorists labeled as peaceful protestors
  •   Representatives who don't represent
  •   Corporations that don't seek profit
  •   Banks that don't protect their depositors' money
  •   News reporters who don't report the news [...]
  •   Teachers who don't teach, advocating graphic books on sex for children too young to understand sex
  •   Psychologists and physicians encouraging dysphoria insanity in vulnerable children — while keeping parents clueless
  •   Men playing women's sports and assaulting girls in their locker rooms
  •   Doctors who don't heal, promoting vaccines that kill
  •   Groups demanding reparations from people whose ancestors mistreated their ancestors
  •   Free speech that isn't free

Dissecting Obama.  Not so long ago, America had a great economy, the lowest unemployment ever for a range of demographic groups, energy independence, an increasingly secure southern border, a strong international profile, and no new wars.  It had freedom.  It had national pride.  And all because it had a highly skilled president of unabashed patriotism who was devoted to the best interests of his people.  Now we're being readied to eat bugs while our overlords dine on steaks.  To live in "fifteen-minute cities" while they fly to conferences in Fiji.  To tighten our belts to prevent rising sea levels while they luxuriate in sea-level mansions in Malibu and Martha's Vineyard.  In a direct challenge to parental authority, common-sense values, and sensible pedagogical priorities, government schools indoctrinate children in Critical Race Theory and transgender ideology.  To shatter our sense of security and restrict our freedom of movement, Soros prosecutors turn major cities over to violent felons.  Patriots rot in jail for meandering around the Congress for a couple of hours two years ago while young people are encouraged by their teachers to celebrate Antifa and BLM thugs who have burned houses down.  Blacks who love liberty are smeared as "white supremacists" while Muslims who love jihad are depicted as virtuous victims.  Then there's what happened during the pandemic.  Churchgoing was banned, violent street protests permitted.  Small businesses were forced to close and went bankrupt; giant chain stores stayed open and reaped record profits.

Critically thinking about what's happening to America.  Let's briefly step back and see several examples of where America's opponents are attacking, and what successes they have had to date.
Target: Standards.  Strategy: Promote relativism., where all points of view are equally valid, and that all truth is relative to the individual.
Target: Religion.  Strategy: Undermine Judeo-Christian beliefs and morality.
Target: Men.  Strategy: Emasculate, feminize and weaken men.  Specifically, this is mostly about "de-privileging" white men.
Target: Women.  Strategy: Defeminize women, dilute the role of mothers, corrupt the definition of "woman," allow men to compete in sports as women, etc.
Target: Families.  Strategy: Redefine what a conventional family is, and undercut its importance. Promote pornography to undermine healthy adult relationships.
Target: Education.  Strategy: Propagandize children.  Emphasize conformity instead of critical thinking.
Target: Initiative.  Strategy: Undermine by awarding participation instead of accomplishment.
Target: Citizens.  Strategy: The collective's rights take priority over individual rights.  Additionally, the planet's rights supersede those of humans.
Target: Economy.  Strategy: Waste enormous sums on foolish political agendas, driven by lobbyists, which are not in the best interest of citizens or the country.
Target: Financial System.  Strategy: Undermine the Dollar on a variety of fronts from bitcoin to CBCD.
Target: Industrialization.  Strategy: Corrupt the electric grid with unreliable, expensive renewable energy, while opposing fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
Target: Science.  Strategy: Use apostate "scientists" or "experts" to misdirect real Science analyses, and to confuse the public about what Science is.
Target: Unity.  Strategy: For example, inflame racism to incite discord and distrust among fellow citizens.
Target: Patriotism.  Strategy: Inject WOKE, DEI, CRT, etc. ideologies in our education system to sabotage citizen support for their country.
Target: Propaganda.  Strategy: Utilize mainstream media as a major source of disinformation on societal topics ranging from COVID to climate change.
Target: Free Thought.  Strategy: Trick citizens into questioning their own thoughts by normalizing non-sensical situations (e.g., there are more than two genders, etc.).
Target: Elections.  Strategy: Corrupt the election process so that key legislators are not always elected by citizens. Resist meaningful audits to avoid exposing this.
Target: Border Security.  Strategy: Allow essentially anyone who chooses, to come into the country — including criminals, spies, etc.
Target: Military.  Strategy: Use many of the above tactics to weaken our military.

What's Next for Wokeism?  Twenty-five years ago, I told a friend that we would likely bear witness to the acceptance and even protection of several abhorrent social or political practices.  That came true, but it didn't stop there. [...] During the 1980s and 1990s, the social norms listed below were largely unacceptable; eventually the practices became mainstream through the strident promotion by activists and ineffective pushback by traditional institutions:
  •   Open homosexuality, coupled with the very public promotion of the lifestyle
  •   Gay Marriage
  •   Transgenderism
  •   Sex by consenting children with young adults
  •   Open Borders
  •   Anti-Capitalism
  •   The acceptance of recreational drug use as acceptable behavior
  •   Rampant crime and reduced punishment
  •   Society no longer requires work to live
  •   Single-parent constructs as equal to two-parent families
Take a moment to reread this list.  Nothing surprises us anymore.  History teaches us that radical social change usually ends badly, even for progressives.  All of the above continues to have a significant stigma for many Americans.  There is general agreement that promoting negative moral or societal values can and usually will have a deleterious effect on society.  With no national debate, the redefinition of our country has almost been achieved.  Today, our ability to be shocked must surpass a very high threshold.

Bidenana Republic.  Readers may believe calling America a banana republic is an exaggeration but think about it.  Congress is in the midst of passing what is laughingly called a budget.  Half the money comes from taxpayers.  Half the money is borrowed.  All the money goes to special interests.  The FBI provides the muscle.  In 2016, it investigated Hillary who sent 33,000 emails to a trucking company in Red China.  The FBI granted immunity from prosecution to her staff and helped destroy key evidence.  Jimmy the Weasel Comey said that since she didn't mean to break the law, he would recommend not prosecuting.  He made that recommendation days after his boss, Loretta Lynch, and Bill Clinton had an impromptu 45-minute talk on an airport tarmac.  Clinton said they discussed their grandchildren.  By grandchildren, he meant that vacancy on the Supreme Court.  At the same time, the FBI tried to con a judge into approving wiretapping of Donald Trump.  In a rare act of courage, the judge turned them down in June but in October the judge caved in and the FBI spied.  A lot.  We do not know if the FBI ever stopped spying.  There sure seem to be a lot of leaks about what The Donald is doing.  When the FBI isn't covering up crimes and spying for Democrats and RINOs, it is entrapping civilians.  Democrat Governor Whitmer was in jeopardy of losing her job when an FBI informant convinced four losers to hatch an asinine plot to kidnap her.  This is why many people believe that the FBI and Capitol Police enticed people to enter the Capitol, which was closed to the public at the time, on January 6, 2021.  This allowed Nancy Pelosi and the rest to recast a rally on the National Mall as an insurrection.  This led to a post-presidency impeachment trial.  These people are nuts.  But these people are in power.

The Democrats' Contempt for the American People.  The inflation rate is still hovering around 8-9%, in contrast with the 1.4% when Donald Trump left office.  A record number of people (853) have died at the U.S. southern border in the past 12 months (and those are only the ones we know about and not including the people, including children, that were raped, robbed or killed on the trek through central America to the border).  Fentanyl pouring across the Southern border is killing 100,000 Americans a year.  Crime is way up in all major cities.  North Korea has resumed firing ballistic missiles over Japanese territory and has restarted its nuclear weapons program, both of which had been stopped under the Trump administration.  China has humiliated the United States on U.S. soil and is preparing to invade Taiwan.  Russia, which, according to the Democrat-media storyline, was supposed to be Trump's boss, invaded Ukraine soon after Biden's inane remark that a little invasion might not be a big deal, resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and massive economic dislocation around the world, while Trump remains the only president in the past four presidents that has not presided over Russian aggression against a neighbor.  Biden, who criticized Trump for cozying up to dictators, has gone begging the Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, for oil to bring down U.S. gas prices.  Economic experts are once again talking about a major recession in the near future.  Trust in American institutions, including the media, the FBI, etc., is at an all-time low.

How Young Americans Unwittingly Voted to Ruin Their Lives.  In short, it seems that young Americans voted for the people who are ruining their lives.  It is the Left that is primarily responsible for the unprecedented levels of depression and despair among young people.
  •   The Left deprived children of school for nearly two years — for no valid reason.
  •   The Left ensured that young children would not see anyone's face outside their home for nearly two years — again, for no valid reason.
  •   The Left frightens young people about their future — through its hysteria over global warming — in a way that no group ever before frightened young Americans.
  •   The Left has destroyed the healthiest beliefs in a citizen's life — especially in the life of a young citizen:  belief in God and belief in one's country.  God, religion, patriotism, and the national flag have all become objects of mockery.
  •   The Left lies to them about everything — from nonbinary genders to the founding of America to the extent of white racism in the country to opponents of the Left being fascists.
  •   The Left works feverishly to prematurely sexualize children by talking about sex and the nihilistic falsehood of sex being "nonbinary" to children beginning in kindergarten.
  •   The Left encourages taking children as young as 5 years old to observe and participate in "Drag Queen Story Hours" featuring men dressed as women reading and dancing for them, often in a sexualized manner, and then having some of the children do the same.
  •   The Left works feverishly to diminish the authority and stature of parents, the most important people in a young person's life.
  •   The Left has created the unprecedented explosion — not only in America, but in recorded history — of young people who think they are really a member of the opposite sex.
  •   The Left corrupts young people's ability to think clearly by suppressing commonsense dissent.  Everyone knows it is grossly unfair for a man to compete in women's sports.  But if a man says he is a woman, we are supposed to believe it and to assert that it becomes fair.  And any girl or woman who says it is unfair is threatened with expulsion from her team, the end of her chances for a sports scholarship to college and social ostracization.

What Is Conservatism?  Before diving into the fundamentals of conservatism, it may be useful to recognize what it is not.  What I mean is that Republicans should remind themselves what they are opposing in today's political climate.  Consider what the left has affected in recent years:  It has affected the whole of education, beginning with schoolchildren being exposed to a radical and aggressive sexual agenda with sexually explicit reading materials and drag queen story hours all the way up to higher education, where radical ideologies have been normative for decades.  It has tainted confidence in the sciences, with recent years revealing scientific "experts" denying basic biological fact by failing to define a woman, promoting blatant medical propaganda, and squashing medical freedom by threatening, punishing, firing, and silencing opposing voices (even when they are respected experts themselves). [...] It has also affected the economy insofar as it has threatened national energy independence; produced hyperinflation; and, of course, promoted continual dependence on the Federal Reserve.  It long ago infected entertainment via Hollywood, but also more recently infiltrated other arenas by promoting woke sentiments in sports, music, late-night shows, and comedy.  It has produced a culture of death, devised turbulent foreign policies, fostered corrupt alliances, emboldened criminals, weaponized technology companies, tarnished intelligence agencies, and more.  These recent advancements are the direct result of leftist ideology concentrated in the Democrat party.

The Left Were the Mad Scientists, We Were Their Lab Rats.  As the midterms approach, one way of looking at America's current disaster is that we, the American people, were lab rats.  And since 2021, the Left were the mad scientists, eager to try out their crackpot leftist experiments on us.  The result is that the housing market is tottering on the verge of collapse.  As interest rates soar, our $31 trillion national debt crowds out everything else in the budget.  Inflation roars at a rate of 8-9 percent per annum, higher than at any time in 40 years.  Yet the prices of the stuff of life — food, fuel, shelter, energy — are far steeper still than the official rate.  No one is safe from thugs anymore — whether a commuter on a New York subway or the Pelosis in Pacific Heights.  The country reportedly has a 25-day supply of diesel fuel — the energy source that runs the nation.  Meanwhile, we keep draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve of oil — a commodity we have in abundance but refuse to produce fully.  We never fixed the supply-chain crisis of last year, and so still face shortages of key consumer goods.  The labor participation rate is at an all-time low — given fat government COVID subsidies, the Siren-song appeal of staying home after the lockdowns, fear of COVID, and millions of workers with long COVID.

Our government's executive branch is deliberately destroying liberty.  How are they destroying us?  Let me count the ways.
1.  Electoral Fraud.
    A.  2000 Mules.
    B.  Electoral Insurrection (treason).
2.  Destruction of the Economy
    A.  Funding COVID development ("gain of function") in the Wuhan Lab; deliberate exaggeration of the COVID crisis; and COVID lockdowns.
    B.  Elimination of fossil fuels; creation of energy dependency; intentionally driving up gasoline prices; and pushing for electric cars.
    C.  Deliberately enhancing inflation.
    D.  Inviting unlimited immigration for cheap labor and Democrat voters.
    E.  Climate change hoax.
3.  Destruction of the Family
    A.  Promoting abortion
    B.  Promoting sexual perversion and transgenderism.
    C.  Using public education as a platform for sexual grooming and turning children against their parent's values.
4.  Establishment of Federal Police State
    A.  FBI persecution of Mama Bears as "domestic terrorists."
    B.  Property destruction by government brownshirts.
    C.  COVID lockdown, so the US is becoming "democracy with Chinese characteristics."
    D.  Corrupting the legal system by mob intimidation of the Supreme Court.
    E.  Government censorship of speech; classifying truth as "misinformation".
    F.  Breakdown of law and order.
    G.  Government efforts to disarm the public.
5.  Destruction of the US Military
    A.  Wokism
    B.  Seeking war with Russia and China
    C.  Mandated vaccinations

Imagine the Unimaginable.  Americans are now entering uncharted, revolutionary territory.  They may witness things over the next five months that once would have seemed unimaginable. [...] The traditional bedrocks of the American system — a stable economy, energy independence, vast surpluses of food, hallowed universities, a professional judiciary, law enforcement, and a credible criminal justice system — are dissolving.  Gas and diesel prices are hitting historic levels.  Inflation is at a 40-year high.  New cars and homes are unaffordable.  The necessary remedy of high interest and tight money will be almost as bad as the disease of hyperinflation.  There is no southern border.  Expect over 1 million foreign nationals to swarm this summer into the United States without audit, COVID testing, or vaccination.  None will have any worry of consequences for breaking U.S. immigration law.  Police are underfunded and increasingly defunded.  District attorneys deliberately release violent criminals without charges. [...] Supermarket shelves are thinning, and meats are now beyond the budgets of millions of Americans.  An American president — in a first — casually warns of food shortages.  Baby formula has disappeared from many shelves.

Biden's COVID Testing Fail.  On Monday, January 10, [...] Joe Biden unilaterally declared that everyone will get up to eight free at-home COVID tests per month, to be covered at no additional charge by insurance companies. [...] COVID tests are notoriously unreliable, and in most cases, unnecessary. [...] We are talking about government creating a new mandate that is actually impossible to either deliver or afford. [...] They didn't acknowledge the fact that this quantity of tests is unavailable.  They didn't provide for the cost; they didn't give the providers, public or private, a chance to research this deliverable and negotiate with manufacturers or deliverers first to see what might be achievable.  The Biden-Harris regime simply didn't think it through at all.  And, for the shrinking percentage of our population who care about the law, it's worth noting that, in addition to being impossible, this order is completely unconstitutional.

The Editor says...
Here's the gold nugget in the article above:  "The Biden-Harris regime simply didn't think it through at all."  Exactly! 
  •   That's why they started printing money and handing out "stimulus" payments to everybody. 
  •   That's why they think it's a good idea to defund the police, while letting violent criminals out of jail because they might catch Covid. 
  •   That's why they encourage (or force) businesses to hire marginally-qualified ethnic minorities, just because they're not white,
  •   That's why they think if they eliminate failing grades it will improve the quality of the public schools. 
  •   That's why they killed the Keystone XL pipeline regardless of its effect on gas prices. 
  •   That's why they opened up the Mexican border. 
  •   That's why they pay unmarried women to reproduce. 
  •   That's why they want everybody to drive an electric car — but please don't recharge it, because electricity is already in short supply. 
  •   That's why they thought it would be okay to remove religion from the public schools. 
  •   That's why they see nothing wrong with using a cell phone or a TV set as a babysitter. 
  •   That's why they think we can eliminate hydrocarbons and get by on solar panels and windmills. 
  •   That's why they elect politicians who promise to create "green jobs," even though there are no such jobs. 
  •   That's why mail-in voting is allowed. 
  •   That's why school teachers are unionized. 
  •   That's why they insist on everyone wearing a useless face mask. 
  •   That's why they celebrate men competing in women's sports, and transvestite sex perverts reading books to little kids at the public library. 
Nobody on the left stops to ask, Where is this going to lead?

The Cruel Progressive Creed Undoing Civilization.  Debt is suffocating us.  Our currency is on its way to being Lebanonized.  Most major American cities are broke, dirty, unsafe, and run by either corrupt incumbents, neo-Marxists, or both.  The law is optional, and applied asymmetrically on the basis of race and ideology.  The past is found guilty by the laws of the present and so it is being undone.  The military budget is on a trajectory to be the smallest in terms of GDP allotment since World War II; its careerist officers, for their own short-term interests, are now demonizing and will soon be driving away the very demographic that has suffered percentage-wise the greatest casualties in recent wars and was once unquestionably the foundation of the military.  There is no U.S. border; it is an abstract construct that millions will illegally cross in the next few years, ostensibly because they will become future soldiers in the progressive wars for America to come.  The idea of merit that built America is a dirty word, replaced by medieval tribalism of hiring and promotion by superficial appearance.  In just five months, Joe Biden created a desert and called it progress.

The collective insanity that's rapidly erasing America.  Many of us older than half a century no longer recognize the country we grew up in.  We have a hard time reconciling that past America with what we see happening today.  America, to our view, was predominantly a place of light, freedom, and joy.  Now, as we witness a massing storm of iniquity, we either don't understand what we're seeing or we choke back the language to describe it because the words all sound too harsh or politically incorrect. [...] This plague on our society has pushed us to many forms of mass hysteria:
  •   We shun those who do not comply with outrageous and unconstitutional mandates.
  •   We blindly believe government officials and their allies in the media, though they have proven time and again that they lie and should not be trusted.
  •   We're emptying our jails of violent offenders while imprisoning law-abiding citizens — sometimes for simply exercising their rights.
  •   We're taking political prisoners like any third-world dictatorship.
  •   We allow our cities to be torched and looted with few repercussions.
  •   We're tearing down our history, our culture, and our traditions in the name of progressivism.
  •   We invite seemingly anyone who wants to enter the country illegally to take our jobs, receive public services, and drag down wages.
  •   Our national debt reaches into the stratosphere while politicians go whistling past the graveyard.
  •   We abort the innocent and defenseless while vigorously defending the guiltiest among us.
  •   We scare our children into radicalism with tales of impending doom due to climate changes that are as old as the earth.
  •   We're wrecking entire industries to "protect the earth" while propping up those same endeavors for our enemies.
  •   We deny biological realities and allow men to use women's facilities and participate in women's activities, provided that they "self-identify" as women.
  •   We subject the military to ideological litmus tests.
  •   We fraudulently change election results while casting those who push for transparency as "conspiracy advocates" and add their names to a list of domestic terrorists.
  •   We allow the government to censor those who oppose the lunacy that passes for public policy.
  •   We teach dependency and hatred at many school districts across the country, and within our colleges and universities.
  •   We accuse, disarm, and punish the law-abiding while acquitting the guilty.
This is the short list of our collective insanity.

The Time Has Come for Reasonable Americans to Stand up and Draw a Line in the Sand.  In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has been under nonstop attack by corporate media because he has insisted on following the science and good sense when it comes to keeping his state safe and open for business.  CBS News deceptively edited video of DeSantis answering a question about vaccine rollouts at Publix stores to make it look as if he were dodging a question he answered immediately, clearly, and honestly.  Hollywood productions and Major League Baseball are calling for boycotts of Georgia over their latest voter laws.  Airline companies and Coca-Cola are registering their condemnation.  These entities and the people who run them constantly bemoan the "division" in this country even as they willingly make half of their customer base into automatic enemies with every new statement of protest they register.  They have made what we eat and drink political.  They have made biology political.  They have made flying political.  They have made our national pastime political.

I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.  Here are some important things that I didn't know five years ago or now.
  •   There actually is a Deep State, and those who constitute it really do not honor the election results or the will of the people.
  •   There really appear to be lawless elements within the upper echelons of the FBI, CIA, and NSA who are not accountable for their crimes and are thus above the law.
  •   The fourth branch of government, the bureaucracy, really is unaccountable to the "unwashed masses."
  •   Many of our top military command, along with many in the military-industrial complex, don't always hate wars.  There's a lot of money and many promotions to be made during a time of war.  The last four years saw no new wars and even troops coming home.  For some, that is bad for business.
  •   Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm are no longer works of fiction, but prophecies.
  •   George Orwell was righter than Nostradamus.
  •   The news media centers of New York City and Washington, D.C. are not neutral arbitrators of the truth; rather, they uncomfortably resemble TASS and Pravda from the Soviet Union days.
  •   The old robber barons like Rockefeller, Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan are starting to look a whole lot better compared to the new robber barons like Dorsey, Zuckerberg, and Bezos.
  •   The United States Supreme Court would actually refuse to hear a legitimate case because it was frightened of violence.
  •   The left insists on conflating and equating evangelical Christians with White supremacists.  This should terrify the Christian community.
  •   Words such as mom, dad, aunt, uncle, brother, and sister are now not words of love and respect, but considered politically incorrect verbiage in Congress.
  •   Censorship, the cancel culture, and becoming a nonperson come from the left, not the right.
  •   The left, not the right, actually is going to try to deny citizens' rights afforded to all in the Bill of Rights.
  •   Violence from the left is regarded as free speech and noble, while violence from the right is classified as sedition and felonious by powerful institutions.
  •   It really is not Republicans vs. Democrats, but globalists vs. nationalists.
  •   The new McCarthyism, blacklists, history re-writers, and re-education camps are coming from the left, not the right.
  •   Fences and barriers are a good thing for our nation's capital but somehow a bad thing for our nation's borders.
  •   Our Founding Fathers of yesteryear would be called "domestic terrorists" by some today.
  •   Presidential elections really can be stolen by corrupting just a handful of precincts in just a handful of states.
  •   Calling into question the validity of the 2016 presidential election is patriotic, while calling into question the validity of the 2020 presidential election is treasonous.

The Time for Talking with the Left is Long, Long Past.  Conservatives must accept this hard reality and avoid the aforementioned instinctive, very human but in this case deadly habit:  projection. [...] Their no-holds-barred attitude is apparent to all with eyes to see.  They have
  •   continually attacked us traditionalists and fomented unrest at our political events while accusing us of authoring violence;
  •   visited career and reputational destruction upon those who dare speak unfashionable truths while accusing those truth-tellers of intolerance;
  •   used government agencies such as the IRS and FBI to persecute us while accusing us of endangering the republic;
  •   played the identity politics card and demonized whites while accusing conservatives of being divisive, racist and bigoted;
  •   conspired with foreign powers to undermine our nation while accusing us of treasonous behavior;
  •   enabled China, an imperialistic foe and a clear and present danger to our country;
  •   endeavored to steal an election after having wrongly accused conservatives of thus doing in 2016;
  •   abetted an invasion of our nation in order to raise an alien electoral army that can help them seize power;
  •   mismanaged a pandemic and caused death while using it as a pretext for stripping our liberties, "locking down" the country and destroying people's livelihoods;
  •   corrupted our children with perversion and scarred their bodies, minds and souls;
  •   facilitated the murder of the unborn while accusing us of indifference to the vulnerable;
  •   prosecuted conservatives on trumped up charges while shielding their co-ideologists from justice;
  •   called truth "hateful" or "misinformation" and censored it via Big Tech while presenting convenient lies as "fact";
  •   encouraged violent mobs to create mayhem and attempted to strip the imperiled of the capacity for self-defense while sometimes being protected themselves by armed details;
  •   attacked our history and heroes and destroyed our cultural heritage while effecting their own "Year Zero," dystopian transformation;
  •   indoctrinated the young in schools to transform them into foot soldiers in the leftist campaign of civilizational rape;
  •   attacked our nation's foundational faith, Christianity, while spreading corruptive moral relativism and destructive theologies; and
  •   degraded society with perverted science while accusing us of scientific obscurantism.

Revolution 2020.  [Scroll down]  The Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v.  Board of Education, which outlawed state-directed segregation, also gave impetus to all manner of efforts to re-form society by legal-administrative force.  The decision itself eliminated any chance that this could be done in a disinterested manner.  It was not based on the plain, unequivocal meaning of the 14th Amendment's "equal protection of the laws."  Back in 1896, Justice John Marshall Harlan had dissented from Plessy, arguing that any state establishment of racial preference whatever, regardless of its character or intention, violates those words.  But Thurgood Marshall based his decision on "science" — that is, on the variable opinions of the credentialed class.  A sociologist by the name of Kenneth Clark claimed he had proven that Negro children could feel and learn normally only in a racially mixed environment.  (The "black is beautiful" movement began countering this immediately.)  Quickly, "scientific" conventional wisdom made "benign" or "remedial discrimination" by race official U.S. government policy.  The Brown decision's reliance on "science" also confused legally established segregation with the segregation that results from personal choices.  This confusion was the basis for Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in "public accommodations" on the basis of race.  Thenceforth, Civil rights law was no longer about removing legal barriers to personal choices.  It had begun forcing personal choices.  The Supreme Court's approval of the law as a mere regulation of interstate commerce was thin pretense.  The Act turned out to be the little law that ate the Constitution and poisoned American society.  It was passed primarily by Republican votes.  Democrats, seeing the empowerment of a historic Republican constituency in the South as potential disaster, scrambled to avert it by out-pandering Republicans, while describing any reticence on their part as racial animosity and ascribing whatever ailed Negroes to the Republicans' racism.  Quickly, the dynamics of politics turned "civil rights" into a ruinous socioeconomic scam.

America needs a New Declaration of Equal Justice under the Law.  What has been allowed to grow in the American cultural and political petri dish over the last two generations is a mixture whose contagious influence is as harmful as it is riddled with absurdities.  A partial list would include: an unequal two-tiered justice system; open borders; preferential treatment of illegal aliens over American citizens; the dominance of political correctness and its de facto censorship of free expression; fake news; rewriting history; the 1619 project; renaming Columbus Day; the abolition of traditions of every size and shape; destruction of American historical monuments; trampling the American flag and other symbols of democracy; the eradication of family values while celebrating and elevating relationships counterproductive to procreation — an imperative for any civilization that wants to survive; election fraud and dismantlement of the electoral process; an attempted coup that would have nullified the Constitution and the peoples' sovereignty; a baseless and wasteful impeachment; the disgraceful character assassination of nominees to the Supreme Court; the pervasive infiltration of education with academics hostile to America; the adoption safe spaces and the prohibition of trigger words on college campuses; union control and influence on public school educational curricula whose net effect dumbs down students and often paints America as the great villain.

Resisting the Totalitarian Power of Politicization.  [Scroll down]  Consider a schoolteacher who will not bow to the ugly utilitarian aims of the Common Core, but who teaches great poetry for its own sake.  The automatism of her fellow teachers and her superiors will move to crush her.  Consider the secretary who declines to post a rainbow flag on the wall beside her.  The machine lurches into action.  Consider the curator of a small museum, who exhibits paintings he believes are beautiful and powerful, without regard to the sex or the race of the painters.  Juggernaut comes a-rolling.  The system is perpetually hungry.  It must be so because lies evacuate the soul.  The more you feed, the emptier and hungrier you become.  To the totalitarian mind, all things must be politicized; no region of life may remain untouched, unabsorbed, undevoured.  Choirs, knitting groups, groceries, elementary schools, day-care centers, libraries, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, congregations, bowling leagues, fast-food joints, department stores, florist shops, delicatessens, marriages, flirtation, love poetry — all must go down the vast assimilating gullet of Jabba the State, who belches up emptiness and rages for more.

Crash and Bernie.  The Democrat list of incompetence, just in the past 12 years, is a long and distinguished one.
  •   Cash for clunkers
  •   Obamacare
  •   The Obama care website
  •   Obama's EPA turning rivers orange in Colorado
  •   Sanctuary cities
  •   Allowing people to defecate on the street
  •   Allowing people to do drugs on the street
  •   Mismanagement of Forests
  •   Mismanagement of water
  •   Transvestites entertaining children in public libraries
  •   Impeachment without a crime

The Democratic Descent into Madness:  Super Tuesday Edition.  The Democratic Party [...] has pushed some of the worst ideas and most destructive policies ever seen, including its defense of slavery and the Confederacy during the Civil War; the creation of the KKK to harass and kill former slaves; the enactment of an intricate web of laws throughout the South to prevent former slaves and their descendants from exercising their full rights as citizens; calling in armed soldiers to prevent black kids from attending state college; using "progressive" policies to destroy great cities across the country (Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, and San Francisco among them); passing off a serial sexual predator as a champion defender of women; attempting to destroy the U.S. healthcare industry while lying through their teeth about it; nominating Hillary Clinton as its candidate for President; using the power of the federal government to spy on the rival party's presidential candidate; and Chuck Schumer. [...] This is a party that needs to be punished.  And the only way to punish a political party is to take away as much of its power as possible.

Crash and Bernie.  Democrats propose solutions to 'problems that don't or rarely exist' and their results are an embarrassment — many times causing problems that never existed in the first place.  The Democrat list of incompetence — just in the past 12 years — is a long and distinguished one.
  •   Cash for clunkers
  •   Obamacare
  •   The Obama care website
  •   Obama's EPA turning rivers orange in Colorado
  •   Sanctuary cities
  •   Allowing people to defecate on the street
  •   Allowing people to do drugs on the street
  •   Mismanagement of Forests
  •   Mismanagement of water
  •   Transvestites entertaining children in public libraries
  •   Impeachment without a crime [...]

Why Are Liberal Cities Such a Mess?  Many major U.S. cities run by liberal Democrats are in rough shape.  They are afflicted by the problems of homelessness, violent crime, gangs, and unemployment to a far greater degree than the country as a whole.  Liberal cities are governed by the guiding tenets of softness, misplaced "compassion," and individual unaccountability.  Examples include:
  •   Hands-off policing style (NYC has long since abandoned the highly successful stop-and-frisk practices of the Giuliani years that led to low street crime).
  •   Sanctuary cities, which give rise to higher incidents of crime, poverty, unemployment, and the wasting of taxpayer-funded public resources because of the undocumented population's draining effect on the community.
  •   The inexplicable decision of cities like Boston to no longer prosecute crimes such as shoplifting and breaking and entering, leading to urban stores not being able to remain open and be profitable (thus denying the community of a valuable resource).
  •   Widespread locally approved abuse of the SNAP/EBT program, allowing its acceptance for alcohol and other nonessential items.
  •   Explicit sanctioning of sleeping on the street or other common public areas and unrestricted public loitering.
Liberal policies have worked almost perfectly to degrade the quality of inner-city life for their residents to the point of abject unacceptability.

In the age of leftism:
  Canada elects a substitute drama teacher for prime minister.
  Calling someone an "illegal alien" (a legal term), carries a fine of up to $250,000.
  Teachers are required to present LGBT content to junior high school kids.
  Illegal aliens can obtain driver's licenses.
  A sharia law Islamist who married her brother to circumvent American laws is now an American congresswoman.
  A woman who fabricated a lie to gain entry to Harvard is at the top of the Democratic presidential candidacy polls.
  A man who endorsed the American Communist Party is running for president of the United States.
  In a time of surging stocks, record employment, record female work participation, and economic prosperity in the most capitalist country in the world, capitalism is scorned.

Thread Reader:  On Why Things Are So Screwed Up.  The Left (manifested by the Democrat Party) have effectively removed God from the public square and created the modern secular state with the following clichéd characteristics:
    a.  Anything goes.
    b.  Everything is relative.
    c.  Diversity over assimilation.
    d.  Rule of men replaces rule of law.
    e. [Ignore] the Constitution.
The results are the symptoms of a sick society that we observe every single day; here a just a few of them:
  •   Arbitrary law enforcement in service of the political class (hello, Jeffrey Epstein!)
  •   Open borders and the attendant crime and disease (thanks, Democrats!)
  •   Legacy media gone bonkers (anti-Trump #FakeNews 24x7)
  •   A thoroughly corrupted political class (two sides of the same coin)
  •   Hollywood producing filth (what does "R" mean anymore?)
  •   Perversion and immorality condoned (flagrant public LGBTQ demonstrations)
  •   Federal agencies weaponized against political enemies (the IRS, FBI, DoJ, EPA, etc.)
  •   Abrogation of oaths of office (the Obama regime's seditious cabal at DoJ, FBI, State Dept, CIA, etc.)
  •   Hyper-politicized public education (John Dewey's dream brought to life by Common Core)
  •   Hyper-politicized sports (think about soccer and the USWNT!)

Future Belongs to Those Who Oppose Drag Queen Story Hours.  A new kind of debate is now raging inside conservativism.  In times past, we discussed the strategic and tactical options by which we might work toward common goals inside the existing political framework.  Today, the framework itself is in question.  What is being discussed is the classical liberal foundation of the American political system.  Indeed, both left and right have worked inside this framework for much of our nation's history.  Rarely have we faced such a challenge to the way America resolves its problems.  However, liberalism is in crisis.  Our society is in shambles and drifting steadily leftward.  The most outlandish behaviors — political correctness, transgenderism and Satanism — are being mainstreamed.

Fruits yet to be harvested:
Do You Understand that Democrats will Destroy America?  The Green New Deal, renewed regulations, Medicare for All, free college, as well as the 70-90% tax rates proposed by Democrats, will tank the stock market and US economic growth, leading to higher unemployment and reduced wage gains.  All these programs require higher taxes and not just the soak the rich fantasy of the 70-90% rates.  Most of the Democratic candidates have pledged to roll back the 2017 Republican tax cuts that fueled the renewal of economic growth in the US.  Open borders will flood the US with poverty stricken immigrants and their competition for jobs will depress wages.  The social welfare needs of the immigrants will skyrocket government expenditures.  So while taxes receipts are falling due to slower economic growth rates, expenditures will be rising, leading to increased government debt and consequently higher interest rates.  If the Federal Reserve tries to keep interest rates low to prevent a deepening recession, then the increase in the money supply and the expanding deficit will eventually destroy the value of the dollar.

Mayor Pete and the Crackup of Christianity.  Consider what has changed already.  In the 19th century, blasphemy was a crime.  In the Roaring '20s the "vices" of booze and gambling were outlawed.  Now they are major sources of state revenue.  Divorce was a rarity.  Now half of all marriages are dissolved.  After the sexual revolution of the '60s, births out of wedlock rocketed to where 40 percent of all children are born without a father in the home, as are half of Hispanics and 70 percent of all black children.  Pornography, which used to bring a prison term, today dominates cable TV. Marijuana, once a social scourge, is the hot new product.  And Sen. Kamala Harris wants prostitution legalized.  In the lifetime of many Americans, homosexuality and abortion were still scandalous crimes.  They are now cherished constitutional rights.  Yet, Mayor Pete's assertion — that God made him gay, and God intended that he live his life this way, and that this life is moral and good — is another milestone on the road to a new America.

Why Do Most People in This Country Work, while Others Never Will?  [Scroll down]  In President Obama's home town, the south and west side neighborhoods of Chicago had long been decimated by the long-term effects of a stream of uninterrupted rule by Democratic mayors.  The people left behind in these neighborhoods long ago gave up hope of a better life and have been inevitably forced to rely on public assistance and making money in the underground economy, including an unlawful drug trade dominated by violent gangs.  The overwhelming loss of high-paying and often unionized manufacturing jobs previously located in these neighborhoods had devastating and permanently detrimental effects and was the main reason behind their rapid decline.  The Democrats focus on addressing the grievances of their coalition of constituent interest groups with the unfortunate effect of further dividing the American people by providing these groups with special privileges and extra attention.

Anarchy is Swallowing Up the Social Order.  [D]espite increased government controls of everyday life in education, policing and citizen surveillance (don't forget those traffic tickets based on surveillance cameras), and dictation of many aspects of everyday living, we do not observe increasing order.  We observe increasing social anarchy.  Let's look at a somewhat truncated list of what we have endured and are enduring as a society.  We have seen horrible onslaughts as follows:  the Fort Hood jihad massacre, the Boston Bombing jihad massacre, the San Bernardino jihad massacre, the Pulse Nightclub massacre, riots in Berkeley, Ferguson, and Baltimore, cop shootings in Dallas and New York City, the Sandy Hook massacre, the Las Vegas massacre, the Texas church massacre, the Florida HS massacre, the Chattanooga recruiting station attack, and the jihad attack in Garland, TX against Pamela Geller.  We see anarchy further revealed by regular and frequent breakdowns of mass transit systems in metropolitan New York City and elsewhere and massive infiltration of our country by illegals (reminiscent of flooding in of Germanic tribes leading to collapse of the Roman Empire).  The anarchy occasioned by mass illegal immigration is encouraged by sanctuary cities with the avowed policy of protecting illegals, even those with multiple illegal border crossings, from apprehension by ICE.  Also, there is a drug use and abuse health crisis of epidemic proportions.  Further, the family in America is also being ripped to shreds as the number of children born outside of the marriage bond was 5% in 1960 and is 40% for the last few years.

What a Socialist Really Wants.  Now we have the remarkable spectacle of Venezuela, one of the richest countries in the world, being reduced to poverty and hunger by a dimwitted socialist junta.  The whole thing is a public spectacle, like botched plastic surgery on a movie star.  The socialists in charge have all the answers.  They know what you need better than you do.  Unfortunately, that turns out to be every tragic, stupid outcome imaginable.  How does any other country dare to discuss socialism?

It is not Mr. Trump who is dividing America.  When Barack Obama commandeered one seventh of the U.S. economy in the name of making health insurance available to a small minority of Americans who did not have it, and he did so through political chicanery, with no support from the Republicans, and against the wishes of the majority of Americans, that was divisive.  When Mr. Obama tried to force schools to allow males who "identified as" females to use women's bathrooms (and vice versa), and he did so with no public debate of the matter and in the complete absence of credible scientific evidence that a biological male can in any psychologically healthy sense claim to identify as a female, that was divisive.  When white students at our best colleges (and even recruits to the U.S. Army) are taught that they have enjoyed undeserved advantages because they happen to have been born white in a nation founded and peopled mostly by whites, that's divisive.  And when our political and economic institutions are vilified as expressions of "white supremacy" because they were developed predominantly by the white majority, that's divisive.

The Pitiful Roots of Anti-Americanism.  The Progressives' failure is not a failure to enact their agenda.  They have dominated America politically for the past century.  FDR gave us really big government, and the federal government has become a scandal of fraud, waste, and abuse — a scandal that even the Big Government Press cannot keep hidden from us.  LBJ declared War on Poverty — and that war was lost.  Instead of eliminating poverty, the War on Poverty has made poverty more pathological, creating an underclass, often now described as "permanent," living on government handouts.  Even the Progressives' anti-Americanism was given free rein with the election of Barack Obama, who shared their obsession with "fundamentally transforming" America.  Yet wave after wave of electoral victory has not made American Progressives happy.  Whenever the voters put the Progressives in charge, the result is governmental metastasis and social catastrophe — by necessity.  The left is simply wrong about how things work.  It is easy to come up with programs that defy common sense.  It is also possible to use governmental power to impose those programs on society.  But the power of government can't make them work.

The Worst-Run States Have This One Thing In Common.  Four of the five worst-run states all have one thing in common — and it's exactly what you think it is.  That's right, states with the worst fiscal condition — according to the Mercatus Center at George Mason University — are almost universally run by Democrats.

Guns Aren't the Problem.  The Collapse of the Morality You Mock is the Problem.  God is not mocked and our society has been mocking him for some time.  From the collapse of the family; to a culture of death that champions abortion on demand; to a growing hostility towards people of faith; to championing deviancy while normalcy is defined a deviant; to attacks on the two parent, heterosexual nuclear household; to porn culture, our society is rotten and these things happen in rotting societies.  This has always been under the surface.  Now it is boiling out because God has handed us over to ourselves. [...] We have determined that mothers and fathers are interchangeable or don't even matter.  We have determined that sexual expression is the height of society.  We have determined that humanity and personhood are severable.  Frankly, even lax European cultures have less of a culture of death than we do.  We stand almost alone in the West in liberal abortion policy.

Minnesota Democrats wage war on God, faith and American history.  The further we've moved away from God in our schools, the more he's been replaced by the extreme indoctrination of our kids with teaching and programs that completely undercut what families teach their children at home.  Nobody seems to care that parents are offended that many schools are no longer interested in partnering with them and instead are undermining them as the primary authority in the lives of their children.  Political correctness has infected schools to the point where priorities are out of whack.  Our schools lack the security they desperately need, teachers are underpaid, and yet politicians ignore these real issues and, instead, pick fights with people of faith.

How Americans Got Hoodwinked.  [Scroll down]  By the 1980s, an entire new generation was disoriented.  School and media had turned young minds toward an ideology at odds with America's founding principles and values.  Americans progressively lost their moral bearings and their identity as Americans.  Marxist activists and other crusaders for a collectivist nation had by now taken positions of leadership in academia, government, and church.  Public schools were beginning to pit students against their parents and filling their heads with ideas calculated to undermine the core values of their country and heritage.  Americans who got all their news from the mainstream press or TV were unaware that a culture war had broken out across the country.  Mainstream media reporters, allegedly on the side of truth, were either ignorant or complicit.

Socialism's Gateway Drug.  There's open talk of a divorce between individualists and collectivists; i.e., a separation of the US into at least two separate countries.  Can chaos be far behind when so many see the corruption from top to bottom, and are giving up belief in The Great Experiment? [...] The corruption in government is not just for enrichment or power.  It's to sow the seeds of WHY BOTHER? among the population. [...] The flood of third-world immigrants is not just for "diversity".  It's to sow the seeds of violent civil unrest as the natives of America and Europe finally resist at the 11th hour. [...] The deficit spending of every Western government is not just to buy votes.  It's second-level intent is to sow the seeds of an inevitable financial collapse, leading to societal chaos. [...] Look around you at what's happening.  Look at everything — every single thing — the Left does, in the context of trying to precipitate chaos.

Has Giving Leftists What They Want Made America Better?  In 1962, the United States Supreme Court gave leftists what they wanted:  the removal of prayer from public schools.  So how has that worked out for us?  Since prayer was removed from schools in 1962, out-of-wedlock births for girls 15-19 years old has tripled.  Violent crimes have increased tenfold.  Single-parent female-headed households have grown from 5 million in 1962 to 12 million and growing.  Sexually transmitted diseases in kids 10-14 years old has skyrocketed, increasing 257% since 1962.  Fifteen-year-olds having sex since 1962 is up 1,000%.  For decades, divorce rates were declining.  Since 1962, divorce rates have increased 117%, making America number one in the world for divorce.

Of Course Children Prefer Liberalism.  Liberals knew well what they were doing as they worked for decades at destroying the family.  As generations of Americans have been raised in broken homes — often by broken people — it makes it easier to make them wards of the state.  After all, if you don't have parents who care much or provide much for you, why not look to Uncle Sam and his trillions?  One of the great lies of modern liberalism — perhaps the great lie — is that the world owes us something, and it's up to us to do whatever it takes to get it.  If one has the "right" to do whatever one wishes in the sexual realm, why take responsibility for an unplanned pregnancy?  And if we don't have to worry about sex leading to children, why get married at all?  And if we want to get married, why can't we define what is marriage?

Paying the price for breakdown of the country's bourgeois culture.  [Scroll down]  This cultural script began to break down in the late 1960s.  A combination of factors — prosperity, the Pill, the expansion of higher education, and the doubts surrounding the Vietnam War — encouraged an antiauthoritarian, adolescent, wish-fulfillment ideal — sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll — that was unworthy of, and unworkable for, a mature, prosperous adult society.  This era saw the beginnings of an identity politics that inverted the color-blind aspirations of civil rights leaders like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. into an obsession with race, ethnicity, gender, and now sexual preference.  And those adults with influence over the culture, for a variety of reasons, abandoned their role as advocates for respectability, civility, and adult values.  As a consequence, the counterculture made great headway, particularly among the chattering classes — academics, writers, artists, actors, and journalists — who relished liberation from conventional constraints and turned condemning America and reviewing its crimes into a class marker of virtue and sophistication.

Anarchy Is Swallowing Up the Social Order.  [Scroll down]  Thus, despite increased government controls of everyday life in education, policing, and citizen surveillance (don't forget those traffic tickets based on surveillance cameras), we observe increasing social anarchy. [...] We see regular and frequent breakdowns of mass transit systems in metropolitan New York City and elsewhere, massive infiltration of our country by illegals (reminiscent of flooding in of Germanic tribes leading to collapse of the Roman Empire), and the drug use epidemic.  We see thirty-one "gender designations" by the City of New York with male and female demoted to being only two of the thirty-one.  Recently the mayor of Oakland, Calif. notified 1,000 illegal alien felons (yes, felons — not just nice men and women scrambling to make a living) that ICE was coming for them.  These developments suggest that anarchy is rife.  Thus, we see that the scope of government has grown and become more intrusive, but at the same time, anarchy seems to be racing forward at warp speed.  The leftists seem to think the anarchy is growing because government, despite its growth, has not been growing big enough or fast enough.  According to their thinking, growth in government power is the answer to anarchy.

Another Liberal-Created Failure.  According to professor William Gronfein at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, by 1955 there were nearly 560,000 patients housed in state mental institutions across the nation.  By 1977, the population of mental institutions had dropped to about 160,000 patients.  Starting in the 1970s, advocates for closing mental hospitals argued that because of the availability of new psychotropic drugs, people with mental illness could live among the rest of the population in an unrestrained natural setting. [... But] shutting down mental hospitals didn't turn out the way advocates promised.  Several studies summarized by the Treatment Advocacy Center show that untreated mentally ill are responsible for 10 percent of homicides (and a higher percentage of the mass killings).  They are 20 percent of jail and prison inmates and more than 30 percent of the homeless. [...] Many innocent people have been assaulted, robbed and murdered by mentally ill people.  Businesspeople and their customers have had to cope with the nuisance created by the mentally ill.

The Left Is Reaping the Whirlwind of the Culture They Made.  [Scroll down]  It seems clear to me the sheriff was speaking about rap music with its hateful, violent and misogynistic lyrics, and video games like Grand Theft Auto, where you can have sex with a prostitute then strangle her or pull an innocent person out of a car, beat him, then steal his vehicle.  I am a First Amendment purist and don't want to see expression censored in any way.  And I don't argue that there's a straight line between any specific cultural creation and bad acts.  But surely, a culture in which those in authority approve of and argue for things like gangsta rap and GTA — and indeed for the use of violence to silence speech that offends them — well, such a culture becomes a machine for transforming madness into murder.

A Time for War.  Civil War.  It's here.  Now.  Thankfully this is not yet the blood in the streets kind of war, but war it is. [...] Examples of the current battles in the war:
    Racialism, black lives matter, NFL kneeling, and the war on being white.
    The new feminism, and the war on being male.
    The new feminism, and the war on the unborn.
    Turning sex into a cesspool.  Weinstein, Hollywood, preying on children, rampant unfaithfulness, broken families, transgenderism.
    Turning race baiting and sex allegation into weapons of mass destruction.
    Environmental catastrophism.
    Health care control.
    Spending our grandchildren's money.
    Allowing immigration to strangle what's left of our institutions.
    Pretending radical Islam is okay, but Judeo-Christian culture is not.
    Teaching that socialism is just another form of government and not a failure.
    Teaching that our country is inherently evil, and must be changed throughout.
There are many others.  But the important thing to understand is every one of these major battles is going on simultaneously.

No, I Am Not a Moron but Half the Country is Deranged.  Of all the crises plaguing the nation, who would ever consider gender identity and potty access as the most pressing issues yet we now have the unthinkable occurring.  Men allowed to enter ladies bathrooms whenever they like and dogs getting their own bathrooms at JFK airport.  Criminals getting their sex change operations paid for by taxpayers while in prison.  Transgender former males winning female sporting events ('quel surprise') like wrestling or weightlifting.  The language we all learned from day one has become weaponized by the gender militants in our Marxist academia.

The 6 Big Ways Liberals Are Destroying America's Culture.  [#1] The Politicization Of Everything:  Want to watch football?  There are players protesting the flag.  Turn on a Hollywood awards ceremony?  There are actors making political statements.  Want to go to the bathroom in peace?  Well, first, we need to know if you're okay with sharing it with someone who feels like the opposite gender today.  You're just a regular person telling an off-color joke you heard?  Better be careful; that could turn into a front page scandal if the wrong group gets offended.  Want to buy a Halloween costume for your kid?  Well, you better make sure it's someone of the same race or people will be upset.  Want to go on a date?  If you date someone of the same race, you may be racist.  Ready to marry your honey?  Then you better support gay marriage or you're a homophobe.  I can remember a time in America where you could just live your life without paying attention to politics at all if you wanted and that was a good thing.  Remember that old saying?  Never discuss race, religion or politics in polite company?  Well, because of liberals, you don't have a choice anymore.

How the Left Devalues American Citizenship.  In his relentless effort to devalue what it means to be an American, Obama exempted citizenship applicants from a major part of the Oath of Allegiance.  Applicants no longer have to pledge to defend our country. [...] While illegals are not official citizens, outrageously, they receive benefits unavailable to citizens — free attorneys, college tuition, checks, abortions, and more.  Democrats and fake news media are working to guilt-trip Americans into gifting illegals the right to vote (some are already voting).  So, illegals don't desire or need no stinkin' U.S. citizenship.  Obama's illegals have no desire to assimilate.

Dear Democrats:  Does Trump do anything that's not racist?  [Scroll down]  When you don't enforce immigration laws, you will get more illegal immigration.  When you don't hold people to account on sexual abuse like Bill Clinton, you will get more sexual abuse.  When you have a secret slush fund to pay off claims for congressmen and no disclosure, you will get more claims.  When you allow people like Clapper, Brennan, Comey, and Holder to lie to Congress with no repercussions, you will get more liars, and when you have a secretary of state who repeatedly lies and violates securities laws — who enriches her family and foundation with her political position, who repeatedly lies and not only doesn't get penalized, but gets rewarded with a presidential nomination — you will get more political corruption.

Rhode Island, Connecticut and Illinois are the 'worst possible states to live in' (but Louisiana and Mississippi aren't much better).  If you live in Illinois, Connecticut or Rhode Island, the chances are you know someone who is not happy.  Not happy at all.  Around a quarter of the population living in these regions have described them each as the 'worst possible state to live in', according to a Gallup survey.  The map data doesn't explain the nature of the residents' grievances.

Timely news and commentary:

Dealing with Consequences.  [Scroll down]  Consider the crime wave that is currently ruining cities with Democrat mayors.  Far-left Soros funded district attorneys such as Alvin Bragg and Chelsa Boudin and George Gascón have made the decision to not prosecute criminals.  As a consequence, crime is rampant and 'Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety' are nonexistent.  To say that Biden has removed our opportunity to vote on his decisions concerning his policies would be a major understatement.  But that's only half the story.  Biden is trying to create a consequence-free society.  Decisions have consequences in the real world, but not in Biden-world.  Making decisions without consequences is simply not possible.  Every decision has consequences, be they favorable or unfavorable, expected or not, intended or unintended, or some combination thereof.

Unsuited for the Senate.  Prior to Schumer's decree, Fetterman was voting from the Senate's doorway, but no more.  Last week, sporting a G. Gordon Liddy mustache that seemed more suited for a character in the Far Side, Fetterman presided over the Senate in short-sleeves and shorts.  Fetterman's apparel is fit for the locker room, not Congress.  Dressing like an adolescent is contempt for the office and the people he represents.  Schumer has no more regard for the Senate decorum and dignity than does Fetterman.  The Biden administration has appointed two men in dresses to senior positions, so you could argue Fetterman is just following suit — minus the suit.  Democrats constantly lament about White male privilege but have changed the protocol for a White male who would be just as comfortable in an orange jumpsuit.  Gone is any pride of appearance.  Standards of professionalism and propriety are disdained.  Once upon a time in America, casual dress was for weekends and tailgating.  Now it is everyday wear in the U.S. Senate.

Radical Democrats' greatest fears are religion, truth, honesty, and integrity.  I am confident that most Americans are worn down by all the chaos that exists in our country, Independent, Republican, and Democrat voters alike.  We have a president who is clearly age-disabled.  We have 2024 presidential elections where both party leaders are accused of corruption.  Women and girls are under attack.  Parents are asked to surrender their children to the state.  Children are taught to lie to parents.  Religious freedom is considered a terrorist act.  Crime and homelessness are rampant in cities.  We can't afford food, gas, or a house.  Our educational standards have failed.  A costly war is in Ukraine.  Simply being "white" makes you racist.  Immigration is out of control and destroying communities.  The black community's need for school choice is ignored.  Citizens are fearful after defunding the police.  Radicals are destroying American history.  Corruption exists with our press and social media.  As an older senior, I ask, how did it get this bad in just three years?

Guess who's upset now about illegal aliens depressing wages.  Karl Marx once wrote of repeating events in history that they occur "first as tragedy, then as farce."  That was my reaction to an article appearing in the Thursday, September 22 New York Post.  The article focused on complaints of existing illegal aliens in the metropolitan New York City area.  The huge influx of illegal aliens has them occupying 50% of the hotel rooms in the city.  They are sleeping all over the sidewalks in Midtown Manhattan.  Mayor Adams has declared that the costs of dealing with them "will destroy the city."  NYC has prided itself on being a sanctuary city willing to house and feed any and all illegal aliens.  Daily television showed city authorities meeting the arriving buses from the border, shaking hands and greeting the new illegals.  But the large flow from the border has swamped the system.  As was posited in Field of Dreams: "If you build it, they will come."  They did, and they did.

Biden Marches With Autoworkers While Causing Their Problems.  The UAW is demanding a 35% hike in pay and benefits over four years, as well as automatic cost-of-living adjustments, just like in the 1970s, along with a four-day workweek.  The inflationary 1970s are calling Biden, and they want their benefits back — with a post-COVID-19 four-day twist.  According to news reports, Biden told workers, "You should be doing incredibly well."  But he has singlehandedly, through the power of his executive branch, caused them to face job losses and higher inflation.  By changing his policies, Biden could address some of the fundamental reasons for their strike; namely, job loss because of mandatory vehicle electrification and higher inflation resulting from his war on fossil fuels, resulting in higher energy costs.  Both were imposed by the executive branch without support from even the Democratic Congress in place during Biden's first two years in office.

The Role of the Smartphone and Digital Content in the Left's Revolution.  Christopher Rufo, Douglas Murray, and Victor Davis Hanson have all pointed out that we are in the middle of a cultural revolution that is assailing our culture, values, traditions, and institutions, our national security and sovereignty, our economy, our Constitution and rule of law, and our overall quality of life.  The percentage of Americans saying they are worse off is at its highest level since 2009.  One of the most fascinating aspects of this obvious decline is that leftists have managed to convince a very large portion (in many cases a majority) of Americans to support the divisive and corrosive policies producing their own destruction.  What arguments have leftists used to accomplish this?  Chiefly, though not exclusively, they have employed a trifecta of completely nonsensical tropes about race, gender, and climate.

It's not working.  First, I do think that the economy is hurting people big time, from the price of gasoline to the price of cereal to everything else that you can imagine.  I see this every Sunday when the waiter puts the lunch bill on the table.  More than once, my wife has given me that "I don't believe this" look.  Add to this the border crisis which is now a national problem rather than only El Paso, Texas.  For a while, the media could avoid talking about the border.  It's different when New Yorkers see migrants sleeping on their streets or Texas border cities are screaming for help.  Second, more and more Americans do not want to destroy their country in order to destroy Trump.

I Bet You We're Not Better Off Now With So Much Gambling.  I'm no puritan, I honestly don't care what you do with your money as long as you don't expect me to subsidize it or make up for your mismanagement of it.  The problem is, we are all being asked, or made, to subsidize it now.  When gambling took some effort, things were different.  Yes, there were still degenerate gamblers, but not that many.  Now, in states like Michigan, you can play casino games for money on your phone with your credit card.  What could go... right?  Nothing.  I keep citing Michigan because I grew up there, and was back not that long ago and noticed a lot of television commercials for casino apps.  There are three full casinos in the city of Detroit.  The argument for allowing them was the reported million dollars per day going across the Detroit River to Casino Windsor, with their neon sign glowing its siren song to people who couldn't resist its call.  The city and state want a piece of that action, so they got their own.

Berkeley Retail Shutting Down Just Like San Francisco.  Rising crime, looting, and tolerance of drug-addled transients taking over the streets has led to an exodus of retail establishments from San Francisco.  Now another Democrat-controlled California city is enjoying the same exodus of retail establishments:  Berkeley.  Here YouTuber Metal Leo looks at streets near Cal Berkeley University, where store after store after store are closed, boarded up or for lease.  [Video clip]  Banks, pharmacies, cinemas, pizza chains: all closed.  The only thing that seems to be open are Starbucks.

Is the Left Happy That They Got Their Wish?  Critical legal theory has now trickled down into most of our large cities.  It insists that criminals are not criminals at all, but rather victims of prior racial and class oppressions.  Thus their victims should blame society for their injuries, not their predatory victimizers.  Critical legal theory is a sort of Marxist redistribution schema — the middle class almost deserves its equal share of violence commensurate with that of the inner city.  As a result, in Chicago and Oakland and hundreds of other cities, prosecutors let out criminals without bail or sometimes even indictments — in part out of spite and hatred of middle- and upper-middle-class America that supposedly deserves a payback for its bourgeois indifference, in part out of sheer ignorance of the unleashing of human nature once all deterrence is removed.  And the result?  Anxious liberal professionals are fleeing our major cities in the greatest out-of-state migrations since the 1930s.  Or they simply avoid their own downtowns.

All Over America, Blue Cities Are Facing A Severe Shortage Of Police Officers.  Do you remember a few years ago when blue cities all over the nation wanted to defund the police?  Needless to say, that didn't work out too well.  Wherever police budgets were slashed, crime rates shot up.  Today, we are in the midst of a massive crime wave that is sweeping the country.  In fact, it has gotten so bad that even many our most liberal politicians are desperate to restore law and order.  But that won't be so easy, because after everything that has transpired blue cities are discovering that they are having a really difficult time finding enough warm bodies to serve in their crime-ridden communities.

The Destruction of the United States Is Intentional.  Here's What Will Happen Next.  The commies began the operation decades ago.  As Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov warned, the college professors and civil rights leaders indoctrinated — or as Bezmenov calls it, demoralized — generations of Americans and convinced them to hate their nation and, frequently, themselves.  The Soviets successfully infiltrated the black communities, convinced them they were less than, and let the anger seethe into subsequent generations.  That is why we see highly educated and successful black folks like the Obamas, MSNBC's Joy Reid, and the deranged Cori Bush screaming about racism, even though they are one-percenters.  If systemic racism were real, how did these poor, indentured serfs get so far?

Why Do The Poor Countries Always Stay So Poor?  It's now more than sixty years since the independence movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s transformed nearly all of sub-Saharan Africa into independent countries.  Hopes soared for a new era of progress and prosperity.  But six plus decades on, with essentially no exceptions (maybe Botswana?), the 49 countries of sub-Saharan Africa are about as poor as ever. [...] The funny thing about the bad luck of sub-Saharan Africa is that it seems to afflict all 49 countries at the same time, even as elsewhere in the world at least a few countries (South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand) are able to find the magic recipe to rise out of poverty.

The Feds Sue New York Landlords for Not Allowing a Tenant's Emotional Support Cat.  Federal housing officials are charging a pair of New York landlords with violating fair housing law for making no exceptions for emotional support animals in their "no pets" policy.  On Monday, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced it had filed a complaint against Ronit and Voyl "Tom" Mecham — owners of a two-unit rental property in Jamestown, New York — for denying a tenant's requests to keep a cat on the premises.  The Mecham's tenant, whose name is redacted in the complaint, had requested in November 2021 that they be allowed to have the cat as part of the treatment they were receiving for unspecified mental health issues.  The tenant said they would provide a doctor's note justifying the emotional support cat.

They Were Too Young to Consent but Now They're Old Enough to Sue.  An unnamed woman who once identified as transgender filed suit last week against the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Nebraska Medicine, and three doctors for "negligence and lack of informed consent" after she had a "gender-affirming" double mastectomy at the age of 16 in 2018.  Now a young woman, the plaintiff will never nurse her children, assuming she is still able to bear them after four years of testosterone treatments that "caused significant mental and physical harm."  All because the medical industry — I used to call it "healthcare" — decided that surgery and hormones were the answer to a troubled teenager's emotional and mental health issues and, according to the lawsuit, bulldozed her into their preferred "treatment."  That poor kid doesn't seem to have ever stood a chance against the adults arrayed against her.

To Market, to Market.  Among the factors weighing heavily on public disaffection with Democratic governance is the downturn occasioned by their policies, which hamper production, raise prices, and allow widespread retail theft.  Robert Barnes has done the math: "Under #Trump, real median family household incomes rose 15% in just 3 years, the highest rate since after World War 2.  Under #Biden, real median family household incomes fell 5% in just 3 years, the fastest rate of decline since the Great Depression."  To be sure, the bien pensant big thinkers don't see this as a problem.  The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman offers up a defense — essentially, voters shouldn't believe their lying eyes.  "The economic data have been just surreally good.  Even optimists are just stunned," says Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman.

How Woke Lefties Ruined Aspen.  That story begins only 150 years ago with, appropriately enough, a somewhat crackpot idea called "free silver."  For the last quarter of the 19th century, the idea kicked around that the government should buy large quantities of silver to create an easy money supply.  And for a time, it did just that.  Aspen, originally called Ute City, had some of the largest silver deposits on Earth, and it boomed, reaching a population of more than 12,000. Congress repealed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893, ending the artificial demand for the metal, and Aspen became a quasi-ghost town with a population at the dawn of the 20th century of only a few hundred.  After a long downturn, Aspen boomed again immediately after World War II, with skiing as the new silver.  Beaton tells with verve the very human story of Army veterans and Chicago businessmen coming together to create a ski resort.  Aspen's first modern chair lift was opened in 1947, one of the longest in the world.  Aspen became not just a town, but a brand — now one of the most prestigious in the world.  But Aspen then had a second downfall.  The 1960s introduced America to drug abuse and other moral laxness on a widespread scale.

Inflation accelerated in August to 3.7% as consumer prices heat up again.  Inflation accelerated for a second straight month in August, reversing previous declines as consumers continued to grapple with the rising cost of everyday goods.  The Labor Department said Wednesday that the consumer price index, a broad measure of the price for everyday goods including gasoline, groceries and rents, rose 0.6% in August from the previous month, in line with estimates.  It marked the steepest monthly increase this year, underscoring the challenge in taming high inflation.  Prices climbed 3.7% from the same time last year, faster than both the 3.2% reading in July and the 3.6% estimate from Refinitiv economists.

We Haven't Had a Year This Bad Since Obama Was President.  The last time Americans saw a drop in household income as large as we did last year, Barack Obama was president.  The Census Bureau on Tuesday released its calculations for the change in real median household income for last year.  By its calculations, the median income of U.S. households fell in 2022 by 2.3 percent, the worst decline since 2010.  History may not necessarily repeat or even rhyme, but it certainly rings a bell on occasion.  The last time household income suffered a decline as large as it did in the second year of Biden's presidency was in the second year of Biden's vice presidency.  That's before taxes.  Once you calculate in changes to the taxes paid and subsidies handed out, household income fell 8.8 percent.

Criminal Justice is Just Plain Ugly.  I think that the crime problem, the mass incarceration problem, and mental health problem arise out of the liberal cultural beliefs and liberal political power that our liberal friends have used to impose their beliefs and culture on the rest of us.  And for most people not in the laptop class liberal culture and power make things worse.  But I could be wrong.  Earth to liberals:  Urban violence and murder rates are a witch's brew of fatherless homes, welfare, and the separation of sex from marriage and child-raising.  And You Did It.  Earth to liberals:  Mass incarceration and three strikes laws are the knee-jerk response of ordinary people to the rise of crime and violence that amped up in the Sixties with the Great Society.

Are You Better Off Today Than You Were Four Years Ago?  Another metric is food inflation as all Americans need to purchase and consume food.  Food inflation currently sits at 4.9 percent compared to 1.8 percent four years ago.  It has more than doubled in the past four years, with no sign of slowing down.  At a macroeconomic level, is our national debt higher or lower compared to four years ago?  In 2022, the national debt was $30.8 trillion.  Four years ago in 2018 it was $21.4 trillion.  In four short years it increased by almost $10 trillion.  It took America until 2008 to even reach $10 trillion in debt and in four short years we added 230 years' worth of debt to our ledger.  That's what America owes.  How about what America spends?  The annual U.S. budget deficit was $665 billion in 2017, rising to $2,772 [billion] in 2021.  This is more than a fourfold increase in spending money we don't have.  Budget deficits used to be measured in the billions.  Under Biden they are in the trillions.

The 'Climate Emergency' Is a Hoax.  The Biden administration, however, appears not to be concerned about the widespread poverty and massive starvation that will be caused by the unavailability of cheap and reliable energy in underdeveloped countries, or the inflation caused by the skyrocketing prices that are crushing Americans "barely able to afford one meal a day". [...] The Biden administration also does not seem concerned that it is killing wildlife, sea life and the fishing industry by installing offshore wind turbines along the Atlantic seaboard, or that mandating electric vehicles will throw virtually the entire auto maintenance industry out of work (EVs do not need routine maintenance), or that lithium batteries not only explode but cost thousands of dollars to replace.  The administration even wants military equipment, such as tanks, to be electric, as if there were charging stations in the middle of foreign deserts in the event of a conflict.  Moreover, according to NBC News, volcanoes, unimpressed with executive orders, "Dwarf Humans for CO2 Emissions."

Tom Cotton:  Military Citations Using 'Themself' Instead of 'Himself' or 'Herself'.  Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on Friday sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin demanding he explain the Pentagon's apparent decision to use the "gender neutral" term "themself" instead of "himself" or "herself" for decoration and award citations.  Cotton, an Army veteran, wrote to Austin:  ["]I write regarding the Department's decision to incorporate 'gender neutral' language into decoration and award citations.  Our military apparently will now use 'themself' — which is not even a word, I hasten to add — instead of 'himself' or 'herself' to describe heroic or distinguished actions.["]

Why San Francisco is the car break-in capital:  Low-risk, high reward.  In case you've somehow missed all the news coming out of San Francisco for the past several years, the city has the highest rate of property crime in the country.  The SF Chronicle published a story today asking the obvious question:  "Why is it so bad here — and not elsewhere?"  The answer the article comes to is not entirely satisfying but it does make some amount of sense.

Exploiting Transgender Kids as Emotional Support Animals.  Do y'all remember the time an emotional support animal was kicked off a United flight for being disruptive?  In this instance, "being disruptive" included a pig defecating and screaming in the cabin.  Passengers were quick to complain about the stink, noise, and awkwardness of it all because, when you pay good money to fly, doing so without a barnyard experience is a reasonable expectation.  Thankfully, over the last decade, emotional support animals have been kept on a tighter leash since they are not now, nor were they ever service dogs.  Airlines have reeled in their restrictions and put a muzzle on the idea any animal can fly under the "if it fits, it sits" mantra.  Everybody knows that the owner of that peacock, hamster, boa constrictor, cat, or hedgehog does not rely on the animal to aid in the performance of specific tasks.  Rather, they don't want to leave their beloved animal behind.  Levity, affection, companionship — that's why we have pets!  We also have therapists.

'Prosecute Them': Dem Who Backed Efforts To 'Dismantle' Police Says She Was Carjacked In Front Of Her Kids.  Shivanthi Sathanandan, the second vice chairwoman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), said in a Facebook post that she was violently attacked and carjacked Tuesday in front of her two children.  Four men allegedly broke Sathanandan's leg and beat her with their fists and guns in front of her two young children at her Minneapolis home before stealing her car and fleeing the scene, she said in the post.  Sathanandan, who had previously backed efforts to reduce the police force, urged fellow Minneapolis residents to "take back" their city and prosecute violent criminals in her post following the incident.  "We need to get illegal guns off of our streets, catch these young people who are running wild creating chaos across our city and HOLD THEM IN CUSTODY AND PROSECUTE THEM," Sathanandan wrote.

Leftist Activists Used To Be About Fighting 'The Man.' Now They Are 'The Man'.  For decades, the left defined itself by its opposition to authority, gleefully fighting the old conservative fuddy-duddys in power.  But as a slew of formerly rebellious rockstars have learned, the left has since become the very thing it used to fight.  Alice Cooper, a famously painted-up rock icon since the '70s, came under fire for a series of benign comments regarding the current transgender pandamonium.  "I'm understanding that there are cases of transgenderism, but I'm afraid that it's also a fad, and I'm afraid there's a lot of people claiming to be this just because they want to be that," Cooper said.  "I find it wrong when you've got a six-year-old kid who has no idea.  He just wants to play, and you're confusing him telling him, 'Yeah, you're a boy, but you could be a girl if you want to be.'"  For this perfectly innocuous statement, Cooper lost a brand deal with Vampyre Cosmetics, which accused the musician of transphobia.  Clearly, the LGBT community is so oppressed and powerless that banal criticism of them results in losing work.  Cooper didn't express anything hateful, he simply cautioned of too many people hopping aboard the current cultural bandwagon and that these procedures have permanent consequences.  For that, Cooper was accused of "spewing debunked bathroom predator myths" and "leaning on right-wing, anti-trans scare tactics" by Rolling Stone, an outlet that used to be about covering music but has since moved on to political hackery.

A 'poop' rampage in Wyoming is an important insight into today's homeless.  The headline at the Daily Mail was eye-catching: "Squatters take over Wyoming city:  Vagrants leave millions of dollars worth of damage to motel and 500 lbs of human feces in downtown area — as Casper fights off a homeless invasion."  It was an image at odds with how we think of Wyoming; that is, a clean, naturally beautifully conservative state.  But the homeless plague is everywhere, and the situation in Casper reminds us that most of today's homeless are not just ordinary people down on their luck; they are dysfunctional drug addicts who are the inevitable result of 60 years of leftist drug policies.

Rousseau and the Collapse of American Constitutionalism.  [Scroll down]  So today in America the new social contract proposed by the Democrats provides, for example, that if you decide to be a man, be a man.  If you decide to be a woman, be a woman.  If you want even more personal freedom, be either from time to time.  If you are a girl, then America is your oyster.  If you don't want to have a baby, don't have a baby.  With immigration, if you want to be an American, come here and be an American.  If you want to join the ruling elite, just register for college.  Someone else will pay your tuition and, presto, without much effort you will have your passport into the new American elite.  If you struggle with illness, taxpayers will free you from that hardship.  But there was a bait-and-switch in Rousseau's design template.  None of us really will have individual authority to live as we might wish.  We must surrender our rights to the collective which has all sovereign power.

The Decline of American 'Civilization'.  The glorification of violence and sex in a society is uncivilized.  These things appeal to the most squalid nature of man, his most carnal appetites, not his noblest.  Uncontrolled lust and violence are characteristics of the lowest common denominator of humanity.  Jungle instincts must be restrained, contained, and overcome for civilization to exist.  Any society that refuses to do so will suffer dire consequences, as indeed we see in America today.

Report: 90% of Online Content May Be AI-Generated Garbage by 2026.  A recent report from Europol warns that by 2026, as much as 90 percent of online content could be generated by artificial intelligence, raising concerns that the web might be even more jammed with useless garbage in a few short years than it is today.  Futurism reports that a recent study by Europol suggests that by 2026, up to 90 percent of online content could be artificially generated.  This staggering figure has sent ripples through various sectors, from journalism and art to technology and law enforcement.  Synthetic media, which refers to content generated or manipulated using artificial intelligence, is not a new phenomenon.  However, its rapid proliferation has raised eyebrows and concerns alike.

Unsafe and 'looking like a dump': How Brighton's controversial eco policy went to seed.  Borage, yarrow, knotgrass and ribwort; for the enthusiastic forager there are herbs enough to fill an apothecary's cabinet.  This is no countryside hedgerow, however, but rather the pavement outside a £1.5 million house in Hove.  Five-foot tall horseweed growing up between the cracks in the paving slabs has become a familiar sight for the residents of Brighton and Hove.  On some streets a tapestry of grass has formed that makes it impossible to walk in a straight-line down the hilly streets.  It is a verdant sight, but not, however, a welcome one for residents.  "My mother is 89 and if she's walking around on these pavements, she can't do it," says one local who preferred not to be named. "I worry about her falling all the time."  For the past four years nature has been left to its own devices after the then Green Party-led council in 2019 banned toxic weed killers that include chemicals such as glyphosate following a petition from residents.

Glyphosate, best known as the active ingredient in the weed killer Roundup, has been the subject of many studies and legal challenges regarding its potential to cause cancer, specifically non-Hodgkin lymphoma.  Its environmental damage, particularly to soil quality, is also well documented.

Why wind and solar power are running out of juice.  Alternative energy madness — and that's what it is — has had its biggest impact in California.  But New York and New Jersey have adopted most of that state's mandates.  Sales of new internal combustion vehicles will be banned beginning in 2035 in the states.  All of the electricity sold to retail consumers will have to be "zero-emissions."  Homeowners and building owners will be forced to replace gas- and oil-burning space and water heaters with electric heat pumps.  And, gas stoves will be regulated out of existence.  New York also will soon implement another California import: a carbon "cap-and-invest" program, which will impose a tax on fossil fuels sold by wholesalers and utilities.  The billions of dollars collected each year will provide a green slush fund, allowing the governor and legislators to hand out money to their politically favored cronies, as has so often been the case in the past.  Washington State began its "cap-and-invest" program in January of this year.  Modeled after California's, Governor Jay Inslee promised the program would have "minimal impact, if any.  We are talking about pennies."  Instead, the program has raised gasoline prices — almost 50 cents per gallon so far this year.

Let's Call It Treason.  Millions of people around the world are beginning to figure out that there is a force, an evil cabal trying to take over the entire planet. [...] National leaders are going out of their way to destroy their collective countries.  These chief executives and oligarchs, feeling a New World Order is inevitable, are merely vying for high position in what they think will be a new society.  It is not more evident than here in the United States.  These leaders make decisions that no one understands[,] destroying the election system of the greatest democracy in the world, ignoring the needs of their citizenry, destroying the military and police departments, with no regard for national security, citizen safety or law and order.  Gone is energy independence, dozens of food processing plants (its become a global phenomena), hundreds of farms (meat and dairy are bad, but bugs are good).  Millions of illegal migrants pour into our countries without vetting, background or medical checks.

A compendium of everything wrong with Barack Obama's legacy.  President Obama's assault on Americans' constitutional rights and protections as well as on the nation's constitutionally defined governmental institutions and their respective authority entailed myriad particulars.  It included undermining of First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and religious freedom.  It extended to usurpation of the legislative authority of Congress and disregard for the constitutional authority of the Supreme Court.  In addition, Obama compromised the rule of law and protection of rights more broadly.  He ignored the findings of lower federal courts.  He subverted federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, the FBI, the CIA, the IRS, and other departments of the federal government, to illegal politicization and lawless attacks on perceived political enemies.  He promoted federal intrusion in and subversion of state and local law enforcement, also in the service of political ends.  The collective impact of Obama's abuses of power, the "transformation" of America that he so often promised, was the creation of a less democratic, post-constitutional, authoritarian nation.

"Nonviolent Crime" Is a Myth.  Five days after sustaining serious injuries, a San Francisco store clerk named Yowhannes "John" Tewelde has died.  He was beaten with a baseball bat by a man whom he tried to stop from stealing beer from his store.  Tewelde's death marks yet another homicide in the Bay Area, which, between San Francisco and Oakland, has seen an enormous amount of crime and mayhem in recent years.  The nature of Tewelde's death illustrates an important reality that progressives working to ease up on supposedly nonviolent crimes don't seem to appreciate: even "minor" offenses like retail theft, open-air drug use, and smoking on subway platforms are frequently backed by a threat of violence.  Had Tewelde not intervened, allowing the thief to take what he wished, progressive prosecutors like former San Francisco district attorneys George Gascón and Chesa Boudin probably would have refused to prosecute him, citing the nonviolent nature of the offense.  All we'd have is a lowly shop owner forced to shoulder the cost of a few cheap beers.  No big deal, right?  Wrong.  The decision to ignore the theft would allow an individual who was in truth both willing and able to kill over $10 to remain on the street.  It would be only a matter of time before he did something terrible.

Why anyone who supported COVID fascism has no right to complain about inflation and housing crisis.  Inflation is very simply defined as too much money chasing too few goods.  Our government decided to spend and then print more money (by a mile) than ever before while shutting down supply chains!  Now we are dealing with endless long-term debt and the expense of servicing it, which is inducing even more inflation, forcing interest rates up, and creating the housing crisis we are living with today. [...] Regardless of who would be president in 2021, that inflation cake was baked.  Obviously, Biden increased spending even more and locked up our energy supplies, placing more pressure on energy prices.  His Ukraine policies made it even worse.  However, the core inflation would be with us today regardless of which party is in the White House, because, with few exceptions, both parties equally embraced these terrible policies of loose money.

The Biggest Environmental Scandal In The World.  A dead whale washed ashore on Takanassee Beach in New Jersey in the early evening yesterday.  Police blocked off the area so tractors could be brought in to remove it.  "We were sitting on the beach yesterday, and I noticed it when people started running up to it," said Soraya Nimaroff, who lives nearby.  "I'm very sad.  It is very sad."  Yesterday marked the 60th known whale death on the East Coast since Dec 1, 2022.  Whale strandings have increased markedly since 2016.  The North Atlantic right whales are headed for extinction.  Their population has dropped to 340.  There have been 200 humpback strandings and 98 strandings of right whales since 2017.  "It caused us concern enough to ask, 'What is happening?'" said Cindy Zipf, executive director of the Long Branch-based nonprofit Clean Ocean Action (COA).  "We looked into what was different about this December and early January."  The only thing she and other researchers found was offshore wind exploration.

The return of animal sacrifice.  We look back with bewilderment at the ritual sacrifice of animals by our ancestors.  Whether it was the Celtic people's sacrifice of livestock to appease pissed-off deities or the Ancient Romans' slaughter of oxen so that Jupiter might be more sparing with his stormy weather, it was all a bit mad.  We would never be so superstitious, we tell ourselves.  I'm not sure that's true.  Consider the proposed slaughter of hundreds of thousands of cattle in Europe in the holy name of Net Zero.  This is the return of pagan lunacy, surely.  Irish farmers are under pressure to 'cull up to 200,000 cows' in order that Ireland might meet its 'climate goals', reported the Financial Times at the weekend.  The Irish government is considering proposals to bump off that amount of cattle over the next three years to help it achieve a 25 percent reduction in its agricultural emissions.  Cows produce methane, you see, and methane is bad.  It's a greenhouse gas.  Farming accounts for 40 percent of Ireland's greenhouse-gas emissions, so it has become a natural target for the Net Zero zealots.  Every EU member state is under pressure to make strides towards Net Zero, and if that entails the sacrifice of livestock, so be it.  Save the planet, slaughter the cows.

Washington power company raises rates to cover increased expense due to climate legislation.  A Washington utility company jacked its rates on residents as a result of the Democrat-passed cap-and-trade program, but was prohibited from informing its customers as to the reason why, according to a new report.  The Center Square reported that the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) approved a request by Puget Sound Energy earlier this month to raise its natural gas rates to cover the costs of Washington's cap-and-trade program, part of the Climate Commitment Act, which was passed by the Democrat-controlled state legislature and signed into law by Democrat Governor Jay Inslee.

Save the Rule of Law By Destroying It?  Some truths are so staggering in their ramifications that Americans simply shrug and tune them out as if strangers in a strange land.  Is their current bewilderment because modernist America is unrecognizable — a nonexistent border, downtown homeless juxtaposed to hipster professional elites, DEI racial essentialism, cities reverting to precivilizational wastelands, millions exiting blue states to red, an FBI and DOJ gone rogue, the normalization of violent theft and assault, biologically born men sandbagging women's sports and their locker room privacy?  We are reaching the point where the once unbelievable has become the banal, as a single generation has done its best to undo the work of a prior 12 generations.

Portland's Predictable Doom Loop.  At one time not so long ago, Portland leaders turned the sleepy town into a progressive hub for the creative class, spending billions on 19th-century light rail Choo Choo trains to convey bus riders to their planned utopia.  The more the plans failed, the more the planners planned, as Ronald Reagan once said.  Because of the hard hand of the planner class, a corrupt system of regulatory capture, and the certitude of those who know better than we do how to run our lives, Portland leaders never really stopped to consider if anyone wanted what they were selling.  They went on blithely singing kumbaya and giddily handed the match to the activist left, which lit the Molotov cocktail that sparked the city's self-immolation.  Now these leaders have regulated, locked down, and scared away a third of the downtown office buildings.  When San Francisco hit this marker it was called a "doom loop."

Dick's Sporting Goods Is Learning What the Consequences of Going Woke Are.  Go woke, go broke.  That's what conservatives say, and unfortunately, sometimes it's just rhetoric that doesn't materialize.  Still, there are times when the adage proves true.  Enter Dick's Sporting Goods, the woke outdoor company that has prided itself on inserting itself into various cultural battles.  As RedState reported, shareholders were greeted with bad news recently when it was revealed that Dick's saw a 23 percent drop in profit over the last quarter.  That sent the company into a freefall.  On August 21st, the stock price was $141.  Two days later, it was at $108.  That's a dramatic drop for a well-known retail brand with so many years in the game.  The question is, what led us here?  According to Dick's own admission, a sharp rise in retail theft has severely hampered profitability.

New York loses $1 trillion in Wall Street business as firms flee the city: report.  A giant, sucking sound is coming out of Wall Street — and it's siphoning staggering sums of money out of the Big Apple while handing business to Florida and other states farther south.  Nearly 160 Wall Street firms have moved their headquarters out of New York since the end of 2019, taking nearly $1 trillion — yes, that's trillion with a "T" — in assets under management with them, according to data from 17,000 companies compiled by Bloomberg.  Looking to dodge rampant crime, stiff taxes and an increasingly exorbitant cost of living, 158 fed-up financial firms representing a whopping $993 billion in assets have packed up and left the Big Apple, taking thousands of high-paid employees with them, the data shows.

Woke blue cities defund themselves.  'Defund the police!' they yelled in 2020, that famous summer of love:  They did that.  Now they're discovering — the hard way — that they're actually defunding themselves. [...] [New York] businesses are fleeing for the same reasons that the people are fleeing:  Bad government.  After all, the picture is largely the same:  Run one of the world's most expensive cities.  Tax them up the wazoo.  Demonize corporations.  Embrace COVID lockdowns.  Defund the cops, or else incentivize them to retire at their desks.  Let the homeless and drug-addicted roam freely.  Let the organized theft rings shut down the retailers and restaurants.  Let every car be subject to smash-and-grab robberies.  Let vital city services, such as the subway, become dangerous no-go zones.  Lose an analyst or two every so often to random violent crime.  Ensure that public schools are not worth going to.  And most important, mock and laugh at those who do the logical thing, which is move someplace else where the costs are lower, the taxes are lower, the bums know they can't camp out in front of someone's headquarters, and the criminals know that they're headed to jail every time they loot a business.

Historic LA hotel devolves into housing projects, repairs cost taxpayers more than $11.5 million.  Built in 1926, The Mayfair Hotel in downtown Los Angeles was a historical treasure, a unique marriage between the glamor of Old Hollywood and the elan of the Roaring Twenties, and then California Democrats got ahold of it.  The Mayfair once hosted the first ever Academy Awards after-party, but now it houses Skid Row. [...] (How could anyone think inviting drug-addled derelicts into a luxury hotel wouldn't end up this way?)  Like stereotypical crazy bums, the transients housed at the Mayfair "punched through walls," trashed appliances and bathrooms, smashed windows to throw objects onto the street below, and left fentanyl-covered tinfoil sheets strewn about.  And, in predictable fashion, the idiotic decisions of the left aren't limited to only affecting leftists, and the havoc spilled out onto the street.

Ukrainian Corruption Disqualifies Biden From Serving Another Term.  In the 30 months since Trump departed the White House, American cities have been in free fall towards becoming crime-ridden infestations of homeless public misfits, drug addicts, and violent criminals.  Uncountable millions of illegal aliens have flooded across the southern border and been distributed around the country at unsustainable cost to America's education system, social service network, and law enforcement organizations.  The country has been commercially strangled by a green terror which implausibly purports to be saving the planet but is contributing to the reduction of the disposable income of the great majority of Americans.  Public education standards are crumbling; the academy and media are largely in the hands of anti-American elements.

Democrats' proposed wealth tax spells doom for entrepreneurs and economic growth.  A group of far-left lawmakers has introduced yet another bill to soak the rich.  The new bill is called the Oppose Limitless Inequality Growth and Reverse Community Harms Act — the OLIGARCH Act, get it?  It would introduce an entirely new tax on wealth above $120 million, starting at 2% and climbing to 8%.  This new tax would be in addition to the income tax.  Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) claims the legislation is designed to "tax extreme wealth, reduce inequality, and combat the threat to democracy posed by aristocracy."  But it would more accurately be described as an economic devastation bill.  Indeed, it should alarm anyone who wants to start a business, build up wealth for retirement, leave an inheritance for their children, or just see the economy grow for everyone.

Don't expect the greens' 1,600 percent mistake on ocean plastic to get them to change course.  For climate warriors and enviro-radicals, the science (their science, anyway) is always "settled."  That is, until it isn't.  The latest backtrack?  Turns out there's less plastic in the oceans than claimed.  Far less.  Per a new study in the journal Nature Geoscience, just 500,000 metric tons of plastic end up in the world's oceans each year, not the 8 million tons previously bewailed.  That's an overestimation of 1,600%!  Meanwhile, worries about ocean plastic have fueled restrictions on the use of a range of products — shopping bags, utensils, straws — no matter the inconveniences or side effects.

The Result of Incorporating Saul Alinsky's Eight Marxist Rules for Radicals Into The Governance of The Republic.  In just two years the Biden/Obama administration spent the US Government into an additional unsustainable and unheard-of increased National Debt "of an additional $4.9 Trillion in spending".  That reckless spending increased the National Debt from $27.7 Trillion to an unrecoverable National Debt to $32.6 Trillion.  That irresponsible and uncalled-for spending on Climate Change and Social Programs, while terminating the drilling for crude oil on government land, has created the massive inflation Americans are faced with; it is the worst inflation in over 40 years. [...] That massive new spending of $4.9 Trillion in just 2 years, by the Biden/Obama administration, is one of the eight recommended ways to change the US Constitutional Republic into a Socialist State by installing Saul Alinsky's Eight Marxist Rules for Radicals.  The Biden/Obama administration intentionally increased the National Debt to such a large deficit in a short two years, in order that it will never be able to be repaid by the United States.  The annual interest on that National Debt will have to repaid by a constantly increasing taxes on the American people, negatively effecting the US economy, and personal wealth.

Biden's Iranian Hostage Deal.  Since January 20, 2021, the Harris-Biden administration has delivered a relentless cycle of incompetence, ineptitude, incoherence, corruption, subterfuge, and scandals.  The citizen suffers due to inflation, high crime, the open border, crumbling infrastructure, and a lot more.  If they dare to raise their voices they are targeted much like the regime's foremost political opponent, President Donald Trump.  Internationally, the regime has weakened and demeaned the US.  Following its hasty and unplanned withdrawal from Afghanistan that betrayed allies within the country.  It also handed that country back to the most dangerous terror organizations in the world.  The Harris-Biden administration has managed to make the U.S. appear untrustworthy, dishonorable, and unreliable.  The withdrawal doubtlessly emboldened President Putin to intervene in Ukraine after repeated provocation from surrounding NATO countries.  The war in Ukraine continues to this day and there is no way for anyone to know what actually is happening because most of the Western media is pushing a narrative and not covering facts.

Climate and Capitalism.  [Scroll down]  In Rhodes, Greece, this week, a resident published his video of fires being set at night, all at the same time across a ridge of trees.  This is an almost perfect climate psy-op.  Fires, and then film the misery of tourists sleeping in the airport waiting to leave.  And then there is this:  [Tweet]  I'm starting to think it is a world-wide scam of set fires meant to scare us into more regulation, more giveaways.  In Canada we have arrested dozens of fire-setters, and dozens are still being sought.  Fires and fear promote the idea that "nothing has been done," but in fact, behind the scenes, everywhere, the Iron Triangle of the movement has installed palettes of regulation on every town and county, every rangeland, parkland, wilderness, forest and mountain.  Wherever you go, metaphorically or not, there is a sign that says:  Do Not Enter.  It is killing all productive activity, it is killing the economy of every nation.  "Climate change" is now eating capitalism.  It is a profit center for both government and business.  In 2002 Goldman Sachs built a division that sold "climate solutions" by way of tax and carbon credits.  This zero-sum game is trading in the misery of hundreds of millions.

The Trump Indictment and 2024.  Over the past sixty years while America slept and the citizenry reveled in unprecedented peace and prosperity, the Marxist/socialist movement, after decades of living in the shadows, has successfully infiltrated many of the nation's vital institutions while promoting creeping immorality and societal corruption.  The institutions targeted by the American Marxists were those in the fields of education, entertainment, and the media.  The radical left knew that dominion over of these institutions would be the first step in achieving their ultimate goals: control of the Democrat Party, hegemony within the federal bureaucracy, and the domination of the judiciary.  Their success to date has been extraordinary.  Today, liberal (socialist) professors on college campuses outnumber conservatives by a ratio of 17 to 1 (in 1968 it was 2.7 to 1).  This same imbalance also infects the nation's K-12 public schools through the radicalized teachers unions.  As a result, two generations of Americans have been subjected to unending socialist indoctrination and revisionist American history.

Anheuser-Busch's Collapse Continues as It's Forced to Sell Off Some of Its Brands.  Anheuser-Busch's downfall has been a brutal lesson to corporations about how the people have had it with woke culture engagement.  Especially when it comes to being a brand that claimed to represent the heart of America and its values.  Now, A-B is apparently being forced to sell off a few of its brands in order to stay afloat.  These include Shock Top, Breckenridge Brewery, Blue Point Brewing Company, 10 Barrel Brewing Company, Redhook Brewery, Widmer Brothers Brewing, Square Mile Cider Company, and Hiball Energy.  All of these are craft beers, meaning that A-B is cutting a solid chunk off of its craft beer portfolio.

Bidenomics is really just a ploy to destroy American energy.  While jetting across the country trumpeting the supposed success of "Bidenomics," Vice President Kamala Harris had this to say, "Most Americans are a $400 unexpected expense away from bankruptcy."  What's not to love?  The White House must not be seeing the same headlines we are about record inflation, declining income, and concerning job trends.  President Joe Biden's rampant spending has destroyed the economic comfort and prosperity of the previous administration — something even the most devout anti-Trumpers are becoming nostalgic about as family budgets grow tighter and tighter.  Biden erroneously claims that his energy policies are a panacea that will offer Americans the best of both worlds, saving money and protecting the environment.  The president has made poor policy choices about many things — but when it comes to energy, he's never been more wrong and has weakened our country in the process.

The Destruction of Common Law.  By defunding the police in major cities, and by showering leftwing district attorney candidates with millions of dollars in campaign funding, the Left systematically eroded the law as we know it in our major cities.  As a result, downtowns are after-dark, no-go zones, as once great metropolises resemble veritable combat theaters.  Cities are becoming depopulated as consumers and businesses no longer find it safe to conduct commerce.  Criminals and homeless now routinely break the law with impunity.  Public violence, defecation, urination, fornication, and injection do not even rate as misdemeanors.  The Left has redefined violent crime to such an extent that shoplifting is no longer actionable.  Flash mobs that take over streets and swarm to loot stores are rarely if ever arrested.  Security officers who apprehend thieves or intervene to stop violence are more likely to be prosecuted than criminals themselves.  There is no longer any immigration law; it has been utterly destroyed by Joe Biden.  Seven-million illegal entrants flood into the U.S. and, along with the Mexican government, make demands on their hosts to accommodate their illegality.

America's Debt Rating Downgrade Shows Washington Is Still Building Back Bankrupt.  While the press and the American people focused on the Justice Department's latest indictment of President Trump, another no less significant event was taking place on Tuesday afternoon.  Specifically, Fitch Ratings announced it had officially downgraded the United States' credit rating.  The action by Fitch comes a dozen years after Standard and Poor's downgraded the federal government's debt rating, meaning that two of the three credit rating agencies have stripped Washington of its vaunted "AAA" status.  It is but the latest indication of how presidents and politicians from both parties have ignored the serious fiscal problems within our nation — and yet another warning of the reckoning we will ultimately face as a people.

The High Cost of Crime:  Oregon County Loses $1 Billion as Residents Flee Lawless Portland.  Residents who fled Multnomah County, Oregon, in 2020 took over $1 billion in income as they searched for a better life in other areas.  The news is according to an analysis of data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Oregonian reported Sunday.  "Numbers gleaned from annual income tax returns provide the most detailed information available on where Americans are moving — and taking their money," the outlet said.

The gas is high.  It's hot here and some countries are cutting back on production.  The heat is the heat and I've lived plenty of it in Texas.  In fact, I remember when our second son was baptized back in 1988 that it was 108 around here.  That holy water must have felt great on that baby's head.  I remember 1980 when we had a whole 30 days of 100-plus temperatures.  What I don't remember was gasoline going up.  So what's the other reason?  Countries cutting back production.  Of course, why is that even an issue when Texas and Alaska could take care of our energy needs?  Why are we suddenly depending on countries for one drop of oil?  The answer is the Biden administration listening to the climate-change fanatics who want to attack the problem by having American families paying more for energy.

And Chicago, and Houston, and Portland, and San Francisco, and St. Louis, and New Orleans, and Baltimore, and Philadelphia.
How the Left's is turning New York into a crime-ravaged, drug-infested nightmare.  Give us pizza or give us death!' So chanted New Yorker Scott LoBaido a few weeks ago in downtown Manhattan before he started hurling large slices of pizza over the gates of New York's City Hall.  LoBaido, a conservative artist and activist, was staging a lone and eccentric protest against a new green crackdown on coal and wood-fired ovens.  Opponents say it will badly hit the city's already struggling small businesses — particularly its iconic pizzerias — which face paying tens of thousands of dollars to install oven filters that must be regularly inspected. [...] The city is suffering a crime epidemic so bad even ice cream and laundry detergent are security- tagged in shops, and endless anti-business measures are driving down earnings, but politicians appear more preoccupied by the culture wars: woke causes and green issues, such as air pollution.  Yet for all the concern about air quality, the authorities have only themselves to blame for the all-pervasive stench of contraband weed on its streets, a consequence of officials' disastrous tinkering with cannabis legalisation on the grounds of 'racial equity', which has led to the proliferation of 1,400 illicit marijuana shops.

In the Name of Climate Change:  Travel Restrictions and the Great Reset.  If you experienced unprecedented delays during air travel this summer, the airlines likely blamed it on the weather.  You might have been surprised, for bad weather wasn't reported in the news.  But here is what should surprise and shock you even more.  The real reason — a shortage of pilots and air traffic controllers (ATCs) — is linked to the Great Reset, the agenda to control people and restrict freedom conceived by the global elite and being implemented through leftist groups and their sympathizers.  It is now well known that Klaus Schwab, chief of the elitist World Economic Forum (WEF), set the Great Reset in motion during the pandemic, calling it an opportunity to "reflect, reimagine, and reset the world." The COVID lockdown also connects to the story of the recent flight delays, because it was during the pandemic that travel restrictions were imposed worldwide and pilots and ATCs were laid off.

Liberalism Is a False Gospel and a Counterfeit Religion.  Liberalism is a false and counterfeit religion that is incompatible with the Judeo-Christian worldview that built the United States and much of the western world.  The year 2023 is the 100-year anniversary of J. Gresham Machen's prophetic book Christianity and Liberalism.  This book is just as accurate today as it was prophetic when he wrote it.  His central thesis 100 years ago was that liberalism is its own religion, distinct and incompatible with Christianity.  It acts as a parasite on Christianity, and can only be accurately understood as a separate and false religion.  Machen was right, of course, and the past 100 years of decline in American life bear him witness.  Search the past century across the globe and you will find scores of previously Christian nations that adopted liberalism, declined every meaningful way, and lost their faith.  Most of these Judeo-Christian nations have attempted to accommodate it rather than defeat it.

Our society's 'top brains' have gone mad — and dysfunctional politics is the result.  There's a lot of craziness in the air these days.  But for the most part it seems to be flowing from the top down, not bubbling up from the bottom.  It wasn't farmers and factory workers who came up with the idiotic COVID responses — nor was it they who originated the more or less criminal idea of conducting "gain of function" research on making dangerous viruses more dangerous.  It wasn't shopkeepers and bus drivers who thought the way to deal with burgeoning urban crime was to get rid of police and release criminals without bail.  It hasn't been landscapers and auto mechanics championing the notion that a child in the single-digit age range can make a lifetime choice about his or her genitalia or maintaining that even criticizing that idea is itself a species of "violence."  Ordinary Americans haven't been claiming the way to promote free speech is to censor people or the way to end racism is to classify everyone by race and consequently treat them differently.

The GOP Death Wish.  The American economy is in freefall.  Our borders are wide open to taxpayer-funded freeloaders and criminals, cities are ridden with crime, filth, drugs, and homelessness.  America is needlessly pushing a hot war with the largest nuclear power in the world.  Our children are being trafficked or indoctrinated with woke sexual and gender deviancy.  Republicans are either silent or playing along.  There is little difference between the DNC and GOP on so many core issues, making the GOP increasingly irrelevant as a political party.  Instead, we are ruled by a uniparty, unified in its goal of self-enrichment and power, with little regard to the well-being of America or the wishes of American voters.  What's the solution?

Toronto principal killed himself after being singled out during DEI training.  This story was already being cited as cause for concern about corporate DEI training even before last week when it took an even darker turn.  Earlier this month the National Post reported that retired Toronto principal Richard Bilkszto was suing the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) over the treatment he received during diversity training sessions. [...] So this training is routine in Canada but what wasn't routine was Bilkszto's reaction.  Instead of going along with it, he stood up to the trainer.  And that quickly resulted in him being told to shut up and sit down because he was white.

Will the European Union Devolve into a Group of Third-World Countries?  For the past 30 years, politicians throughout the E.U. kowtowed to the green parties and eco-terrorists in their countries by declaring war on the carbon atom and the hydrocarbon bond based on the fraudulent man-made global warming hypothesis.  Many politicians in Europe joined the global warming chorus with full-throated support; it assumed the element of noblesse oblige.  In 2018, British prime minister Theresa May stated: "There is a clear moral imperative for developed economies like the U.K. to help those around the world who stand to lose most from the consequences of man-made climate change."  The implication from the prime minister's remarks:  those who don't support the fraudulent hypothesis are immoral.  Today, energy costs in the U.K. have trebled from just two years ago, and rampant inflation throughout the E.U. is at a level not seen since the 1970s.  The price advantage manufacturers once enjoyed in international markets is gone, in the process smashing the continent's once-harmonious labor relations as unions throughout the E.U. in every economic sector from transportation to manufacturing to health care strike for higher wages to offset higher energy and food costs.

Democrats whine about Con Ed hikes caused by their own dumb policies.  Better sit down before you open your next Con Ed bill:  Rates are set to soar, starting next month — and double over the next two years.  If you're a progressive, you can't complain.  What did you think would happen, based on your anti-fossil-fuel, big-spending, anti-business agenda?  On Thursday, the state's Public Service Commission OK'd hikes of 9.1% for electricity and 8.4% for gas, starting in August, along with additional jumps though 2025.  At that point, typical bills will have doubled, from about $70 a month to $140 — or an extra $840 a year.

The Editor says...
Maybe electric cars aren't such a great idea after all.  Maybe it's not a good idea to eliminate coal-fired power plants.  Maybe your windmills will stop on the hottest day of the summer, or freeze on the coldest day.  Maybe your solar panels won't work at night — oh wait, that's a certainty.

The imposition of transgender madness: The bottom-up approach.  The astounding speed with which a delusional fantasy has been imposed on society — that people can become the opposite sex simply by saying so — requires explanation.  This obliteration of nature's (and God's) most fundamental truth of our lives and the resultant diminishing of the reproduction of our species clearly vectors toward societal and civilizational collapse.  It destroys fertility when surgical and chemical interventions are used, and this dooms the society successfully targeted to decline relative to the rest of the world unaffected by the craze.  (Have you heard about transgenderism spreading in Russia and China?)  The indoctrination of young children into the ideology means that even among those whose bodies are not mutilated or poisoned, the post-adolescent sexual attraction and bonding necessary for the population to remain stable is diminished.  So far, the strategy to impose this on American society has been top-down in nature.  The educational system, from preschool through grad school, has largely been captured by the left, and their bureaucrats and teachers have often eagerly acted as indoctrinators and enforcers.

Austin Is Quickly Turning Into A Blue City [...] With High Levels Of Violence.  These are common scenes particularly over the weekends in Austin Texas with brawls and violence all over the downtown area as people get drunk at the clubs.  The last Republican mayor In Austin was way back in the mid 80s.  [Video clip]

Salesforce CEO Warns San Francisco's Downtown [is] "Never Going Back To The Way It Was".  San Francisco is a 'hellhole' that epitomizes everything wrong with how progressives govern cities.  That's because Democrats in City Hall believe that most criminals are victims — don't arrest them — which allows for open-air drug markets, homelessness, and violent crime to thrive.  Due to failed social justice reform policies, the business conditions in downtown San Francisco have become challenging.  Furthermore, the ongoing structural decline in demand for office space has thwarted any potential economic recovery in the area.  [Tweet with video clip]  Marc Benioff, chief executive officer of Salesforce, the city's largest employer and anchor tenant in its tallest skyscraper, understands the metro area is in trouble.

How does the city bounce back from this?  One of the enduring mysteries of life is how people and societies can see disaster coming and do nothing to avoid it. [...] We are seeing this principle in real time with the collapse of cities like San Francisco and Portland.  They have been liberal bastions for so long that the idea of bucking the Democrat Party is unthinkable, no matter how bad things get.  And they are getting very very bad in both cities.  San Francisco has produced some of the most powerful politicians in California.  Off the top of my head, I can name the current governor, Gavin Newsom, the current VP, Kamala Harris, and of course Senator Diane Feinstein.  Many of the most powerful people in the legislature hail or hailed from the city, and the tradition of moving up the ladder from SF to the heights of power is ancient in political terms.  When the Democrat Party took its radical Left turn the city moved with it — led it, in fact — and the results have been disastrous.

The Classic Psychology Text That Predicted Today's Urban Decay.  It's a question that most Americans who follow the news ask themselves daily:  "How can the residents of so many of the nation's largest cities keep supporting local officials who tolerate the ongoing destruction of their communities?"  Why this May, for example, did the citizens of Chicago — a city where 21,000 students cannot demonstrate a basic competence in reading, science, and math — choose the teachers union-backed candidate, Brandon Johnson, for mayor?  Especially when Johnson's chief opponent, Paul Vallas, had promised the electorate sensible school reforms?  Why, a few years earlier, did San Franciscans elect a mayor, London Breed, whose obvious reluctance to crack down on criminal behavior has since forced the city's largest mall to close, two of its best hotels to declare bankruptcy, and tens of thousands of high-earning taxpayers to move away?  Why has there been no serious movement to get New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to initiate proceedings to remove Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who refuses prosecute "low-level" crimes, all while promising to downgrade felony charges and to decriminalize resisting police arrest?

Imploding Cities Will Drag All of Us Down.  First, a quick refresher on the compounding problems of urban areas.  Chief among them is that big cities are dark blue, and thus they've become crucibles of Left-wing policy failure.  Uncontrolled crime, roving drug and mental-illness zombies, and swarms of sanctuary-recipient asylum scammers are crowding out reasonable people and businesses.  The normals who remain to take advantage of access to cultural events (such as they are) and restaurant variety are also subject to totalitarian social controls and two-tiered justice systems that punish them when they fight back against criminals.  But no matter how desperate the situation becomes, city councils can be counted on to double down on woke policies, then double down again.  Businesses are fleeing.  In the ones that remain, shopping for basic goods has become a frustrating exercise in waiting for an associate to unlock the case so you can grab a razor and some toothpaste.  Add in today's high interest rates, which make owning and running a business prohibitively expensive, and the writing is on the wall.

Blue City Struggles With Police Officer Recruitment After Droves Of Retirements: Report.  New York City is struggling to recruit more police officers after a mass amount of experienced officials retired, according to the New York Post.  The New York Police Department's (NYPD) March officer exam far underscored the amount of applicants the department expected, with 1,300 signing up to take the test compared to the 3,000 expected, sources told the NYP.  This year's second exam, which took place on Thursday, didn't meet expectations, once again, despite incentives given by the NYPD.  "The NYPD's best recruiting tool has always been word of mouth," Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry told the NYP.  "But right now the word is, 'Stay away.'"

10 Paradigm Shifts that Shatter Establishment Illusions.  [#1] Now people understand that the left's real mission is to reject reality.  Castrating boys so that they can pretend to be girls is not "healthy."  Perpetuating racism as social policy is not "justice."  Imposing a "woke" State religion over personal conscience is not "moral."  Aiding and abetting child sex-trafficking and drug-smuggling at our borders is not "compassionate."  Stealing property is not "equitable."  Just as with Leninism and Maoism before, today's leftism is evil.

Will Someone Please Wake Me From This Nightmare?  When Joe Biden became president, America was on a solid footing, inflation was under control, we were energy independent, the price of gasoline was under $2.00, and things in America were great.  Now most of that has been undone, and nothing is being done about it. [...] While Trump was president, nearly 500 miles of wall were built and immigration was controlled.  Biden has opened the border and invited all to come, and they are coming by the millions.  When Biden became president, America was energy independent and we were even selling energy abroad.  Biden stopped construction of oil pipelines, stopped drilling on public lands, and began a campaign against fossil fuels, the very product that has made America great. [...] Under Trump there was little inflation, prices were fairly stable.  Biden has spent billions by just printing the money.  This is classic inflation and is hurting everyone with higher prices for everything from food to hardware.  This is especially true for gasoline, the price of which is also affected by the Biden energy policies.

Is the 2024 Election the Last Gasp for America?  The American economy is in freefall, Washington, D.C. is spending money we don't have.  Our borders are nonexistent with millions streaming across, many unskilled, illiterate, disease-carrying, criminal, or potential enemy combatants.  We are already engaged in World War III by proxy against the largest nuclear power in the world, for no discernable U.S. national interest other than enriching the military-industrial complex and politicians.  Social norms and traditions are out the window, where men can claim to be women just because they say so, in defiance of biology and common sense, and we must shut up, agree, as well as praise their courage.  Government has been weaponized against political opponents in the manner of the Soviet Union or East Germany, where an elite ruling class exempts itself from justice and the Constitution, while any opposition is crushed under the jackboot of a tyrannical government.  Elections are rigged, not as a conspiracy theory, but in the opinion of most Americans.

'60s Denialism: Affirmative Action's Last Ditch Defense.  [Scroll down]  Almost unnoticed, a labyrinth of soul-crushing social programs was taking root and would soon be institutionalized by the Lyndon Johnson administration under the rubric of "The Great Society."  At the time, the only person brave enough — or crazy enough — to call attention to the damage done by these programs was Johnson's undersecretary of labor (and later U.S. senator), Daniel Patrick Moynihan.  In his remarkably prescient report, "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action," Moynihan sounded the alarm in 1965, the same year the Great Society was launched.  "The evidence — not final, but powerfully persuasive — is that the Negro family in the urban ghettos is crumbling," Moynihan warned.  Causing the dissolution were the sundry social programs that promised women financial security on the real but rarely spoken condition that there be no married father in the household.  Until about 1960, the income gap between backs and whites was narrowing.  After 1960, with the surge in single-parent households, it began to reverse itself.

A Third of Seattle Residents Are Considering Leaving, Citing Crime and Costs.  One-third of Seattle residents are considering packing up and moving elsewhere, largely citing home prices and crime, according to a Seattle Times/Suffolk University poll conducted in June.  Roughly 33 percent of Seattle residents surveyed say they are seriously considering moving out of the city, while 67 percent say they are not.

The underlying, uncomfortable, reality at the core of America's malaise.  Massive corruption in government.  Lying by public officials.  Office holders receiving bribes.  Unjust prosecution of political opponents.  Justice meted based on political affiliation.  News and information dissemination based on allegiance to a particular world view.  Parents denied the right to mold and shape their own children and instead being forced to yield those rights to the state by law.  Forced celebration of deviant behavior with a demand for approval of same, or else.  The compromising of a once muscular military into one which is inundated with self-defeating progressive policies.  And we could go on.  The symptoms of decay noted above are occurring virtually unabated in this country right now, and in the West in general, and are directly linked to the widespread adoption of leftist ideologies.  These have been embraced by many in our institutions, public and private, and have captured the imagination of our youth.  Ironically, they represent policies that only a decade or two ago would have been scorned and reviled by those same individuals who now accept and promote them.

Energy Provider Warns of Impending 'Crisis,' 'Blackout Conditions' Driven By Biden Plans.  The U.S. faces an "impending energy crisis" as the Biden administration pursues a transition away from fossil fuels, an electricity cooperative warned Wednesday.  Moon Lake Electric Association, which serves parts of Utah and Colorado, accused President Joe Biden of being "unrealistic" in his emissions reductions goals, according to Deseret News.  "It's unrealistic and it's too ambitious," CEO Yankton Johnson reportedly said.  "They need to pull back on the throttle, pump the brake and think about what they're going to do to individuals."  Johnson's comments came after the Biden administration announced billions in investments for green energy.  The president seeks to achieve a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035, net-zero emissions in the economy by 2050 and 50 percent of new vehicle sales being electric by 2030, according to the White House.

Let's celebrate humility.  As I reflect upon the decadence of the last several decades, I think America would be better served by a Humility Month rather than a Pride Month.  Certainly, there are some very loud voices dominating the culture right now, but no one group has cornered the market on moral decay.  We all bear some responsibility.  The shamelessness and depravity permeating our culture are on a scale far beyond that of previous generations, so we must have gone wrong somewhere.  This depravity is the result of, not the cause of, our problems.  Our misplaced priorities have led us into a snare.  One by one, the things we have given ourselves to instead of God, family, and community have hoisted the banner of pride, asserting their sovereignty over our lives.  Whether it is sports, film, music, shopping, or dining, the enterprises we have pledged our allegiance to have seized the reigns of the culture and are driving us like cattle.  Over the years, we've been seduced and manipulated to compromise our values and rationalize selfishness.  Pride turns life into a game that coerces us to abandon the essential and pursue the frivolous.  Putting points on the board becomes more important than relationships with people.

Christians, It's Time to Learn from Hamtramck, Michigan.  Every June, the LGBT movement throws a tantrum fit that would put any cranky toddler shame.  Their goal?  Acceptance and attention.  It's as if they were toting a screechy, ear-piercing megaphone for the sole purpose of shaming Americans for holding traditional values.  Of course, they enlist other mercenaries to help wage their war on god-fearing Americans — Target, Kohl's, Pet Smart, and even Cracker Barrel.  Corporations, in their zeal to be in the "in-crowd," muck up their logos, apparel, and storefronts with bright, bold, unmissable rainbows.  Public institutions hoist the Pride flag high on their poles, peddle LGBT propaganda, and deck out police cars and firetrucks in a paint box explosion of kaleidoscope colors.  This year, even the White House, in a move that should make anyone with a sense of decorum cringe, chose to display the Rainbow Flag sandwiched between two American flags in a shocking violation of the U.S. Flag Code.  And let's not forget the U.S. Airforce, which deemed it fitting to release a picture of a soldier saluting the Pride flag.  It's like we've stepped into a technicolor dream world where the queering of America is now a national priority.

Corporate America Doesn't Hear Anybody.  Obviously the Democrats don't hear the people. [...] They are complaining that Biden is not getting enough credit for bringing down inflation, inflation that he created.  Oh, and while inflation may be officially at 4%, that's only because the government doesn't include all of the things people need in their inflation calculation.  And it's still significantly higher than when Biden took office.  Nor do they include the devaluation of money which is also inflation that people must deal with.  And real wages have declined as well.

Portland Real Estate Nightmare.  [Scroll down]  Well, for a lot of people and businesses, it's too late.  Such as Kevin Howard, for whom the City of Portland refused to do anything about the homeless people breaking into his property and trashing the place.  And who then fined him because the place was trashed. [... How did this happen?]  Easy.  You let Social Justice Warriors take over your city.  This is the expected outcome.

Summertime in SoCal, and with green recycling, here come the rats, roaches, flies and maggots.  [H]ere in San Diego, where we are under a state mandate to recycle our green garbage — food scraps, food-soiled paper, and yard clippings — fresh new environmental problems are abounding.  According to local T.V. station KFMB:  ["] [...] Some people said they're concerned the waste could attract rodents and other animals.  "We understand it's something that people have to get used to and put into practice," said Director of Environmental Services Department, Renee Robertson.["]  Did I hear that right?  Did she just say we need to get used to having rats and roaches around the old middle-America ranch house now going for a million dollars on the market, with property taxes indexed to it?  I think that's what she's saying, because people are reporting problems because they use the government system.

Living in a Media World.  Our country is now divided into two numerically equivalent ideological blocs.  Not surprisingly, those in the leftist bloc have been generally impervious to what conservatives and Republicans have exposed as scandals in their camp.  And there have been lots of them.  This long train of abuses would include Hunter Biden's acceptance of bribes from foreign governments, his father's likely involvement in Hunter's influence-peddling, the Democrats' weaponization of the administrative state against both political opponents and religious Christians, the witch hunt against Trump carried out on the basis of the discredited Steele dossier, and Biden's and Hillary Clinton's scandalous treatment of classified material.  Democratic iniquities might also include promoting programs to sexualize children, the championing of LGBT and CRT indoctrination in public schools and the military, our humiliating setbacks in foreign affairs, and the sacrifice of American energy independence in pursuit of a Green New Deal benefiting Communist China.

Transgender Lawsuits Reveal Horrors of Procedures.  Kayla Lovdahl is the perfect test case as a 13-year-old who was approved for "transgender surgery:" She could not conceive, at the time, of the possibility of suffering a lifetime of disfigurement and chronic pain.  Ms. Lovdahl, now 18, has retained an attorney, Charles Limandri, who has employed such emotionally charged words as "barbaric and cruel" to describe the medical team's actions in causing his client deep physical and emotional wounds.  Essential to his case is the claim that Lovdahl was hopelessly ignorant of the statistical reality that nearly half of trans surgeries result in serious and life-threatening complications.  How can a 13-year-old grasp what it means to remove perfectly healthy breasts (in female-to-male transition)?  Sanitizing the language, Lovdahl was informed she could opt for "top" and/or "bottom surgery."  She had never heard of the term "double mastectomy" as she was wheeled into surgery for what the medical team had described as "top surgery."  Her harrowing surgical experience was spared "bottom" mutilation.

Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud.  If Americans cannot trust their government to oversee free and fair elections, then what exactly can Americans trust their government to do?  To guard the country's borders from invasion?  Nope.  To enforce the law impartially and safeguard citizens and their property from violence?  Not anymore.  To vigorously defend Americans' constitutionally protected rights?  Not when the federal government attacks their free speech, freedom of religion, right to bear arms, and freedom from warrantless searches.  To maintain the monetary value of the nation's currency?  Not with reckless money-printing and spending.  To protect American sovereignty and avoid long-term foreign obligations?  Not when the U.N., WHO, and WEF rule from afar.  In every way, the federal government has failed to fulfill its principal obligations to citizens of the United States.

Biden's Economic Program is Made in China.  As reported by New York Times Magazine at the time, Joe Biden's goal was to transform the economy from the get-go: "The Biden Team Wants to Transform the Economy.  Really." Nearly two-and-a-half years later, the damage and chaos of that transformation process are obvious: continuing high inflation (especially energy, food, and gasoline prices), rising interest rates, recession predictions, a stagnant economy, depleted individual savings, sky-high credit card debt, and other indications of stagflation and recession.  Who has benefited from the Biden economy?  Green new deal grifters benefit from the gargantuan tax subsidies and federal spending on transitioning the US economy from hydrocarbon energy sources to "clean" sources, especially solar and wind energy.  The communist Chinese are happy to benefit from Biden economic policies that ultimately mandate and subsidize green products from Chinese companies at the expense of the US companies who produce and use hydrocarbons.

Resistance.  In order to get anywhere, begin any sort of resistance to the WEF, UN or WHO, one has to start with the designation, or belief by a majority of the people, that the current government is presiding over a failed state.  That determination or designation originates from an international definition.  From Britannica, it includes this paragraph:  ["]A failed state is composed of feeble and flawed institutions.  Often, the executive barely functions, while the legislature, judiciary, bureaucracy, and armed forces have lost their capacity and professional independence.  A failed state suffers from crumbling infrastructures, faltering utility supplies and educational and health facilities, and deteriorating basic human-development indicators, such as infant mortality and literacy rates.  Failed states create an environment of flourishing corruption and negative growth rates, where honest economic activity cannot flourish.["]

Did You Breathe Smoke Last Week?  This is Why.  [Scroll down]  Meanwhile, Canada has arrested dozens of fire-setters in the last few weeks, and Quebec and Alberta are running full-bore investigations.  The new Premier of Alberta was blocked from Facebook for saying so.  Not one pontificator knows what has happened to the forests since Rio and the 92 Earth Summit.  Since then the regulatory structure created by the U.N.'s FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) has been instituted all over the world.  It is a new method of forest management - "sustainable" - that throws over 1000 years of silvaculture.  A forester takes seven years of wickedly difficult education to be able to manage forests.  What the UN did was send a bunch of heavily indoctrinated, radically-undereducated hysterics into the forests - which cover one-third of the world - and proceeded to destroy them with a "no-touch" policy.

This is some of the garbage we can expect with indoctrinated kids and greedy lawyers.  These children say that their lives have been destroyed because of coal and oil so they are suing Montana. [...] Lawsuits and policies should be based on the truth and scientific facts, not on easily manipulated computer models and made up predictions which have consistently been wrong, like this lawsuit and the radical green policies which are being forced on the American people.

Trump's Indictment and the Collapse of Confidence in Our Institutions.  Before turning to the charges facing Trump, consider their larger political setting, which begins with any democratic government's most fundamental responsibilities:  preserving public order, ensuring its citizens' safety, and applying the law fairly.  The institutions charged with those responsibilities are crumbling at the local, state, and federal levels, and millions of voters on both sides of our gaping ideological spectrum know it.  Each blames the other and accepts no blame for themselves.  This collapse of public order is painfully obvious in many major cities, where violent crime, massive organized shoplifting, and homeless encampments have become dangerous facts of ordinary life.  Law-abiding citizens, the backbone of those cities, have found the quality of their lives declining.  They bear much of the blame themselves.  They elected the district attorneys who refuse to prosecute serious crimes and so encourage even more.  They elected the mayors and legislators who justify such rampant disorder under the heart-warming name of "social justice."  How do armed robberies, looting, and gang violence qualify as social justice?

This Is Your City On Democrats: Philadelphia.  Evidently it is the deepest desire of Democratic Party activists to turn the streets of American cities into needle-strewn wastelands of drug addicts openly shooting up and [defecating] on the street.  Because that's the results that the Democratic Party drug- and crime-tolerant policies create time and time again.  Here's a video of the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia.  [Video clip]

Has Atlanta Seen the Light?  It's no secret that cities take the positives and negatives of the human experience and multiply them exponentially.  Of course, we know that many of the worst tendencies we're seeing in cities today are the result of Democrats' policies.  George Soros-funded district attorneys are refusing to enforce laws and bring criminals to justice, while sanctuary city policies are bringing in illegal immigrants at the expense of law-abiding and tax-paying citizens.  Racial and political animosity that groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa brought into America's cities, short-sighted approaches to homelessness and drug addiction, and pandemic-era government intrusion did untold amounts of damage to urban areas.  The state of our cities has suffered tremendously on the heels of Democrat leadership. [...] And people are fleeing Democrat-run cities in droves.  That's a trend that's likely to continue unless the leadership in cities can get a handle on crime.

How Bad Does It Have to Get?  Murders, street crime, white-collar crime, shoplifting, trespassing, abuse of power, illegal drugs, legal drugs, illegal immigration and open borders, election-tampering, institutional decay, homelessness, illiteracy, phony racism, real racism, corrupt politicians, vengeful district attorneys, child abuse, domestic partner abuse, disregard for human life, a weakened military, the rise of authoritarianism, expanding ignorance, AI, CRT, DIE, poverty, inflation, radical environmentalism, gender fluidity, lowered standards and weakened values, flight from personal responsibility, death of the meritocracy...  the list goes on, and it's getting bigger by the day.

Radio Free America.  [Scroll down]  Woke companies like Walmart, CVS, Target, and even specialty brands like Old Navy were sucked into "doing the right thing" and building in "underserved" areas of big cities.  Now, those very same names are pulling out in droves as they count their losses in the billions, but won't mouth the reasons why as established corporations, they can't survive in buzzing districts.  The truth is obvious, but wokeism won't allow you to say that the principal causes are shoplifting, violent crime, weak or unenforced laws, and courts that return the most profligate and violent offenders for endless rounds of mayhem.

Video shows Austin's 'crown jewel' trail trashed by hidden homeless camps.  Jamie Hammonds said city policies have pushed homeless into areas where the public can't see them[.]  An Austin, Texas, resident is raising awareness of the city's homeless problem and its unseen impact on greenbelt areas.  Jamie Hammonds, an investigative filmmaker who runs the organization Documenting Austin's Streets and Homeless, or DASH, shared videos Wednesday on Twitter, showing a homeless encampment in the Violet Crown Trail after roughly a year of neglect.  "It's destroyed.  It will never be the same," Hammonds tweeted.  A real-estate agent concurred, saying the "environmental damage from these camps is immense."

San Francisco's doom loop accelerates.  The owner of 2 major San Francisco Hotels, including the city's largest hostelry, has announced that it is walking away from its mortgage on the two properties, surrendering them to the lender. [...] "Concerns over street conditions" is a delicate way of describing the takeover of much of downtown SF by drug addicts, currently termed "the unhoused" as if the main problem were high rents, when in fact the thousands of vagrants ruining the city are attracted from all over the country by the tolerance and active financial and social services support they receive.  They leave feces and urine on the streets, shooting up in front of the dwindling crowds of passers-by who have learned to avoid what was not very long ago one of the most attractive and vibrant cities in the world.  The high office vacancy rates, the lower return of workers to offices, and the reduced convention schedule that trouble Park's management are all closely related to the takeover of downtown (and other neighborhoods) by bums and junkies.

Dying San Francisco Sustains Another Massive Blow.  Not too long ago, San Francisco was still a remarkably beautiful city, although even then it could change on a dime.  One could be in the midst of a leisurely stroll down a gorgeous street filled with chic cafes, turn a corner, and find oneself without warning in the middle of a large crowd of menacing homeless drug addicts.  Now, after decades of far-Left misrule that has picked up speed in the wake of the COVID hysteria, the city's dirty, degrading, and dangerous areas are growing rapidly and taking the whole place over, and the city's remaining sane people are fleeing.  The end is near for the Golden Gate City:  the day is approaching when its ruins will bear silent witness to the ways in which Leftism destroys human societies.  In anticipation of that day, a luxury hotel chain is leaving town.

Two of San Fran's largest hotels are bailing out.  Another week and another business is pulling out of the formerly great city of San Francisco.  Well, two businesses actually, though they are owned by the same parent company.  The Hilton San Francisco Union Square Hotel is the largest in the city.  The Parc 55 Hotel is the fourth largest.  Both are owned by Park Hotels & Resorts, which is stopping payments on a massive loan for the two hotels and allowing them to go into foreclosure.  It is simply no longer safe or profitable to operate such an operation in San Francisco.  The CEO of the company described the move as a "very difficult, but necessary" decision.

Reporter Confronts KJP On Men In Women's Locker Rooms Possibly Driving Up Suicide Rates.  A White House reporter confronted White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about suicide rates increasing among young girls as school administrators allow males in women's locker rooms.  Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley suggested school administrators allowing males into women's locker rooms drives up suicide rates during a Sunday CNN town hall with Jake Tapper.  Haley said, "My daughter ran track in high school.  I don't even know how I would have that conversation with her.  How are we supposed to get our girls used to the fact that biological boys are in their locker rooms?  And then we wonder why a third of our teenage girls seriously contemplated suicide last year.  We should be growing strong girls, confident girls."

It's Not About Politics!  Too many people still believe what we see on the news is politics as usual.  It is not.  Politics departed long ago.  What we are witnessing, what we see demonstrated everyday, is good vs. evil. [...] Normalizing homosexuality, pushing transgenderism, even celebrating them is not politics.  Hospitals operating on children, mutilating them, removing perfectly normal reproductive organs or creating faux body parts as a poor substitute is not politics.  Observing major corporations getting into politics like never before is not mere politics.  Watching these same corporations changing their wares to heighten the Left's narrative is not politics.  Major store chains selling clothing to hide genitalia to enhance the cloaking of actual gender or allowing men in women's bathrooms is not politics.  Thousands upon thousands of homeless living on sidewalks in major Democrat cities while allowing hardened criminals to prey on the innocents is not politics.  Authorizing marketing execs to destroy their brand just to normalize abnormality and then watching other companies follow suit is not politics.  Inviting drag queens to display their deviancy to children in public libraries and classrooms and then calling it 'promoting imagination' is not politics.  Finding thousands of ballots over and above the number of voters in any precinct or allowing people to vote without proving who they are is not politics.  Opening borders to millions of unvetted, unknown people from foreign countries the world over is not politics.  Giving up energy independence is not politics.  Punishing political rivals with censorship is not politics.  Spending trillions on what no one can identify is not politics.  Politicians and Deep Staters committing treasonous acts for decades without repercussion is not politics.  Permitting people to 'serve' in Congress and the presidency who are mentally incompetent or even dead is not politics.  Using 'climate change' to amass power and money is not politics.

Is America's collapse inevitable?  [Harold] Robertson gives it heft and dimension by discussing how America began to shift from a meritocracy to a diversity system in the 1960s, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act.  He then explains how it became embedded in American employment culture.  Of course, moving away from a system that discriminated against people based on race is a good thing.  The problem is that, thanks to how "diversity" has been interpreted, we've embraced a whole new style of discrimination.  Now, the most important characteristic a person can bring to a job is skin color, sex, and sexual orientation or "identity."  This metric, when applied across American culture, especially within the government, but with increased aggression in education and the workplace, practically ensures that the people responsible for America's public and private systems won't be the "best"; they'll just be the most "diverse."

Complex Systems Won't Survive the Competence Crisis.  At a casual glance, the recent cascades of American disasters might seem unrelated.  In a span of fewer than six months in 2017, three U.S. Naval warships experienced three separate collisions resulting in 17 deaths.  A year later, powerlines owned by PG&E started a wildfire that killed 85 people.  The pipeline carrying almost half of the East Coast's gasoline shut down due to a ransomware attack.  Almost half a million intermodal containers sat on cargo ships unable to dock at Los Angeles ports.  A train carrying thousands of tons of hazardous and flammable chemicals derailed near East Palestine, Ohio.  Air Traffic Control cleared a FedEx plane to land on a runway occupied by a Southwest plane preparing to take off.  Eye drops contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria killed four and blinded fourteen.  While disasters like these are often front-page news, the broader connection between the disasters barely elicits any mention.

Is the Sleeping Conservative Dragon Finally Waking Up?  How can America be turned upside down, as it is, when there is little public support for the things happening around us?  They don't see much backing for the current border policy and illegal immigration, yet it continues.  Conservatives feel that most Americans reject the trend of biological men dominating female sporting events.  They fear American jurisprudence has become now vastly weaponized and warped.  Certainly, former President Donald Trump will be more likely indicted by a politicized New York City prosecutor for supposedly overvaluing his net worth over a decade ago than would be a current violent street criminal clubbing a subway commuter.  In 2020 torching a federal courthouse or massing at the White House grounds, in efforts to get at the president, earned either few arrests and little or no jail time.  In 2021, if one entered the Capitol and illegally paraded around like a buffoon, he could get a five-year prison sentence.  Traditionalists feel that sky-high energy prices, out-of-control urban crime, a depressed economy, high interest rates, and a politicized FBI, CIA, Justice Department, and Pentagon are all needlessly self-created messes.  How then did these extremist policies that have little popular support become institutionalized?

The Editor says...
The sleeping dragon might wake up, but if the elections are corrupt, will it matter?

The Party's Over.  The red fascists masquerading as our Democrat political party have obliterated the home of Truman, Kennedy, and LBJ.  What remains is a shell, a Trojan Horse packed full of crazy-eyed warriors prepared at every moment to commit murder and mayhem to advance their power.  There is no polite answer to the armed killer at your door.  In too many places, the police have been depopulated and terrorized.  Our prosecutors have been emasculated and suborned.  Even our armed forces are being hollowed out and rendered unfit for combat.

The Decline and Fall of the American Empire.  [Scroll down]  Debauchery is an oft-recurring theme in the demise of empires.  Societies develop an abnormally immature obsession with sex.  An obsession that requires increasing deviancy to satiate coupled with concurrent abuse of children and the marginalization and exploitation of women.  Meanwhile, the use of drugs and alcohol expands exponentially.  Debauchery is a symptom of the absence of meaning in people's lives leading to the self-destruction of society and concomitantly a loss of a sense of duty and patriotism.  Other symptoms common among many empires in the last stages of decline include:
  •   Massive and growing disparities between rich and poor and an undisciplined and over-extended military.
  •   An intensification of internal political hatreds and a corresponding inability to reconcile in order to save the empire.
  •   An ever increasing level of self-serving corruption and patronage among the ruling class.
  •   A massive influx of unassimilated foreigners whose allegiance and cultural ties are with their native lands and not the host nation and who do not feel obligated to defend the empire.
  •   Severe financial and economic crises linked to the unending debasement of the currency.
  •   An ongoing and irreversible decline in monotheistic religions that emphasize self-sacrifice, temperance, a sense of duty as well as honor and integrity.
Additionally, while the decline of empires is precipitated by internal factors, the final collapse is marked by defeat at the hands of powerful external enemies.

America Is Destined for Dictatorship.  Fathers are increasingly nonexistent in the lives of kids who are routinely abused, sexually, emotionally, and otherwise, in state-run institutions.  Everybody talks about the abuse the Catholic Church has tolerated with respect to pedophile priests, but the public schools are infinitely worse.  Parents who do care enough to oppose it are tarred as domestic terrorists and targeted by the Justice Department.  Extended families exist as real connections less and less.  We're terrible at love and romance, worse at raising our children.  We have to stage organized boycotts of the Disneys and Targets of the world because organic signals from the market aren't strong enough to dissuade stupid woke corporations from bombarding us with smut.  And those who attempt to uphold timeless societal standards are derided as "culture warriors" and prudes.  The internet is covered with videos of looting, mob violence, street chaos, murder, beatings, carjackings, and other mayhem.  People break out their phones to document the horrors and earn clicks on social media rather than act to stop it.  There is no confidence in our governing institutions, and there shouldn't be.  They're mercilessly corrupt.

Arrest of Chicago 'Peacekeeper' police substitute demonstrates the folly of 'defund the police'.  A man wearing the vest of the new "Peacekeeper" corps deployed over the Memorial Day weekend, to stem the mayhem on a holiday weekend that has become an opportunity for murder tallies to soar, was arrested for a violent attack. [...] One of the many fantasies of the progressives is that there is something inherently wrong or dangerous with police.  Instead of armed police capable of using the threat of violence to restrain offenders, unarmed social worker-like alternatives can reduce violence by sympathizing with offenders and understanding the root causes of their behavior.  The Chicago Police Department's 1,700 vacancies are so catastrophic that Democrat politicians are desperate to deflect blame for their support of defund the police and anti-cop measures.  Chicago's new mayor, Brandon Johnson, ditched his former defund-the-police rhetoric during the campaign but still won't commit to adding funds to the police.

The Consequences of American Meritocracy in the Rearview.  While some differences persist between races or between sexes, the reality is, Americans of all stripes have more opportunity than virtually any place on the planet.  Indeed, black median household income in the United States ($38,800) is higher than that of every country in the world but four, while at the same time, the poorest 20% of Americans are richer on average than most Europeans.  And the "gender wage gap" is gone, too.  What's more, advancement is alive and well, demonstrated by the fact that 20% of America's richest citizens are self-made, starting their lives in poor households.  The fact that 60% of are self-made from the middle class or below shows exactly how much opportunity there is in America.  But a funny thing happened on the way to leaving stereotypes and its discrimination behind and focusing on content of character; the nation was hijacked by the party of the KKK and Jim Crow.  Suddenly, at the very moment when America had achieved something very close to a true meritocracy, the modern Democrat put its only vehicle to power, the Victim Industrial Complex, into overdrive.

How to Destroy a People.  Wokeness is not about "rights" — it is about favoritism on a colossal scale.  It is about transforming America into a Marxist totalitarian state based on a coalition of groups antagonistic to traditional American identity.  And so, ultimately, it is about destroying America as we have known it for over 200 years.  The special consideration that these groups demand comes at the expense of ordinary citizens — those decent, hardworking, family-oriented citizens who now find themselves forced to the back of the bus.  Ordinary Americans pay the higher taxes necessary to fund the privileges that marginal groups now claim; ordinary folks are expected to nod in agreement as their children are subjected to woke brainwashing; ordinary people are told they must swallow the idea that the needs of homosexuals, transgenders, transvestites, criminals, illegal aliens, environmentalist radicals, communists, atheists, and anarchists come first — in education, hiring, culture, politics, and the news.  There is little space or funding left for everyday Americans, who are told that they are less important and "outdated" and even "hate-filled" just because of their noble beliefs in Christianity, self-responsibility, decency, and goodness.

The Extensive Corruption of Morals in the USA.  [Scroll down]  Thus, we are not surprised to learn that the district attorneys of many cities, including New York, do not prosecute prostitution any longer, but treat it as a form of maladjustment to be treated therapeutically, not punished as a legal and moral wrong.  Lotteries today have invaded millions of bodegas and grocery stores.  Casinos are no longer just to be found in Nevada, as was the case in the 1950s and 1960s, but exist in states throughout the nation.  Swearing is common in corporate offices and boardrooms.  The F-word has become commonplace; when this writer worked in a corporate division of industrial engineers even in the 1990s, it was the expletive of choice.  In our era, instead of cruelty to animals, as existed in the early 19th century, we see the destruction of millions of babies, many of whom are dissected while alive in order to retrieve their body parts and sell them.

Let's Check In And See How The Largest Metropolitian Areas In The United States Are Doing.  Our largest cities are being run by progressive politicians that have been working very hard to implement extremely ambitious progressive agendas.  So how is that working out?  In this article, I am going to check in on the three largest metropolitan areas in the United States to see how they are doing.  Have they been transformed into "liberal utopias" that can serve as examples to show the rest of the world how they should be doing things?  Not exactly.  Instead, conditions have gotten really bad in each one of them and things are getting worse with each passing day.

Convicted Murderer Freed By Innocence Project Becomes Drug Dealer And Murders A Man.  Shaurn Thomas, a black man who was freed for murder in Philadelphia by the Innocence Project and given $4 million in restitution by the state, allegedly became a drug dealer upon release, killed a man for owing him a $1,200 drug debt and told his accomplice it was his "third" homicide.  Shaurn Thomas was a millionaire, but prosecutors say he killed a man over a $1,200 drug debt.  Thomas was paid more than $4 million three years ago after spending 24 years behind bars for a murder conviction that was later overturned.  [Video clip]

A new whistleblower describes the horrors of "gender-affirming care" at Texas Children's Hospital.  [Scroll down]  No.  It won't turn out well.  There's absolutely no proof that a transgender surgery will "cure" patients' depression or whatever mental health issue they're going through, which I believe is real.  We have a generation of kids with mental health problems.  It's very sad.  And we need to treat those problems correctly, not by recommending that they change genders to fix their mental health problem.  That's never worked.  It never will work.  There's no proof that it will work anywhere in the literature.  So yes, we're ruining them.  They're going to wake up in ten years and discover that they're infertile, that they can't have children, that their sexuality is completely dysfunctional.  That they can't function as a normal human being.  And ultimately, I believe that that realization is going to cause them to harm themselves — when they wake up and realize that they've already been ruined.

Manufacturing Mental Illness.  We must all understand that "transgenderism" is a mental disorder.  But not just any mental disorder.  This one is being force-fed into the minds of our children from the earliest of ages.  We are "manufacturing' mental illness.  We are creating psychopaths in the "laboratories" of our modern American culture.  There was a time when sexual predators were not allowed within 1000 yards of a school building.  But now, schools — both public and private — are inviting them in specifically to indoctrinate and groom children of all ages, even in pre-school.  Pity the one who would dare to stand against this evil — they'll be labeled as "hateful bigots," ostracized from their communities and sometimes even jailed, for daring to stand in the gap to protect children.

Things Really Are Looking Up Under Biden.  [Scroll down]  The problem is that they are all the wrong things.  Inflation, interest payments, debt, illegal immigration, labor force dropouts.  Those are all way up under Biden.  To show this, we've put together a series of charts. [...] During President Donald Trump's entire four years in office, the Consumer Price Index climbed a total of 7.3%.  In less than two-and-half-years under Biden, prices have shot up 16%.  That's not because of Putin's war.  It's not because of greedy oil companies.  It's not because cattle farmers don't have enough competition.  Nor is it because of any of the other lame excuses Biden has peddled.  The one and only reason prices are skyrocketing is Biden's $5 trillion spending spree.

The Union Is Not a Suicide Pact.  From my point of view, never have so many Americans been so consciously aware that things must change.  The federal government's response to the 9/11 Islamic terrorist attacks has been endless war and the construction of a national security surveillance state that now targets Americans as "domestic enemies."  Its response to mass communication through social media has been the implementation of State-sanctioned censorship.  Its response to widespread calls for border security has been mass sponsorship of illegal immigration.  Its response to Americans' rising demands for personal freedom has been COVID lockdowns, a centrally directed economy, and a declaration of war against "white supremacy."

The Cataclysm to Come.  The United States, ripped apart internally, has become ever less willing and able to lead internationally.  The doctrines that built the United States and Western civilization, assimilated from ancient cultures over thousands of years, are being methodically dissolved.  America is entering an uncharted, revolutionary time.  The foundation of American life, abundant food, energy autonomy, a sound economy, sound education at all levels, and enforceable and equal application of the law, are eroding.  Our society is "fundamentally changing," and these changes are not for the better.  Hard-left fanatics have absorbed the Democrat party and are transforming the country with woke and equality-of-result agendas.  Prosperity and leisure have misled a complacent society into thinking the modern age no longer needs to worry about law and order.

Is Sanity Returning?  I'm referring to the firestorm rejection consumers are giving to Anheuser-Busch (AB), specifically to buying and drinking Bud Lite. [...] AB's executives, Hollywood celebs, academia, TV networks, Big Media, Big Tech, most large corporations, and most government agencies have collectively decided they know what's best for you, know exactly what you need, and have proceeded to shove it down our throats while forcing their political insanity onto society.  You must hate President Trump — Check; every TV network and celebrity continually echoes that mantra.  We will teach racist ideology to your children, and you'll learn to love it — Check; Democrat-controlled school boards cram Critical Race Theory (CRT) into every school curriculum.  Demand gun control/gun confiscation — Check; every mass-shooting is not because the shooter is deranged or mentally ill; no, it's the gun's fault and Dems demand guns be confiscated.  Americans must have and support open borders to flood the country with illegals and change the voter base — Check; Biden and Dems have refused to control the border, resulting in five million (but who's counting) illegals in slightly over two years (thanks, Joe).  America needs a weakened military more focused on White rage than defeating our enemies — Check; all service branches are struggling to recruit new members.  So, given the large numbers of idiotic, woke businesses and lunatic government/military agendas, Anheuser-Busch managed to outstupid them all.  AB used a girly-man transgender to advertise Bud Lite (BL) to the average working man.

Utility Scale Solar Kills Jobs.  Does it matter that utility scale solar has a negative effect on the environment — destroying farmland, forests, wetland, recreational land?  Does it matter that property values are driven down?  Does it matter that the mining of cobalt, lithium, rare earths and copper to build solar panels and battery energy storage systems is done by slave labor in the Congo and China?

When reality hits, it will hit hard.  The work ethic has vanished in large portions of the population.  The military cannot find enough recruits.  We are now at the stage of super-saturation, with corruption, debt, and debauchery leading the list.  All this has come about due to one cause — to keep the government in power, at any cost to the people being ruled.  The impending disturbance that will bring it all crashing down cannot be precisely foretold, but that is because there are so many possible events that it is inevitable that one of them will occur.  One need only look at the headlines to see it.  Black swans abound.  Worse yet, many threats are under-reported, or distorted to conceal their true magnitude.  Is it hopeless?  The short answer is yes.  Nothing in the short term can pay off the debt, restore the work ethic, and return public morals to the levels of sanity.

All This Failure Is Deliberate.  I recently had a reader ask, "Why is Joe Biden still President?" [...] Everything Biden has done has been a disaster.  The economy is teetering.  The border is non-existent.  The banking system and the dollar are crumbling.  Our enemies are taking advantage of the weakness they perceive in the White House.  Crime is out of control in most of our once-great cities.  Traditional morality and decency are in the toilet.  Our children are being butchered and groomed for the hedonistic pleasure of a cadre of sexual deviants.  Women athletes are losing hard-earned rights because of the "transgender" movement, something that almost no one had heard of five years ago.  Government spending is without restraint and, as a result, inflation has soared, and America's middle class is being squeezed into near oblivion.  The education system continues to produce semi-literates who will do — what? — in the future.  No patriot wants to join the military anymore.  The list of Joe Biden's cataclysms is endless, but my space in this column isn't, so I mention only a few of the most egregious catastrophes this man and his ideology have foisted upon the nation.  Why is he still President indeed?

The age of manufactured crises.  This week, with the eclipsing of Title 42, the U.S. southern border has gone from a hot mess to a full-blown emergency.  We were pushed into the conflict with Ukraine and Russia as well.  Before that was the debacle in Afghanistan.  Our leaders killed drilling for oil and terminated pipeline projects which led to elevated gas prices and fueled inflation.  If inflation was a concern, you'd never notice it from our leaders.  They pumped trillions of dollars into the economy to make inflation worse (and had the gall to call it an Inflation Reduction Act.)  Even when there isn't a crisis, the current administration creates one.  For example, claiming gun violence and trans-oppression are national emergencies.  You can almost hear them, "Let's make loans easier for people with bad credit ratings," which is destined to ignite a housing crisis down the road.  If that isn't enough, looming on the horizon is a Taiwan crisis, the Sudan, and perhaps an incident or two with North Korea.  Rather than get in front of an issue and calm it, actions are taken (or not taken) to ensure that problems are allowed to fester and explode.

Liberals sure like dead black men.  We are a nation led by a party that is bent on destruction.  On the West Coast, Democrats are destroying dams in the name of nature.  Elsewhere, they are destroying nuclear plants in the name of safety.  They are destroying coal plants in the name of global warming.  They are destroying sections of interstates in the name of racism.  Black men kill black men by the thousand each year.  Liberals ignore those actual murders.  Instead, they turn the media spotlight on the very rare occasion when a black man dies at the hands of a white person.  The murkier the details, the louder liberals screech.  Liberals are playing America.  When President Obama said if he had a son he would look like Trayvon Martin, he created this monster we still grapple nearly a decade later.  Martin was beating George Zimmerman's head against a sidewalk when the victim pulled his gun and killed his assailant.  The death of another teen thug, Michael D. Brown, gave libs an excuse to destroy Ferguson, Missouri, a quiet suburb that black people used to escape St. Louis.  The list goes on, ending in the overdose death of George Floyd while in police custody.  Liberals used their rationalization to destroy cities.

Never-ending Daycare as a Way of Life.  Teenagers today would not survive in that world where there were no cellphones, Internet, constant entertainment and "safe spaces."  I have never heard the term "safe" as much as I have heard over the last couple years.  The world is not safe regardless of how anyone perceives it.  For those who hold this perception as true, I suggest going to a foreign country and experiencing how different America truly is. [...] What happened?  We, as a group, decided to get soft.  Technology has provided an environment where one can live an easy and soft life.  We subconsciously agreed to not let anything bad happen to our children.  Everyone won and everyone was told they were the best.  Even when they weren't even close.  This fiction twisted our American youth with no non-painful remedy.  We sent these kids out into the world with a distorted view that everything was going to go their way and when it did not it was acceptable to throw a temper tantrum and blame others.

What Have We Learned?  We've learned that white liberals will ignore crime stats and sacrifice their kids to black bullies simply to show the world how "not racist" they are.  They will take a useless/dangerous shot — and, astonishingly, give it to their kids — to avoid being called a "conservative."  Libs will cheer for an obese, mentally ill man when he dons a dress and beats their daughter in a "beauty" pageant.  Progressives don't see a problem with turning adult males with Down Syndrome into drag queens.  They will ignore any news that doesn't come from a state-sanctioned news source, lest they be called a "conspiracy theorist."  Liberals will dutifully prove they aren't "transphobic" by applauding — extra loudly — as a bearded lady steals their daughter's place on the college swim team.  Kids of liberals seem to pay the high price of mommy signaling her "virtue" to the world.

The Impending Thermidor Reaction in Jacobin America.  [Scroll down]  So, the world became topsy-turvy.  Throwing a firebomb into a police-occupied patrol car earned a light sentence, while protesting illegally at the Capitol won a decade in prison.  An American who did not get vaccinated was to be thrown out of the U.S. military; an illegal alien crossing the border unlawfully without a vaccination might earn a free phone and free lodging in a big-city hotel.  The more the government printed money it did not have, the more the country was slandered as cruel and mean to its underclass.  The more standards were dropped for admission, hiring, promotion, and retention, the more employers were deemed unfair and bigoted.

American Despotism.  Democratic long-term rule over cities like Baltimore, Detroit, and Chicago shows the country's trajectory.  Gentrifying cosmopolitans drive out middle-class voters with high rents and plan tent cities of drug users and street defecators.  Homicides in major cities rose 44 percent from 2019-20, another 5 percent from 2020-21.  Nationwide they rose 30 percent, a 60-year high.  Even as the homeless filled cities like Los Angeles, the elites welcomed in millions more illegal immigrants, who bring the Mexican drug cartels' wars with them.  As Houston reported skyrocketing homicides, the Harris County sheriff reminded deputies to share their personal pronouns in introductions.  No longer prosecuting property theft, cities like Dallas and San Fran- cisco released criminals from prison to terrorize the public and only enforced violations on citizens who could pay fines.  The city of Chicago decided not to prosecute gangsters involved in a deadly public shoot-out because they were engaged in "mutual combat."

A Grand Alliance to Overcome the Elite Betrayal of America.  For the first time in history, the ruling class of a powerful nation has abandoned its fellow citizens.  What is happening in America today is more than a return to feudalism, although the new economic model into which we're being herded is correctly compared to feudalism.  The reality is actually much worse: America's elites view ordinary citizens as no longer necessary.  Because of globalism, they are replaceable.  Because of automation, they are superfluous.  Because of environmentalism, they are unsustainable.  These factors explain what is otherwise inexplicable: Constitutional conservatives and Christians, and the values they profess, are now stigmatized by establishment institutions as often, if not more often, than they are praised.  Nationalism and religious faith empower individuals and communities to resist a ruling class that has abandoned them.  That makes them a threat.  They recognize that the ideology of America's ruling elites is itself leading to disaster.  They recognize that America's elites have decided the nation's middle class is disposable, and this is the real reason they are pushing an agenda of woke degeneracy and extreme environmentalism, designed to lower birthrates and reduce standards of living.

Why do liberals support legislation that obviously harms them?  The reality is that the U.S. economy is hardly growing, inflation is still at more than 5%, and the Chinese are arming rapidly while America's defense budget shrinks in real terms.  Biden's progressive policies have set us on a course of self-destruction.  Everyday life is noticeably worse than it was when Biden took office, what with lower real wages, supply chain shortages, higher taxes (many of them hidden from view, like the 1% tax on share buybacks that, in effect, constitute a wealth tax on investors and retirees), weakness overseas, and a weakening dollar.  Every visit to the grocery reveals the misery spreading across America: there are fewer shoppers, each of them purchasing less.  Even such a successful and well run company as Kroger saw fourth-quarter 2022 results decline from 2021 with EPS of 0.62 vs. 0.75 and gross margins decline.  Layoffs are mounting in the tech sector and other industries, and banks have become more selective in making and renewing loans.  The office rental market is hard pressed, and, on top of declines in 2022, home builders are "on the verge of a steeper downturn as buyers pull back."  America is headed toward self-destruction, yet almost half of Democrats want Biden to run again.

Your favorite snacks really ARE shrinking.  If you've picked up a bag of Doritos recently and thought it had less chips in it, you're not going crazy.  Some of America's favorite snacks have shrunk by up to 20 percent in the last 25 years as companies cost-cut amid rising inflation, a move dubbed 'shrinkflation'.  It is not just chips.  Fast food, cereals, soda, ice cream and dressings have all been kept at the same price or even made more expensive despite shrinking in size.

The 2024 Presidential Election.  America is at a tipping point.  Will we continue the downward spiral into a fascist third-world dictatorship?  Can we change course back to a constitutional republic that values the free will of men and women, freedom of speech and assembly, the rule of law, and equal justice?  Already in the descent to an authoritarian state, free speech is suppressed and thought is censored and replaced by Orwellian New Speak enforced by the thought police.  The free press is transformed into shameless state-run propaganda outlets that run the approved false narrative of the day.  The state takes guns away under the guise of public safety.  The thought enforcers of the state supersede local control of the police.  Scapegoats are created.  Yes, the evil of the 1930s is again rising.

Modern day brown shirts.  Goal #15 of the CPUSA, which was read into the Congressional Record in 1963, stated:  "Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States."  Some of the other listed CPUSA goals that have been not-so-coincidentally pursued by radical Democrat Party activists over the past several decades include:
  •   Infiltrate the press.
  •   Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
  •   Get control of the schools.
  •   Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity.
  •   Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity (now to include "transsexualism") as "normal, natural, healthy."
We have all been sleeping while the radical Left — the militant arm of the Democrat Party — has achieved most of these objectives over the past 50 years!  All of this nonsense has been normalized to our collective detriment.

The Disposable Biden.  By any national metric, we're all far worse off now than we were before Biden stumbled through the doors of the Oval Office like a lobotomized polio victim.  His "stiff gait" is an indicator of serious neurological decline which has become a brand of sorts.  It's Biden's version of Trump's rambunctious mane.  But, instead of signaling a raucous virility, Biden's halting and unbalanced gate communicates fundamental weakness and morbidity.  The leader of the free world?  How about sock puppet? [...] Our institutions have been poisoned by feckless, political appointees.  But, the watershed moment in deep state corruption manifested itself when Barack Obama sauntered into the White House, and Karl Marx followed with him.  Every apparatus of deep state power fell under the full control of left wing radicals, installed by the Obama administration — a phalanx of unelected officials that still occupy key positions today.

The truth about morality.  The birth-control pill helped to reduce the stigma of losing one's virginity before marriage.  This, in turn, indirectly reduced the stigma of premarital pregnancy.  This, in turn, reduced the perceived need for the birth control pill.  Once the initial phase of these events had occurred, the floodgates were opened, and what quickly followed was what is called, the sexual revolution.  This revolution was supposed to have freed women from the injustice of sexual repression.  Instead, it led to millions of women becoming pregnant and abandoned, left on their own, to raise their fatherless children.  Many of them were, as a result, raised in poverty and amid crime.  The welfare state sought to correct this mistake by subsidizing single motherhood.  This, in turn, predictably increased what it subsidized.  Today, the harm wrought by the abandonment of sexual morality has left us with a society that cannot even recognize the good and natural differences between the sexes, even to the point of denying that there are two complementary sexes, and certainly denying that they are a naturally ordained partnership, one without which, society suffers consequences so pervasive that many people call them good.

The real surprise here is that New York City still has tourists!
New York City is starting to smell like dirty bong water, disgusting even the tourists.  [Scroll down]  The bottom line here is that the failure to enforce pot laws and the decriminalization of marijuana use inevitably leads to public consumption and a lot of bums whose lives revolve around pot-smoking as a lifestyle choice, camping out on the streets.  The link between homeless encampments and pot smoking is very strong.  The failure to clear those encampments or enforce any laws against petty crime means lots more pot stench to breathe in.  The other issue is that excessive pot-smoking is linked to a lot of crime.  Medical studies have shown that pot-smoking in young men with genetic vulnerabilities, is connected to the emergence of schizophrenia.  Many schizophreniacs commit hard, impulsive violent crimes.  Virtually all mass shooters are prodigious pot consumers.  Pot consumption is a part of this whole dysfunctional picture.

America's Transgender Craze.  Future historians may look back on 2023 as Peak Trans Women insanity. [...] Who can forget the mediocre male swimmier Lia Thomas winning swimming championships as a female?  Meanwhile, a trans weightlifter will even compete in the upcoming Olympics and do so as a woman.  A transgendered athlete recently defeated 14,000 female competitors in the London marathon.  Far less publicized is that state prisons now contain 5000 men who identify as women while some 1300 are inmates of federal prisons.  What is going on?  Is America experiencing a mass psychosis where men wake up as "women" and demand to be treated as females?  Has our water supply been massively contaminated by estrogen?  Or are we just experiencing a harmless fad like purple hair?  This men-becoming-women trend is the other side of what occurred decades back as women increasingly moved into traditional male fields.

A Woman by Any Other Name is Still a Woman.  A famous line from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet", meaning that things are what they are, regardless of what you choose to name them.  This is why modern man uses language to precisely define people, places, and things, irrespective of how we might feel about said things.  The same can be applied to men and women, or boys and girls.  They are what they are, regardless of how we choose to name them.  Such thinking was common sense for centuries, but now in our post-enlightenment culture, accepted descriptors are somehow verboten, requiring a new language with cumbersome verbosity replacing simple one or two syllable words.

Feminism's Strange Trans Fruit.  Leaving the fight against the trans movement, specifically the men who demand that we all play along with their supposedly feminine identities, entirely up to women would relinquishing to feminists (and their many male allies and puppetmasters) exactly what they want.  They want it to be impossible for the public to see a distinction between feminist and woman, as if all females are enthusiastic participants in a feminist Borg collective.  In fact, one of the most potent tools of feminism in recent decades has been to say "Women need X" when the truth is that feminists want X and don't care what the rest of women actually want.  This conceals feminists' actual, far smaller numbers.

It's Never Been About Tucker, Trump, or Fox News.  America is going to hell in a handbasket.  Not in the surreal world created by TV and social media, but in the real world.  A civilizational inferno has engulfed America and the people we've elected to fight it have done nothing of substance to contain it.  We're not dealing with people who merely disagree on how to put the fire out.  We're dealing with political pyromaniacs who set the fires, watch them burn, and work to stop anyone who tries to put them out.  They're facilitating illegal immigration, weaponizing government, redefining crime and punishment, changing the definition of inflation to spend more, corrupting our election system, cheering and funding a tyrannical gender revolution, and butchering history to institutionalize a cultish gospel of black victimhood.

The Greatest Threat to America.  America has recently witnessed an assault on freedom of speech, watched the White House send condolences to the trans community after one of its members murdered innocent children at a Christian school, and learned of a proposed tax plan that would hurt the finances of millions of Americans by adding four trillion dollars in new taxes.  But perhaps most indicative of a threat from within, this administration has ushered in a period of unprecedented domestic chaos by attempting to forcefully vaccinate citizens, prioritize DEI over equality and common sense, and crater military enlistment by promoting wokeness.  Every administration presides over some level of disagreement on issues amongst the general public, but nothing compares to the confusion they are causing young American children to endure, especially during such a crucial time in life for a child's development.  All these problems will have a devastating impact on America's long-term future if not stopped dead in their tracks.

The Ruling Class's Stalinist Purge.  Whenever human dignity is pushed to the shadows because agents of the State bully and taunt those with character, evil grows.  Whenever individuals are forced to betray their consciences to save loved ones from wretched fates, evil grows.  Whenever government institutions demand reverence for lies while blaspheming religious truth, evil grows.  Whenever people are punished for their beliefs, ostracized for their dissent, or purged from the public square, evil grows.

Insanity is being normalized.  Imagine waiting for all the possible information about the food on your plate and waiting to eat until it is all processed and discovered.  You would simply starve to death and die.  So you eat, based upon the experience that broccoli and prime rib will sustain you.  A nice glass of wine (which one day is, one day isn't, and a third day is supposed to be good for you) is a nice touch as well.  We just act because we must, based on common sense.  You work with what you have and what you know and make the best decisions possible.  It's how we must navigate the world.  So what happens when you dump something like "critical theory" into everything?  The whole point of critical theory is to take simple and understood concepts and turn them into a jumble of gobbledygook in which your normal understanding of what things are and how things work into a total mess.  That mess is created, actually, with a purpose.  That purpose is that we are subjected to a tyranny of those who claim to be in the know about the real state of the world, and the means is destroying your heuristic.  Your understanding of how the world works becomes destroyed.  It is paralyzing.

Murders jumped 10% since 2021 in major Democrat-led US cities thanks to soft-on-crime policies: study.  The murder rates in major US Cities have soared more than 10% in the past two years — with most homicides occurring in Democratic areas with soft-on-crime policies.  In a study released by WalletHub Wednesday, researchers found that Memphis, Tennesse; New Orleans, Louisana; Richmond, Virginia; Washington, DC; and Detroit, Michigan are suffering from the biggest homicide rate problems.  All five cities are led by left-wing mayors.  After comparing the rise in murder rates in 45 of the country's most populated cities between 2021 and 2023, scholars noticed that killings were rising faster in Democrat-led cities than in their Republican counterparts.  Though the Covid-19 pandemic can be blamed for the initial jump in homicides, scholars theorized that soft-on-crime policing has exacerbated the issue in progressive cities.

Adolescent Menopause In Autistic Girls: Is This What We Really Want?  When an adolescent girl claims she is really a boy in the wrong body, these are safe assumptions:
  •   She is likely to be on the autism spectrum and experiencing difficulties associated with that condition.
  •   She is likely to have engaged in suicidal or self-harm ideation.
  •   She is likely suffering from other issues like sexual trauma, anxiety, depression, and eating disorders.
  •   She is likely already in the throes of puberty — physiologically, mentally, socially, and spiritually — and absolutely miserable.
Puberty blockers will stop bone and breast development, may leave a girl short and stunted for life, and will put a girl into menopause, adding tortuous suffering on top of everything she's already experiencing with puberty and her teen years.

Biden's theme is "finish the job."  Have you seen the job thus far?  What's happened to the economy under Biden's policies?  Despite the glowing reviews from the White House press briefing lectern, real wages have gone down, not up.  Income levels are down and people have drained their savings trying to keep up with rising prices.  All of that was directly driven by inflation which has remained at or above 5% for almost all of the Biden presidency.  And that inflation was a direct result of the trillions of dollars in imaginary money that was pumped into the system in the name of "stimulus."  None of this is any sort of partisan politicking or hyperbole.  The figures are all out there for everyone to see.  And then there's the situation that started on the southern border almost immediately after Joe Biden issued his first executive orders.  They don't call it the Biden Border Crisis for nothing.  We are now up to more than 6.3 million illegal immigrants that have invaded the country since January 2021.

The great sorting that's taking place in America.  [Scroll down]  Lastly, of course, there was the leftists' highly political response to COVID, which divided liberty lovers from those with totalitarian instincts.  At this point, many conservatives want nothing to do with the GOP.  All these trends have accelerated under Biden and are exploding at a rate that is impossible for Americans to ignore, whether in terms of border security, economic policies, national security, military readiness or, most significantly, the transformation of America's very fabric (racial, sexual, the family unit, etc.).  No wonder, then, that we're experiencing a Great Sorting. [...] What's also a sea change is the way in which the COVID experience shook Americans' faith in science and medicine, in public schools, and in academia.  That support was normative in the 20th century.  These changes are accelerating.

My Monday rant on saving civilization.  Justice, to the Left, means people destroying things, stealing things, committing violence, and tossing people out of the public and economic square.  Creating inflation in order to eliminate the middle class.  [Tweet]  We live in a society now where killing babies and old people is considered a positive good, and paying people not to work in the midst of a huge labor shortage is considered just.  Where performing sterilization on children before they even reach puberty is to be celebrated.  In Minnesota, in just one day, the Minnesota Senate passed 3 bills that shock the conscience:  banning so-called conversion therapy for transgender people, which is just giving counseling to troubled youth and not a cult reprogramming as implied; making Minnesota an abortion sanctuary where non-custodial parents can take their children for "care;" and the same "sanctuary" law that allows such parents to get "gender-affirming" care for children despite not having custody rights and violating court orders.  The Democrats cheered and clapped after they passed all 3 bills.  This is their vision of a just society.  It is, literally, evil.  The intentional destruction of our society.

RFK Jr.  Says Middle Class Was 'Systematically' Wiped Out by COVID-19 Lockdowns.  Democratic 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said COVID-19 lockdowns across the United States decimated the middle class, suggesting that it has yet to recover.  "The strength of a nation comes from a strong economy and a vibrant middle class," Kennedy told Fox News over the weekend, "and we have wiped out the middle class in the country systematically."  The 69-year-old, who is a prominent skeptic of vaccines, stated that COVID-19-related policies benefited the elite ruling class at the cost of the middle class.  Those lockdowns, he asserted, shifted $4 trillion in wealth from the middle class to a "new aristocracy of billionaires."  Those lockdowns "created 500 new billionaires," Kennedy stated.  "The Oxfam report, which came out this week, shows that the billionaires that existed at the beginning of the pandemic, the people like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeffrey Bezos, Bloomberg, etc., increased their wealth by 30 percent during the pandemic.  From the lockdowns.  And [Bezos's] Amazon got to shut down all of its competitors."

Eric Adams: New York City Is Being 'Destroyed' by President Joe Biden's Migrant Crisis.  New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) said New York City is being "destroyed" by President Joe Biden's migrant crisis during a panel discussion in Washington, DC, hosted by the African American Mayors Association.  "The city is being destroyed by the migrant crisis," Adams bluntly stated. [...] Adams seemingly took a shot at other New York City officials, accusing them of not fighting hard enough to get federal resources to the city.

The Editor says...
Does the mayor think New York City is the only place that's being affected?  Has he changed his mind about the wide-open Mexican border?  Why is more federal spending the answer to every problem?

Marijuana: One Problem After Another.  Last month, Oklahoma voters rejected the legalization of recreational marijuana.  Hopefully, this means the word about all the problems associated with marijuana use is getting around.  In New York City, licenses for legal pot shops have been slow in coming so illegal shops have proliferated, leading to the sale of illegal drugs and attracting more than 500 violent robberies last year alone.  Mayor Eric Adams noted there are as many as 1,500 of these illegal shops in the City.  They open near schools and target kids. "We are losing our grip," he said.  Licensed shops also target kids with candy-flavored gummies and other cannabis products.  It's Joe Camel all over again.  Legalized marijuana is also a factor in Colorado's rising crime rates.  It attracted criminals to the state initially, and now the homeless and others are committing armed robbery and burglary to get the money to buy marijuana.  The same pattern is playing out in other states.  Legalizing marijuana was supposed to reduce crime but, instead, the illegal drug market has mushroomed and violence has increased.

Austin Has Turned Into Another Liberal Hellhole.  Massive spikes in crime, violence, and homelessness thanks to the city being run by liberals have put Austin on the fast track to becoming the next leftist statistic.  [Video clip]

A Lesson in Corporate Wokeness: The Disaster After Making Aunt Jemima a Pariah.  In 2020, amid the Black Lives Matter upheaval seen across the country, companies were bending the knee on a regular basis.  Many brands and corporations came out with statements and pledges about altering their practices and evolving their corporate structures, with "diversity" being thrown about in their mea culpa.  Of course, lost in these self-congratulatory announcements was the unspoken admission they did not realize they were making:  If you are promising to no longer be "racist," that means you are stating you had previously been a racist company.  In the flurry of these Wall Street struggle sessions was a number of brands eradicating their corporate mascots that could be interpreted as racially insensitive.  Uncle Ben has disappeared from boxes of rice.  Land O'Lakes removed the famed Native American woman from its boxes, leaving the land and lakes on its packaging.  Joining these dispatched designs was the classic breakfast staple brand Aunt Jemima.

New York City is Discovering that Legalizing Marijuana Wasn't Really a Great Idea.  Decriminalizing marijuana, we've been told to the point of stupor for years, would simply be a matter of recognizing the way society has changed and coming to a mature accommodation of a widespread current practice.  It would free up valuable police resources to deal with actual crimes and real criminals, and end a longstanding injustice in which — you guessed it! — people of color were, we were told, disproportionately targeted for arrest and prosecution.  So the state of New York has legalized marijuana, and how's it going?  Doritos and Patchouli oil sales through the roof?  Maybe.  But there have been a lot of unexpected downsides.

DIE Means the Death of Military Professionalism.  Since 2018, from record highs at the end of last century and into the post-9/11 era, positive civilian impressions of the military plummeted.  This decreased trust is, in no small measure, due to bipartisan public perceptions of a politicized military from both the left and right.  A 2022 Ronald Reagan Institute survey noted that half of respondents attributed military politicization to a "woke" agenda.  It is a sentiment certainly shared by some in civilian leadership and many current military members and veterans.  The Reagan Institute polling does not define "woke."  Ipsos polling, however, suggests that the meaning of "woke" can be fluid.  Although "woke" may have different definitions, for many, it is associated prominently with Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DIE).

Your Doctor Asking For Your Pronouns Isn't Just Annoying, It's A Sign Of The Industry's Decline.  Last summer, I went to establish care at a new doctor's office.  My beloved pediatrician, one of the few true family doctors left in the industry, had once kindly offered to keep seeing me until I have my own children, but I was in the midst of a post-college move, and that was no longer feasible.  So I found myself in a waiting room wading through the moat of new-patient forms that stand between patients and doctors all across America.  As many of those forms now do, this one wanted to know not only my sexual orientation and sex, but also the so-called gender I was "assigned at birth," whether I identified as transgender, and my preferred pronouns.  As if that weren't enough, when the nurse walked me back into the doctor's office, she proceeded to ask me the same questions again.  I might have pointed out that I'd already had to endure this interrogation once — I know I made a face.  Looking back, I wish I'd thought fast enough to remind her that sex is an immutable characteristic that is neither "assigned" nor "reassigned," but I was just ready to get out of there.  Needless to say, I never went back.  A colleague of mine had a similar experience filling out an online form for his daughter's upcoming medical visit.  After spending 20 minutes trying unsuccessfully to click "submit," he realized that while he'd already selected "female" under the tab for "gender," there was a small, separate box he had overlooked labeled "sex" where he had to select "female" again.  Plenty of patients have been forced to jump through hoops like these.

The War on Pronouns is Really a War on Language.  One recent example I noticed was linked by msn.com and included the headline, "Non-Binary Ex-Biden Staffer Sam Brinton's Family Calls Them A Liar, Claims Their Abuse Story Never Happened."  The headline is incomprehensible by traditional rules of grammar.  The reader would not know who is meant by "Them" and "Their."  Even if we are familiar with Sam Brinton and his story, we would not know what people his family calls "a liar."  The plural words tell us that there are multiple third parties that Brinton's family accuses.  We are misled and distracted by those plural pronouns.  An innocent reader would not have concluded that Brinton, himself, is the real target unless the reader undertook the process of clicking on the link and reading the article.  The reader would then have to remember the new mandate that requires us to misread plural pronouns as applicable to single people — as the individual subject's whim dictates.  Singular is now plural.  Plural is now singular.  Words have no meaning.

Welcome to the cornfield.  [Scroll down]  To lift that fog it is crucial that the language that allows it to occur be fought at every opportunity — and we can start with refusing to allow a few undeniably false and manipulative terms that have entered the societal conversation to be used as cudgels for the progressive/woke/equitarian power and manipulation complex.  Misinformation, denialism, disinformation, malinformation, trigger, safe space, equity, systemic, existential, intersectionality, zero anything, toxic, cis, they, zir, anything-ist, anything-ism, and on and on and on — all these words and terms are used to distort meaning, undermine objective facts, and purposefully use a devious combination of familiarity and confusion to lead society down a path it would never even consider if it could truly and immediately decipher their impact.

When Did the U.S. Become East Germany?  How long will it be before dissent is criminalized in this country?  Mothers and fathers are being stripped of their parental rights, and children are being told to be the functionaries of government.  The Sanderses and AOCs would love nothing more than to elist them to spy on their families and report their involvement in disinformation, misinformation, and "anti-government" activities.  Wealth redistribution schemes are disguised as green policies.  Our retail shelves have in recent times looked like the bare counters of communist East Berlin.  We're told that we have to make do with less, and fewer choices are in our best interest.  Our economy would be full-on GDR-ed if the Sanderses and Ocasio-Cortezes had their way.  The left is unrelenting in its ambition to take more of the economy out of the private sector and place it in the hands of elected Democrats and administrative tyrants.

Can We Do Anything About America's Decline?  Twenty-first-century America was on a trajectory of gradual decline — until it began to implode.  Was the accelerant the COVID-19 pandemic and unhinged lockdowns?  Or was the catalyst the woke revolution fueled by the 2020 summer of exempted rioting, looting, arson, and violence?  Or was it perhaps the deranged fixation on removing Donald Trump from the presidency and destroying the rule of law in the process?  Or all that and more?  Now with the election of Joe Biden, what had been a fast-tracked decline has accelerated at such an astonishing rate we can scarcely recognize our country. [...] America is in a similar position to where it was in 1861, 1929, 1941, and 1968 — only perhaps worse, given in all those cases, there was at least a president and Congress that identified and reacted to the crisis, whereas today our elected government is what caused the crisis.

The Revenge of Moriarty.  [Scroll down]  Unfortunately, the dark spiderweb enveloping America is being woven not by one isolated fiend but by a multitude of them, disciples of a sick and toxic leftist ideology.  And for far too long, conservatives stood by and let the spiderweb spread, thread by thread, until we too became caught in it.  Now, infamies once thought unfathomable or unspeakable by a moral society are being more than embraced, in fact mandated.  The radical Democrats doing this have taken power from the docile normal people, aided by their education-brainwashed acolytes.  Hence, the foundations of the country have lost substance while a perverse fantasy carries governmental — if not yet constitutional — weight.

The shoplifting blues.  Once upon a time, we used to call shoplifting stealing.  But recently, shoplifting has been the latest episode of "No justice no peace."  In other words, there are many blue city district attorneys who don't think that shoplifting is worth arresting you.  Let them steal and let the corporate cats eat their losses.  Well, it turns out that the corporate cats have limits and can't just sit back and let their stores get sacked.

Let's be blunt — legal weed is turning New York workers into zombies.  Not just because decriminalized marijuana led to proliferating mayhem in the five boroughs.  Not just because stinky smoke hangs everywhere, seeping into subway cars and even Broadway theaters — the overture to "My Fair Lady" at Lincoln Center was "accompanied by an acrid aroma that wasn't Liza's flowers," my friend Stephen M. Silverman recently remarked.  It's also because of a forbidden-to-utter truth, in an age where raising the minimum wage ever higher has become mantra — namely, a license to get high has turned service employees into zombies.

British Columbia breaks new overdose records one month after decriminalizing all drugs.  Seven years after the province of British Columbia declared the drug epidemic a public health emergency, and just one month after the decriminalization of all drugs, overdoses continue to skyrocket.  According to the Canadian Press, B.C. tragically set three new overdose records this March, just the second month after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's federal government allowed the province to decriminalize all drugs starting February 1, 2023, in an effort to combat the crisis.

The West Declares War on Itself.  For Americans who cherish self-government, free speech, and personal liberty, the reality of today's America is jolting.  How can Hillary Clinton's campaign, Barack Obama's FBI, and an assortment of sordid Intelligence Community actors conspire to frame Donald Trump as a Russian spy in a veritable coup d'état without suffering any legal consequences?  How can the IRS target Americans for their political viewpoints and be rewarded with bigger budgets and more armed agents?  How can the FBI illegally spy on a presidential campaign, target parents concerned over the content of their children's public education, and label half of America "extremists," and not be disbanded?  How can the Department of (in)Justice seek to punish Americans' speech and religious faith as impermissible expressions of "hate" and deprive Americans of their Second Amendment protections without being immediately defunded as a threat to the Bill of Rights?

The public sector unions can't print money.  Chicago, Portland, Milwaukee, etc. are all a big mess.  It goes like this:  the taxpayers move out and the public sector unions elect their man.  So what happens now?  We will see, but this may be a blessing in disguise because the finances of these cities are going nowhere. [...] At some point, many of these cities will run out of money because the check from the state legislature, or COVID, is not in the mail.  The businesses will move out and take their taxes with them.  And the schools will collapse because they can't cover costs.  You can strike all you want but the teachers of Chicago may have to make concessions or lose their jobs.  That's not what they voted for but that's what they will get.  So reality is around the corner and it's not pretty.

Oregon is dealt a blow [by its own socialist policies].  As much as Oregon has to offer, our housing unaffordability, homelessness, increasing taxation, drug addiction crisis, untreated mental illness, gun violence, traffic deaths and educational mediocrity are changing the calculus for many about where to live, raise a family or retire.  A year's decline in the state's population does not spell our doom — at least not yet.  But the census provides bracing data that shows too many people have decided Oregon is no longer where their future lies.  The state depends on population growth to fill jobs, provide tax dollars for public services and inject the energy and perspectives that build thriving neighborhoods and communities.  A stagnant or declining population instead dictates a future of cuts and diminished opportunities that can lead to even more people moving out.

Is It Time to Panic Yet Over the State of America?  The economy is a mess with daily news stories about another country abandoning the U.S. dollar for trade and commerce, favoring the Russian ruble, Chinese yuan, or gold, but no longer the U.S. dollar.  What happens as these countries, now making up most of the world population, start dumping dollars?  Today's current inflation will look the good old days.  As these dollars otherwise held and used by many countries flood back into the U.S., "too many dollars chasing too few goods" will go into overdrive, fueling hyperinflation, destroying the savings and pensions of most Americans, leading to economic misery as we see in Argentina or Venezuela.  Politicians are oblivious, those of both parties continuing to throw money into a losing proxy war in Ukraine, adding to a national debt that we soon will be unable to even pay the interest on.  Is that panic time?

The common denominator in the recent big problem banks: ESG.  Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank both were multi-billion-dollar bank failures.  First Republic and Credit Suisse were multi-billion-dollar banks that's required large cash infusions to avoid failure.  Writing in the Washington Examiner, Paul Tice points out that all four institutions followed PC prescriptions for enlightened corporate leadership, basically the recipe for ESG (and DEI). [...] The line connecting ESG policies to the bank failures is indirect, or, if you will, a dotted line.  The proximate cause of the SVB failure was not loans to politically correct environmental startups, but rather too many long term Treasury securities in its portfolio of assets.  But the fact is clear, at least in the case of SVB with which I am most familiar, that management took their eyes off the ball of risk management.  Risk management roles remained unfilled for a time, and some risk managers clearly prioritized ESG over actually, you know, managing risk.

The Trump Trials: Changing the Subject.  Going into a presidential election year, the incumbent president looks to be facing a difficult reelection campaign.  Persistently high inflation numbers remain a problem.  Energy prices are still up.  America's southern border is being overrun with illegal border-crossers and fentanyl.  Major bank failures have raised the specter of a banking crisis.  There are multiple House of Representatives investigations covering Biden family finances, the weaponization of government agencies, China, and the origins of COVID.  For the current administration and its supporters, the answer is as easy as it is familiar:  change the subject to Donald Trump.

The end of cities.  I recently reviewed the results of the mayoral election in Chicago, which appear to have sounded the death knell for America's third-largest city.  The buildings will remain and the people without the means to escape will still huddle in their homes (at least those who have homes), hoping to avoid being the next statistic in a crime wave that shows no signs of abating.  Commerce has slowed to a crawl and its once-famous entertainment district is now too dangerous for most to risk an evening out on the town.  At the Washington Examiner, Stephen Moore takes a similarly dim view of Chicago's prospects, but he notes that the Windy City is not alone in its downward slide.  Many cities across the United States are simply becoming unlivable.  And the real tragedy in all of this is that the decline was completely avoidable.  But an epidemic of suicidally dangerous liberal policies has opened the gates for the barbarians that were always waiting outside.

Donald Trump, Tiberius Gracchus, And America's Imminent End.  [Scroll down]  It has taken less than 20 years since Barack Obama promised to "fundamentally transform" America for the country to change from a functioning but imperfect republic into a farce of a country characterized by a banana-republic-level tyranny.  With a complicit bureaucracy, Obama used the IRS to target political opponents, the Justice Department to coerce banks into blacklisting businesses he didn't like, and Obamacare to give government unprecedented control over Americans' health decisions while doubling the cost.  He unconstitutionally opened the immigration spigot that has now become a torrent.  Within six months of taking office, Obama would set the tone for an administration that would set race relations back 50 years.  His "evolution" on gay marriage would give cover to the spineless Supreme Court to impose that travesty on the country and lay the ground for the fascist LBTQ hellscape America endures today.  And finally, he weakened two of the most foundational elements of American society:  The military and residential communities.

What Would a Real Manchurian Candidate Do Differently than Joe Biden?  The Biden regime has taken a wrecking ball to the economy.  In one of his first acts, Biden shut down domestic oil and gas production, which spiked gasoline prices to stratospheric heights.  The Democrats' Infrastructure Bill, the Orwellian "Inflation Reduction Act", and the bloated Omnibus spending bill added trillions to the national debt and brought US inflation to 40-year highs.  Other symptoms of the horrible Biden economy include (1) the personal savings rate is near seventeen-year lows, according to the St.  Louis Fed, (2) credit card debt is at record levels, according to the St. Louis Fed, and (3) real wages in the United States fell, year-over-year from April 2021 to November 2022, according to the Mises Institute.  Then there is the relentless push to transition the US economy to green technology through the implementation of environmental, societal, and governance standards that led to the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and the continuing US banking crisis.

Is America lost?  I have been struggling with a near depression this past week regarding the current state of the country.  Objectively speaking, the State of the Union is not strong.  Inflation is out of control, our banking system is teetering on the brink, our legal system is being turned into a political weapon, our cities are becoming crime-ridden war zones, our education system is collapsing, and our moral boundaries have eroded.  There's more, but that is enough to make one cry.  Everyday Americans are at least peripherally aware that things are amiss.  They tell pollsters that the country is on the wrong track.  But when given the opportunity to actually do something about the rot, enough Americans go to the polls and choose to continue the policies that have brought us to this point.

Downtown S.F. on the brink: It's worse than it looks.  The downtown area, the city's primary economic driver, is teetering on the edge, facing challenges greater than previously known, new data shows.  The wounds suffered by the economic core are deep, and city officials have yet to come up with a plan to make the fundamental changes that some economists and business leaders argue could make the area thrive again.  "A general economic decline is what we're trying to avoid," said Wade Rose, president of Advance SF, a business group that advocates on behalf of several major employers in San Francisco.  The group is working with the city on short-term ideas to bring more people back downtown, but Rose agrees that the problem needs a rethink in the long run.

San Francisco, RIP?  [S]omething like three-quarters of San Franciscans who deserted the city during covid have not returned.  The same phenomenon has been observed in cities like Portland and Minneapolis, while other cities, like Salt Lake City, have rapidly bounced back.  But Salt Lake City is not run by liberal goofballs. [...] When you go downtown and you don't feel safe and you see people "using the street as a toilet," you stop going downtown.  There is nothing mysterious about this.

America's Broken Windows.  The U.S. government actively engages in viewpoint discrimination and political censorship.  J6 political prisoners rot in jail.  Churches are firebombed for refusing to redefine the institution of marriage or insisting on protecting the sanctity of every unborn life.  Children are sexually groomed in the classroom for the pleasure of perverted adults.  Medical doctors castrate and mutilate confused minors before they have had a chance to truly live.  News media spread endless waves of State-controlled propaganda while accusing political dissenters of being propagandists.  Intellectuals publish a bloated collection of narrow groupthink while accusing free thinkers of being too dumb to understand the issues.  Patriotic Americans who love their country are branded "domestic terrorists" while anti-American zealots who insist America is irredeemably racist are rewarded with prizes.  A presidential candidate who destroyed subpoenaed evidence and fabricated an international Russian conspiracy that divided the nation suffers no legal consequences, yet an elected president who took no salary while surviving one Deep State attack after the next is persecuted still today.  These are the rotten fruits of Marxist seeds.

Will you like what's coming?  At the rate things are going, we'd better start preparing for life under perpetual Democrat or Uniparty governance.  Here are just a few points to ponder about what that life might be like.  Feel free to share with Woke family and friends.  Do you like the dark, i.e. living in the dark and carrying flashlights and candles after the sun goes down?  You'd better because there will be lots of opportunity once Uniparty-induced brownouts and blackouts take hold because of our power grid's inability to supply dependable power as the war on fossil fuels takes hold.  Exaggerated?  Read about California in the last 20 years.  Do you like extreme heat in your house in the summer?  See above. [...] Do you like extreme cold in your house in the winter?  See above.  By the way, don't depend on firewood.  They'll ban it.  CO2, you know.

Could It Happen Here?  It Is Happening Here.  My field of study in graduate school was communism.  As a fellow at the Russian Institute of Columbia's School of International Affairs, I was, if I remember correctly, one of seven students in the entire university to major in what was known at the time as "Communist Affairs."  I cite this in order to make this point:  In my wildest dreams, I never imagined what I was studying would ever apply to the United States of America, the freest country in world history.  I assumed that communism was, for various reasons, something that happened elsewhere — most obviously, Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Cambodia and North Korea.  What were those various reasons?  One was the absence of freedom in the history of those countries.  Another was that all those countries were, with the exception of Cuba, outside of Western civilization.

Top 11 Priorities for America in order to save the Republic.  Now that the USA is experiencing a second communist POTUS (Obama then Beijing Biden), all morals are being flipped upside down, rights to free speech and press are being flushed down the toilet, and the infrastructure of functionality is being crippled, on purpose, by the powers that be in Washington D.C.  Somehow Beijing Biden got 80,000,000 votes, even though every campaign event he threw had fewer people attend than a bad middle school basketball game on a rainy day.  Somehow, peaceful US citizens are in jail (without a trial) for over two years for protesting a crooked election, while violent criminals from Antifa and Black Lives Matter walk the streets after destroying property, businesses, and lives protesting staged events.  Somehow, US citizens are supposed to support Ukraine, where the leaders are corrupt Nazi sympathizers, and send them all of our money and weapons, while the USA crumbles from inflation, supply chain issues, lack of proper military defense, and a demented leader who molests children at his speaking events.

When Will This Climate Madness End?  What do gas ranges, Dutch farmers, and moose have in common?  In a normal everyday context, very little.  But in the world of apocalyptic climate change, everything. [...] The enlightened climate cult solution is to ban everything that adds greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and embrace everything that lowers the concentration of greenhouse gases.  For example, gas ranges and ovens are bad because they use fossil fuels like natural gas and propane to cook food.  If gas stoves are banned, electric ranges and ovens can fill the gap.  No worries, right?  The same argument can be made for fossil-fueled vehicles.  Ban them, and switch over to electric vehicles.  Ditto for fossil-fueled power generating stations.  Ban them, switch to renewable sources, and have a happy day.  This sort of logic extends to another greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide.  In the Netherlands, the Dutch Government is trying to force up to 3,000 farms to close to meet European Union pollution limits on nitrogen oxides and ammonia.  This means that almost no form of agriculture is safe from climate change diktats.

Why a desperate America may soon annex its 51st state.  US government finances are appallingly bad.  The national debt exceeds 100% of GDP, annual deficits run into the trillions of dollars with no end in sight, and major trust funds for Social Security and Medicare will soon run out of money.  Political incompetence is mind-blowing; politicians fail to be able to even identify problems, let alone understand them, let alone reach compromises to solve them.  Ditto for central bank incompetence.  These people simply cannot understand how, by keeping interest rates at zero for nearly a decade and conjuring trillions of dollars out of thin air, they engineered record high inflation.  And they also fail to understand how their actions to 'fix' inflation are causing widespread havoc in the economy and financial system.  Social divisions across the country are extreme.  Censorship and cancel culture prevail, and corporations now wag their fingers at their own customers to "be better".  The education system is in pitiful shape, with many politicians and school board officials turning classrooms into activist training camps.  The population is terribly unhealthy.  Obesity and drug addiction are epidemics.  Plus there's an obvious mental health crisis that drives far too many people to commit horrific acts of violence on innocent people, including children.  National security is in decline.  Military readiness is down, yet top officials seem more concerned about diversity and inclusion rather than the ability to prevail in war.  The rule of law has been perverted, including for political purposes and self-aggrandizement.

Austin Seems to Be Circling the Liberal Drain as a Massive Brawl Engulfs the Street Saturday Night.  [Video clip only.]

Crisis breeds fascism.  Democrats and RINOs never let a crisis go to waste because a crisis allows them to expand their powers.  9/11 is just one example.  Bush and company used it to add a Cabinet-level department, make the unpatriotic PATRIOT Act law, and start two wars they later would abandon.  Washington does not wait for a crisis to come along.  The deep state turned President Trump's actually peaceful protest on the National Mall on January 6 into what they called an insurrection.  DC now has the power to jail dissidents.  They also beta-tested their facial recognition apparatus.  The border crisis allows Democrats to flood Republican states with illegal aliens by sending them to Wyoming and other states instead of sending them home.  I don't know where to begin in enumerating the extensions of power under covid.  It was overplayed by DC which jacked up the numbers by giving hospitals cash incentives to label deaths as being with (not necessarily from) covid.

It All Began With the Pill.  If the Nobel Prize Committee had the category of Most Influential Invention of the Last Century, one candidate might be the Pill, the contraceptive that came into widespread use in the 1960s and triggered a chain reaction of one tectonic, societal earthquake after another.  I was a college student at the time and watched it happen. [...] The Pill's advent ignited a tsunami of fornication, a.k.a. premarital sex and adultery, that led to a further tsunami of millions of couples divorcing, the invention of no-fault divorce, millions of tears, and millions of broken families.  The Pill produced "Women's Lib" and women like Hillary "Lady Macbeth" Clinton, who sneered at motherhood and wanted a "career" just like a man.

The green foods time bomb.  Green propagandists continue to inflict lethal damage to our electricity industry here in Australia — and it has become unreliable and expensive.  City food supplies cannot survive without reliable refrigeration at every level, from farms to retail stores.  Thus, unreliable green power supplies will produce unreliable food supplies.  Their intrusive green energy infrastructure is also nibbling away at our grasslands and farms, thus reducing their capacity to produce food.  Less recognized is the damage green propagandists are doing to our health and our food supply by attacking animal foods, and promoting grains, vegetables, seeds, and fake foods for humans.

How Much Longer Can Western Governments Spit on Their People?  Ordinary citizens did not empower central banks to print money and manipulate markets, so as to create a ticking financial time bomb that will almost certainly unleash the world's worst economic depression — governments did.  Ordinary citizens did not spend taxpayer funds on biological weapons programs that may or may not have led to the release of COVID from a Chinese lab — governments did.  Ordinary citizens did not choose to throw out common sense, the Scientific Method, and an elementary school-level understanding of medical ethics to impose draconian lockdowns, mass surveillance, and coerced experimental injections on a global scale before either the pathogenic disease or its reputed "vaccine" could be properly studied — governments did.  Ordinary citizens did not choose to have their businesses shut down and livelihoods destroyed — governments did.  Ordinary citizens did not choose to eviscerate Western economies in the name of "science" — governments did.  Ordinary citizens did not choose the largest welfare and stimulus programs in world history, nor the unprecedented levels of inflation that were the obvious consequence — governments did.  And ordinary citizens have certainly not chosen to have the World Economic Forum's Western acolytes scoop up farmland, ban hydrocarbon mining, and impose strict carbon limits that have logically unleashed runaway food and fuel prices, economic insecurity, and depleted savings — that self-defeating strategy was the brainchild of Klaus Schwab and his merry band of WEF arsonists.  Yet from COVID to currency collapse, Western powers insist on escaping blame.

The Federal Reserve shot itself in the foot.  By now, most understand that SVB failed due to an extreme mismatch in maturities between its deposits and its assets.  Can you believe that the Federal Reserve has fallen prey to the same mistake?  Further, the Feds' own actions caused its problems.  Ever since the Federal Reserve started printing U.S. dollars in 2008, called Quantitative Easing (Q.E.), we have expressed grave concern that the Treasury bonds the Fed was buying were short-term and therefore subject to a rising interest rate environment.  Further, those Treasuries decline in face value as rates rise.  That has all come to pass.  The Federal Reserve shot itself in the foot: since the same entity that printed dollars (Q.E.) invested those dollars (Treasuries), and then raised interest rates (FOMC), which impacted its income and its balance sheet (the value of the Treasuries also declined when the Fed raised rates), the Federal Reserve is the instrument of its own demise.

Why patriotism and hope in America are collapsing.  Americans are losing faith and interest in their country and its future.  There is no other way to read the devastating results of an opinion poll published on Monday [3/27/2023] by the Wall Street Journal. It finds that only 38% of respondents think patriotism is very important, not much more than half the number who thought so as recently as 1998, when the poll was first conducted.  Likewise, there has been a massive decline of interest in religion:  Thirty-nine percent now say it is very important compared to 62% 25 years ago.  America was founded in large part by people who wanted the freedom to practice their different faiths unmolested.  Thus, a founding purpose of America is being rapidly discarded by the inhabitants of the current culture.  Having children was regarded as very important by 59% of respondents a generation ago, but by only 30% now, effectively a halving of concern to perpetuate the nation with succeeding generations.

Overcoming America's Political Paralysis.  Why are some Americans having such a hard time figuring out what is happening to our country?  And for those who do see, why are so few taking action?  One in four Americans say they know someone who died from the COVID vaccine, and 50% now have less trust in government health experts.  Sixty-seven percent say they "weren't surprised" hearing that COVID came from a Chinese lab.  Most voters agree that the FBI has been weaponized by the current administration, and 61% believe that government agents helped provoke the J6 riot.  Ninety-one percent think bail should be set for criminals who may be a danger to the community.  Fifty-four percent think Biden is lying about his family connections to China.  Fifty-five percent of Arizona voters say issues in Maricopa County likely affected the 2022 results.  Sixty percent think climate change is a false religion, not scientific fact.  Most Americans now have zero trust in their government — the way it responds to health crises, the fairness of our law enforcement agencies, or its ability to conduct free and fair elections.  We think our president is a puppet of China.  So why does life seem to continue as normal?  In other countries, when elections are stolen or Social Security benefits are taken, it means rioting in the streets.  Why do we put up with policies pushing climate change and wokeism that make zero sense?  Who could entertain the idea that children can be given sex change treatments when just a few years ago, they were expelled from school for taking an aspirin without permission?

Holding the right people responsible for the global energy crisis.  America's grid is in decline and about to get far worse due to policies that 1) reward unreliable electricity, 2) prematurely shut down coal plants, 3) criminalize nuclear, and 4) force electric vehicle use.  The root cause of our grid's reliability problems is simple:  America is shutting down too many reliable power plants — plants that can be controlled to produce electricity when needed in the exact quantity needed.  And it is attempting to replace them with unreliable solar and wind.  Nationally, as demand has increased over the last 10 years we have seen a decline in reliable capacity (gas, coal, oil, nuclear, hydro, battery storage) by 5%.  Will batteries make unreliable solar/wind reliable?  No.  Battery storage is expensive and can only provide a given "capacity" (e.g., 1 GW) for a few hours, and only then if fully charged.  Planned batteries are nowhere near enough to compensate for solar and wind's unreliability.

Warriors Don't Want to Fight for a Woke, Anti-American Military.  The House Armed Services Subcommittee for Military Personnel held a hearing last week to discuss the growing national security crisis arising from the military's cratering recruitment numbers.  A potpourri of Pentagon nincompoops all universally lauded the Defense Department's ideological obsession with "lived experiences" and "diversity for diversity's sake."  While championing the Marxist military's decision to waste over six million man-hours of training on the dangers of "extremism" and "white privilege" and the seminal importance of "diversity, equity, and inclusion," not one Pentagon official could muster a real answer as to why recruiting numbers are so disastrous.  The touchy-feely, group hug-loving mandarins proved experts in Critical Race Theory but poor problem-solvers when tasked with the actual duties of their jobs — building and maintaining lethal military forces filled with top-notch warriors who will fight to win.  Intentionally dividing Americans against each other and pouring salt in old wounds obliterate personnel cohesiveness.

There is a Simple Fix to Economic Chaos.  Some of us have been saying this for a very long time:  green will bring down the world.  Green creates a vicious circle, a term you may remember from Economics 101.  It is when the serpent eats itself, no wealth is created and collapse results.  That is what we are doing with ESG, with carbon taxes, with the forced adoption of unreliable vertiginously expensive green energy.  It has skewed every single market.  No one is investing in sound enterprise, and anything once sound is a Jenga tower, unstable, rotting from within.  This.  This is what threatens to bring down the world.  Green is built on subsidies.  And not just government subsidy.  Every mutual fund, every hedge fund, every multinational and every local or national corporation has a green monster within preventing innovative investments, sucking profits and growth.

The problem with trying to understand Democrats.  As a former member of the Democrat party, I still stay in touch with many of its members who are my close friends.  However, one thing that strikes me is that my friends are almost universally in denial of what the current administration has brought upon this once great nation in just two years of being in office.  The reality of a soaring crime rate in our nation's cities, runaway inflation that was once termed "transitory," our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan — which served as the catalyst for Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, all seem to elude them, as if it never happened.  When presented with any hard evidence or facts, they are not only in denial, but typically push back with emotion minus facts as if they live in an alternate universe where they can pick and choose the "facts" that fit their own party's narrative.

Woke-Poisoned Hollywood Has Doomed the Once-Unbeatable Movie Industry.  Hollywood, specifically the film industry, is going through a legitimate, serious, and potentially fatal phase.  No one likes the movies anymore.  The key to a healthy industry — audience goodwill — is evaporating quickly.

The ripple effect of Joe Biden's mismanagement.  The banking crisis is like a brick thrown into our economic pond.  Busted banks don't just sink silently to the bottom, never to be heard of again.  Their plunge sends ripples out across the entire surface that wash into every financial inlet of our lives.  If you think this has nothing to do with you because you didn't invest in Silicon Valley Bank or keep an account there, think again.  The spreading circles of its demise will splash you if you merely feel the pinch of high interest rates or buy groceries. [...] Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen ignored the $250,000 upper limit on secured deposits and, to "stop the contagion," implicitly guaranteed all $17.6 trillion deposited at U.S. banks.  This put Washington on the hook for twice as much as the Federal Reserve actually has.  It means, as has been noted, that depositors are freed from market discipline — they can't lose their stash — so they needn't be careful where they put their money.  They'll go to banks that offer big rewards by taking big risks.  This is a short-term rescue at the cost of long-term instability.

Banks Might Have Stabilized, But The Biden Contagion Is Still Spreading.  'The U.S. banking system is sound and resilient," Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell said on Wednesday in an effort to calm depositors worried about more bank failures.  That was the same day the Fed raised interest rates another quarter point to deal with inflation that has been running at four-decade highs for nearly two years.  The two problems, along with so many others that families are confronting right now, have a common cause:  President Joe Biden's disastrous economic policies.  While another banking crisis might have been contained — a reassurance we take with a grain of salt — the Biden crisis will continue to metastasize as long as he and his administration are calling the shots.

Government Isn't the Victim; It's the Perpetrator.  Around the country, almost every problem Americans endure is a result of Big Government action or inaction.  Government overspending and central bank money-printing have crushed the value of ordinary Americans' income and savings.  The Intelligence Community's use of the PATRIOT Act and other unconstitutional tools to violate Americans' Fourth Amendment rights against warrantless searches has not only eliminated privacy, but also made every citizen a suspect.  The Biden administration's choice to leave America's borders wide open has exacerbated crime, drug addiction, and identity theft while breaking city budgets and local communities.  Washington, D.C.'s endless bureaucratic rule-making touches every part of every American's life.  What products can be bought and sold?  What can a citizen do on or with his private property?  What speech should be censored because the government judges its content "hateful" or unacceptably contrary to the bureaucracy's official point of view?  While Congress never stops passing laws, agencies never stop exponentially compounding those laws with new standards, rules, and regulations that micromanage everything Americans do.

San Francisco supervisor Hillary Ronen begs for more police in her district after voting to defund in 2020.  A San Francisco district supervisor is calling for more policing in the crime-ridden city — despite advocating to defund the police in 2020.  Hillary Ronen, Democrat, represents District 9 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.  During a Budget and Appropriations Committee meeting on Wednesday, she made an impassioned plea to add more officers to the Mission District, which she represents.  Ronen was attacking San Francisco's police chief for spending a large amount of overtime on an anti-retail theft program instead of prioritizing police presence in her district.

How to Prevent More Meltdowns like Silicon Valley Bank.  The Fed was more aggressive during the COVID pandemic.  When federal and state governments locked down the economy, the government determined that it should pay the people it put out of work.  The Fed became so aggressive with Q.E. that the presses that printed money had trouble keeping up.  Money was so easy to obtain from the government that billions were fraudulently delivered to criminals.  Some of this easy money found its way into bank deposits, which were used to purchase securities paying very low interest rates.  To the surprise of the Fed and Janet Yellen, inflation resulted from their policy of free money.  They couldn't believe it.  They said it was transitory and then blamed Putin, Trump, oil executives, greed, and a virus.  While there are many reasons for inflation, the primary reason is quantitative easing and the flood of cash the Fed poured into the economy for a decade.  After waffling for months, the Fed decided that inflation was real and started raising interest rates in an attempt to control the inflation it created.

Geopolitical Catastrophes Multiply as American Power and Influence Crash to New Postwar Lows.  In only two years, Joe Biden's presidency has produced multiple catastrophes from which recovery will be difficult, if it is even possible.  Domestically, we see the banking system teetering on insolvency, as the rapid escalation in interest rates has devalued long term Treasury notes that used to be considered a safe place for banks to park funds in excess of what could be safely lent.  The reason for these Federal Reserve interest rate hikes is the inflation that was immediately triggered by Biden's jihad against domestica oil, gas, and coal production, that triggered an inflationary spiral that continues today, devaluing the life savings of thrifty Americans, and pushing food and energy costs up so fast that many families have had to drastically reduce their standard of living.  Bad as these catastrophes are, the potential for serious damage to the welfare of the American people from the military and diplomatic policies of the Biden administration is much worse.  Losing a war — or even just fighting a nuclear war — makes a mere Depression look like a day at the beach.

Really?  There was high inflation under Jimmy Carter, and the banks didn't collapse.
The Banking Mess Is Another Consequence of Biden's High Inflation.  The complexities around, and solutions to, the current banking crisis lie well beyond my core competency, so I'll leave those matters to others.  What I will say is that it's indisputable that much of the upheaval can be traced back to the Biden administration's disastrous inflationary policies, which have forced the Fed to hike up interest rates as a form an anti-inflation 'chemotherapy' for the overheated US economy — actions that have, in turn, directly and heavily contributed to unpleasant externalities like the collapse of Silicon Valley and Signature banks.  Biden and his team were directly warned about the highly risky spending they were jamming through in partisan, Democrat-passed behemoths, including by respected Democratic economists.  They didn't listen, then pretended the warnings never happened once the resulting "transitory" inflation was undeniably non-transitory after all.

SVB loaned millions to useless startups making greenie things no one wanted to buy — WSJ's Strassel.  Is there anything more ... Soviet ... than a bank that lends money to companies making things no one wants to buy?  That's the missing puzzle piece we needed on why Silicon Valley Bank went belly up, and Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal has found it, persuasively arguing that yes, the failure of the bank was indeed premised on ESG, which descended into wokester lending priorities, creating the abnormal conditions that left the bank ripe for a meltdown.

The Left's Criminal Abuse Of The Young.  Democrats have long portrayed themselves as the great guardians of the children.  In truth, they are destroying the young.  The harm they've done to children, teens and young adults has spiked in recent years, from scaremongering about global warming to pandemic lockdowns that have unnerved a generation to teaching them a divisive, politically charged curriculum.  According to an online medical journal, the University of Calgary has determined there was a spike "in emergency department visits for attempted suicide and suicide ideation among children and adolescents" during the period of "social isolation" that coincides with the pandemic lockdowns.  The university conducted a meta-analysis of 42 studies representing more than 11 million pediatric emergency department visits in 18 countries, and compared "the data on visits prior to the pandemic with those that took place during the pandemic, up to July 2021."

Putting 'diversity' and 'equity' first nearly crashed the economy.  Several years back I asked what it would take to halt the diversity, inclusion, equity obsession in America.  What would it take to get back to excellence and competence as the only criteria for employment?  Perhaps it would require the bridges to start falling down.  Though I suspect that if they did then certain people would claim they'd only fallen because of "structural racism."  Still, this week we had a good reminder of just how over-tolerant we have been of this insane, anti-excellence agenda.  Because although the bridges haven't yet started to collapse, the banks have.  And one reason is that the banks in question prioritized equity over excellence.

Elections Have Consequences; Stolen Elections Have Catastrophes.  "Put the adults back in charge," they whined.  "Donald Trump will break the world," they lied.  Well, they manipulated election rules to certify suspicious vote totals that preposterously portrayed senile Joe Biden as the most popularly elected president in history; censored and locked up anyone who complained; and covered up their crimes with J6 show trials drenched in untruths meant to hide from history the Uniparty's underhanded machinations in outright stealing a presidential election.  The whole mess was so banana-republic-yucky that Biden was inaugurated behind barbed wire and a show of military force befitting the small junta who attended the successful coup's celebration.  And as a result of the Uniparty's installation of Dementia Joe as White House marionette, the American people have been plagued with crime, inflation, political persecution, COVID tyranny, deadly battlefield retreat, open borders, staggering drug deaths, proxy wars, bankruptcies, bank runs, endless new regulations, a plummeting standard of living, economic panic, and social volatility.

Failing Accountability Leads to Chaos.  Trust in our institutions is collapsing, according to a recent Gallup survey.  Less than a quarter of the public is confident in:
  •   The Supreme Court — 25 percent confidence
  •   The Presidency — 23 percent confidence
  •   Newspapers — 16 percent confidence
  •   The criminal justice system — 14 percent confidence
  •   Big business — 14 percent confidence
  •   Television news — 11 percent confidence
  •   Congress — a whopping 7 percent confidence
The only institutions that exceed 50 percent public confidence are the military and small businesses. [...] [T]hose institutions remain necessary for a civilized society to function.  They provide order.  But when they fail:
  •   Media doesn't inform
  •   Bureaucrats don't serve
  •   Commerce doesn't provide prosperity
  •   Schools don't prepare future citizens
  •   Law enforcement doesn't protect
  •   Judges don't ensure fairness
  •   Politicians don't lead

The Biden Economy Is Falling Apart.  The Biden Economy — hailed Monday morning by Presidentish Joe Biden as "strong" — seems like it's falling apart, everything, everywhere all at once.  NYSE halted trading of Charles Schwab, whose shares fell by more than 20%, and even a few Etsy sellers have been impacted by the fallout of Silicon Valley Bank's (SVB) collapse. [...] What went wrong?  In a word: Inflation.  In a few more words:  The higher interest rates needed to combat inflation smashed the cheap-money expectations that SVB's bond portfolios required.  Other sectors of the economy that have become addicted to historically low interest rates include high-tech, particularly startup firms, and the housing market.

Biden blames Trump deregulation for Silicon Valley Bank failure.  President Biden said Monday that the U.S. banking system is "safe and secure" following the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and closure of Signature Bank last week.  "Americans can have confidence that the banking system is safe.  Your deposits will be there when you need them," Biden said in remarks at the White House before leaving for a three-day visit to California and Nevada.  Biden blamed the bank collapses on former President Trump's 2018 decision to scrap some Obama-era banking rules.

Inflation was only 'transitory' they said.  First off: These collapses did not occur in two days.  The problems have compounded over time and should have been very easy to spot by regulators and "experts" on Wall Street.  The collapses were not caused by too few regulations.  For years, the Federal Reserve kept interest rates artificially low.  Those low rates caused investors to chase up the value of stocks, houses, commercial real estate, crypto currencies, and other things.  But those low rates did not punish the poor and middle class with rapidly rising prices on food, energy and other necessities.  Trump kept inflation low with energy independence, fewer regulations, and lower taxes.  Energy prices affect almost everything we use and do.  In 2020 when we were hit with COVID, we flooded the economy with money to help businesses the government forcibly closed and individuals who had lost their jobs.  We had supply chain problems.  But we still didn't have high inflation because we still had low energy prices thanks to Trump's policies of domestic energy production.  From April 2020 to the end of 2020, jobs grew 16 million (much faster than under Biden); still, no high inflation.

Putting God's Wisdom Back In The Classroom.  Perhaps the single biggest factor contributing to America's rising crime rate can be traced back to 1962.  That was when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a voluntary, non-denominational prayer recited by school kids in New York State classrooms violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.  For the record, the prayer that ignited that controversy reads as follows:  "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country."  These 22 words were so repellant to Steven Engel, a founding member of the New York Civil Liberties Union, that he became the lead plaintiff in the effort to prohibit the recitation of them.  After years of dogged effort, Engel succeeded in preventing children from acknowledging God in school.  What has replaced prayer in schools during the 61 years since the Engel v. Vitale decision?  New York City Mayor Eric Adams knows.  Adams, a retired NYPD captain, told the city's religious leaders during an Interfaith Breakfast in Manhattan earlier this month, "When we took prayers out of schools, guns came into schools."

Chilling Contrast in Army Recruitment Ads From Russia, the U.S., China, and Britain Point to Ominous Future.  While "woke" has insidiously metastasized throughout American society, the rapidly spreading cancer perhaps portends most ominously for its continuing effect on America's Armed Forces.  The Twins of Woke, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley have worked tirelessly to transform the greatest fighting force on the planet from "a few good men" to even fewer self-identified genders with self-assigned pronouns.  If it wasn't the U.S. military we were talking about, the failed social experiment would be somewhat humorous — instead of a potentially clear and present danger to the security of the United States.  As it stands, I'd have a hard time suggesting enlistment to a loved one or friend.  [Video clip]

You think crime is out of control in New York City now?  Just wait.  New York City cops are resigning at a "record-breaking pace in 2023, and there is no sign that the bleeding will slow.  [Tweet]  Bad crime policy leads to more crime.  Fewer police to keep the city safe leads to more crime on top of that.  It's not hard to see how this ends.

Ranchers say their jobs have become "1,000 times harder" in the 2 years Biden has been in office.  The economy is a disaster, as anyone could see.  But for ranchers who have to operate on razor-thin margins, it's unlike anything they've seen in decades.  It's harder than ever to be a man working the land.  And besides that, the undue burden of the Biden administration's draconian rules and regulations is making it impossible.

Oh, nothing - just the second largest bank failure in U.S. history today.  Part of what happened is explained in [a] series of tweets.  SVB, thanks to the COVID emergency rules adopted by Jerome Powell — who is still in charge of the Federal Reserve — was no longer required to hold any cash on hand to meet its "reserve requirement." [...] Why that detail matters is because this bank's problems started with an announcement Wednesday that it was in the middle of a cash crunch and looking at a possible sale as a way of raising funds.

Conservatives Point to 'Bidenflation' as Cause of Silicon Valley Bank Closure.  Prominent conservatives throughout politics and media reacted to the sudden closure of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) on Friday.  Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is already standing firm against bailouts for the bank, and many are pointing to "Bidenflation" as a driver of the implosion.  Gaetz appeared on Steve Bannon's War Room where Bannon asserted that the closure was "100 percent because of Biden's policies."

It's Not Hard to See the Future of America Under this Manchurian President.  President Biden is not only compromised but exemplifies the ultimate Manchurian President.  I also see him as a traitor to our nation — plain and simple.  His actions and deeds, controlled by those we do not yet see, are purposefully destroying our democracy, legal system, freedoms, independence, and republic. [...][ It's evident that Biden is but a simple puppet, a marionette.  The question is, who exactly are the puppeteer(s) pulling his strings?  I also believe Biden, like his son, is compromised by the Chinese and the Russians.  Just look at the actions he's taken since January 2021. [...] Whomever his puppeteers are, they are undoubtedly far left, not favorable towards America, view our Constitution with disdain, and look to change America forever.  They pull the strings of their marionette named Biden, the Manchurian President, from behind the red Marxist and fascist curtains.  The strings are pulled to purposefully change America from a champion of liberty, opportunity, freedom, and democracy to an autocracy, dictatorship, and tyrannical system.

Cruz: Biden Enriched Cartels Whose Revenue Increased 26x Since 2018, We Need to Pressure Mexico, Not Invade It.  On Tuesday's broadcast of the Fox News Channel's "Jesse Watters Primetime," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) stated that President Joe Biden "is the best thing that ever happened to the Mexican drug cartels" and cited the massive surge in cartel revenue since 2018 and argued that the solution to cartel violence isn't to invade Mexico or go to war with it, but rather, to pressure the country to act against cartel violence.  Cruz said, "Well, listen, those who kill American citizens must be held accountable.  And, at the first instance, this wouldn't happen if we had responsible presidential leadership.  Joe Biden created the chaos at the border.  Joe Biden stopped building the wall.  He reinstated catch and release.  He pulled out of Remain in Mexico.  And what Joe Biden has done is he's turned these vicious narcoterrorists into multibillionaires. [...]"

Life Among the Ruins.  We are suffering an epidemic of premodern barbarism.  The signs unfortunately appear everywhere.  Over half a million homeless people crowd our big-city downtowns.  Most know the result of such Medieval street living is unhealthy, violent, and lethal for all concerned.  Yet no one knows — or even seems to worry about — how to stop it.  So public defecation, urination, fornication, and injection continue unabated.  Progressive urban pedestrians pass by holding their noses, averting their gazes, and accelerating the pace of their walking.  The greenest generation in history allows its sidewalks to become pre-civilizational sewers.  In a very brief time, we all but have destroyed the downtowns of our major cities — which will increasingly become vacant in a manner like the 6th-century A.D. Roman forum.  All accept that defunding the police, no-cash bail, Soros-funded district attorneys, and radical changes in jurisprudence have destroyed deterrence.  The only dividend is the unleashing of a criminal class to smash-and-grab, carjack, steal, burglarize, execute, and assault — with de facto immunity.  Instead we are sometimes lectured that looting is not a crime, but lengthy incarceration is criminally immoral.

Walmart Closing its Last Two Stores in Portland, Oregon in March.  In late March, Walmart is closing the last two locations it has in Portland, Oregon.  The company's official line about the closings is that it has to do with store performances, customer needs, and other corporate speak.  Does anyone doubt that this probably has a lot to do with theft?  Portland is a hotbed of leftism, and for the last few years, shoplifting has become a norm for the left.

What's the Real Reason Political Anxiety Is So High?  [#1] Governmental power and control.  The only reason we have anxiety, stress, and worry about what happens in government is because the government is ridiculously, uncomfortably powerful.  If our political enemies (whoever they happen to be) take power, they could exert tremendous control over our lives.  So on some level, a bit of anxiety is reasonable.  [#2] It doesn't help that we're in the era of the 24-hour news cycle.  Media companies come in all shapes and sizes, from corporate juggernauts to independent journalists, and everyone is racing to publish news stories for the public to consume on a constant basis.  There is no more reading the morning paper; we are constantly bombarded with information.  Even if some of this information is positive, it's easy to become overwhelmed and feel anxious as a result.  [#3] Bad media incentives.  It's ironic that the very news organizations publishing stories about high rates of political anxiety are the same ones (perhaps) intentionally stoking those anxieties.  Media companies aren't necessarily incentivized to tell the truth or commit to quality journalism; instead, they're incentivized to get clicks and attention.

The Day Your Doctor Won't Treat You If You Aren't the Right Kind of Patient Is Closer Than You Might Think.  Could the day come when you are denied medical treatment because you're white, male, or a member of some other group of "oppressors"?  Of course it could, and it's coming sooner than you might think.  Even in solidly red Tennessee, where Donald Trump won 60% of the vote in 2020, a new report has revealed what the Tennessee Star on Friday called "the pervasive infiltration of woke diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideologies in Tennessee medical school curricula and programs."  Could this have an impact on the quality of your medical treatment?

Injustice of the Court.  I was encouraged to look at sacrifice for my nation as the highest honor.  I saluted the flag, got choked up at the sound of the national anthem.  Now, I have to ask what purpose would my sacrifice serve?  Would it be to keep Hunter's diary a secret?  Would it be to hide all the crimes of pedophilia among our representatives, senators, presidents and judges?  Would my sacrifice be to see drag queens in Kindergarten?  Would it be to keep political prisoners of the current regime?  Would it be to fund extortion and brutality of parents concerned about their children and the schools they go to?  The problem that has been created is that as a patriotic son of the founding ideals, I would have to fight against all of that, against the crooked institutions of today.  I could not, in good conscience fight to sustain this treason.  It's a paradox created by their lies and deceit that I could not fight for the government of my nation, but am forced to try and bring it to heel, to bring it back under control.

Beating the Balrog.  What we are seeing is evil so strong that it's almost bubbling up out of the ground.  The pivotal evidence is the way we are treating children.  The Left likes to talk about "systemic racism," but I argue that what we're truly seeing is systemic, Satanic, child abuse.  If we don't rip children limb-from-limb from the womb (and sell their body parts), we raise many of them in households where they are ill-fed, ignored by parents too busy to really pay attention, and too secular to take them to church.  We send them off to government schools that have failed horridly (A third of our children cannot read at grade level, then we lock them out of their schools, where they at least had friends.  Then we have stuck them with an overload of questionable vaccines, and now we have allowed sexualization at an alarming pace culminating in the schools getting involved in grooming young children for sex with adults and, even worse, sexual mutilation without parental consent.  This is not just human evil.  We've gone back to the time of Baal and Moloch, idols that demanded human — i.e.  child — sacrifice.

Joe Biden Puts Liberal Theories to the Test.  Theory 2 — Government spending is good for the economy:  Whenever the American economy suffers a downturn, the left defaults to one government solution.  The theory is that sufficient government spending will trigger economic growth.  Leftists tax the population, give a little bit back to the citizens, spend the rest on liberal causes, and call it stimulus.  Joe tested this theory by spending nearly $5 trillion on various COVID relief, infrastructure, and inflation reduction boondoggles.  Did it help the economy?  No.  Instead we've gotten:
  •   inflation at a 40-year high;
  •   families spending more to service the national debt than they do on their home mortgages;
  •   a $7-trillion loss in stock market value — much of which is our retirement savings; and
  •   a $9,000 drop in personal savings in one year.

Are You Tired of Having Your Intelligence Insulted Yet?  You, most likely being a mere normal, are probably looking around at the current state of things and wondering just how we managed to get to this point.  Food prices continue to skyrocket, energy prices remain stubbornly high, and if you were thinking about buying a house, you can forget about it with current interest rates.  Meanwhile, real wages are down, meaning your buying power is diminished coming and going.  That's just a small taste of what Americans are going through, and you'd expect the nation's leadership to provide some guidance among the malaise.  At the very least, you'd think they could admit there's a problem.  Instead, the Biden administration insults your intelligence.  [Tweet]

Crime and No Punishment in Massachusetts.  The Massachusetts state legislature must have failed to pass a 142-strikes-and-you're-out legislation just days earlier.  The liberal legislature deems such legislation too harsh on misunderstood criminals, who deserve just one more chance.  The criminal in question, Derek M.  Lindsay, was the berserker dad who made national news in May 2007 after he got into a fight with parents and police at a McDonald's playground after telling his kid to push the other kids out of the way to get to Ronald McDonald.  But that was among his least serious offenses.  More recently, he had been charged in March of this year with attempted murder for stabbing someone at a local tattoo parlor.  So naturally, the local judges let this model citizen go free back into society back in March.  Thus, his 143rd arraignment this week.  Throughout Massachusetts, but particularly in the City of Taunton, such events are commonplace.

The Sudden Dominance of the Diversity Industrial Complex.  Little more than a decade ago, DEI was just another arcane acronym, a clustering of three ideas, each to be weighed and evaluated against other societal values.  The terms diversity, equity, and inclusion weren't yet being used in the singular, as one all-inclusive, non-negotiable moral imperative.  Nor had they coalesced into a bureaucratic juggernaut running roughshod over every aspect of national life.  They are now.  Seemingly in unison, and with almost no debate, nearly every major American institution — including federal, state, and local governments, universities and public schools, hospitals, insurance, media and technology companies and major retail brands — has agreed that the DEI infrastructure is essential to the nation's proper functioning.  From Amazon to Walmart, most major corporations have created and staffed DEI offices within their human resources bureaucracy.  So have sanitation departments, police departments, physics departments, and the departments of agriculture, commerce, defense, education and energy.  Organizations that once argued against DEI now feel compelled to institute DEI training and hire DEI officers.

Cloward & Piven Are Laughing All The Way To The Welfare Agency.  Food shortages are ubiquitous.  Baby formula to Brussels sprouts to ground meat to eggs continue to run in short supply as prices rise.  Suspicious fires, bombings, and "accidents" at food processing plants are blamed without explanation along with droughts, avian flu, and the dreaded (supposed) COVID-19 super-duper "sub-variants."  Government regulations reducing the application of certain fertilizers on farms in Holland, Spain, France are proliferating, forcing crop, flock, and herd reductions.  Results: farms closing, creating more food shortages, unemployment, and increasing welfare rolls.  Public outcry and political pressure have been suppressed through ignorance caused by the media.

Ultra-Wealthy Flee the Big Apple as High Crime and Excessive Taxation Chase Them Away.  I'm not a math whiz, but I'm not incapable either, so let's do some calculations... 1,452 residents worth over $25 million left in 2021, plus a whole bunch before that.  That's a lot of deserters.  I plug that into my Excel spreadsheet and it says, "a whole lot of tax revenue just fled for the hills."  You might think, well, New York has plenty of taxpayers, it's not that big a deal.  But consider this: the top one percent of earners in New York account for close to half of the state's income tax revenue.

Taking Back America.  As I travel, I constantly see tattered American flags blowing in the wind.  They are a metaphor for the state of the Union.  It is emblematic of how our country is being hollowed out.  We have a Manchurian leader who is gutting us of our rights.  The latest assault is Biden's determination to put us under the domination of the World Health Organization, who will determine our health care. [...] In fact, the goal of Marxists is the total annihilation of freedom.  No matter how many times the communist dream is proven to result in nothing but misery, it seems to get resurrected.  And historical ignorance is the means by which the next generation gets sucked in.  Consequently, a statue of Teddy Roosevelt that used to invite visitors into the Museum of Natural History is taken down.  On the other hand, a statue of career criminal George Floyd is erected despite the fact that Floyd committed three armed robberies, three violent home invasions, six burglaries, three car thefts, beat four victims senseless and held a gun to a very pregnant belly of his robbery victim.

The 'Great Awokening' Is Transforming Science and Medicine.  The "great awokening" touches every elite institution in America, mostly radiating out from our compromised system of higher education.  One of the most disturbing and illuminating aspects of this cultural revolution is how much it is transforming science and medicine.  A video of medical students at Columbia University reciting an updated version of the Hippocratic oath that injected elements of critical race theory made the rounds on social media recently.  As many have noted, this "student-led initiative" sounds cult-like.

Thanks to rampant leftism, Austin, Texas, heads for Mad Max territory.  I lived in Austin, Texas, in the mid-1980s and found it a lovable city.  It had a vibrant cultural community, beautiful neighborhoods, and a massive campus that felt surprisingly safe and normal for a girl who had graduated from the degrading madness of UC Berkeley.  Now, though, Austin is a city in thrall to hard leftism, and the only vibrant thing there is the out-of-control crime.  In 2020, Austin moved to the forefront of leftist-run cities that enthusiastically embraced the defund the police mantra. [...] Leftism promises heaven and invariably delivers hell.  Cities with leftist governance have more crime, more filth, more homelessness, more public urination and defecation, and more underperforming schools than conservatively run cities.  What works to maintain a city is what always works: Policies that encourage responsibility and discourage crime.  Abandon those principles and, suddenly, once-shiny American cities begin to look like Mad Max outtakes.

The collapse of civilization on the altar of equity and diversity.  The Biden administration has gone stark raving mad.  While they surely know better, they are moving ahead with the false notion that "diversity is our strength," that forced "equity" will make the country a better place.  It began under the Obama administration, the purposeful ginning up of the most vile racism since slavery; but this time Black against White.  Before Obama took office, there was actually near racial harmony in America.  The American left has become so radical now, "diversity hires" are now a thing.  We are following in the footsteps of South Africa and mandating racial quotas.  What has that meant for South Africa?  Their economy is in near collapse.  Their electric grid is failing because no one knows how to fix it.  The country is wracked by violence.  Mandated equity, the primacy of race over merit, means civilizational failure.  Why have there been so many near misses in air traffic?  Why so many railway derailments?  Why horrific events like the murder of Tyre Nichols in Memphis?  Those cops were clearly not qualified to be Memphis police.  When standards are done away with, this is a predictable consequence.

5 'dirtiest' cities in America run by Democratic mayors, study says.  The top five dirtiest cities in the country are run by Democrat mayors, a new study has found.  Among 152 of the biggest cities across the United States, Houston won the No. 1 spot for dirtiest city, followed by Newark, New Jersey, San Bernardino, California, Detroit and Jersey City, New Jersey, according to a study released Thursday by LawnStarter.  LawnStarter measured each city across four categories: pollution, which measures things like air quality and greenhouse gas emissions; living conditions, like the percentage of homes containing mold or rats; infrastructure, which measures waste output and regulations; and consumer satisfaction, or the percentage of residents who find the city dirty.  Houston, which is run by Democratic Mayor Sylvester Turner, ranked No. 1 in overall score for the dirtiest city.  It ranked third in the nation on pollution, fourth on poor living conditions, 12th on infrastructure and 34th on consumer satisfaction.

LA Times Asks: 'What's the Matter With Portland?' Answer: Leftist Ideology.  "What's the matter with Portland?"  That was the question asked in a lengthy and interesting report in The Los Angeles Times.  The piece was enlightening in the sense that it did capture the mentality that has led to the city's awesome dysfunction.  It highlights how despite that dysfunction — rising crime, rampant open-air drug use, and many other signs of urban decay — many of the city's residents are simply unwilling to acknowledge how ideology and bad policy have turned the Oregon city that should be quite pleasant to reside into a shell of its former self.  Some residents, such as Flora Gonzalez, who lives in a blue-collar neighborhood now beset by crime, can see clearly what the problem is.

What Kind of Military Does Our Country Need?  Much has been said and written about America's increasingly woke, politicized military and its negative impacts on recruiting and readiness.  Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, attracted widespread criticism when he spoke of "white rage" and reportedly hid nuclear codes from President Trump while telling his Red Chinese counterpart he would provide advance warning of any planned U.S. attack on China.  Even cadets and midshipmen at the nation's military academies are undergoing woke indoctrination in Critical Race Theory, transgenderism, "toxic masculinity," and so-called Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity, which many military experts fear will harm unit integrity, morale, and war-fighting capability.  And now there is a new wrinkle at our academies:  the Spectrum Club, which "actively bridges the relationship between Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Questioning (LGBTQ) cadets [and midshipmen] and their allies" and "serves as a safe haven for LGBTQ cadets [and midshipmen] when they need support[.]"  Since the introduction of women to our military academies in 1976, our armed services have struggled mightily with the issue of sexual fraternization among cadets and midshipmen.  Why, then, would these institutions not only permit, but celebrate clubs based solely on sexual orientation?  One doubts whether heterosexual clubs would be approved, nor should they be.  And do we really want future military leaders who are so fragile as to require "safe spaces"?

America Is Becoming a Corrupt Country.  James Q. Wilson and George Kelling introduced the concept of "Broken Windows" in an essay in 1982.  In essence, they said that allowing a neighborhood to decay physically will lead to a rise in crime.  The existence of disorder makes more disorder more acceptable.  In what may have been the most successful anti-crime experiment in history, Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton applied this theory in a stunning reversal of crime in New York.  The Big Apple became one of the safest cities in the world.  In recent years, as liberals have rejected the enforcement of the law against small crimes, the rapid decay of communities has been tragic further proof that "Broken Windows" was right.  If you send a signal that crime is acceptable, you will get more criminals.  If you send a signal that corrupt government officials are acceptable, corruption will become a way of life.

Here's your proof of a rigged and stolen 2020 election.  It's clear the election of 2020 was rigged and fixed.  We all know it.  And Kari Lake's stolen election in 2022 was even worse.  The theft of Kari Lake's Arizona election makes Bernie Madoff look like a small-time shoplifter.  But I'm not talking about any of that.  To me the proof the 2020 election was stolen is the state of the nation.  Open your eyes.  The consequences of a stolen election are all around us.  The supply chain is crippled.  Highways, ports and infrastructure are crumbling.  Blue states are banning trucks from the roads.  Grocery prices are skyrocketing.  Egg farms are burning to the ground.  Eggs cost $10 per dozen — if you can find them.  Over 100 food plants have burned to the ground in the past year.  Trains are derailing.  The East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment may be the worst ecological disaster in U.S. history.  Experts are calling it "our Chernobyl."  There is a mushroom cloud of deadly chemicals floating over the farm belt.  Animals are dying.  Fish are dead.  People are sick.  And it just happens to have poisoned hundreds of thousands of acres of prime Midwest farmland.  The same exact thing that's happening to food and farmland is happening to energy.  Under former President Donald Trump we had energy independence and cheap, plentiful energy.  Under President Joe Biden we have soaring gas and electricity prices, energy shortages and depletion of our national fuel reserve.  In the middle of this, our government is desperate to ban gas stoves.

Biden installed: What could possibly go wrong?  Whoever pulled the strings to install Biden should go to prison.  Whoever is really calling the shots and implementing such terrible policy — lockdowns, vax mandates, restricting the capture of domestic energy, mandating DIE, ESG, CRT, etc. throughout every institution and corporation in the US — should be sent to prison for treason.  Whomever they are, they are traitors to this nation; they're waging a war against the American citizenry.  The vaccines alone have killed thousands; their pro-criminal policies have killed countless innocents; the open border has caused the deaths of thousands of migrants, and of law-abiding Americans who fell victim to criminal aliens and/or the fentanyl crisis.  The economy is the worst it's been in four decades.  Our national debt is $31 trillion — the interest alone is $750 billion a year.  None of this is sustainable.  The "green agenda" is climate communism to control how we all live.  If their "15-minute cities" come to America, there will be a second Civil War.  They want to mandate EVs but there is not enough lithium on the planet to put everyone in an electric vehicle.  That is a fantasy that will never be realized.

Destroying Meritocracy Is Deadly.  After Christmas, Southwest Airlines simply canceled 71 percent of its flights.  It blamed staff shortages due to storms.  The airline seemed incapable of ensuring enough of their pilots, attendants, crews, and airport staff could get to work.  The Federal Aviation Administration in January canceled all flight departures from the United States for two hours due a computer safety system collapse.  Thousands of additional flights were canceled, many for over 24 hours.  Something has gone terribly wrong.  Either the Department of Transportation and its Secretary Pete Buttigieg, or the head of the FAA, or the quality of either ground crews, pilots, or air traffic controllers — or all combined — are putting American travelers at mortal risk.  If not corrected, these near-death airline experiences and the near collapse of the U.S. commercial aviation system presage catastrophes to come. [...] Many of the major airlines have established racial and gender quotes for government pilot training programs.  United Airlines has set quotas to ensure half of its trainees will be minorities or women.  Since 2013, the FAA has been lowering standards for air traffic control qualifications to achieve de facto race and gender quotas.

Real and Fake Worlds: Why the Trains are Failing.  In the olden days, you didn't need a college degree to get a real job.  You took an IQ test to get a job.  In Griggs v.  Duke Power Co, the far left wing Supreme Court all but outlawed these tests.  Employers thus started to required university degrees for jobs that a smart and ambitious 19 year old could have begun learning via on-the-job training and mentorship.  All the smart kids were forced to attend college.  Most of them realized, "If I am going to go through all this hassle, I may as well sell insurance for State Farm upon graduation."  Banning IQ tests for jobs, more than any other policy, hollowed out the middle.  Millions of smart kids got left behind.  We should care not for their sake, but our own.

The Libertarian-Socialist Axis.  Policies inspired by socialists make it easier for private corporate and financial interests to form monopolies, since the regulatory excess inspired by socialist ideals drives smaller potential competitors out of business.  Examples are plentiful.  Complying with environmental regulations requires an overhead burden that will overwhelm the financial capacity of a small company, but can be absorbed easily by large companies.  Complying with union work rules and wage demands is easy for monopolistic companies because they pass the higher labor costs on to consumers.  But similar compliance kills companies too small to have a captive market.  Enforced scarcity caused by mandates designed to combat "climate change" allows vertically integrated companies to raise prices, reap big profits, and expand, since their underlying costs haven't changed.  In short, socialism eliminates competition, which empowers the biggest corporations on earth to get even bigger.

Why Biden infringes on the right to bear arms.  Advocating that guns are the reason for increasing crime is a distraction from failing crime-control policies.  These policies are the reason crime has steadily risen: 1) a decrease in prosecuting violent crimes,  2) an increase in catch and release bail,  3) defunding cities' and towns' police forces,  4) an increase in early prison release, and  5) an increase in little or no jail time for violent offenders.  Those are the real reasons for increased violent gun related crimes, not law-abiding citizens' gun ownership.  The philosophy that the police and prisons are the reason for high crime is wrong and not the belief of mainstream America.  The Left would love for everyone to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens result in high rates of gun-related crimes.

When We Describe America's Largest Cities As "War Zones", We Aren't Exaggerating One Bit.  Denver was once such a nice place to live.  So what happened?  Unfortunately, it appears that illegal immigration is fueling much of the crime that is happening in the Mile High City, and every year it just gets even worse.

Those Abandoning Blue States Should Abandon Democrats, Too.  A recent New York Post article declared that, in a "staggering exodus," in 2022, more residents of New York moved to Florida "than any other year in history." [...] In what is almost certainly an effort to cover for Democrats, CBS News practically ignores the politics of the Blue State Exodus and benignly points to "more affordable housing and plentiful jobs" in red states as the main reasons for citizens fleeing Democrat-dominated states.  CBS News brushes off the idea that higher taxes in blue states are contributing to this mass exodus, and it fails to mention at all crime, COVID-lockdown policies, and the like as reasons for the growing number of "leftugees."  Much, and likely the vast majority, of the population loss in blue states is due to those fleeing even higher-taxed and more crime-ridden large U.S. cities.

Targeting kids for addiction.  There is no doubt that the well-funded and decades-long push for marijuana legalization has been successful.  Maryland will soon join the sad reality that marijuana is now legal recreationally in 21 states and D.C., and legal medically in 37 states.  Proponents of marijuana legalization tout that making the drug lawful will decrease arrests.  But what is it doing to our communities and why have they started to target children at younger and younger ages?  Addiction-for-profit industries have always targeted young audiences.  The younger the addict, the longer the cycle of addiction, the greater the profit.

Dem-Led City Reports Highest Violent Crime Rate In 15 Years After Defunding Police.  Seattle's violent crime rate rose to its highest point in 15 years in 2022, with reported homicides surging by about 24% compared to 2021, according to the Seattle Police Department's (SPD) Year-End Crime Report, more than a year after the city cut its police budget.  Rapes and aggravated assaults increased by about 4% and 5% respectively, contributing to 5,591 total reported violent offenses, a roughly 4% spike, the report shows.  Though arson and burglaries declined, 1,596 more motor vehicle thefts were reported, and Seattle ended up with an around 4% higher overall crime in 2022 despite a fourth-quarter reduction.  Seattle's City Council reduced SPD funding by almost 17% in its 2021 budget following the George Floyd protests of summer 2020.  The city's 2023 budget funds Democratic Mayor Bruce Harrell's officer recruitment and retention plan but eliminates 30 unfilled SPD positions, The Seattle Times reported.

The Mess of an Address.  After listening to the State of the Union address, Americans know why the latest Reuters poll has President Joe Biden at 41 percent approval.  Vice President Kamala Harris polls even lower — despite the obsequious efforts of the most biased media in history that has, in effect, merged with the Democratic Party.  The nation was reminded again why only 37% of Biden's own party want him to run again.  Only a quarter of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction under his leadership.  Given all that, what could a president possibly tell a nation when he entered office inheriting a 1.4% inflation rate only to spike it to 7%?  How did Americans' 30-year mortgages of 2.7% soar to 6.5% in less than two years?  How does a president explain that eggs climbed to $7 a dozen, or a thin steak hit $15 a pound, or a sheet of plywood reached $95?  How does a president explain to Americans that gas averaged $2.39 a gallon when he took office and, even after draining the strategic petroleum reserve, it is still $3.50 a gallon — and recently spiked at $5 a gallon in many states.  Can Biden explain why once affordable, or even cheap natural gas more than tripled in price in less than a year?  What can a president say when in his first two years over 5 million foreign nationals poured into the United States — all illegally across a nonexistent border?

A Century of Homicides.  The revolving door crime wave exploded in the 1960s, putting the criminals back on the street before the police could fill out the paperwork.  Over the last year I talked to a thousand people about crime and not one, including criminal justice professionals and elected officials, could tell me how this revolving door started in the 1960s.  Some suggested the Great Society, drugs, or the disintegration of the American family, but these came later.  Crime shot up like a Saturn V rocket because it was deliberate policy to open up the jails and let criminals walk.  Supreme Court justices, other top judges, intellectuals, criminologists, and the U.S. attorney general all proclaimed prison confinement a medieval idea and that behavioral 'scientists' would simply rehabilitate the criminals.  The results were disastrous.  Homicides more than doubled and all other categories of crime quadrupled or more.  Progressives refused to reverse course and fought against sentencing reform for decades.

The left took over an important cultural institution while you weren't looking.  If you were raised in America, you probably grew up reading books published in the "Little Golden Books" series.  It's likely, too, that parents associate that label with trusted and wholesome products.  Well, they're probably still wholesome (no sex, obscenities, or other nasty things in these books), but recent content has taken both a shallow and a leftward turn, with the Little Golden Books starting early to turn your kids on to pop culture and to "wokify" them.

Denver: Rocky Mountain Hellhole.  Seven years ago, Business Insider published, "14 reasons why Denver is the best place to live in America."  They recommended everyone consider Denver as "your next hometown" citing a strong job market, low unemployment, great restaurants, and practical perks such as a low crime rate and good schools.  That was then.  How is Denver doing now as "trendy and desirable"?  In answering that question, the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle published, "Denver becoming America's crime capital."  That's quite the turnaround in less than a decade, especially when we think of New York City, Baltimore, or Philadelphia as America's crime capitals.

Here's Everything Biden Won't Tell You About The Disastrous State Of Our Union.  The state of our union is a complete, unmitigated disaster.  The economy is in shambles, the border is two years into the worst migrant influx in U.S. history, taxpayer dollars are flying into the hands of a corrupt Eastern European regime without oversight, and our No. 1 enemy — Red China — has compromised our president, our politicians, our phones, and our skies.  Much as he did in his lie-riddled speech last year, President Joe Biden will likely try to use his State of the Union address to Congress this week to credit himself for helping the nation back onto its feet.  In reality, he's done nothing but subject Americans to more crippling crises that prompt historic levels of disapproval.  In an unprecedented "level of sustained pessimism," 71 percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track.

Ten Righteous Men.  Typical of a Marxist regime, none of our valued institutions are functioning in a reliable way.  Our children are being abused by the very institutions designed to open the wonders of the world to them.  Our young men, who should be in the prime of their lives, are dropping dead in the midst of the games they love to play.  Our money is no longer worth much, we're finding it harder and harder to fuel our homes and automobiles, and we're seeing iconic businesses fold all around us.  What with Ukraine and woke ideology, the military we have proudly depended on to protect us is unprepared and poorly supplied.

Canadian Government Forces Dairy Farmer to Dump 30,000 Liters of Milk Because He Exceeded His Quota.  A dairy farmer from Southern Ontario, Canada has spoken out about how the Canadian government makes farms dump thousands of liters of fresh milk because they have gone over the quota.  In a video shared on TikTok by Travis Huigen and widely shared by Bushels Per Acre on Twitter, Canadian dairy farmer Jerry Human expresses his outrage at the Canadian government and the Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) for wasting hundreds of liters of fresh milk despite inflation.  "Right now, during the winter months, you milk quite a bit more milk because the feed is very consistent.  And if you do a good job, you will produce quite a bit of milk.  But right now, we're over our quota, and it's regulated by the government, and [implemented] by the DFO," said Human.  "Look at this milk running away.  It's the end of the month [and] I dump 30,000 liters of milk and it breaks my heart.  This year Canadian milk is $7 a liter."

The disappearing law-enforcement presence in San Francisco.  Last month a group of business owners in Seattle gathered for a town hall to discuss persistent crime in the city.  All of the owners had experienced break-ins, often several of them in a year.  And the cost to repair broken windows and doors was often more than the value of whatever thieves had stolen.  Several of the owners had been dropped by their insurance because they'd made too many claims.  They wondered why the police never seemed to have time to walk around their neighborhood at night to keep the thieves at bay.  The situation doesn't seem to be much different in San Francisco.  When Joe Vernieri, the owner of the Black Magic Voodoo Lounge, reported his bar had been broken into it took police 15 hours to respond and even then they responded in the middle of the night when no one was around. [...] So as far as Vernieri is concerned there are no police in San Francisco.  None that will help him.

Democrats' Trojan horse is taking on a life of its own.  Biden was the Democrat left's version of the Trojan horse.  Get the 78-year-old inside the White House pretending to be a gift to the American people, and then let the real puppet masters emerge and change the nation's demographics, destroy the economy, and transform every social norm.  For two years, Biden did precisely what the Democrat socialists wanted him to do:  run to podiums, mumble, and then wander away.  Smile, wave, and lie.  And in the process, the southern border became an open floodgate for illegal aliens and deadly drugs.  Inflation halted the buying power of most Americans, and American streets became crime-infested homeless camps.  Uncle Joe:  the gift that kept on giving.

Who could not have predicted this?
Migrants turn NYC hotel into violent, drug-infested 'free-for-all': employee.  A once-trendy Manhattan hotel has become a wild "free-for-all" of sex, drugs and violence after the city began housing migrants there, an employee claimed Tuesday [1/31/2023].  Row NYC worker Felipe Rodriguez — who told The Post earlier this month that migrants were throwing away "tons" of prepared food at the hotel — said the facility has now descended into anarchy.  "Chaos, total chaos," Rodriguez told "Fox & Friends" when asked to describe conditions at the hotel. "There's no accountability.  There is no daily supervision to show these people that ... 'You don't destroy your hotel.  You are only there temporarily.  This is not your home.'

The root of our problems as a nation.  When a six-year-old brought a gun to school and shot his teacher, the first thought was that it was an accident.  When upon further review it was announced that it was intentional and deliberate, a sort of shock wave went through the population.  This was not just another incident, not just another step along the road to perdition.  Society is no longer slouching toward Gomorrah.  Like the expanding cosmos, the headlong race toward the edge of the cliff is actually accelerating.  This was a quantum leap, an order-of-magnitude increase.  When one observes the breathtaking increase in moral degeneracy, one is reminded of the biblical warning that the beast, knowing that his time is short, is seeking to devour whom he may. [...] Society is becoming more and more disoriented, less structured in terms of norms, and, as an inevitable result, more dysfunctional.  Indeed, the definition of what is "normal" has become so vague as to have lost all practical meaning.  If everything is normal, then nothing is.  If everything is a matter of personal opinion, then facts become irrelevant.  If your truth is not my truth, nor mine yours, then there can be no social contract.  Dysfunctional societies must eventually collapse.  Whether from internal strife or external invasion, they cannot survive.

Anarchy, American-Style.  The 1960s revolution was both anarchic and nihilist.  But it was waged against — not from — the establishment.  Hippies and the Left either attacked institutions or, in Timothy Leary fashion, chose to "turn on, tune in, drop out" from them.  The current revolution is much different — and far more dangerous — for at least three reasons.  The current Left has no intention of "dropping out."  Why would it?  It now controls the very institutions of America that it once mocked and attacked — corporate boardrooms, Wall Street, state and local prosecuting attorneys, most big-city governments, the media, the Pentagon, network and most of cable news, professional sports, Hollywood, music, television, K-12 education, and academia.  In other words, the greatest levers of influence and power — money, education, entertainment, government, the news, and popular culture — are in the hands of the Left.  They have transformed legitimate debate over gay marriage into a hate crime.  Transgenderism went from a modern manifestation of ancient transvestism or gender dysphoria to a veritable litmus test of whether one was good or evil.

Whoopi Goldberg asks if 'we need to see White people get beat up' to see change, then quickly clarifies.  "The View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg wondered on Monday if "we need to see White people get beat up" to see meaningful police reform before clarifying that she was "not suggesting that" following the death of Tyre Nichols.  "Do we need to see White people also get beat before anybody will do anything?  I'm not suggesting that.  So don't write us and tell me what a racist I am.  I'm just asking is that what people have to see in order to wake up and realize this affects us all?" Goldberg asked.  She also wondered when this brutality would "finally lead to some police reform from the ground up."

The Editor says...
There has already been "police reform from the ground up," which is why they only hire black officers, whether they are fit for service or not.

There Is Nothing Democrats Won't Destroy.  The left has changed the definition of words to help their division.  "Woman" has no meaning now, and men win the awards created expressly to celebrate them.  It has to be weird for the old feminists, most of whom look like men now, to know they've plowed the road for men to dominate as women.  Can't wait till Rachel Levine demands the return of Virginia Slims advertising so he can be on them under the banner, "You've come a long way, baby."  But few words have been bastardized more than "community."  It used to mean your neighborhood and the people in it; from the kids you grew up with to the old guy in the corner house everyone was slightly afraid of but who was secretly always nice.  Now it means people who share your skin tone or sexual proclivities.

Germans believe their country is going down the tubes [again].  Fewer and fewer Germans are satisfied with their state.  This is the result of a recent Allensbach survey.  Some 80 percent of all Germans are of the opinion that the state is inhibiting itself in its development through too much bureaucracy.  This also means that fewer and fewer believe in a good economic future.  Only 39 percent still think that Germany will still be one of the leaders in the world economy in 15 years.  In the past, this number used to be almost 60 percent.  Some 68 percent of all Germans are dissatisfied with so-called digital progress.  Only 14 percent of Germans believe that Germany has emerged stronger from the crises of recent years.  And half believe that many things are no longer working properly in their country.  This is not good for the German government, nor is it an optimistic assessment of the future.

Warning: The Anti-Police Movement Is Deadly.  In the Bay Area, criminal homicides increased from 295 in 2021 to 309 in 2022 — 50% higher than 2019.  Oakland had 120 homicides in 2022, a 60% increase over 2019.  And the share of murder victims who were black rose from 53% in 2019 to 58% in 2021.  In other words, in the two years after millions of Americans promised through their checkbooks, their lawn signs, and their social media updates to do everything in their power to protect black lives, the killing of African Americans skyrocketed.

This migrant mess is ruining NYC's Midtown.  Why is Mayor Eric Adams destroying Midtown?  The pulsing heart of the city, the theater, restaurant and tourism district, has not fully recovered from the COVID lockdown yet is already full of homeless hotels with their associated problems.  Now the mayor has announced he's going to turn yet another hotel into a shelter for illegal migrants in the middle of the Theater District.  The Paramount Hotel, a 600-room, Renaissance-style gem opposite the Richard Rodgers Theatre where "Hamilton" has been playing since 2015, is the fifth Midtown hotel converted to an "emergency" shelter in as many months.  Earlier this month, tourists were paying $330 a night to stay there and prices hit as high as $1,000 around New Year's Eve.

Another Day, Another Walgreens Getting Robbed.  No one blinked, they are so used to it because of California's crazy laws that benefit criminals and punish honest business owners.  [Video clip]

America's Future is Bleak When Only 27% of the Younger Generations are Proud to be American.  As recently as 2004, 91% of Americans were extremely or very proud to be American and the United States ranked first in the world in national pride.  However, in less than twenty years there has been a stunning reversal that portends a dire future for the United States as a precipitous erosion in national pride has undermined societal confidence, self-reliance, optimism, and cohesion.  A recent poll revealed that a record low of just 68% of the citizenry are extremely or very proud to be American.  However, underlying that overall dismal outcome is the reality that among the two youngest generations only 38% of Millennials and 16% of Gen Z are proud to be American despite being the beneficiaries of living in a unfathomably prosperous nation that has not known any profound national adversity since the Great Depression.  What we are seeing play out is the reality of demographic change in America as the younger mal-educated generations account for over half of the populace and are increasingly becoming culturally and politically influential.  Within these generations an overwhelming majority have been indoctrinated by socialist/Marxist ideologues to believe that a capitalist United States as founded is irredeemable and must be transformed.

You brought your problems upon yourself.
Eric Adams: 'Unfair' for Sanctuary Cities to Carry the Weight of the Border Crisis.  New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) once again took to the airwaves to say Democratic cities who declared themselves to be a sanctuary for illegal immigrants are being stretched thin due to the large number of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.  New York City has had to open a fifth shelter for recent arrivals from the southern border, which is in addition to using hotels and homeless shelters to house people coming from Latin America and even parts of Asia.  "Well, I believe that when I took the trip to El Paso, you can see firsthand the impact of how it not only harm the foundation of El Paso, but look at Chicago, Houston, Washington, New York City, this is just unfair for cities to carry the weight of a national problem," Adams told MSNBC on Wednesday.  "We're going to open for more hotels, emergency hotels...  This as a major financial impact on New York City and cities across this country that are receiving the brunt of it."  Adams said the Biden White House claims there is a person who is in charge of helping American cities with the immigration problem, but he does not who the person is.

Seattle Is Running Out of Morgue Space Due to the Fentanyl Crisis.  When you run a city on the values of (personal) truth, (social) justice, and the (anti) American way of life, there are bound to be consequences, no matter how hard you try to ignore them.  That may include the spike in violence in New York City, the crime and homelessness throughout California, or the general collapse of Portland, Ore., on every front.  For Seattle, it includes those things and a fentanyl crisis that is claiming lives at an alarming rate.  The rate is so high that the King County Coroner is running out of places to store the bodies.

The greenie left is coming for your coffee.  It wasn't enough that the greenie left came for our light bulbs, our flush toilets, our guns, our plastic straws, our gas stoves, or our hamburgers.  Now they're coming for our coffee. [...] What they want, of course, is to take away more stuff from us, the better to control us.  It wasn't enough to target our gas-powered cars and tell us to take the bus.  It wasn't enough to take away our electricity and natural gas in the name of 'going green' and tell consumers to freeze in winter.  It wasn't enough to howl for an end to jet travel while greenie leftists bought carbon indulgences and continued to jet about with their private planes.  It wasn't enough to take away our plastic bags, to ensure that we only use unsanitary bacteria-filled cloth recycle bags.  It wasn't enough to take away our meat and tell us to eat bugs.  All these are things they are — no, really — trying to take away.  In some cases, they have succeeded at such schemes, too, all for a phony and chimerical quest to stop global warming, which somehow never happens.

Black Lives Matter and the enduring legacy of 'defund the police'.  Over at the Free Press, author Leighton Woodhouse has an excellent article about the ongoing legacy of Black Lives Matter and the "defund the police" movement they helped usher in to cities across America.  Regular readers know this is a particular bugaboo of mine.  That's not just because it was a brutal issue for Democrats who jumped on the bandwagon in 2020.  It's mostly because it's such a shining example of how progressive enthusiasm for fundamental change can often result in complete disaster.  Committing to defunding the police without a plan to replace them with something better is one of the dumbest things the left has done in my lifetime and as such it should be used as an object lesson of what not to do for many years to come.

A Massive Effort at Moral Rebuilding Is Necessary.  I think it fair to say that political economy in our time does not take the home seriously, because it does not take virtue and vice seriously, as the political economists themselves are mainly content with the withering of religious life — they having been brought up in, and having accepted, the dissolution of sexual morals that is rendering America a nation of broken homes, amputated families, fatherless children, and dispirited lovelessness between young men and women, some of whom are condemned to loneliness because they do not sin, and others condemned to that and worse because they do. [...] In all our rush to define the essence of marriage out of our consciousness by extending the category to couples who by definition cannot perform the marital act, we have heard hardly a whisper about all the moral and social questions that bear upon marriage — no whisper at all about divorce, for example, and none at all about how you can possibly promote sexual continence, let alone chastity, while countenancing and blessing actions that presume incontinence and unchastity and that far surpass them in physical and moral harm.

Will Any of You Leftists Wake Up?  The policies being pursued by Democrats at every level of government are visiting wholesale destruction on our economy, our culture and our future.  Whether we're talking about Biden and the Democrats spending trillions of dollars, drawing us into hyperinflation and unsustainable debt, or the freakish efforts of the LGBTQ educrats to proselytize, indoctrinate and impose horrific sex change surgeries on our children that have led to an unprecedented level of child suicide, the devastation is incalculable.  I suppose the rationale for deifying the LGBTQ agenda is to curb population growth?  Have Gay, lesbian and transgender people become the modern heroes of the environment because they are not part of the contemptible "breeders" crowd?  Meanwhile, at the same time, you leftists promote open borders to bring millions into this country precisely because our dwindling population doesn't provide you with the goods and services you want at prices you want.  The rationalizations would be hilarious were they not so universally destructive.

Shocking!  Who could have predicted this?
After Seattle Defunded Its Police, Local Business Owners Say Crime Is Worse Than Ever.  Two years after Seattle slashed its police budget, local business owners say crime has skyrocketed, with police unable to deal with thefts, homelessness and open-air drug use that plague the city.  Seattle and broader King County had more than 13,000 homeless people within its boundaries in 2022, more than every other similar area except Los Angeles County and New York City, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, while the Seattle Police Department (SPD) lost more than 130 officers, KOMO News reported, as homicides, shootings and motor vehicle thefts increased.  Local business owners say law enforcement is failing to effectively deter the rampant drug use and theft disturbing their livelihoods[.]  Rohan Joseph, owner of Elliot Bay Community Fitness in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood, has been posting videos on Twitter for months of people doing drugs, trying to sleep or otherwise causing disturbances outside his business.

Does DC want to be the carjacking capital of the USA?  Washington, D.C.'s city council has just provided incontrovertible proof of the willful incompetence of the gun control movement.  The same people who want to outlaw the possession of firearms by law-abiding people passed legislation to reduce penalties for carjacking, home invasion, and similar violent crimes.  Use of a gun to commit a violent felony in the nation's capital can now be punished by no more than four years in prison.  This makes it clear that the D.C. city council has no real desire to keep firearms away from violent criminals who really shouldn't have them, and the legislation is so dysfunctional that Mayor Muriel Bowser, who is certainly no conservative, intends to veto it.  It also makes Washington, D.C. the ideal place for carjackers, robbers, home invaders, and gun felons to ply their trades because, in contrast to almost every other jurisdiction in the United States, they won't get much prison time.  If you want to stick a gun in somebody's face to demand money, then you should do it in D.C., where you can't get more than four years (unless U.S. attorneys step in, as discussed below).  If you want to force somebody out of a car at gunpoint, then D.C. is the place to do it.  If you do it in Florida, you can get up to life in prison.

First 2023 Murder in Seattle Carried Out by Thug Freed by Bail Fund.  Most people have stopped paying attention to bail funds aside from the time that Kamala Harris tweeted support for the Minnesota Freedom Fund during the BLM race riots.  While MFF's policy of bailing out arrested criminals has proven fatal, it's not the only bail fund with lethal consequences.  The Seattle and Portland bail funds have had their own death toll.  Including the first murder of 2023 in Seattle. [...] There have been a number of cases of bail funds freeing domestic abusers only for it to end in violence and even murder.  And, each time, the bail fund claims that it could never have seen this coming.

Republicans, Don't Botch the Hearings.  Here are the questions Americans have:
  What is causing inflation, and why are energy costs so high?
  Why is fentanyl killing tens of thousands of Americans?
  Why is our southern border wide open?
  Can we trust the FBI and DOJ?
  What is causing the spike in inner-city crime?
  Why are we letting China steal American data, patents, and military secrets?
  Where did COVID come from?  Do the vaccines work?  Are people really "dying suddenly"?
  Why is our education system failing our children?

Get Ready for 'Climate Change Death' Tracking.  Anyone following the regime's playbook already understands that when you disagree with it, you'll be accused of killing someone.  Don't take the vaccine, don't lock down, or don't wear a mask — you're killing grandma.  Question voting and balloting procedures, and your words will provoke a deadly insurrection.  Suggest that a man can't get pregnant, and you're guilty of stochastic terrorism.  The regime characterizes conservatives as killers for their opinions, yet its partisans celebrate abortion up to parturition.  It wants to let murderers out of jail, and is now moving to destigmatize the "dignified" culling of the elderly and infirm.  Climate change is the platform from which the regime seeks to achieve power by creating a rationale for laws and regulations that dictate where and how people can move, live, purchase, and work.  So it makes sense that climate change would re-emerge as a priority just as the world moves on from a pandemic, where the body count of those dying "from" or "with" Covid was used to justify repressive policies such as lockdowns, shutdowns, election process changes, and the prevention of the practice of your religious faith.

Like Paul Revere, a Massachusetts Republican Sends Warning.  The fact is that progressives have been actively working to take over the Democrat party — city by city, and state by state — for years.  Even though progressives are never the majority anywhere, they've gotten their grubby little mitts on all the levers of power, corrupting voting laws and elections, instituting destructive policies, and securing permanent rule for themselves.  Places like California, New York, Illinois -- and sadly, Massachusetts — might be past saving at this point.  No wonder so many are leaving.  Progressives have finally succeeded in taking over the Democrat party at the national level, too.  They've shoved aside all the normal, moderate Democrats, like the kind you used to see.  Can you think of a current Democrat politician who doesn't stick to the progressive narrative, even when it's obviously ridiculous?

The Scariest Developments to Watch Out For in 2023.  In just the past two years, our national government has spent roughly $13 trillion and authorized spending trillions more.  Politicians use words and phrases like "investments," "long-term savings," "reducing inflation," "protecting Ukraine's sovereignty," etc. to justify this.  Clearly, they are either lying or living in a fantasy world.  Most of the money is being used to pay off campaign contributors and special interest groups, such as the climate change lobby, or to make politicians look good.  Inflation spiked to nine percent in June 2022, so the Federal Open Market Committee began raising interest rates to fight it.  As interest rates rose, the stock market tanked.  In 2023, interest rates will likely increase further, possibly sparking a worldwide recession.  Neither is good news for investors.

Latest Inflation Report Shows How Insane Grocery Costs Have Gotten.  Even as fuel oil costs fell 16.6 percent in December, the cost for the necessary expense to keep homes warm through the winter is still 41.5 percent more expensive than it was one year ago.  Meanwhile, electricity costs for Americans advanced 14.3 percent over the last 12 months and piped utility gas bills increased 19.3 percent in 2022.  The more stable core CPI number — which excludes food and energy — increased 0.3 percent in December, an acceleration from November 2022's 0.2 percent increase, for an annual core inflation rate of 5.7 percent as most indexes continued to see prices rise.  Among the indexes that continue to spike is food, up 10.4 percent in the last 12 months.

What Caused the Political Hysteria?  The Left has gone mad over Donald J. Trump — past, present, and future.  The current Democratic Party and NeverTrump "conservatives" assumed that Trump was and remains so obviously toxic that they do not have to define exactly what his evil entails.  Accordingly, they believe that any means necessary are justified to stop him.  And furthermore, these zealots, when out of power, insist such extraordinary measures should not be emulated and institutionalized by their opponents, much less ever boomeranged back upon their creators.  In this context, the Republicans retaking control of the House of Representatives once again raises the question whether they should reply in kind.  Given the current investigation following the Mar-a-Lago raid, should there also be a mirror-image special prosecutor to examine President Biden's lost stash of classified documents in his insecure office following his vice presidency?  Can House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) ever be considered too inflammatory, given that his predecessor, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tore up the president's State of the Union address on national television?

In McCarthy Negotiations, GOP Landed On [the] 'Most Significant Win For Conservatives In A Decade'.  Life expectancy in the United States is at its lowest level since 1996.  Teen suicide rates spiked nearly 30 percent in the last decade.  Though drug overdose deaths declined from a record high in 2021, they remain 50 percent higher than just five years ago.  In the second quarter of 2022, the majority of workers lost a median 8.5 percent in real wages — a 25-year high.  Marriage and fertility rates are falling.  A heightened nuclear threat looms amidst the invasion of Ukraine.  In the last fiscal year, the government recorded 2.76 million illegal crossings at our southern border, as tens of thousands of desperate people stream into the country every month, trafficked by cartels.  American happiness is at a record low.  So is institutional trust.  It's in this dismal context that Kevin McCarthy's bid for the House speakership faltered over the course of four frenzied days last week.

A Rendezvous With Rwanda?  America is an increasingly multiracial society.  Despite its early history of slavery and racial segregation, and ongoing bias and tensions, the United States remains one of the few contemporary multiracial constitutional systems that have actually worked.  Yet recently few have appreciated that achievement.  Usually multiracial nations and empires — Yugoslavia, the former Soviet Union, the Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires — require some level of coercion incompatible with a democratic constitution to force calm.  Brazil, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, and Kenya may be currently multiracial democracies in theory, but in fact they are often sectarian and tribal cauldrons.  In most such places, pride, solidarity — and even safety — are only found through common religious, ethnic, and racial bonds that become all-encompassing.  The individual's primary allegiance to each particular warring group inevitably becomes incompatible with every other's overriding loyalties.  The United States is insidiously nearing that abyss.  It has all but renounced its old commitment to the melting-pot, and a "content-of-our-character" ideal of assimilation and integration within a common culture.  But as we obsess on race and accordingly separate, do we really know the final consequences of what the diversity/equity/inclusion tribalism actually entails?

Movie Attendance Collapses 48% over Four Very Woke Years.  Between 2018 and 2022, movie theater attendance dropped in half, and I do not want to hear any excuses about the pandemic.  People will go to the theater to see a movie that appeals to them.  Spider-Man: No Way Home proved this last year.  Top Gun: Maverick proved it this year.  Avatar: Way of the Water is proving it right now.  And those are just the blockbusters. [...] In other words, blaming streaming or the China Flu on the collapse of the movie business is anti-science, so please do shut up.

Nancy Pelosi calls House Democrats 'The greatest collection of intellect, integrity, and imagination assembled.  Just when one thinks one has heard everything, one is proven wrong.  Outgoing speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi recently wrote her last "Dear Colleague" letter to her Democrat co-conspirators/comrades.  In this missive, she stated, "During the 117th Congress, President Biden and Congressional Democrats have put forth a shining vision of justice for all.  Together, we have worked tirelessly to infuse this value into our legislative efforts.  We can all take immense pride in our achievements toward that goal, which is making a real difference in the lives of the American people."  Justice?  For all?  Tell that to all those still rotting in prison, without conviction or charge, for strolling through the People's House on January 6, 2021.  Tell that to those who were snatched from their homes in the wee hours of the morning by armed feds when a simple summons to appear would have sufficed.  Tell that to all those whose jobs were considered unessential.  Tell that to all those in the military who were discharged because they wouldn't accept an experimental substance into their bodies.  Tell that to all those who have lost loved ones to violent crime, rates of which skyrocketed in the past two years due to Democrat policies — or to those who have lost loved ones to fentanyl because Democrats absolutely refuse to police our southern border.  And tell it to America's rapidly dwindling middle class, beset by historic inflation, supply chain problems, and rising taxes.

Trump Hatred Is Not Cheap.  We have a close family friend who voted for Joe Biden. [...] We'll call her Pat.  She voted for gropey Joe even though she disagrees with almost all the radicalism that he and the Democrats are pushing.  Her reasoning is quite simple.  She refused to vote for Donald Trump because he is too personally offensive to her. [...] It didn't take long to realize that the Trump alternative — Joe Biden — came with some hidden costs of his own, that Pat didn't know about.  Now that we're two years into his presidency, we can actually quantify some of those costs.  Immediately upon assuming office Joe got with his pals in Congress and went on a spending binge.  We shouldn't be surprised.  That's what socialists do — spend other people's money.  Joe, San Fran Nan, and little Chucky Schumer had a grand time, spending almost five trillion bucks and driving the national debt up another three trillion dollars.  But Joe never considered the post-party hangover — a 40-year high inflation level.  That ear-popping inflation isn't going down either, unless there are some serious changes in fiscal behavior.  With the recently passed omnibus spending bill, there's no indication that anybody, in either party, intends to change behavior.  The Congressional Joint Economic Committee has found that inflation alone is costing American families an addition $635 per month.  That's the equivalent of a nice car payment to fund Joe's big spending, energy choking, regulation expanding, experiment with banana republicism.

The Coup We Never Knew.  Did someone or something seize control of the United States? [...] Was it not against federal law to swarm the homes of Supreme Court justices, to picket and to intimidate their households in efforts to affect their rulings?  How then with impunity did bullies surround the homes of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas — furious over a court decision on abortion?  How could these mobs so easily throng our justices' homes, with placards declaring "[...]"?  Since when did Americans create a government Ministry of Truth?  And on whose orders did the FBI contract private news organizations to censor stories it did not like and writers whom it feared?  How did we wake up one morning to new customs of impeaching a president over a phone call?  Of the speaker of the House tearing up the State of the Union address on national television?  Of barring congressional members from serving on their assigned congressional committees?

8 of the 10 Neediest Cities in America Have Something in Common.  A recent study showed that the 10 neediest cities in the U.S. have a few things in common.  The most glaring commonality of this list is that eight out of the top ten cities had a Democrat at the helm at the time the survey took place.  Wallethub.com released the tragic list showing which cities are starting 2023 with a thud.  They used 28 indicators including poverty, hunger, homelessness, etc.  There are not a lot of surprises in this list of 182 towns across the U.S.  Detroit comes in as the neediest town in America.  Motor City has been dying for decades.  Corruption and plunging car sales have gutted this once-beautiful town since the 1970s.  If you think getting a cab in Hockeytown is hard, try calling an ambulance.  Budget cuts reduced EMS crews to just 15 more than a decade ago.  Detroit also scored third place for "food insecurity" as well as "inadequate plumbing."

The War On Truckers, Refrigerators, And Your Well-Being.  In the same way our "superiors" think that their food comes from the grocery store rather than a farm or ranch, they must believe that those items magically appear on the shelves.  Otherwise, why would the ruling class, made up of and zealously backed by elites, go to war against trucks?  Just before Christmas, the Biden Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule that it calls a "key step toward accelerating zero-emissions future," and part of "the historic Clean Truck Plan, which is moving America's highly polluting heavy-duty trucking fleet towards low-carbon and electric technologies."  Enforcement of course will mean fewer trucks on the road.  For many drivers, the cost of working under the new regime will be too high.  "Truckers and manufacturers warn that the rule is too stringent and costly, and that compliance could send higher prices through the economy that is already suffering from high energy costs and high inflation," says the Institute for Energy Research.

Rebellion Against the People.  It was not so long ago that competition was the breeding ground for excellence, now any mention of competition is hissed at with emotional tantrums by those who could not compete on any level and it's drawn the whole nation into an acceptance of failure.  One need look no further than the two institutions of importance, the schools and the military to see the end result.  The majority of our students cannot pass rudimentary tests in the critical studies, but they can emote.  Our military is so confused about its mission that it ranks success as acceptance of perversion rather than marksmanship.  The question thus arises, what is left to support?  What is there now that an American can devote oneself to that is not now decidedly un-American?

The Tyranny in America.  It never ceases to amaze me when I hear media talking heads plaintively ask, "Why won't Biden or Harris visit the border?"  They ask the question genuinely believing that if either the President or the Vice President saw the looming existential disaster, it would change their minds.  Such naiveté confirms Dr. King's idea that "nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."  Daily, we see the dictatorial moves by Biden and his administration.  We view the tears of those at the southern border who fear for their lives and property.  As the illegals surge into the country, sexual exploitation, human trafficking, crime, rampant drug use, violence, disease, death, and soul-searing fear continue to suffocate Americans. [...] Of course, illegal immigration will continue.  In the next two years of Biden's rule, another five million illegals will enter the country and thus an entrenched dictatorship will take hold.

Only an economic illiterate could say that Biden's policies are working well.  Here is a headline in Yahoo Finance on December 30th: "This week in Bidenomics: It was a pretty good year."  The author is Rick Newman, whose title is "Senior Columnist.  Newman admits that the S & P 500 was down 20% for the year, the Dow Jones was down 10%, and the Nasdaq was down 34%.  Nevertheless, he brags that gas prices are down from their high to $3.15 per gallon, never acknowledging that gas was $2.17 when Biden won the election.  Bragging about prices that are up 45% in two years does not show any ability to think cognitively.  Diesel prices are also down from their Biden-era high.  Still, their Biden-era "low" is $4.53, which is 90% higher than the $2.38 price for diesel when Biden was elected.  Crude oil is around $80 or up 100% from $40 when Biden was elected.  That is what happens when one of your major goals is to destroy industries that provide reasonably priced energy.

We Must Convince People That The Fascist Far Left Wants To Destroy The US.  Events are part of an overall plan that has a specific purpose that proves it's not just incompetence.  Leftists desperately had to suppress the Biden laptop scandal because it showed that they were under foreign influence.  We know now that if the people had been aware of this, history would have been changed.  That influence explains why we are diminishing our energy capabilities while giving the red Chinese a free pass.  The purpose is to weaken us compared to them.  That influence explains why we are diminishing our military capabilities by shoveling cash and weapons into Ukraine.  That influence explains why we are committing national suicide with an open border that not only weakens us to the point of a Cloward-Piven implosion but also provides all manner of military infiltration opportunities.  That open border also is giving leftists a great opportunity to take a page from the history of the Opium wars and destabilize the US with a flood of Fentanyl.

Under Wokeism, Animal Farm Comes to Life.  Have you read George Orwell's perennially popular and spookily prescient book Animal Farm?  Written in 1945, it is recognized as one of the most foundational books of the 20th century and the book's satire vs. the reality of today is striking. [...] It takes intellectual rigor to avoid making the same mistakes repeatedly.  It is challenging especially for the young and those who:
  a.   Did not acquire a good grounding in reason or academic discipline through education
  b.   Have never experienced real suffering or failure
  c.   Have been deprived of appropriate role models
Yet, warts and all, since our country was created, we've seen an unbroken string of generally successful adults, until recently. [...] One reason why we have so many developmental problems now is the pervasiveness of substance abuse such as the massive amount of fentanyl crossing our borders which has become proof of an undeclared war against us.  And so is the sedition, subversion, and treacherous behavior of those knowingly subverting our young and our institutions. [...] If you are over 40, remember how we used to live.  Put aside the mistakes we made but recall the successes, achievements, and good our country has been able to accomplish in the past: all that is now a quickly receding memory.  There is no easy way forward, but there is one legitimate way forward.  We must stop those hiding in our midst from continuing to destroy us under the guise of free speech.

Liz Warren's Disappearing Act.  It's been one lie after another from the Democrats in D.C., compounded with economic policies that could only make matters as bad as possible.  When President Trump left office in January 2021, the national average for gasoline was around $2.30/gallon.  Biden immediately signed a series of anti-energy executive orders restricting fracking, oil exploration, and fossil-fuel production.  He did this for two reasons:  1) To counter and negate anything that President Trump had done, simply out of infantile spite;  2) To curry approval and favorable publicity with the Green New Deal faction and their supporters.  Predictably, retail gasoline pricing spiked.  It was soon in the mid-$3.00 range, more than a dollar over where it was under President Trump.  This was well before Russia invaded Ukraine.  This was not "Putin's price increase."  This was all Biden.  As fuel went up, transportation/delivery costs increased and pricing for all goods started to go up.  This was an absolutely unnecessary tax on the American public, diluting consumer's buying power and sapping their confidence.  The Biden energy policy's effect on overall consumer pricing would have been bad enough if that's all that there was.  But it wasn't, not by a long shot.

Biden's Unopposed Imposition of Stalinism.  The majority of Americans are against open borders.  Once again, what we want doesn't seem to matter.  A steady wave of illegal immigration is what Biden wants and no one seems the least bit interested in putting an end to it.  Millions of unvetted migrants are streaming across the border and being shipped to secret destinations in direct violation of U.S. immigration law.  This is nothing short of treasonous.  The import of deadly drugs, violent criminals, terrorists, and COVID spreaders constitutes the worst public safety issue since World War II.  At a time when runaway inflation is driving millions of Americans into the poorhouse, we are being forced to provide public assistance to millions of freeloading non-citizens.  Local communities are being torn apart by the influx of refugees. [...] None of this is happening by accident.  "It is becoming harder not to conclude that the border crisis is intentional," said Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana. "Nobody is this incompetent."  Of course it is intentional.  Biden knows exactly what he is doing.  He gets his stooges, DHS Secretary Mayorkas and Press Secretary Jean-Pierre, to deny that the border is open, but we know they are lying through their teeth.

The Democrats' war on the family.  It wasn't that long ago when older men dressed as women twerking with children at city-sponsored parades or schools adopting unisex locker rooms or medical clinics exploiting gender dysphoria to pad their bottom line all would have been considered child abuse.  But today, Joe Biden, the Catholic who once stood by his religion, tweets, "Transgender equality is the civil rights issue of our time.  There is no room for compromise..."  As they say, one thing leads to another.  This swift and headlong lurch into androgyny started a while ago when the revolutionaries realized before you can deconstruct the West you've got to deconstruct Western notions of the family.  The Human Rights Campaign's Welcoming Schools program celebrates transgender youth and normalizes gender fluidity in kindergarten.  Planned Parenthood, when they're not doing their best to eliminate families, says "no worries," we're sexual beings beginning at birth.

Life Expectancy Craters in Biden's America of Fentanyl ODs and COVID Jabs.  During the two years that President Joe Biden has occupied the White House, life expectancy in the United States has fallen to its lowest level since 1996 as official figures show that drug overdose deaths reached their highest levels in recorded history last year.  Data from the National Center for Health Statistics reveals that life expectancy in the US declined by more than a year between 2014 and 2020, from 78.9 years to 77.8 years, the Daily Mail reported.  Health authorities blamed a number of factors for the decline, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the isolation and lockdowns that followed as well as drug overdoses, suicide, chronic liver disease, cirrhosis and homicide.

Krasner's Philly: Win your freedom after 25 years on Death Row, get executed on the street.  It continually baffles me why these Democratic bastions go for the most mediocre — sometimes outright malevolent — hands down worst choices every single time.  City residents watch their world dissolve around them, solely through the actions of the very individuals they return to office time and time again, yet nothing but nothing will shake them free of their mindless devotion to their own destruction.  New York City's a terrific example of that mindset.  So is Philadelphia. [...] In January, the city is due to reassess whether their new community-based programs to reduce gun violence have produced results.  That will depend on what their definition of "results" is and how lucrative the community found the grants from the programs.

US life expectancy reaches 25-year low, according to CDC.  The life expectancy for the average U.S. citizen has hit a 25-year low, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  Life expectancy for people born in the U.S. during 2021 stands at 76.4 years, the lowest on record since 1996.  Life expectancy for those born in 2019 was 78.8 years — a drop of 2.4 years, according to CDC data.  This marks a dramatic reversal from the steady growth in expected longevity of U.S. citizens for the past two decades.  CDC officials blamed the drop on two factors — the COVID-19 pandemic and a rapidly growing epidemic of substance abuse and drug addiction.

The Editor says...
Allow me to translate, embellish or amplify the last sentence in the excerpt above:  [#1] Every illness under the sun was counted as Covid-19, if the patient was in a hospital with a financial incentive to blame Covid, and [#2] "a rapidly growing epidemic of substance abuse" refers to the tidal wave of fentanyl coming over the unenforced border.

The Swamp strikes back.  The U.S. is currently in the midst of myriad crises due to the Democrats.  The border is unguarded, causing millions to illegally enter the U.S. The Border Patrol says there have been over 5 million border crossing incidents that were tracked.  High inflation is draining savings and placing hardships on citizens while the crime wave has placed citizens in peril.  None of the Biden-backed initiatives such as the Inflation Reduction Act nor the infrastructure bill nor his climate initiative addresses the citizens' suffering.  Beyond their misgovernance, the tyrannical Democrats have displayed a propensity for totalitarianism.  The Democrats have branded citizens as domestic terrorists for being from another party.  Protests are a fundamental right in a democracy, but the Democrats have seized this right from their political opponents.

What Eddie Fisher Said.  [Scroll down]  Many of today's troubles, I believe, are due to malicious intentions by a powerful few.  Everything that is wrong in the world today is totally unnecessary because it has been engineered deliberately by malicious enemies of our nation.  Just four years ago, America was booming.  The stock market was in an unprecedented surge, wages were higher than ever for all, including minority groups, unemployment was historically low and natural resources were plentiful.  Peace was happening in the Middle East; our military forces were being restored to strength and expanding and we had worldwide respect once again.  At the helm of the administration was a leader despised by the elite GOP and the Left but responsible for all of the benefits mentioned.  So, what happened?

El Paso's migrant state of emergency is a taste of what nation faces as Biden shrugs at border crisis.  Oscar Leeser, the Democratic mayor of El Paso, has bent over backward not to "embarrass" the head of his party, President Joe Biden.  As migrants poured across the border, unmetered and unvetted, he quietly grappled with the strain on the city's resources.  He provided the shelter and food the federal government wouldn't.  Hestruck private deals with Mayor Eric Adams to alleviate the crush, busing some people to New York.  Even as the City Council begged him to point outwhat was happening, he refused.  He insisted he'd been told by the Biden administration that if he was patient, they would help.  This went on for months.  On Saturday, Leeser's patience finally broke.  He declared a state of emergency, admitting what had been obvious for nearly two years:  The border is out of control, and President Biden isn't doing anything about it.

10 Steps to Save America.  Most Americans know something has gone terribly wrong — and very abruptly — with the United States.  They are certain that our wounds are almost all self-inflicted.  The current pathologies are not a result of a natural disaster, an exhaustion of natural resources, plagues, or an existential war.  Crushing national debt and annual deficits, spiraling food and fuel costs amid "normal" seven-percent-plus annual inflation, bread-and-circuses entitlements, a nonexistent border, a resurgence of racial tribalism, pandemic violent criminality, and humiliation abroad — all these pathologies are easily cited as symptoms of a sick patient.  Our crises are not as the Left maintains — a nine-person Supreme Court, the Electoral College, or the filibuster — all distractions from existential problems the Left largely created.

Belgium's Energy Suicide?  Belgium's situation is dramatic.  While our neighbors have taken and are taking measures to cushion the energy crisis, maintain their budgetary health and guarantee their energy supply, Belgium is in a situation of clear and obvious failure on all three counts.  I will only deal here with the energy misery, which is entirely avoidable and caused by the anti-nuclear tendencies of two environmentalist political parties, Ecolo and The Greens.  Security of energy supply seems, for some officials, to be an abstract concept.  It is anything but.  In practice, when energy security is not guaranteed, it means load-shedding, blackouts and an explosion in energy costs, as well as, for many, having to choose between "heat or eat".

Condo prices in San Francisco plummet as drug abuse and crime soar.  Luxury condo prices in the heart of downtown San Francisco have plummeted as drug abuse and crime have spiraled out control — and as many techies continue to work remotely.  Data analyzed by Compass shows the Golden Gate city — once pegged as the hottest real estate market globally — has since fallen fast.  The median sale price of a two-bedroom condo, for example, has fallen 16.5% since 2021, while sale prices in surrounding areas have slipped only 7%, according to the market report.

The Commercial Impacts of COVID Will Last for Years.  Have you noticed that things have changed in our country over the last three years?  In 2019, my truck broke down.  I got it into the shop the next day to be fixed.  In 2022, I needed a mechanic to service the brakes on one of our cars.  It took three weeks to get the car into a garage.  We also had a fender-bender this year.  It took two months to get an appointment for an estimate — not even to get someone to actually fix the damage. [...] Those are minor annoyances.  Things get a bit more serious when we look at the medical industry. [...] Are you noticing a pattern?  Prior to COVID, everything worked.  After COVID, every industry is struggling to meet customer needs.

Our Parasitic Generation.  Are we sure that there is all that much ruin left in the United States?  We are $31 trillion in collective debt.  The new normal is $1.5 trillion budget deficits.  The military is politicized and short of recruits.  We trade lethal terrorists for woke celebrity athletes as if to confirm our enemies' cynical stereotypes.  Our FBI is corrupt and discredited, collaborating with Silicon Valley contractors to suppress free speech and warp elections.  We practice segregation and racial discrimination and claim we do not because the right and good people support it and, anyway, the victims deserve it.  The country has seen defeat before but never abject, deliberate humiliation as in Kabul, when we fled and abandoned to the terrorist Taliban a $1 billion embassy, a huge, remodeled air base, thousands of friends, and tens of billions of dollars in military hardware — and hard-earned deterrence.  We are witnessing the breakdown of basic norms essential for civilized life, from affordable food and fuel to available key antibiotics and baby formula.  Old Cairo seems safer than an after-hours subway ride or stroll at dusk in many major American cities.  Medieval London's roadways were likely cleaner than Market Street in San Francisco.  Speech was freer in 1920s America than it is now.

The Crumbling States of America.  Our union is crumbling, our borders are smashed, and our respect has been obliterated.  No one fears America therefore evil runs wild.  And with corruption embedded so deeply into the ability of the people to elect the persons of their own choice (i.e.  Maricopa County, AZ allowing 294k plus votes to be counted that had no persons attached to the ballot) the outlook seems dire.  What the circumstance requires is a fighter, a builder, and someone who stands up to our enemies and for our way of life.  In other words the exact opposite of what incompetent buffoons currently in charge offer.

NYPD resignations shoot up by 30% as 1,225 officers ditch the US's biggest police force.  Thousands of New York City police officers have ditched the country's biggest police force and fled to other states for higher salaries.  Police department recruiters from other states, including Florida and Colorado have rushed to the Big Apple to persuade some of the city's 34,000 officers into relocating in exchange for higher pay and better work environments.  The retention rate among NYPD officers is rocky, especially since 1,225 officers have resigned through November before reaching five years at the police force, according to the New York Times.  About 3,200 total have left this year, including retirees.

The terrible consequences of stolen elections and government corruption.  [Scroll down] The results of their treachery?  A legitimately life-threatening energy crisis due to Biden's cancelling of pipelines and drilling which spread and intensified the inflation we are enduring.  The catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan gave the Bagram Air Base to China and billions of dollars' worth of high-tech U.S. military equipment to the Taliban.  Biden threw open the southern border; and well over two million migrants have entered the country.  Where are they now?  Who knows?  Many of the unaccompanied children are obviously being trafficked.  Biden is absolutely in business with the cartel sex-traffickers.  This administration's irresponsible spending has increased the national debt to $131 trillion, and yet they continue to throw billions we do not have to Ukraine to protect a border that is irrelevant to Americans; it's part of their scheme to take Putin down but the war has killed thousands of Ukranian civilians with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's complicity.  Where have the billions of dollars gone?  Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wants an audit; the Democrats say 'no.' [...] Biden wants to forgive billions in student loans; he wants working taxpayers who could not afford college to pay for those who did but are slackers.  He wants to continue to subsidize millions of illegal migrants he's ushered into the country.  Homeless Americans, nearly all of them mentally ill and/or drug-addicted, are abandoned onto the streets of Democrat-run cities like detritus but Biden ignores them.

The Experts Finally Discover Why 'LGBTQ Youth' Are Suicidal.  Liberal and tolerant Public Health experts seem to have finally sussed out, based on hard clinical research, the true sources of LGBTQ+++ youth suicidality. [...] It's obviously just a major coincidence that suicidality increases when pop culture floods children's corporate media programming to celebrate "Transgender Day of Visibility" and libbed-out parents encourage their four-year-old children to "explore their genders."  This is clearly not disorienting or confusing for children.

Are We Living in a 'Post-Truth' Society?  The online Cambridge dictionary defines "post-truth" to mean "relating to a situation in which people are more likely to accept an argument based on their emotions and beliefs, rather than one based on facts." Given this definition, I personally believe much of the United States has transitioned to a "post-truth" society, and many of us will become casualties of this new paradigm before harsh reality steers our nation back to an "objective truth"-based decision-making. [...] What caused our society to reach this tipping point?  I believe that objective truth is dying from a thousand little cuts and these cuts are a purposeful strategy to destroy our society and groom a population so it can be manipulated through feelings.  I will mention a few below (I am sure the reader can come up with dozens more):
  •   Participation Trophies (avoid the trauma of losing and starve the intuition of how to win)
  •   Eliminate Traditional Roles (break down the nuclear family by eliminating mothers and fathers, the distinction between men and women)
  •   Changing Definitions of Words (causing words to have no objective meaning, crippling our ability to communicate with each other rationally)
  •   Toxic Masculinity (discourage boys from becoming men who know how to manage the risks needed to provide for and protect a family)
  •   Teach children how to avoid trauma with trigger warnings and safe spaces (teaches children to avoid facts and data that would promote rational thought leading to objective truth and an informed intuition)
  •   Censor Speech (so that "my truth" will not be confronted by "the truth")
All these assaults on the truth are carefully planned and promoted by those who want to tear down our country to replace it with a new paradigm.

Extreme Danger: "Boring" Election Issues.  Some of you may have heard that first New York City and now Washington D.C. passed a law allowing non-citizens to vote in city elections.  When I tell people in the real world about this, they don't understand what I mean at first because it sounds so outlandish because Americans are supposed to be electing American leaders — not people from the Dominican Republic, or Chinese nationals, and so forth.  We filed a lawsuit.  We've got four clients, and we're suing New York City. [...] Some people are trying to fundamentally transform how our elections are run, who is voting.  The reason they have allowed foreigners to vote in New York City elections, here is the important part, is that they are trying to normalize it.  They are trying to normalize foreigner voting in the United States.

2020: The Year the Ruling Class Took Control.  Is the world really a better place when a major league baseball and football team got rid of their names, a black woman wearing an apron was removed from bottles of maple syrup, and a squaw was removed from butter containers all in the name of social justice?  It's totally laughable, but these are all examples of the top-down cancel culture the country has been experiencing since 2020.  Every day there are numerous articles identifying the rotten woke establishment consolidating its control.

Hollowed Out.  Most military experts agree that the U.S. military is no longer capable of achieving its mission as mandated by national defense doctrines adopted by administrations of both parties.  President Biden is exacerbating the situation by focusing military strategy on progressive politics instead of military preparedness.  Even a Democratic controlled Congress overruled his proposed budget in order to increase spending and partially to fund programs required to reverse the decline.  While the U.S. military remains the world's most powerful military, it also has the broadest mission of any nation, with global security needs and commitments.  Those proud of U.S. capabilities fairly observe that no other nation could have evacuated 124,000 people in two weeks from Kabul.  Nonetheless, insufficient funding, slow modernization, and woke mandates are hollowing out the military's readiness and capacity to achieve its mission.

Democrats: Get your cities under control.  It cannot be said enough that if you are in a Democratic-run major American city right now, you should probably be making plans to get out as soon as possible: [...]

Biden Defends Multi-Trillion Dollar Scam: 'We Did So Much, Nobody Knows the Effects Yet'.  Oh, Joe, bless your clueless heart; you don't even see the irony. [...] Biden, on Tuesday [11/29/2022], defended his ill-fated "American Rescue Plan" for the zillionth time by arguing that the (at least) $1.9 trillion spending spree helped enable local governments to keep paying their employees (which does zero to help productivity).  He also boasted of his additional trillions in spending for government-subsidized health care, manufacturing, infrastructure, and so-called "green energy."  Biden's claim was not only nonsensical; it was a direct contradiction of Economics 101:  Injecting trillions of dollars into a struggling economy to chase a relatively limited supply of goods and services generally leads to an increase in inflation — not a decrease, as Team Biden disingenuously continues to claim.

Netherlands to forcefully shut down 3,000 farms.  The Great Reset is in full gear in the Netherlands as the country's government moves to shut down thousands of farms.  To comply with the European Union's radical climate laws, the Dutch government of World Economic Forum acolyte Mark Rutte will force up to 3,000 farms to shut down for good.  Farmers will be made an offer on their farms, which the government claims is "well over" market value.  According to nitrogen minister Christianne van der Wal, the government purchase will be compulsory.  "There is no better offer coming," claimed van der Wal.  Recent EU nature preservation rules require member states to reduce emissions across sectors of the economy.  As one of Europe's most prominent farming nations, half of the Netherlands' emissions come from agricultural activity.  Rutte has warned that those who refuse to comply could face government force.

Joe Biden caused the diesel supply crisis he is complaining about.  During recent public appearances, President Joe Biden has continued to complain about energy prices as well as the potentially catastrophic shortage of diesel that has been forecast to hit the United States soon, particularly in the northeast.  Of course, he never takes the blame for any of this himself.  He instead tries to blame the "greedy" energy companies or, of course, Vladimir Putin.  He has called for bans on oil and gas exports and even suggested a mandate that diesel stocks be maintained at a higher level.  But a new report from the Institute for Energy Research addresses the actual root of these problems.  What we're facing is a significant loss in refinery capacity in the United States and its various territories.  We've lost more than a million barrels per day in production capacity, but rather than working to rebuild that capacity, the White House is issuing new edicts that will result in diminishing it further.

Over 70 Percent of Children Aged 7-12 [are] Now Afraid of Climate Change — Survey.  More than 70 percent of children aged 7-12 are now afraid of climate change according to the results of a survey.  More than seven in ten children aged 7-12 are now worried about climate change, research conducted by a UK-based start-up has reportedly found.  It comes amid reports from various experts that children and teenagers of various demographics are experiencing high rates of mental health difficulties, with one school councillor earlier this year saying that anxiety rates have hit an all-time high post-lockdown.  According to a report by Euronews, the survey — which polled 1,000 children born between 2010 and 2015 on their views regarding the environment — found that a total of 71 percent of respondents were now worried about environmental changes, including the changing climate.

The Editor says...
What other "environmental changes" are going on, other than the constantly (but imperceptibly) changing climate?  Shouldn't the public schools teach kids not to be afraid of trivial things that are beyond their control?  Are they teaching kids to worship the Earth and fear it at the same time?

Biden's Crushing Inflation Spikes Household Credit Card Debt to New Heights.  The Biden administration has worked overtime to gaslight Americans into believing everything is totally fine when, in fact, everything is not fine.  As a matter of fact, it's getting worse by the day.  And by "it's," I mean everything is going south.  The latest indication of yet another looming economic crisis — and no, I'm not talking about the developing housing crisis, the diesel fuel crisis, the home heating oil crisis, the inflation crisis, or the illegal immigration crisis — was revealed in a startling report this week regarding total household credit card debt, which has now increased by the most in 20 years, rising a staggering 15% from last year.

What is behind the rise in girls questioning their gender identity?  Earlier this year, a team of NHS researchers was asked to investigate why there has been such a huge rise in the number of adolescent biological girls seeking referrals to gender clinics.  The figures alone do seem remarkable.  According to a study commissioned by NHS England, 10 years ago there were just under 250 referrals, most of them boys, to the Gender Identity Development Service (Gids), run by the Tavistock and Portman NHS foundation trust in London.  Last year, there were more than 5,000, which was twice the number in the previous year.  And the largest group, about two-thirds, now consisted of "birth-registered females first presenting in adolescence with gender-related distress", the report said.  The review team is looking into the causes behind "the considerable increase in the number of referrals" and the changing case mix, but is not expected to publish any findings until next year.

Americans Living under Communism.  Did you ever wonder what it would be like to live under communism?  Well, now you know.  The last two years have seen a parade of dumb and dumber policies, the kind you expect in totalitarian dictatorships.  The distinguishing traits are as follows: rulers show contempt for their serfs; policy wonks concoct endless stream of counterproductive ideas; and casual cruelty hurts everyone, day after day.  Here are a dozen examples.  Think back to Biden's decision to shut down the pipeline bringing petroleum from Canada.  Could anything be more irrational than shutting down a functioning pipeline, thus causing higher prices for everyone (and giving Putin the money he needed to invade a neighbor)?  Then we had the president wandering around foreign countries begging for their petroleum.  Millions of Americans knew for the first time what a totalitarian society feels like.  The top guy is nuts, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Are You Freer than You Were Two Years Ago?  Children in the 1950s recited the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, took part in schoolyard flag-raising, learned the evil of communism, respected their parents, were not exposed to inappropriate material in school or at home, attended church with their (two) parents, worked chores and odd jobs, and idolized their nation's Founders.  In sum, they grew up in an atmosphere of order and respect, and they were happier and healthier for it.  Freedom means the condition of acting and thinking on one's own, without restriction or regimentation, but if the polls are any indication, a large percentage of Americans now have little idea of what freedom entails.  Otherwise, they would not elect governors and representatives intent on expanding the size and power of government.

A Report on What Democrats Are Doing to [the] US Military.  At last a little light is shining on the social engineers who have been using wokeness to debilitate American armed forces.  Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) have issued a report finding that indoctrinating the US military with Critical Race Theory and LGBT ideology has significantly weakened it:  ["]The report finds that instructors at military academies use 'antiracist' approaches to education that direct soldiers to center their understanding of American society on an acknowledgment of its racist past and present, the report said.["]  "Antiracist" means "racist against America's core population."  ["]Kelisa Wing, the chief diversity equity and inclusivity officer at the Department of Defense, has tweeted she is 'exhausted with these White folx' and suggested Black people are incapable of racism.["]

Colorado Blues, and How to Get the State Back.  As of Nov 8, 2022, the Colorado GOP is effectively dead or at least on life support.  What was once a solid red state became purple, post-Watergate.  Today, Colorado is solid blue after the 2022 mid-terms and is the second consecutive election where Democrats control all state-wide offices. [...] Colorado's lurch left has not improved the lives of the average Coloradoan:  Colorado is ranked first in motor vehicle theft and second in property crimes.  From 2019-2022, robbery is up 15%, murder is up 30%, vandalism up 36%, arson up 56%, and auto theft up 111%.  Drug overdoses have doubled over the same period.  Colorado student proficiency test scores have been in steady decline for math and reading at the 4th and 8th grade since 2010.  Legalization of marijuana in 2012 didn't help either.  Colorado has one of the worst mental health rankings among states.  As Democrats have consolidated power, we are seeing the Californication of Colorado with new laws that allow for unrestricted abortions, expanded illegal immigration and taxpayer funded benefits, weak enforcement of gun laws, no cash bail, and significant restrictions on fracking and energy production.

The Worst Generation of Political Elites Ever.  In other words, in one generation America's finances have been ruined, at every level of government.  From a fiscal point of view, this is undoubtedly America's worst generation ever.  In our brief case study:  city spending went from $36.3 billion to $101.1 billion; the state from $79.7 billion to $222 billion; and the federal government from $2.0 trillion to $6.0 trillion — and the ultimate funding source, U.S. public debt, from $5.7 trillion to $30.6 trillion.  Among economists it was understood, and widely agreed upon, that public debt should never exceed 70% of GDP.  And yet here we are at 121%, higher than at the peak of WWII, rising rapidly, unsustainably, as far as the eye can see.  The Congressional Budget Office forecasts 2052 debt at 185% of GDP.  And make no mistake.  No amount of taxation can fix this problem, even leaving aside the ruinous impact of excess taxation on incentives, growth capital, innovation, personal freedom and prosperity.

The Voting Morons.  We now have two mentally damaged individuals in high office in this country, neither able to function as an independent adult.  How did they get there?  By being elected... with the addition of other means.  But it was the votes that created a situation where those "other means" could work.  In other words, the moron vote played a large role.  Tens of millions of voters who can't recognize a mentally crippled individual when they see one.  Who witness electoral cheating in front of their eyes as clearly as that of a three-card monte dealer but don't see it for what it is.  Who simply can't make the connection between the close of critical pipelines and gas costing six bucks at the pump.

Violent crime comes to previously peaceful and safe Martha's Vineyard.  And guess why.  Last Thursday, November 17, minutes after it opened for the day, a small bank in the island town of Vineyard Haven was invaded by three armed masked men.  They threatened, subdued and duct taped the employees and proceeded to make off in a stolen car with an undetermined amount of cash — after brandishing semiautomatic handguns to intimidate the bank personnel.  Nothing like this crime has ever been seen on Martha's Vineyard.  Previously, the crime rate on the small island off the southern coast of Massachusetts was almost non-existent, confined to things like DUIs and the occasional passing of a bad check.  But now, like many other blue communities that have declared themselves to be sanctuaries for illegal immigrants, things are changing. [...] This island-wide welcome mat has resulted in the presence of hundreds if not thousands of migrants who now seem to be close to outnumbering the American citizens — most of them working- or middle-class — who reside year-round on the island.  This radical and sudden demographic shift has been largely ignored by the island's news media.

Our dangerous diesel shortage [was] caused by anti-fossil-fuel politicians.  Diesel shortages could get worse in the coming months as European bans on Russian fuel kick in.  Because diesel is a global market this will likely mean even higher prices in the US and Europe, and severe shortages in poorer regions.  Because diesel is a global market there are many contributing causes to diesel shortages.  The fundamental global cause is the global anti-fossil-fuel movement, which has suppressed all the fundamentals of diesel supply:  oil investment, oil production, oil refining, oil transport. [...] Instead of unleashing our diesel potential, clueless anti-fossil-fuel politicians destroyed it by
  [#1]   Preventing us from importing Canadian oil well-suited to our refineries
  [#2]   `Preventing or shutting down diesel-producing capacity in the US
  [#3]   Threatening new diesel investments

As Shortages Persist Under Biden, It's Time To Ask: Is This On Purpose?  Did the United States suddenly become a socialist basket case?  It's hard not to come to that conclusion after reading about the endless shortages plaguing the nation.  Each of which President Joe Biden either seems clueless to resolve or determined to make worse.  Let's start with the biggest one: the shortage of diesel fuel.  While Biden was busy draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to tamp down gas prices before the midterm elections, the real worry was that supplies of diesel fuel have been running short.  Two years after the short-lived COVID lockdowns ended, diesel inventories continued to trend downward to their lowest levels since 2008.  The cost for a gallon of diesel fuel is 46% higher than it was a year ago, according to AAA, and now costs more than $5 a gallon.

Germany [is] cutting back meat production to fight global warming.  Germany is still caught up in the demands of the climate change lobby to reduce its carbon footprint drastically in the coming years.  One part of this initiative, similar to calls we've seen from activists in the United States, was a mandate to reduce all livestock on German farms by 50%.  Farmers have been protesting the decision in the same way they recently did in the Netherlands this summer, but the initiative is moving forward beginning this year.  Now, to the great surprise of nobody who has been paying attention, the German Meat Industry Association has reported that the country will be facing a severe meat shortage by the time spring arrives and consumers should expect prices to skyrocket, potentially doubling in some cases.  It would appear that some people in the German government have never heard of something called the law of supply and demand.  But at least they're going to defeat global warming, right?

Maybe denial is the driving factor in the 2022 election outcome.  Democrat voters are not a monolithic bloc.  Yes, some are hard-core ideologues who swooned over Bernie Sanders.  Some are recipients of public assistance and dependent on Democrat party largesse.  Some are students and recent graduates majoring in insurrection.  But they're not all community organizers, and they don't all hate America.  Most are normal, center-left people who habitually vote Democrat. [...] But consider for a moment what the habitual Democrat would have had to acknowledge to vote Republican on November 8th:
  [#1]   That the President of the United States is a doddering mediocrity.
  [#2]   That the person (or persons) responsible for the policies and decisions emanating from the White House is a matter of conjecture.
  [#3]   That the administration's policies are blatantly extremist and being implemented with ruinous effect.
  [#4]   That proper stewardship of the nation's fiscal and energy resources is utterly lacking — to the point of precipitating a foreseeable crisis.
  [#5]   That large numbers of inner-city youth, trapped in broken homes or broken schools, are not being taught respect, self-control, or the difference between right and wrong.
  [#6]   That the freedoms, values, and checks and balances on which this country was founded are being left grossly unprotected.
  [#7]   That despite mounting challenges we are not presently capable of deterring our adversaries or defeating them on the battlefield.
Perhaps it's all too much to contemplate.  The habitual Democrat voter prefers to remain incongruously oblivious.

Today's blacklisted American: Half of today's students support the death penalty for some speech.  This is no longer a land of the free:  According to a new poll, half of today's college students now believe that the death penalty is justified for some people should they dare express an opinion that offends.  Specifically, the students were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement:  ["]Violence in response to offensive speech is not a new phenomenon.  In some cultures, some types of offensive speech even merit the death penalty.  Some speech can be so offensive in certain cases that it merits such harsh punishment.["]  [A]cross the board, 43% to 55% of students from private and public schools, from all types of majors, from all levels of income, and from across the political spectrum, all agreed with this statement.  The results were remarkably consistent.  Tolerance was not their watchword, but oppression and dictatorship.  If you say something that offends, half of today's students feel justified in calling for your death.

The Editor says...
I wonder how many of the same "students" oppose the death penalty for murder or treason.

There Was No Cheating, Peasant!  The educated class said they cared about the workers.  But they let the workers price themselves out of the market with labor unions, and now the midwestern industrial heartland is a Rust Belt.  You did it, liberals.  The educated class said they cared about the Negroes.  But they swaddled them in welfare so that, by 2010, 72 percent of black babies were born out of wedlock vs. whites at 36 percent.  Eeevil Jim Crow segregationists couldn't have cooked up a better way to wreck black Americans.  You did it, liberals. [...] The educated class decided to help students pay for university education with student debt.  So universities hired a bunch of administrators and cranked up the tuition.  Now a whole generation of young people is drowning in debt.  You did it, liberals.

The 2022 Mid-Terms Exposed the Existence of Two Americas and the Overwhelming Importance of the 2024 Election.  The United States is currently plagued with uncontrolled inflation spiraling into a severe recession, crime is rampant in the nation's cities, the borders are open and uncontrolled, the standard of living is rapidly deteriorating, society is sinking into a morass of premeditated cultural decline, and an increasingly bleak future awaits the vast majority of Americans.  Yet fifty percent of 2022 voters chose to continue this state of affairs by opting to elect or re-elect the politicians that have created or abetted this ongoing national devastation.  Far too many, particularly the younger generations who voted overwhelmingly Democrat, dwell in mindless loyalty to a collectivist tribe, its leaders and its attendant ideology.  In their addled thinking this fidelity outweighs the well-being of themselves or the nation and its citizenry.

In 2022, the GOP had the most favorable political environment ever.
  •   80% of Americans say America is on the wrong track.
  •   58% do not support President Joe Biden.
  •   62% do not support Vice President Kamala Harris.
  •   Democrats have caused the highest inflation in 40 years.
  •   Americans said inflation was their number one issue in this election.
  •   Democrat policies have led to sky-high gas and fuel prices.
  •   Democrats persist in doubling down in their war on fossil fuels.
  •   Democrats continue their anti-police rhetoric.
  •   Democrat efforts to defund the police have contributed to rampant crime and murder in many major cities at epidemic levels.
  •   Democrat open border policies have led to 100,000+ fentanyl/illegal drug deaths in 2021, [...]
  •   Since Joe Biden became president, at least 5,000,000 illegal aliens have responded to his open border policy and invaded America.
  •   Democrats no longer try to hide the extremism of abortion on demand for any reason and up to the moment of birth.
  •   Democrats now require taxpayers to pay for these abortions.
  •   President Biden's abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan led to the worst foreign policy defeat in American history.
  •   Our enemies in Russia, Iraq, and China see that we have a weak, ineffective, and mentally challenged president.

Three Primary Factors Stopped That Red Wave.  The American public, having been fed a steady diet of leftism and dumbed-down curricula from nursery school through graduate school, no longer understands civics or economics, and sees our form of government as somehow inferior to European socialism.  European socialism is only made possible by the U.S. Defense umbrella in the form of NATO, but few understand that distinction.  As a result, Americans don't see the threat to our freedoms that vaccine and mask mandates and lockdowns were and are.  They also don't understand that someone must pay the bill for government handouts, either directly as confiscatory taxes or indirectly as rampant inflation or hyperinflation.  As a result, they tend to vote for the person who promises them something for nothing.

America's Death Wish.  Let's get real: The American people are electing the pols they deserve, demagogues who mirror the woke prejudices of an increasingly propagandized people.  According to the media, "threats to democracy" constituted one of the top concerns of the people.  How lame.  Large segments of the American public clearly swallowed Joe Biden's self-serving malarkey on that subject whole.  Never mind that Biden was clearly referring not to authentic threats to democracy but challenges to regnant liberalism.  Biden is not afraid for democracy but afraid of it.  He desires a one-party state.  The relative success of the Democrats on Tuesday is a measure not of the public's rationality but of its submission to wokeness.  Those in the 18 [to] 29 demographic voted for the Democrats overwhelmingly — a tribute not to their wisdom but to their lack of it.  These voters entered the booth after receiving a warped education at colleges and universities swimming in wokeness.  It is nearly impossible to impress upon this generation the dangers of liberalism.  They simply shrug at any description of them.

The Inflation Reduction Election.  Inflation is hands down the most important issue on the minds of Americans on the eve of the midterm elections.  An Economist/YouGov poll taken of 1,500 American adults in the first week of November found that 68 percent say that they will be thinking about inflation "a lot" when casting a vote in this year's election. [...] The Biden administration has struggled to present a palatable program for fighting inflation.  There was the infamous Inflation Reduction Act, which every reputable economist agreed would do little or nothing to reduce inflation.  According to the Economist/YouGov poll, just 32 percent of Americans say they approve of President Biden's handling of inflation.  Fifty-four percent say they disapprove of Biden on inflation, with 40 percent saying they strongly disapprove.

Biden yells 'There is no more drilling!' just months after claiming he never shut down energy production.  Is there any lie that's just too brazen for old Joe Biden?  Seems not. [...] Biden has blamed Vladimir Putin, OPEC's barons, Big Oil, global warming, Republicans, and all other things he could think of for high prices at the pump.  The one thing he won't do is consider what Americans can see with their own eyes: that before President Trump left office, gas prices were about $2 a gallon.  Now they are $5 and $6 a gallon in California, and well above $3 a gallon in the rest of America.  That's "lived experience."  The clearest reason for that is Biden's policies to halt drilling.  Back in January 2021, Biden signed off on an executive order dictating a ban of oil and gas drilling on federal lands.  Fox News has a string of other bans and hamperings he's done to stop energy production and drive pump prices sky-high.

Seriously, can anyone name a well-run Democratic city?  Can anybody in any Democratic-run city honestly say that their lives — and city — have improved over the last couple of years?  That's a slightly easier question.  As New Yorkers go to the polls it is also a slightly devastating one to ask.  Because it has a devastating answer.  I dare even the most die-hard, dyed-in-the-wool Democrat to say, "Oh, New York has never been better.  In fact, it's just getting better and better."  Does anyone really believe that?  Is there a single person out there who can really say that with a straight face?  As they survey the crime in our city, the homelessness, the waste and rats.  And I'm not even talking about the incumbents of City Hall.  Does anyone think that this great city has become greater in the last two years?  The stats in New York speak for themselves.  Ignore the nightmare year of 2020, and just look at the increase in crime during the last year.  Between July 2021 and July 2022 shooting incidents in New York increased by almost 14%.  The number of murders increased by almost 35%.

It isn't a "failed presidency" if all this destruction is intentional.
Biden is gaslighting Americans about his failed presidency.  The Biden Administration will be known to history for many things:  an open border and its deadly consequences, the abandonment of Afghanistan, weakness that led to catastrophe in Europe, skyrocketing inflation, and the use of federal law enforcement to target political opponents.  The catalog of infamy goes on.  Above all, though, this administration may be remembered for its duplicity — its continual, shameless "gaslighting" of the American people.  Biden, his team, and his sycophantic media supporters repeatedly tell us that "all is well" where it manifestly is not.  No matter how bad things become in the nation, no matter how many people suffer, reality has no purchase on the ideological bubble of this White House.  That is why, in these midterm elections, the American people must deliver to Joe Biden an unequivocal message:  that they refuse to be gaslit, that they are not buying what he is selling.

Gov. Hochul's funding, progressive drug policies transform East Harlem into Zombieland.  Progressive policies funded and foisted on the Big Apple by Gov. Hochul and her left-wing allies have caused a legion of drug-addicted zombies to descend on East Harlem and transform parts of the neighborhood into lawless, open-air shooting galleries, neighbors and critics told The [New York] Post.  The real-life horror show plays out daily in the neighborhood's gritty streets where The Post witnessed dozens of raving, hunched-over junkies commandeering East 126th Street — now the home of a controversial public-injection site — as drug dealers hovered nearby like vultures.  Others along Park Avenue down to East 114th Street have been spotted nodding out, splayed on the sidewalk, and injecting themselves in the neck or through jeans in broad daylight.

The Floyd Effect.  Democratic politicians have been flailing about looking for a way to get off the hook for the historic increase in murder and car crash mayhem ever since our respectable class' leaders declared "the racial reckoning" was at hand following the unfortunate expiration of George Floyd on May 25, 2020.  For example, New York's Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, suddenly finding herself in a tight race with Lee Zeldin largely over the crime surge, kvetched to Zeldin in a debate about crime, "I don't know why that's so important to you." [...] Before getting to the red state vs. blue state issue that everybody wants to talk about, let's look at the national murder trend, which has been jaw-dropping. [...] The argument I find most persuasive for why black-on-black shootings erupted during the anti-cop mania of 2020 is that when our society's leadership told police to not pull over blacks so often, they obeyed.  With reduced fear of being stopped and searched, blacks then started carrying illegal handguns more and driving worse.  Thus, the black car crash death rate also exploded in June 2020:  [Chart]

Why suburban women are flocking to the GOP: As simple as A,B,C.  To hear Democratic candidates, and the party's media cheerleaders, talk now, nobody ever supported defunding the police.  But, of course, Democrats across the board did just that, and GOP candidates, and honest media, have been replaying the video.  In a spasm of post-George Floyd mass hysteria, the political system, and in particular the governments of Democratic-run cities, made drastic cutbacks in police protection, installed revolving-door, no-bail arraignment systems and encouraged the proliferation of homeless encampments and open-air drug markets in many areas.  Unsurprisingly, the result was surging crime.  Around America, downtown businesses have closed, and people — especially women — have felt unsafe in their own neighborhoods.  Crime is now a major issue with the electorate, and even among black voters, the alleged beneficiaries of police defunding, only 17% support defunding the police, per a recent Grio/Kaiser Family Foundation poll.

Even Biden Thinks The Economy Is Going To Crash Next Year.  David Strom at Hot Air noticed something in the Democrats' campaign messaging as the midterm elections draw near.  Namely, the emergence of a talking point about how if Republicans win control of Congress they will "crash the economy."  There's only one reason to say this.  Democrats know they've set the economy on course to crash and they're hoping to blame Republicans when it does.

Democrats Declared War on Democracy Through COVID Tyranny.  Some of us were sounding the alarms on COVID tyranny when it was first starting.  Lockdown policies were never about saving lives but a test to see how many liberties and rights the government could take away without much pushback by the population.  Fear is the main path tyrants take in trying to strip freedom from their citizens.  Scare citizens enough and they will enslave themselves to whatever dictates the dear savior will come up with.  This is replaying itself as we approach the November 8 election.  Democrats destroyed entire families through their COVID lockdown policies which eliminated businesses, put stress on homes, and harmed the intellectual development of children.  Those are years that will be hard to recover, if at all.  COVID tyrants are hoping Americans forget their debacle in handling the pandemic and the tyranny that so many experienced because of it.  Families were unable to visit loved ones.  Churches were shut down, some never to reopen.  Businesses, once staples and pillars of the community, suddenly vanished and are now vacant and rotting with overgrown weeds and mold.

The Blue City Murder Problem.  Those on the Left know that their soft-on-crime policies have wreaked havoc in the cities where they have implemented those policies.  It is not hard to understand why "reforms" such as ending cash bail, defunding the police, refusing to prosecute entire categories of crimes, letting thousands of convicted felons out of prison early, significantly cutting the prison population, and other "progressive" ideas have led to massive spikes in crime — particularly violent crime, including murder — in the communities where those on the Left have implemented them.  Left-wing politicians and their backers recognize that rising crime rates and the lack of a general sense of safety that follows are a problem for them and their chances for reelection.  In fact, recent polls show that voters care a lot about rising crime — an issue that is second only to rising, rampant inflation and the lackluster economy.  So the Left is engaging in political traditions as old as time: obfuscation, finger pointing, and blame shifting.

Will Lucy Move the Football Again?  While the meme of "most important election in our lifetimes" is overused, just a brief review of the past 22 months since the Democrats took control of both houses of Congress and the White House would lead one to think that it might just be true of these mid-term elections:
  •   From energy independence (no longer relying on the Arabs who hate us) and even an exporter of energy, we're now experiencing gas prices two and three times the per gallon price at the end of 2020, plus the prospect of rolling electrical blackouts this winter and beyond, not to mention the higher costs of food and everything else due to higher gas prices.
  •   From the most booming economy in over 50 years, with inflation barely over 1%, we're now facing near-record high inflation of over 8%, while the Democrats (and many treacherous Republicans) voting to spend trillions we don't have, exacerbating the problem.
  •   From a relatively peaceful, safe society, in under two years we have devolved into a crime-ridden hellscape comparable to the horrors we've witnessed in Third World countries.  Democrat district attorneys who will not enforce the law, releasing violent felons without bail to again prey on innocent citizens, have given criminals free rein, knowing they won't be held accountable for their crimes.
  •   While the public schools in the U.S. have long been grievously underperforming, at least they weren't teaching our kids to hate us, to celebrate "gender diversity" and to believe that boys can be girls and girls can be boys.  Nor were they taught to distrust anyone who doesn't look like them, as Critical Race Theory is now doing. [...]
  •   Over five million illegal immigrants have crossed our southern border since Biden took office.  Most are receiving health care, housing, food allotments, etc., paid for by us, the taxpayers, because the Democrats want more voters to ensure they keep political power.
But all these things, and others, are well-documented and reported upon.  The question is, "What are the Republicans going to actually do about it if they regain control of the Congress?"

Don't Cry For Me, America.  We've seen this movie before.  The Democrats' populist giveaway plans can't possibly work, because government bankrupts everything it touches.  History teaches us that ObamaCare and the myriad of government's unfunded entitlement programs will be utter, complete disasters.  Today's Democrats are guilty of more than stupidity; they are enslaving future generations to poverty and misery.  And they will be long gone when it all implodes.  They will be as cold and dead as Juan Perón when the piper must ultimately be paid.  Throughout history, Democrats' Marxist templates for wealth redistribution have proven fatal for civilized societies.

America Is On The Cusp Of A Fundamental Transformation.  No matter how bad Obama's actions while in office, nothing he did compares to Joe Biden.  Since being installed as president, Biden has done an insane number of things that simply make no sense from a rational perspective.  Literally the first thing Biden did was reduce the amount of energy available to Americans. [...] Then, of course, there is the economy.  With the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act, Biden poured trillions of dollars into the economy and drove inflation to levels not seen in 40 years.  Everything, from energy to housing to food to clothing... virtually every single thing Americans use has gone up in price since Biden became president, often by giant leaps.  As a consequence, Americans are fighting to stay afloat financially, with 60% worse off than they were a year ago and a staggering 40% of businesses missing their rent payments in October.

Back to the Carter economy.  The latest edition of "Joe Biden: Bad Ideas" came yesterday when Biden stepped up his attacks on Big Oil and suggested that unless they lower prices he would push to implement a Windfall Profits Tax on the companies, essentially seizing their profits as a punishment for making money.  Such taxes are notoriously idiotic, and even the dimwits in the White House must know that.  It seems like Biden is trying to ruin the economy, and we have hit the point where we have to actually consider that to be a possibility.  Everything he has done to the economy has made things worse, and after a while you have to consider whether it is intentional.

The Cart Before the Horse.  We knew from the get go that freedom was the ticket, that government was the enemy, that God was the foundation on which this nation must be built.  A large portion of our citizenry, unfortunately, has forgotten these things, and the latest generations never learned them in the first place.  We've lost track of the paradoxical fact that you can't have freedom without law.  Not only that, but you can't have law without punishment.  We're seeing that right now as defunded police departments and lax district attorneys are allowing criminals to roam our streets with no fear of retribution.  Inner city dwellers are no longer free to leave their homes and run their businesses.

Every Day is Halloween Now.  Nobody wanted to live in a world in which there's no way to know what is real and what isn't.  But that's the world we live in now.  Costumes have become the norm and normalcy is the aberration.  Men dress up as women.  An NAACP president turned out to be a white woman who identifies as black.  New York State Senator Julia Salazar is an antisemite who identifies as Jewish.  And it's revealed that prominent Indian activist figures, Marlon Brando's Oscar night princess, a prominent academic, a poet, were just white people even though they took to dressing up as Indians all year round.  Identity politics values what people identify as more than who they are.  Magical thinking leads people to believe that life is just a costume that you can change when you want to.  In a world that is becoming increasingly unreal, it's easy to think of reality as endlessly malleable.

Have Democrats Lost Interest in the Working Man?  The Biden-Harris regime began — Day One — with a flurry of executive orders, cancelling the contracts in place for ongoing work on the Keystone XL pipeline.  Most were union construction jobs.  Thousands of workers were thrown out of work on the spot — no notice, no severance — just because the incoming regime's green agenda didn't square with the idea of a pipeline moving Canadian fuel southward.  In state after state along the route, materials were left sitting where they were, work unfinished, people fired and forced to move elsewhere to find new jobs. [...] Drilling, exploration, R&D, everything in the critical oil and gas sector that requires any federal permit, from drilling on federal lands, to drilling on private lands that require government access or government authorization of any kind, slowed to a crawl instantly.  For all intents and purposes, this development just isn't happening anymore.  And that's why gasoline has more than doubled in price.

America's energy crisis is mostly US Democrats' fault.  [Thread reader]  America is experiencing our worst energy crisis since the 1970s.  High oil prices are making driving expensive, while high natural gas prices are making heating and electricity far more expensive — above all in the Northeast, where some ratepayers might see prices >2X last winter's.  Here's a chart of residential natural gas prices over the last several winters from the US Energy Information Administration.  Notice the massive spike projected for this winter — meaning record heating bills for many.  [Chart]  Democrats are claiming there's nothing they could have done about today's oil and natural gas prices.  These prices, they say, are outside America's control because they are largely set by global markets.  In fact, had Ds been pro-oil/gas our prices would be much lower.

The Economic Disaster of the Pandemic Response.  The sick and well alike were quarantined through the use of stay-at-home orders, domestic capacity limits, and business, school, and church shutdowns.  This occurred not only in the U.S., but worldwide — with the notable exception of perhaps five nations and the state of South Dakota.  Needless to say, the consequences were profound.  Coercion can be used to turn off an economy.  But given the resulting trauma, turning an economy back on is not so easy.  That is why, 30 months later, we are experiencing the longest period of declining real income since the end of World War II, a health crisis, an education crisis, an exploding national debt, 40-year high inflation, continued and seemingly random shortages, dysfunction in labor markets, a breakdown of international trade, a dramatic collapse in consumer confidence, and a dangerous level of political division.

New York, New England Begin Rationing Heating Oil — Before Peak Winter Has Even Hit.  Biden's war on oil has consequences, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.  We've already gotten a taste of it nationwide with persistent, sky-high gas prices.  In California, we felt it this summer as our power grid was stretched to capacity by heat waves and we were subject to rolling brown-outs along with warnings not to use appliances or charge electric cars.  How very First World. [...] Bloomberg is reporting that the rationing of heating oil is already underway, despite it not even yet being November.  The reason:  stockpiles are at 30 percent of their normal levels. [...] The bottom line?  Americans will pay almost 30 percent more to heat their homes than last year — the most in 25 years.  Biden will continue to blame Vladimir Putin and the invasion of Ukraine for our oil woes, and scold Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for refusing to bend the knee and pump more oil, but it's Joe's own fault we're in this mess.

The Economy Will Never Prosper Under Biden: Here's Why.  The White House has also promised to use "every lever at its disposal — including regulatory action — to deliver on the president's priorities, including containing the pandemic, driving a durable economic recovery, advancing equity, and combating climate change."  We are already seeing the fruits of Biden's approach.  A recession in the first half of the year.  Sky-high inflation.  Widespread despair.  What the left can't seem to understand is that when government gets active, businesses get passive.  They become more risk averse.  Compliance costs weigh them down.  Long-term investments become problematic if you don't know what the rules will be down the road.  This is one big reason why energy production has never recovered after the pandemic — the oil and gas industry has no idea what lies ahead.  So, as Biden's regulators descend upon the land, the economy will — as it was throughout Barack Obama's eight years — be on a long and dreary slog.  Indeed, Biden's regulatory zeal will probably ramp up if Republicans win big in November, since his legislative agenda will be caput.

Misplaced Compassion Puts Lives in Jeopardy.  The shooter, Nestor Hernandez, was there to visit his girlfriend, who had just given birth to his child.  Hernandez is a 30-year-old lifelong criminal with a rap sheet going back to his teens.  He had been in and out of the Dallas criminal justice system for such charges as robbery and felony assault before he was twenty, and he earned his first serious jail time — an eight-year sentence — after a violent burglary in which he and his accomplice repeatedly beat up a woman to gain access to her apartment and car.  For that one, Nestor Hernandez pled guilty in September 2015 to "aggravated robbery," which could have won him anywhere from five to 99 years in jail.  They gave him eight.  Only they didn't.  If he'd served the full eight years, he'd still have been in jail.  He wouldn't have been free to acquire a girlfriend, get her pregnant, visit her at the hospital, beat her up, and kill two hospital employees.  So what happened?  The system decided to show "compassion" to this model prisoner with a violent history, a rap sheet going back to his childhood, and gang tattoos on his face and neck.  They didn't even make him stay the full eight years but let him out of jail on October 20, 2021, after just six years.  They installed an ankle bracelet and called it "parole."  It was this choice that enabled him to put this girlfriend in a position where he could visit her hospital room and start killing innocent bystanders on October 22, just a year after he was freed.

Phoenix, Atlanta, and Miami Metros See Fastest Inflation.  The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that the consumer price index rose 8.2% in September compared with the year before, but that national average hides the fact that prices are rising faster and higher in certain parts of the nation.  Breaking the country into the same subregions used by the Census Bureau, the rate of price increases that consumers pay for goods ranges from 7.2% in the Northeast to 9.6% in the Mountain States.  More local measures show an even greater range in price increases, from 5.7% in metropolitan San Francisco to 13% in metropolitan Phoenix.

Now Mired In Crime, The City That Kicked Off The 'Defund The Police' Movement Is Struggling To Recruit New Officers.  Minneapolis is having a tough time restaffing its police force amid a crime wave after officers left en masse following the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, according to The Associated Press.  Then-Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said the department lost almost 300 officers by October 2021 to causes including retirement, resignation and disability leave for claimed post-traumatic stress disorder following Floyd's death and large-scale protests, according to Newsweek.  The department has reportedly seen applicant numbers drop from 292 in 2019 to 57 this year, with its September graduating recruiting class only featuring six people, according to the AP.  "In Minneapolis, with what we've been through for the last couple years, for you to be here and have an interest in law enforcement ... I'm impressed with every one of you that's here," training officer Matthew Hobbs told attendees at a March recruitment information session, the outlet reported.

America's crime epidemic keeps growing thanks to radical leftist prosecutors and their social experiments.  The United States has a crime epidemic, and it is being further fueled by certain prosecutors who are more interested in radical leftist ideologies than in enforcing the law.  These prosecutors are becoming disturbingly more common in many states and communities, and they have no reservations about sacrificing the safety and security of their residents to perform their deeply misguided and ridiculously dangerous social experiments.  In many jurisdictions around the United States, an increasing number of violent criminals are being released from custody as they await their trials — or given mere slaps on the wrists in plea deals that do nothing to rehabilitate them or to protect the community.  This is a recipe for disaster and anarchy, and cities across the country are paying a catastrophic price as a result.

Biden's Destroying the Economy.  Is It Intentional?  Here are seven Biden administration steps to undermine an economy and a society from within. [...]
  [#1]   Dismantle the nation's energy supply
  [#2]   Don't enforce the border
  [#3]   Devalue the nation's currency through inflation
  [#4]   Destroy the nation's finances by running up the debt by multiple trillions of dollars
  [#5]   Divide rather than unite the nation
  [#6]   Dumb down and indoctrinate our children with anti-American propaganda in the schools and media
  [#7]   Decriminalize a lot

Biden Is 'Buying Votes' Ahead of Midterm Elections With Policy Decisions: Rep. Lauren Boebert.  [Scroll down] In 2021, when green energy policies caused gasoline prices to soar, Biden directed the Department of Energy to release 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which amounts to about two and a half days' worth of the nation's consumption.  When gas prices continued to climb, Biden dipped into the reserves several more times.  By July 29, the SPR had reached its lowest level since 1985.  As of Oct. 14, the SPR had about 405 million barrels, down from 638 million barrels in January 2021 when Biden took office.  Congress created the SPR in 1975 to protect the United States from volatility in oil markets and to ensure an inventory of energy supplies in emergencies, such as war or natural disasters.  The United States just reached the end of peak hurricane season, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently threatened NATO forces with nuclear weapons.  Boebert said Biden and Democrat lawmakers are skirting legislative procedure to buy the votes they haven't earned over the past two years.

Biden's Next Crisis: Home Heating Oil Rationing Begins in Northeast, and It's Not Even Winter Yet.  It looks like President Joe Biden might get his winter of death after all, and it's not because of the unvaccinated.  If you live in the Northeast, you know that even in normal times, heating oil bills constitute a significant expense because winters are usually brutal.  Unfortunately, this year could be the worst year ever for residents of the region hoping to adequately heat their homes.  Not only are heating oil prices through the roof on anti-fossil fuel President Joe Biden's watch, but even for those who have the funds to stock up, it doesn't really matter:  heating oil rationing is already taking place.  Rationing.  Like toilet paper and baby formula rationing.  Why is all this rationing happening on Biden's watch?  For the record, we never once worried about rationing under former President Donald Trump.

The Democrats' Bizarro World.  [Scroll down] Is that not what the Democrat Party has created right here in America, transforming a once prosperous, strong, united, and safe nation into a debt-laden, militarily weak, socially divided, and increasingly dangerous society?  Here are some of the Bizarro policies and beliefs inflicted on us by the neo-socialist, globalist, anti-American Democrat Party over the past few decades:  Although leftists and atheists may deny it, the writings of the Founders make clear that the Classical Liberalism upon which this nation was founded stemmed from Judeo-Christian principles.  The self-discipline, respect for law and order, and Protestant work ethic that helped build the U.S. created the most prosperous and militarily mighty nation in history.  But the leftist Democrats can't have that, for Christian principles block their irresponsible and increasingly perverse demands, so God had to go, leading to the continual erosion of Judeo-Christian principles, plunging our nation into the current chaos.

Our Enemies Walk Among Us.  All the poverty you see around you, all the lack, the financial pain in the faces you pass, the lost businesses of the last three years, the titanic risk in the markets, the actual recession, all of it has been engineered.  We all, all of us, every single one of us, should be three times as wealthy, and three times as creative.  The most visible result of their malfeasance is homelessness.  Which has been engineered to shame you.  Entirely.  100%.  Every time you drive by some poor soul dying on the sidewalk, you are meant to feel
  1. Guilt
  2. Anger at the system (capitalism) and
  3. an urge to vote for the compassionate left who promise to work only for the dispossessed.
It's a psy-op.  It is why the homeless population is front and center in the richest, most beautiful city in the world:  San Francisco.  This fact is meant to shout that no matter how much money private enterprise generates, capitalism means losers, addicts, madmen and women, because our system is brutal and must be changed.  San Francisco's beauty and reputation mean that its homeless catastrophe is publicized all over the world.

In Ukraine, The Democrats Have Locked Us Into A Pointless, Dangerous War.  Our southern border is being overrun by cartels, drugs, and illegal aliens.  It is, from almost any perspective, an invasion.  Rampant crime is wreaking havoc on our cities.  Inflation is out of control, and the price of gasoline continues to rise.  Is it possible that there are bigger fish to fry than spending untold billions that we don't have to protect borders that are not ours?  How well have our past efforts at policing the world worked out for us?  Well, there was Vietnam.  We know how well that worked out.  Then there's Afghanistan.  That's still an open wound that will not heal anytime soon.  And who could forget Iraq and its WMDs?  It's not exactly a stellar list of accomplishments.  It is, however, the very definition of insanity that we would want to try this again with a country that controls the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. [...] Joe Biden says we will support Ukraine for "as long as it takes."  As long as it takes to do what?  What is the objective?

Why Everything Is a Mess and You're Paying For It.  There's a reason inflation and the economy are the most prominent issues in voters' minds:  For almost two years, the cost of every last thing you buy has been going up at a pace that considerably outstrips the (nominal) growth in wages.  What that means is simple: Your standard of living is going down.  And the electorate correctly senses that our real problems have only just begun.  The consensus is that because inflation is continuing at a high if not ruinous rate, the Fed will continue to have to raise interest rates to suppress business activity and consumer demand.  That means we're in for a recession.  The only realistic questions among those willing to face reality are how deep and for how long.  Among the MSM, of course, it's impolite to say "recession," so you don't hear it that much (and won't until after November 8).  The only things it's polite to say are "abortion" and "January 6."

Biden's Diesel Fuel Supply Crisis Could Soon Cripple America in Ways Never Before Seen.  Oil prices and President Joe Biden's continued draining of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) have dominated the headlines over the past few weeks, but analysts say a more impactful and serious crisis on the energy front looms:  a diesel fuel shortage.  Diesel doesn't get as much of the limelight as oil and gas, but it should because diesel fuel is the industrial lifeblood of the United States, and the price of diesel alone probably has a more significant impact on inflation and the prices you're paying at the grocery store over any other factor.  Without ample amounts of diesel, semi-trucks don't move, farms are shut down, and critical manufacturing sectors are crippled.

Top Democrat Admits 'All of Us Knew' Their Party's Policies Would Cause Inflation.  For many, many months, Joe Biden has blamed everyone else for inflation.  He once falsely claimed that "inflation started under Trump" and that inflation was was caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.  More recently, he's tried to blame the Russia war in Ukraine for inflation, which Biden dubbed "Putin's price hike."  Back in June, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted that she and Biden were wrong about the impact inflation would have.  "Well, look, I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take.  As I mentioned, there have been unanticipated and large shocks to the economy that have boosted energy and food prices and supply bottlenecks that have affected our economy badly that I didn't — at the time didn't fully understand," Yellen told CNN.  "But we recognize that now."

The Editor says...
If you don't "fully understand" what could happen before it does happen, you shouldn't be the Treasury Secretary.

Democrat Senate Incumbents Refuse Responsibility for Fueling Inflation, Gas Prices.  Four embattled Senate Democrat incumbents have set a pattern of refusing to take responsibility for soaring inflation and gas prices that have occurred in record-setting fashion under their leadership. [...] On Thursday, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), who is losing in the polls to Republican Adam Laxalt, claimed gas prices are spiking because oil companies are not producing enough oil.  "Instead of increasing supply, they're taking in profits," she tweeted.  Masto did not mention that gas prices have spiked since Democrats regained control of the executive branch, legislative branch, and administration state in 2021.  Nor did she mention President Joe Biden's campaign promise to reduce oil drilling.  In the last two years, the Biden administration has succeeded in driving up private and public financing costs of oil drilling, halting drilling on public lands, and canceling the Keystone pipeline.

Fists of furry.  A vigilant group of parents and kids in Jefferson County have been hounding school officials about the bizarre presence of "furries" in Colorado middle schools and high schools since February 2022.  This is not a "GOP talking point" or an election-season ploy.  This is not a joke or satire.  It's real, it's disruptive, and it's sick. [...] Back in February, a parent had informed JeffCo's "chief student success officer" Matt Palaoro about rabid furries at Wayne Carle Middle School who wore "cat/dog ears, tails, fur gloves, collars, and leashes" while threatening peers who objected.  The parent's son reported that the costumed students would "hiss, bark, scratch, and meow" at students who objected to the behavior.  Another child reported that the herd of furries would "walk on all 4s in the hallway" and "also eat with their face in their food."  Back in March, parents at Drake Middle School in Jeffco met with principal Melinda Feir to alert her of the classroom disruptions caused by the human pet parade.

CEO blasts San Francisco as 'city of chaos,' closes store over rampant crime.  The CEO of a popular clothing brand Cotopaxi is closing the company's only San Francisco store due to "organized theft rings" and a lack of safety in the city, he announced this week.  CEO Davis Smith announced the closure in a lengthy post on social media, saying the location faces regular attacks by thieves with virtually no response from law enforcement.  "We are closing the store due to rampant organized theft and lack of safety for our team.  Our store is hit by organized theft rings several times per week.  They brazenly enter the store and grab thousands of dollars of product and walk out," Smith wrote.  "We started keeping the door locked and opening it only for customers, but even then, they'll have a woman go to the door, and then hiding individuals rush into the store as soon as the door opens.  Our team is terrified.  They feel unsafe.  Security guards don't help because these theft rings know that security guards won't/can't stop them," he added.

Eight things that killed the Democrat Party.  [#8] Crime:  Because of the Democrat rule in blue cities, crime is not being prosecuted in the name of some weird kind of reparations.  What the Democrats don't get is that they hurt their own innocent population by allowing criminals a get-out-jail-free card, and by not prosecuting at all.  Their racist policies hurt the very people they claim to want to help.  Why are they doing this?  To deliberately create chaos in the execution of anti-white racism.  The one solution to the rising crime rate, the prosecution and incarceration of criminals, is the one thing blue cities under Democrat rule will not do.  Mayor Lightfoot makes weird and demonic home videos of herself dancing around in what appears to be a drugged stupor.  Rather than be a responsible mayor, she has totally ignored the death-by-violence rate in Chicago.  This is another very clear example of Democrats doing what they do best; destroying things.

New England facing natural gas shortages, rolling blackouts this winter.  Winter is on the way here in the northeast, as I was reminded when the local weatherman told me that it might snow here this week.  In the middle of October.  But the annoyance of potentially having to break out the snow shovels before Halloween has arrived is small potatoes compared to what may be coming in a couple of months.  Power grid operator ISO New England issued a warning to consumers this week about the effects that a particularly cold winter (as is being projected) could have on heating and electrical power consumption limits.  The northeast relies heavily on natural gas for home and business heating needs.  But many of the power plants in the region also run on natural gas.

The Editor says...
Which political party opposes drilling, fracking, pipelines, and methane emissions?  Which political party has been claiming for the last 30 years that the world is heating up at a dangerous rate?  Which political party opposes the use of petroleum and coal because of an irrational fear of carbon dioxide?  When you're freezing this winter, that's the political party you should blame.

Americans Make Huge Sacrifices As Bidenflation Rises To 12.8%.  The Consumer Price Index (CPI) released by the government last Thursday showed an 8.2% year-over-year price increase from September 2021 to September 2022.  The CPI has edged down steadily from a 40-year high of 9.1% in June to 8.2% in September.  The official CPI does not tell the whole story of price increases under President Biden.  Bidenflation, measured by the TIPP CPI using the same underlying data, stood at 12.8% in September.  It was 12.6% in August and July and 12.7% in June.  We developed the TIPP CPI, a metric that uses February 2021, the month after President Biden's inauguration, as its base.

How 'woke' policies turned Downtown San Francisco into an urban drug-den.  Earlier this month, old-fashioned Xeroxed copies of a newspaper article appeared across the Mid-Market neighborhood in Downtown San Francisco.  The article, from the San Francisco Chronicle, featured the headline: "S.F. D.A. Brooke Jenkins says she'll consider murder charges for fentanyl dealers."  The article was taped to walls on neighborhood corners regularly frequented by drug dealers.  At least one of those Xerox copies had the headline translated into Spanish — all the better for the dealers in question, most of whom are Honduran nationals, to get the message.  The photocopies were distributed by Matt Dorsey, Supervisor for the district that includes the Mid-Market area, which is adjacent to the Tenderloin (in San Francisco, which is both a county and a city, Supervisors are the equivalent of City Council members in other cities).  Dorsey's office had organized a neighborhood clean-up and the Supervisor had handed the article for volunteers to promote.  Dorsey is himself a recovering addict and prior to becoming Supervisor, he was the Communications Director for the San Francisco Police Department.  Ridding the neighborhood of drug dealers is his number one priority — a goal he shares with new District Attorney Jenkins.

The Democrats are responsible for the hardships faced by citizens.  Inflation is at a 40-year high making essential commodities expensive.  Even the price of candy reached its highest recorded mark which will impact Halloween celebrations.  The price of gasoline continues to rise.  The border is open causing over 4.9 million migrant to enter the US since Biden took over, and the smuggling of illicit narcotics is resulting in numerous drug overdose deaths.  The rate of violent crimes in the U.S. is rising while the murder rate spiked by 30%, the highest increase since record-keeping began in 1960.  Democrats are placing restrictions on firearms, which are the only affordable means of defense for citizens.  The Democrats were responsible for the lockdowns that infringe upon the right of movement and the right to earn a living.  The Democrats impose vaccine mandates that eliminate the right of choice.  The Democrats desperately want to change the topic.  Hence the focus on the 'insurrection'.  The goal of the January 6th committee was never to find facts, it was instead to persecute their main political opponent, Donald Trump.

Mother Horrified to Learn Son's Death Is Scheduled in Two Weeks After Skimming Through His Email.  A mother in Canada was horrified when she discovered that her son had made an appointment to kill himself with the help of a doctor.  The incident shines a light on how Canada's assisted suicide program has spun entirely out of control.  On Sept. 7, Toronto resident Margaret Marsilla logged in to her 23-year-old son's email account and discovered that he had applied for permission from the Canadian government to be killed.  A doctor had approved the request and scheduled the murder for Sept. 22, Common Sense reported.

Biden To Gig Workers: Drop Dead.  In essence, the White House wants to outlaw gig work in America.  No, it's not saying so outright.  The Biden Labor Department obscures that harsh reality with words meant to deceive.  Labor Secretary Marty Walsh says the department's proposal is needed to safeguard "our nation's most vulnerable workers," and ensure they are not deprived "of their federal labor protections."  Left out is the part that, should the proposal become policy, millions of Americans will be stripped of their jobs and income.  Under its rule, the Labor Department would be free to "determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act."  And it will determine in every case that the worker in question must be a hired employee, no longer free to continue his or her job as an independent contractor.

America today vs. 1950 — what we are missing.  There was a time — and it wasn't that long ago — when kids would leave home on a summer morning and roam free," reports npr.org. [...] Today's children are not being taught any kind of survival skills," writes Traci Baker at grit.com.  "I know adults who can't count change, who can't write checks, some who can't even pump their own gas or find their way home without help.  We are setting ourselves up for disaster.  And no, using computers and cell phones are not considered survival or even basic skills!"  "There are many benefits to unsupervised outdoor play and experiences in nature, including a reduction in obesity and the symptoms of anxiety, depression and ADHD," reports theconversation.com.  "Research has shown that children learn self-control over their own actions and decisions in this time alone without their parents.  Without time unsupervised, children may not develop a sense of self-control or an ability to judge and manage risk on their own."

Wasn't Legalizing Pot Supposed To Reduce Crime?  [A]nyone pushing for legalized marijuana should look at what's going on in California before cheering this on.  That state, as have several others, legalized marijuana on the promise that it would reduce crime, improve public health, increase traffic safety, and stimulate the economy.  Instead of wasting time prosecuting people for possession or for selling pot, states could capture a new revenue source by taxing it.  Legalization would also mean that states could regulate it, presumably making the marijuana safer and free of adulterants.  So far, 19 states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for nonmedical use, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

[The] Army [is] Scrambling to Explain [its] Massive Recruitment Failure.  The U.S. Army is scrambling after missing recruitment numbers in 2022 by wide margins.  "The Army plans to increase its investment in marketing and is expected to expand a new program for struggling recruits, but leaders on Monday offered few new details on how they'll fill the ranks after falling far short of recruiting goals this year," the Associated Press reports.  "Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told reporters that a new recruiting task force is coming up with ideas.  But any new plans would have to gel quickly in order to reverse the dramatically low enlistment numbers over the past year.  For the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the Army enlisted just 75% of its goal — falling 15,000 soldiers short of the 60,000 target.  It was the only service to miss its recruiting goal, but all of the others had to dig deep into their pools of delayed entry applicants, which will put them behind as they begin the next recruiting year on Saturday."

Ex-NYPD Chief Says Left-Wing DAs are Causing the Spike in Crime.  Left-wing district attorneys implementing policies such as bail reform bear significant responsibility for the nationwide spike in crime, former New York City police commissioner Bill Bratton argued Monday.  Many cities' district attorneys sympathetic to "criminal justice reform" are releasing criminals who should be in jail, Bratton told NewsNation's Chris Cuomo in an interview aired Monday.  Such cities have borne the brunt of the crime wave thanks to bail reforms and other criminal justice reforms, he said.  [Video clip]

How Different Would America Be Today if Trump was Still President?  Let's start with the obvious.  How did this happen?  The 2020 election was stolen.  That's how they removed Trump from office and installed a man who doesn't know who he is, where he is, or what he's doing.  A man who can't put 2 sentences together, and who can't attract more than 20 people in concentric circles to his speeches, yet they want us to suspend reality and believe he got 81 million votes — the most in history.  Bizarre.  And look what they did to us after rigging and stealing the election.  They quickly put a plan in place to disassemble America; overwhelm the economy, make America poor, destroy the middle class, make America unsafe, and to open the borders and make America foreign to Americans.  And as a bonus, they put in place a disastrous foreign policy of liberal weakness, wokeness and appeasement that has set the entire world on fire.

Yes, New York's Bail Reform Has Increased Crime.  Pre-trial detention in New York State is not supposed to be conditioned on whether a person is likely to reoffend.  Both before and after bail reform, judges must release offenders on "the least restrictive alternative and condition or conditions that will reasonably assure the principal's return to court" — that is, minimize his risk of failure to appear.  Manhattan Institute scholars have emphasized time and again that New York State is unique in prohibiting judges from giving any consideration to public safety risk in remand decisions.  But even given that reality, a shift toward less-restrictive pretrial detention conditions on average seems to have driven up the risk of rearrest following release.  Perhaps the increase in crime identified above will be offset by a reduction in future offending, given the long-run criminogenic effects of jail.  On the other hand, the most relevant study to New York finds that the incapacitating effect of jail pretrial slightly outweighs its criminogenic effect post-release, at least within the study period.  In any case, those effects are heterogenous.  Some detainees are career criminals, for whom the benefits of keeping them behind bars almost certainly outweigh criminogenic costs; others are not.

Biggest Food Stamp Hike Ever, Thanks to Bidenflation.  Food stamp benefits are increasing by 12.5 percent as families grapple with grocery prices that have skyrocketed under President Joe Biden.  Under the maximum benefit, a family of four on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will see their payments increase from $835 to $939 per month.

The Democrats Wrecked My Retirement.  Biden printed billions of dollars to spread around and bribe voters, calling it "COVID relief," and paid people to stay home and not work.  Now, under Biden, we have 8 [to] 9% inflation and a labor participation rate that is the lowest it's been since the 1970s.  Prices are out of sight.  The supply chain has collapsed, and shortages of household staples have become so commonplace that it's just an accepted way of life in 2022.  The administration puts forth an abomination deceitfully labeled the "Inflation Reduction Act," knowing there is not one single thing in that bill that is intended to reduce inflation.  Now the Fed is raising interest rates to try to calm inflation.  In order for that to work, it has to crush consumer demand so suppliers will reduce their pricing in order to entice a weak and shrinking pool of customers to buy something.  Nice going, Joe. [...] Retirement accounts are in a shambles.  Two short years ago, things looked great.  Now there's a financial/investment canyon that will likely take ten years to recover from.

Under Bidenomics, A 'Soft Landing' For Economy Is No Longer Possible.  The Democratic Party's faithful are whistling past the graveyard, hoping with all their might we'll avoid an economic slide.  As a matter of general economics, we're already in a recession.  And it looks like things will soon get worse, not better.  "We hope we can have what they say, 'a soft landing,' a transition to a place where we don't lose the gains that I ran to make in the first place for middle-class folks, being able to generate good-paying jobs and — expansion," President Joe Biden told CBS' 60 Minutes last month.  Good luck with that, Mr. President.  Even members of your own party think it's hogwash.  As economist Larry Summers, who advised both Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, said last week, a soft landing is "really quite unlikely."  We agree, as do most economists of our acquaintance.

Dems in Disarray as 'Comeback' Narrative Completely Falls Apart.  [Scroll down] The problem for Democrats, however, is that most elections usually boil down to one thing:  the economy.  If people generally feel like they're doing well, the party of the person who occupies the Oval Office tends to do well at the ballot box.  If those same voters are feeling the pinch come election time, though, the outcome for the president's party typically is not good.  The latter has consistently been the case for President Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer going back for at least a year or so as inflation and a volatile job market along with the supply chain crisis, rising interest rates and rising food and gas prices hit middle-class Americans hard.

Coal power plant closure leaves schools underfunded, hundreds unemployed in NM.  The clamor of second graders breaking away from lessons to form lunch lines has gotten quieter in a rural New Mexico community, where families losing coal jobs have been forced to pack up and leave in search of work.  At Judy Nelson Elementary, 1 in 4 students have left in an exodus spurred by decisions made five years ago to shutter a coal-fired power plant and mine that sit just up the road from the school in a largely Navajo community.  The plant and mine had provided electricity to millions of people across the southwestern U.S. for nearly a half-century.  The San Juan Generating Station burned its last bit of coal Thursday.  The remaining workers will spend the coming weeks draining water from the plant, removing chemicals and preparing to tear down what has long been fixture on the high-desert horizon.

Why We Will Never Control Medical Costs.  The purposes of medicine are expanding rapidly beyond treating actual illnesses/injuries and promoting wellness, to also facilitating life fulfillment and making personal dreams come true.  Latest case in point:  A gay couple has filed a class-action complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) against the City of New York, suing for unlawful workplace discrimination because they were denied coverage for fertility services.  If successful, health insurance nationally may eventually be required to pay for IVF/surrogacy services for male gay couples.

Stock Market Tanked 14 Percent Since Biden's Inflationary Boondoggle Passed.  The stock market continued its downward spiral on Thursday as the economy struggles to cope with Democrats' reckless spending adding fuel to runaway inflation.  All three benchmark indexes closed under their opening value with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 450 points.  The NASDAQ dropped nearly 3 percent Thursday and the S&P 500 fell by nearly 80 points.  The Dow's decline marks a continued trend since the signature passage of President Joe Biden's dubiously named "Inflation Reduction Act" on Aug. 16.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average has now fallen nearly 5,000 points, or more than 14 percent, in the aftermath of Biden's bill becoming law.

There's a major reason why the world in 2022 is like the world in 1939.  [Scroll down] At the very moment when a fragile peace could have been worked out and negotiators begun to solve the differences between Russia and Ukraine, Joe Biden steps in and does what he does best, mess things up.  The timeline here is interesting.  Even though, on March 10, the US promised Ukraine $13 billion and, on March 26, Biden told the world that Putin "cannot remain in power," the Russian and Ukrainian negotiators were still able to come to an agreement on a peace deal.  And staggeringly, Joe Biden scuttled it.  Here we are in September, and much of the world is in recession, prices for everything are up dramatically, the US has provided Ukraine with upwards of $60 billion in aid, and Europe is facing energy shortages and skyrocketing prices just as winter approaches.  And now nuclear war is in the air.  All of this because Joe Biden wants revenge on Russia for something it didn't even do.

Why some polls show a dead heat for a generic ballot.  The Afghanistan withdrawal was perhaps the most serious foreign policy mistake in U.S. history.  It left the Taliban billions of dollars of state-of-the-art military equipment and the Bagram air base which is in spitting distance from China.  Joe Biden's ill-conceived spending kicked off the inflation that is currently sullying the lives of millions of Americans.  Drunk with power, Biden gleefully imposed mask and vaccine mandates on millions of Americans — law enforcement, military, federal employees, etc.  Those who were wisely skeptical and refused the experimental jab lost their jobs.  As it turns out, they were the smart ones; the vaccines were ineffective and have caused countless deaths and vaccine injuries far more devastating than COVID.  The mortality rate among young people is up by forty percent.  Biden gleefully put an end to our energy independence that President Trump had won.  He cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada and ended drilling on most federal lands.  He has drained our strategic oil reserves at a most inopportune time.  This can only be a purposeful plan to destroy America as founded.

America is being attacked from within.  The United States' biggest threat isn't foreign nations, it is the systematic dismantling of the foundations of democracy, it's the woke philosophy of the left and methodical uncoupling of a nation that poses the biggest risks, according to Number 45.  "Where did my America go, seriously?  I mean this wholeheartedly folks," asked One America News Network host Dan Ball at the beginning of the September 26 segment featuring former President Donald Trump.  "Where did the America that I grew up in, the America that millions of people across this globe are trying to reach and become citizens each and every year?  That America.  The America that for decades the entire world looked to for freedom, for liberty, for security?  The America that used to value a hard day's work.  That protected our future, our children?"  Trump had a solid answer:  the Democrat Party broke that America and we are dangerously close to a point of no return.

Bidenomics: $9 trillion in private wealth [was] wiped out in stock plunge.  [Scroll down] Where does this stock downturn and its accompanying wealth loss come from?  It's brought on by Joe Biden's complete inability to resolve the energy crisis of his own making by removing his roadblocks to fossil fuel production, and his even worse ability to rein in government spending.  During his short, vacation-laden presidency, he's signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, the Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act, and the Emergency Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, both of which could be worth more than a trillion dollars, plus a bill to raise the national debt limit by an extra $2.5 trillion so he could have lots of extra room for cash to spend.  This year, he signed the badly misnamed "Inflation Reduction Act" of 2022, which tacked on another $732 billion.  As if that were not enough, his 530-and-counting executive orders have cost American taxpayers another $532 billion, with that number set to rise to about $800 billion if his student loan forgiveness scheme goes through.

Stocks Have Lost $7.6 Trillion in Value Since Biden Took Office.  Joe Biden destroys everything he touches. [...] The stock market has also taken a brutal beating since Joe Biden was installed.  Fox News is now reporting that the stock market is down $7.6 trillion since Joe Biden took office.  [Video clip]

When do we see President Biden wearing a sweater?  You think the price of everything is up?  Wait until the seasons change up north and your electricity bill shows up in the mailbox.  Talk about sticker shock.  Talk about people rediscovering their fireplaces to keep their homes warm, not just to share a glass of wine with their favorite person. [...] The Democrats may get lucky because most of these big bills will get mailed out after Thanksgiving.  Nevertheless, this is a great opportunity to remind the voters that our energy cost crisis was largely self-inflicted.  We have all the energy we need to keep our costs down.  We are not Europe, having to depend on Putin for energy.  We have our own and could flood the market with oil and natural gas to keep prices down.  We did it under President Trump.  Are you ready for a presidential speech about wearing a sweater and controlling your thermostat?

SPR Oil Level Hits 40-Year Low as Hurricane Season Fires Up.  Thanks, Brandon.  [A]lmost anytime even a moderate strength hurricane enters the Gulf of Mexico, oil production on the rigs at sea to the refineries that dot the southern U.S. Gulf Coast tends to shut down or is heavily restricted until the storm passes.  For especially ferocious storms that hit vulnerable areas in the Gulf and trigger longer work stoppages at the refineries or rigs, the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) usually makes the news headlines, as the U.S. government relies on the emergency supply of crude oil to keep the country running and to stave off high prices and panic.  That's what it's there for — emergencies.  The U.S. government has tapped the SPR after several hurricanes in the past, including Ida, Gustaf, and, of course, Katrina.  But under the current administration, the SPR is also routinely used as a political expediency tool.  President Joe Biden, in a desperate effort to bring gas prices down after they skyrocketed thanks mainly to his anti-American energy independence policies, has released and sold off hundreds of millions of barrels of oil from the SPR.

Trump's 2020 Warning About Biden Comes True.  A clip of former President Donald Trump arguing that the election of President Joe Biden would lead to a plummeting stock market circulated online on Friday after Wall Street saw a bloodbath.  The Federal Reserve increased targets for the federal funds rate by 0.75% on Wednesday afternoon, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which tracks 30 of the most prominent companies on American exchanges, tumbling more than 500 points.  After stagnating on Thursday, the index fell another 500 points by early Friday afternoon to 29,400.  On January 20, 2021, the day of Biden's inauguration, the Dow had closed slightly above 30,900.  "They said the stock market will boom if I am elected," Trump said during a 2020 presidential debate.  "If he's elected, the stock market will crash."

[New York] City kids seeking therapy after unending exposure to vagrants and addicts.  New York City school kids are losing their minds over the zonked-out drug addicts and raving vagrants they encounter every day — and are flocking to therapists to find ways to cope with the stress, The [New York] Post has learned.  In neighborhoods such as Hell's Kitchen "a lot" of kids are now in therapy, according to mom Katie Hamill, 43, whose 7-year-old daughter is being treated for anxiety.  "My daughter has seen [bad things], you name it, she has seen it. ... consistently and constantly.  She is in this constant state of panic," said Hamill, who works in real estate.  The little girl gets upset when she sees "the dying people" — the junkies who look dead whom she thinks no one is helping, the mom said.  And she sees far too much vile behavior from adults, including one addict trying to rip out his hair after getting high at a West 42nd Street playground.

Real estate sales drop 34% in Seattle as crime ravaged West Coast sees prices tumble.  Seattle's housing market is slowing faster than any in the country, a new study has revealed — as cash-strapped buyers increasingly shy away from home purchases.  The study, from real estate firm Redfin, ranked the nation's most populous hubs using metrics such as prices, price drops, and supply — and found that the real estate market is cooling fastest primarily along the West Coast.  Property prices along West Coast metropolitan areas are understood to be dipping because of a glut of properties on the market, amid a mass exodus of citizens deterred by rising mortgage rates, crime, and warnings of a looming recession.

Running the World into the Ground.  Who can claim to be better off under Biden?  The economy has tanked, inflation is at a 40-year high, people can't afford to heat their homes or fill up their cars with gas, crime statistics are off the charts, and confidence in America is at an all-time low.  Biden's open-border policy, which is opposed by a majority of American citizens, is leading to social unrest and economic chaos.  A country without a functioning border is not a country, yet that is where Biden has taken us.  America is marching toward totalitarianism as Biden empowers the DoJ and FBI to go after his political opponents, i.e., at least half of the population.  His worst offense, however, is following the climate dictates of the World Economic Forum.  Biden is torpedoing the robust U.S. economy in service of a totally false assumption — that human beings are able to change the planet's climate.  He is raising taxes so that billions of your dollars can be wasted on ridiculous anti-fossil fuel projects.  Biden has declared war on the energy industry in the name of global warming.  He wants us to believe that oil, gas, and coal are killing the planet.

The economic facts demand a Democratic midterm defeat.  President Joe Biden last week talked about record-low unemployment.  He explained that the headline inflation number rose only 0.1% month on month.  Biden conveniently ignored comments by Democratic-leaning Harvard University professor Jason Furman that the August consumer price index report actually suggested an acceleration in inflation.  Furman explained that the Cleveland Fed's median CPI, which excludes all the large changes in either direction and is better predicted by labor market slack, showed an annual rate of inflation of 9.2% in August, the single highest monthly print in their dataset (which starts in 1983).  Furman also suggested that there is a real possibility of stagflation, with an unemployment rate at or above 6% and sustained inflation of 4%-plus.

MAGA's Real Crime?  Spotlighting Government Failure.  The midterm elections are only weeks away.  The Democrats are in complete control of the House, Senate, and presidency.  Donald Trump's name appears nowhere near a November ballot.  Yet the only things Democrats talk about are the former president and his "Make America Great Again" voters.  It is as if Joe Biden's and Nancy Pelosi's political troops have no interest in touting their successes in opening the Southern border to endless illegal immigration, promoting divisive lockdowns and "vaccine" mandates, passing a Green New Deal spending extravaganza, encouraging transgender drag queen shows for elementary-schoolers, emptying prisons of criminals, eliminating cash bail for felony arrests, leveraging Americans' pain at the gas pump to push them into expensive electric vehicles, or presiding over the highest rates of inflation in over forty years.

Sorry Democrats, Abortion Won't Save You.  Contrary to Democratic hopes, November won't be about abortion vs. inflation.  The midterms will be a referendum on Biden's performance, particularly as it affects inflation.  This is almost always true for the first midterm of a president's tenure, but the Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling gave Democrats false hope that they could defy history.  This may have been possible if the Biden administration hadn't committed so many fiscal blunders.  As it is, polls conducted in September clearly indicate that Americans are deeply unhappy about the sorry state of the economy and that they know who to blame.  According to a PBS/NPR/Marist poll, for example, "Six in ten Americans think the nation's economy is in a recession ... and more than half think President Joe Biden has weakened the economy."  This would not be as lethal for the Democrats if it involved a less visible issue, but voters are being mugged daily by the grim reality of inflation.

Policing in Democrat cities: Don't say we didn't warn you.  America's big cities are almost exclusively run by Democrats and have been for decades.  America's big cities contain most of America's minority race population.  And America's big cities are suffering from soaring crime caused by failed Democrat social and economic policies.  It is a given that police in these cities will have to use force against a criminal who will be a member of a minority race.  When that happens, it is inevitable that riots, arson, looting, and such will occur.  Democrat leaders of these cities find it easier to throw police under the bus than to admit that the crisis was caused by their policies. [...] Why would anyone genuinely interested in the true mission of law enforcement go to work as a police officer in a Democrat-controlled city?

Food Prices Hit 40-Year High, Keep Breaking Records Every Month.  Food prices have increased every month of 2022, with each month since February breaking 40-year records, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).  The price of food at home increased 13.5% year-over-year in August, the highest it's been since May 1979, according to the BLS Consumer Price Index (CPI) report.  Since February, when the year-over-year cost of food at home increased by 8.6% — at the time the highest level since 1981 — grocery prices have increased every month, first breaking a 10% year-on-year increase in March, according to archived CPI reports by the BLS.  The rate of increase blows away the increases over the past two years, with food at home prices increasing 3.5% in 2020 and 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).  The increases are also well above the USDA's Aug. 25 estimate of a year-on-year food at home price increase between 10% and 11% in 2022.

'Defund the police' aftermath means fewer officers on job across US.  Police officers across the nation are leaving their jobs because of the "defund the police" policies in cities, leaving personnel shortages and longer response times.  A survey of several large cities shows a downsizing with fewer applications to fill the vacancies as crime is on the rise.  Los Angeles has even taken the step of offering a rental subsidy in exchange for taking a job at the Los Angeles Police Department.  Dennis Zine has spent 54 years working for the LAPD, currently as a reservist after retiring as a sergeant.  He is a former city councilman and an organizer for a campaign to recall District Attorney George Gascon.  "All these cities with a woke generation mentality like 'defund the police,' 'neuter the police,' 'we don't need the police' is affecting what we are seeing," Zine told the Washington Examiner.  "Black Lives Matter was instrumental in getting a lot of people out."  Law enforcement certainly don't do their jobs for the pay, so when police feel unappreciated, they leave, he said.

Mortgage Rates Jump Above Six Percent for First Time Since 2008.  Mortgage rates when President Joe Biden took office?  2.65 percent.  Today?  6.28 percent.  On Tuesday, Biden held a weird celebration of his "Inflation Reduction Act" on the lawn of the White House.  Why was it weird?  Because at the very same time as Democrats were applauding themselves, the U.S. Labor Department was releasing figures that showed an "unexpected" rise in inflation, with the cost of rent, food, and other basic necessities continuing to skyrocket.  Now we learn that mortgage rates have climbed above six percent for the first time since 2008.

The Bidenomics Sham Is Collapsing.  With red lights flashing nearly everywhere, the economy's prospects look grim.  Soaring inflation, crashing home sales, plunging GDP, falling real incomes.  No question, the economy is a mess.  So why is the Biden administration saying things are going better?  It's not just this week's "unexpected" 8.3% inflation jump.  Or the scary plunge in stock prices, destroying trillions of dollars in household wealth in just days.  It's that the ruling party, the Democratic Party, seems utterly oblivious to the damage it's done.  This week, President Joe Biden touted the "progress" made by his administration against inflation, just a day after the report that prices had risen 8.3% overall, and food prices by 11.4%, the fastest since 1979.

Progressives are the Cause for American Decline.  In the maelstrom of the chaos of 24/7 news, societal decay and violence, and media and political platitudes, it must be recognized that conservatives are not guilty of American decline.  Conservatives are the ones defending, and conserving, the symbols and story of American unity.  Progressives, on the other hand, have been demolishing these symbols and assaulting the traditional story and opting for a new one — one that is meant to destroy those symbols which had previously unified American life.  At least since the 1960s, American progressives have been taking a battering ram to the symbols of justice that served as the unifying force for American society.  The Declaration is considered a fraud and the revolution it inspired equally fraudulent.  The Constitution is belittled as "a piece of crap."  The American flag is said to be a force for evil and division.  American churches are now assailed as pillars of white supremacy and racism.

Numbers Really Do Matter.  I have always loved math and numbers.  I love them because of their certainty, their preciseness, and my confidence that 'truth is in the numbers.' [...] Here are a few to consider:  the day Donald Trump became president, the Dow Jones Average was at 19,827.  The day he left office, it was at 34,005, an increase of 71.5%.  Now two years into the Biden-Harris regime terrible, the market is at 31,216, a nearly 8% decline.  The price of gas on that wonderful January 20, 2017, was $1.97.  Today it sits at $3.75, a 90% increase which is actually down from a high of $5.01.  The national rate of inflation the day Donald Trump left office was 1.36%.  Today that rate sits at 8.3%.  Read those numbers again if you still don't see the obvious.  While shrinking daily, our ever-dwindling stock portfolios and savings are needed to help supplement our wages to provide necessities at an ever-higher cost.

A Time of Evil.  What we have seen the last two years, and especially the last few months can only be explained in one word.  Evil.  For this is a time of evil. [...] Why would Biden refuse to protect our southern border?  Why would Biden knowingly allow in fentanyl, human trafficking, cartels, and terrorists?  Why would Biden allow child predators and unaccompanied minors to cross our borders?  Why would Biden make it very clear to our enemies in China, Iran, and Russia that we will not fight for our borders and we are not a sovereign country?  Why would the occupier of the White House display our weaknesses to friend and foe?  Why would the placeholder of the White House purposely make America weaker militarily and economically?  Why would Biden's FBI and Department of Justice cover up obvious felony crimes on Hunter Biden's laptop, yet search the bedroom of President Trump's teenage son?  Why would the FBI and DoJ ignore the 4th and 5th Amendments in their illegal raid on President Trump's private home?  Why would the FBI/CIA/NSA disregard all precedents, all laws, all tradition, the Constitution, and all common sense in their illegal attacks on President Trump since he came down the golden escalators?  Why has the FBI/CIA/NSA abused and misused the Patriot Act in their attack on Biden's political enemies?  And why has the ACLU remained totally silent and mute as these Third Reich tactics have been used on the American people?  Why has Biden/FBI/Justice Department carried out Stasi police state raids on many of President Trump's closest supporters?

The highest inflation in 40 years is deeply embedded in the economy and spreading.  Today's CPI inflation report shocked Wall Street and the nation with a significantly higher than expected print.  Pollyannas everywhere are painfully learning that there's no magic cure.  There's no easy way out.  After several years of excessive federal spending, regulating, taxing and money-printing, the highest inflation in 40 years is deeply embedded in the economy and it is spreading.  The only significant decline came with gasoline prices.  Overall, the topline CPI came in at 8.3% for the year — food up 11.4%, even energy is still up 24%.  Electricity is up 16%; natural gas 33%; new cars 10%.  Even with the recent drop, gasoline is still 26% above a year ago.  Rent is up 6.5%.  Overall, services are up nearly 7%.  Core goods prices are up 7%.  Used cars are up nearly 8%.  The so-called core inflation rate, omitting food and energy, has risen 6.5% annually over just the past three months.

Tucker Carlson: Voters Must Make Democrats Pay For Out Of Control Crime.  FNC's Tucker Carlson reviews the record crime levels in Chicago and other inner cities, saying Democrats need to be held responsible for the collapse of law and order on city streets.  "You think [Chicago district attorney] Kim Foxx cares?" Tucker Carlson asked.  "But she is not the only person who did this, the federal government also played a role."  "Over the eight years of Barack Obama administration, the department of justice forced more than a dozen police departments across the country to enter into what is called a consent decree.  The Obama administration began an investigation into the Chicago police department and they got a consent decree.  They pronounced police departments guilty of racism if they disproportionately interact with African-Americans, regardless of whether those interactions were legally justified.  In other words, the law is entirely irrelevant to the consent decree."

El Paso looks like a 'third-world country' after Texas border city is overrun by migrants.  Shocking photos show President Biden's border crisis has hit a new peak in El Paso, Texas — where a historic flood of migrants has turned the city into what a local pol says resembles "a third-world country."  Regional Border Patrol Chief Gloria Chavez posted snapshots Monday night on Instagram that showed hordes of migrants dumped under an El Paso bridge over the weekend because the city has no more room to even process them.  "We've never seen anything like this," said outraged US Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), whose district covers part of the city, as El Paso began grappling with its highest daily influx ever last month.  "It's a scene that you would see in a third-world country, not in the streets of El Paso."  Gonzalez warned, "Everything that I've been told and every indication tells me that we haven't seen the worst yet.

Blame Democrats' massive spending spree for our economic crisis.  For two years, families have experienced the dire consequences of massive government spending at the gas pump , the grocery store, and elsewhere. [...] Democrats began spending as soon as they took the majority, and they have made it clear they don't intend to stop.  Their first major act was passing $1.9 trillion in COVID aid, which was much larger than most economists were saying was necessary and ultimately was the catalyst to the inflation crisis.  Even after months and months of record high inflation, Democrats refused to change course and continued to spend trillions of more dollars.  In fact, Democrats have added an astounding $2.7 trillion in federal spending over the past two years.  President Joe Biden hopes to add hundreds of billions of dollars more to that number with his student loan debt heist.

Would You Please Stop Being Stupid?  The country is on the verge of being completely taken over by the Communists.  Censorship is rampant.  Political indoctrination is taking place throughout every institution, state or private.  The major news outlets are propaganda outlets.  Formerly neutral government agencies are being oriented against dissenters.  The economy is being destroyed.  There is an invasion on the southern border.  And, of course, you have the (traditional) Democrat election fraud now and then.

If You're Going to San Francisco...  No, stop!  Don't even think about going to San Francisco.  The place is a disaster area, possibly as bad as Portland.  If you think that is impossible, check out this photo essay in the Daily Mail.  The story is about the city's new "soft touch" approach to drug addiction and homelessness.  "Nobody's going to jail," city officials say.  No, they're going straight to the morgue.  San Francisco has seen nearly 1,700 fatal fentanyl overdoses so far in 2022.  The text is depressing, but the message is really in the dozens of photographs that accompany it.  Addicts openly shooting up; homeless encampments on the streets; filth everywhere.

America Delira.  Travel abroad and or talk to pro-American foreigners here, and you will be surprised at what they say. [...] They seem staggered by the very ideas that now emanate from the United States:  that nonexistent borders are desirable; that once rarified institutions like the FBI or CIA now function like the Stasi of old; that the very idea of meritocracy is considered racist; that one incorrect word can destroy a life-long career; that there are three or more sexes, not two; that biological men with male genitalia and physiology can compete, and destroy decades of advances, in women's sports; that race is the sole mode of self-identification; and that half of America dislikes American customs, history — and the other 50 percent of the population — as much as do its enemies.  Onlookers no longer see American universities as free-wheeling bastions of unfettered research and expression.  Rather they watch dreary (and sometimes scary) places where conformity to the old Soviet-style is enforced — or else.

Obama [gets] smacked down for gaslighting about Americans being 'better off' under Joe Biden.  In comparison to Joe Biden, Barack Obama appears to be a picture of probity, wisdom, and dignity.  But in reality, he's just a more unflappable liar, and now that Democrats are on the rocks in the polls, he's cribbed a page from Ronald Reagan, a man he's always had a curious fascination for, claiming that "the country is better off than when you took office.  We should all be deeply grateful for that."  If Obama were ask that as a question, the way Reagan once did, the open-ended answer would not have been to his liking, so Obama supplied the answer, too.  He was all gaslighting.

We're 'Better Off' Under Biden?  Who Is Obama Kidding?  Let's review just how much "better off" we all are thanks to Biden and his fellow Democrats.
COVID deaths:  When Biden took office on the promise that he had a plan that would end COVID, the official death count was 424,318.  Today it is over 1.044 million.  In other words, there have been nearly 620,000 COVID deaths on Biden's watch.  And that's despite all the interventions Biden claimed would end the pandemic.  Are the families of those 620,000 people better off?
Inflation:  Despite the recent decline in pump prices, gasoline costs 91% more than it did on January 2021, according to the Consumer Price Index.  Food prices are up 14%.  Overall prices have climbed 13% in the time Biden has been president.  To put that last number in perspective, the overall increase in the CPI during President Donald Trump's entire four years in office was just 7%.
Real earnings:  How about workers, are they better off?  While wages have climbed, they haven't nearly kept pace with Bidenflation.  As a result, workers have seen their real wages decline by 5%, which works out to an effective average pay cut of $2,726 a year.  Does that, in Obama's mind, make them better off?

A World on Fire.  [Scroll down] Let's talk about life in a one-bedroom apartment in London.  The price of energy for heat has nearly doubled, seemingly overnight.  Truly, it took months but it has felt like one day to the next. [...] This is all running wildly ahead of consumer prices generally.  This is only through June.  We are already approaching 100% inflation in energy. [...] My friends in the UK are truly panicked.  They want to come to the U.S. just to get away.  But many of my friends are rebels and did not accept the vaccine because they are healthy and under the age of 80.  They rejected the jab.  Now they cannot come to the U.S. because the U.S. is still imposing rules that forbid travelers from foreign countries who are not vaccinated from getting across the borders.

Jackson Mississippi: This Is What The Water Looks Like When A Radical Communist Is In Power.  Chokwe Antar Lumumba, Democratic mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, promised to make the capital "the most radical city on the planet" during his 2017 campaign, but so far he's been unable to even solve even the city's basic infrastructure problems and the city's running water is now unsafe to drink.  He campaigned on plans to introduce universal basic income and alternatives to policing, to replace vacant lots with urban farms, and resolve chronic issues with the city's water and roads in order to break the "cycles of humiliation" he said black residents experienced in Jackson, the most heavily black large city in the U.S.  Instead, the city's water problems have worsened, and Republican Gov. Tate Reeves declared a state of emergency Tuesday because running water is not reliably available nor safe for consumption.

Great Reset: Switzerland Threatens to Jail People Who Heat Their Homes Too Much in the Winter.  People who heat their homes above a certain temperature in Switzerland during the Winter face fines and potentially up to three years in prison if energy rationing measures are put in place.  Under proposed legislation in the home of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Swiss lawmakers are preparing to set legal limits on the use of heating during the winter should the country face energy shortages.  Under the plans, gas-heated buildings would be capped at 19C (66.2F) and water heating up to 60C (140F).  Saunas and swimming pools would also be forced by government diktat to remain cold.

Biden took a booming economy without inflation and turned it into a high-inflation bust.  There's a growing view inside the mainstream media that Joe Biden's recent legislative victories and his recent speeches that MAGA Republicans are a threat to democracy and are "semi-fascists" are going to give the Democrats some midterm momentum and they're going to overtake the GOP by snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.  I'm not buying it and here's why you shouldn't either.  First of all, the new legislation is not popular.  By 36% to 12%, an Economist-YouGov poll shows that voters believe the IRA legislation will actually increase inflation.  As for the student loan cancellation, a poll from another network shows by 59% to 38% that voters believe that too will increase inflation.  By the way, the latest inflation report for July was 8.5% year-on-year and the inflation tracker from the Cleveland Fed predicts an 8.2% CPI for both August and September.

German Minister of Economics Under Fire as Energy Driven Reality of Economic Collapse Starts Sinking In.  German Minister of Economics Robert Habeck is under fire after his comments during an interview with an ARD broadcaster on Tuesday evening. [...] Mr. Habeck responded that businesses can stop operating, but that doesn't mean they will go insolvent.  Just because the business loses most or all of their revenue, doesn't mean they will go bankrupt.  That doesn't make sense, Minister Habeck was pressed to apply commonsense.  If businesses close to save money, workers are not employed.  If workers are not employed people do not earn income.  If people do not earn income, the economy worsens.  Habeck had no response other than an economically detached "Green Party" perspective that businesses will not go bankrupt just because they are not operating.  However, his facial expressions reflect that he knows what comes next, total economic collapse.  [Video clip]

Return of the Ice Age.  To Europe, anyway.  Years of horrible decisions by European leaders have come home to roost, as Europeans now worry about how to heat their homes this winter.  Reliance on a geopolitical enemy for much of their energy turned out to be a mistake, as Russia has now shut off gas supplies.  Who could have predicted it?  Other than anyone with a modicum of common sense?  Which Europe's governing class has lacked for many years.  The continent's leaders are panicking and preparing to ration energy: [...] European countries are voluntarily turning themselves into third-world nations.  Will any politicians pay the price for this disaster?  Don't bet on it.

When Must a Good Citizen Become a Dissident?  Is it when the FBI and other Deep State truth-twisters manufacture crises and manipulate elections?  Is it when free speech comes under attack under the guise of State-labeled "misinformation"?  Perhaps it is when the president-in-name-only reads carefully scripted messages (written by those who control his office from the shadows) attacking half the country's citizens as "fascists."  Or when government and media "elites" falsely frame political protest as "insurrection" in order to justify criminal persecution and imprisonment of opponents of the ruling regime.  Or maybe when the endless declaration of fake "emergencies" is used to justify the steady imposition of extraordinary State power over each citizen's livelihood.  Maybe it's when the Intelligence Community operates a massive domestic surveillance network targeting Americans who have committed no crimes.  Maybe it's when secretly collected information mined from supposedly independent social media conglomerates and too-big-to-fail private banks is used to track and trace unsuspecting citizens.  Maybe it's when the value of the U.S. dollar is intentionally chipped away by central bank authorities enabling tax-and-spend legislators to expand institutional power at current and future Americans' expense.  Perhaps it is when the same federal government that insists on fighting wars all over the world in defense of other nations' borders staunchly refuses to protect America's own borders from invasion.

I Feel the Earth Move Under my Feet.  We have a nation filled with at least two generations of people who have not been properly educated, who have no respect for the church, no respect for teachers, no respect for parents.  We have a nation saturated with drugs, many people addicted because of painkillers, many too young to make sensible decisions about substances they can procure with ease.  Things like the flailing economy can be corrected with the right policy decisions.  The border can be fixed with a wall.  The crime problem will settle down when we go back to punishing criminals.  Most of this isn't rocket science.  It just takes an honest look at human nature (Newsflash: we're not basically good.) and the application of common sense — and all that takes time.

Seven Practical Ways to Make America Great Again.  I am guilty, like many of my fellow conservatives, of complaining about everything that has gone wrong since COVID.  That includes massive inflation, the loss of small businesses because of a messed up COVID response; supply chain problems; gas prices; the border sieve; the swallowing up of the mainstream media by Great Resetters and [Democrats]; the Afghanistan defeat and weaponry giveaway; the billions and trillions spent on Ukraine; the paying of people not to work; the Luciferian malignancy of CRT, DEI, and ESG infecting our institutions, schools, and businesses; and the litany of other complaints MAGA Americans get so justifiably indignant about.  But what can the average American do to actually take down this behemoth of leftism that is strangling liberty, free speech, and prosperity?  It may take a while, but it is doable with small things to start with.

The West's Energy Disaster Worsens.  There is no excuse for advanced economies to experience a shortage of electricity, or of energy generally.  The world has more than ample supplies of fossil fuels.  And, if you buy the global warming hype, nuclear energy is the obvious alternative, although that implies universal use of electric vehicles that are devastating to the environment.  Nevertheless, an electricity crisis is upon us. [...] The current crisis in Western Europe is due in part to the threatened cutoff of Russian natural gas.  But countries like Britain and Germany are vulnerable to such a cutoff because they fecklessly failed to provide for their own energy self-sufficiency.

It's Too Late For Corrupt Media To Decide Political Violence Is Bad.  The 2020 election was nothing less than a hostage situation, and everyone who lives in a major city (all of them run by Democrats) knew it when they saw their shops, offices, and storefronts boarded up.  That wasn't in anticipation of a Biden victory.  It was in fear of a Trump victory.  The Left had shown all summer that year what it's capable of when things don't go their way.  They will fabricate a conspiracy to derail a president who was never given a chance.  They will hype up an airborne virus, laying every single death it causes at the feet of their political opponents.  They will perpetuate a lie about race and police to shut down highways, businesses, and government services.  The cost:  At least 25 deaths and up to $2 billion in property damage.  And that's just from the George Floyd riots of summer 2020.  There's also the retarded development of an entire generation kept out of school, countless livelihoods ended via shutdown orders, and the ever-lasting trauma that will be endured by those who were told they could not tell loved ones goodbye.

New Jersey banned plastic bags.  So, people are stealing grocery store shopping baskets.  Grocery store customers are walking off with those plastic hand baskets you find in the supermarket, an apparent consequence of New Jersey's plastic bag ban that went into effect this spring.  "They are just disappearing," said Louis Scaduto Jr., chief executive officer of Middletown-based Food Circus Super Markets, which owns four Super Foodtown stores in Monmouth County.  "I may actually have to just do away with them soon, can't afford to keep replacing them," Scaduto wrote in a text message.  It's not just happening at Super Foodtown.  Stop & Shop in Long Branch didn't have any hand baskets during a recent visit.  ShopRite in Freehold Township didn't have any either.

The True Cost of Student Loans.  The cancellation of student debt has echoes of two other unwise political decisions, one made by a Republican President, the other by a Democrat President. [...] The second one was the decision of the Clinton administration to allow people to have access to mortgages they had little chance of actually repaying.  Under Clinton's Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Andrew Cuomo, Community Reinvestment Act regulators gave banks higher ratings for home loans made in "credit-deprived" areas.  In short people with low and poor credit were still given massive loans for homes, despite the obvious risk to both borrowers and lenders.  The government made clear that it would take the hit for any mortgage default.  As a result, banks realized that the smart money was not in being careful with mortgages, but instead lay in getting as many people signed up as possible.  After all, Uncle Sam would bail you out.  This caused the 2008 economic collapse.

Total chaos as millions of student loan borrowers rush to get Joe Biden's $10,000 debt amnesty.  They blew out their own website based on the high volume of traffic from those seeking the $10,000 debt freebie.  Seems that Joe took the Obamacare rollout fiasco as a model, not a warning.  They never set up a special website for this matter at all before the debt forgiveness plan was announced, which might have saved the rest of their website, and still don't have any plans to do it.  Plan?  What plan?  They have no idea how many people will apply for the $10,000 freebie.  They have no idea what it will cost.

Germany to Implement Energy Rationing Amid Fears of Gas Riots.  As officials in the country express their fears about future gas riots this winter, the German government has announced a host of new energy rationing rules that will come into effect [...] next Thursday.  In what appears to be the latest attempt to avoid energy shortages this winter, the German government is to implement restrictions limiting the use of energy in the country.  Ministers appear to be hoping that the rationing efforts will help reduce the risk of energy shortages this coming winter, with a number of bigwigs now openly fearful of a future of public unrest and gas riots should people be left unable to adequately heat their homes.

President Macron Warns of Public Unrest in France as Energy Crisis Bites.  President Emmanuel Macron has warned that the French public may react poorly to what he calls the "end of abundance" in France and Europe, as multiple crises brought about largely by political management wreak havoc on the continent.  With a long line of political mismanagement finally coming to a head across the European continent, France's President Emmanuel Macron has now said that his country faces what he calls the "end of abundance", something he fears could disrupt the stability of his nation.  Macron's warning comes amid growing political panic in neighbouring Germany, where many political bigwigs are now fearing that the country faces a future of riots and public upheavals as people lose the ability to adequately heat their homes over the winter.

What's Going On in America.  When we see adults in leadership who have made it legal for minors, very young minors, to have permanent, life-altering sex changes, while it would be a crime to give these very same minors cigarettes, alcohol, or the car keys, we can't believe what's going on.  When China, Russia, and Iran no longer fear us, and Israel, Japan, and South Korea no longer trust us, we know that leadership is making purposeful mistakes.  When kindergarten students are still being forced to wear masks that do not work, and everyone knows they don't work, we wonder aloud why.  When J-6 political prisoners are still being held in D.C. gulags without charges being filed against them or bail being afforded to them, we know that this is just not American.  When there is practically no border at all on our southern flank, and we know that all sovereign nations do in fact have borders, we know that history shows us clearly that this is suicidal for a people.

Here's How Unlivable Blue Cities Have Gotten.  How bad have things gotten in Democrat-controlled cities like New Orleans, New York City, Detroit, San Francisco, and Chicago?  So bad that when you think of those cities, it's not the good things about them, from culture to industry, beautiful shopping districts to stunning city parks, that come to mind.  Rather, what almost every American thinks of when such blue cities as those are brought up is of the bloodshed, crime, and heartbreak within them, the streams of blood flowing down their streets thanks to crime that would rival the French Revolution in terms of both volume of blood shed and the pointlessness of it all.  While many might avert their eyes and avoid criticizing such places and the little being done to combat crime within them out of fear of being called "racist," or something, Fox News Channel's Tucker Carlson went full steam ahead in criticizing the bloodshed of inner-cities and the violence present in Democrat-controlled areas.  In fact, Tucker even went so far as to say that the horror of those cities shows that our "civilization is falling apart."

Democrats Evade Accountability to Avoid Political Fallout.  Gasoline now costs on average more than $4 per gallon.  Two years ago, it was less than $2.  Americans are suffering the worst inflation in more than 40 years:  9.1 percent in July 2022.  Inflation is a hidden and highly regressive tax.  It hurts lower income families more than high earners.  Who is accountable for inflation?  The Biden administration never admits its policies are responsible for inflation, such as suppression of domestic oil and gas production and spending several trillion dollars.  Biden claims the following are to blame:  greedy meatpackers, venal oil companies, mercenary physicians, Donald Trump, Putin's war in Ukraine, amongst others.  Never, ever blame his Day One executive orders!  Federal politicians, bureaucrats, and their complicit media avoid paying for their egregious acts by dispersing accountability and thus avoiding feedback.

Wind Turbines Are Destroying the Planet.  New York, along with other states, is moving forward with massive wind turbine projects.  The push for "9,000 megawatts of offshore wind energy" comes at a high price, not only for families who are left dependent on expensive and unreliable energy, but for the planet.  Wind turbines require massive amounts of rare earths for their generators and motors.  A single wind turbine eats up tons of rare earth metals.  Rare earth mining carried out in China is horrifyingly destructive to people and the environment.  One story described radioactive lakes, high cancer rates and villagers whose "teeth began to fall out" and "hair turned white at unusually young ages".  "Children were born with soft bones and cancer rates rocketed."

The Predatory Male Behavior Of So-Called Transgender Women.  How do you know so-called transgender women aren't real women?  Because they act just like predatory men who, rather than having sympathy for women concerned when physically intact men invade their territory, revel in the ability to impose their will on these women. [...] Women are generally smaller and physically weaker than most men, so savvy women learn to be careful.  Women also rely on the traditional social contract ensuring single-sex privacy in places in which they may be naked or exposed, such as dressing rooms, bathrooms, or locker rooms.  She expects that, in these spaces, she'll be in the company of women and free from voyeurs or exhibitionists.  Sadly, this social contract has been broken because mixed-up or opportunistic men claiming to be women are allowed to invade these private spaces.  These men's insensitivity to women's fear and discomfort is additional proof that they are not women.

'Defund the police' advocate Ilhan Omar's city experiences sharp increase in majority of crimes, data shows.  "Defund the police" supporter Rep. Ilhan Omar's city is experiencing a sharp increase in most crimes, data shows.  The spike comes just one year after she backed a failed campaign to dismantle and replace the Minneapolis Police Department.  Omar represents Minnesota's 5th Congressional District, which encompasses the city of Minneapolis.  So far this year, citywide crimes have spiked in nine of 14 categories over the same time period last year, according to a Fox News Digital review of crime statistics.

Democrats are not learning from their defund-the-police failures.  Last week, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) just barely won renomination in her Democratic primary.  Democratic leaders had failed to see it coming — that such a prominent member of the left-wing "Squad" could come within just 2 percentage points of losing to an opponent whom she had outspent nearly 3 to 1.  Don Samuels, a former city councilman, nearly defeated Omar in the very district where George Floyd was killed in 2020.  Having campaigned previously against disbanding the Minneapolis police, Samuels ran a law-and-order, anti-crime congressional campaign.  It was nearly enough to win a majority of Democratic primary voters in one of the most liberal cities in America.  One would hope that Omar's near-death experience leads Democrats to be a bit more skeptical about the defund-the-police movement in which she has played such a large role.  Alas, nothing else up to that point, not even the national crime wave resulting from their folly in so many of the nation's major cities, had convinced them to give it up.

IRS: Gestapo in the Making.  Inflation is skyrocketing.  Gas prices, despite Old Joe Biden's crowing about minor reductions, are still substantially higher than they were before his presidency was inflicted upon us.  America's global standing is drastically diminished by Biden's handlers' catastrophically botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, due to the lack of preparedness of a politicized military distracted by wokeism.  The Southern border is essentially nonexistent, and due to that as well as to the arrival of tens of thousands of unvetted Afghan migrants, there is an unknowable number of criminals and terrorists in the country who would have been kept out by remotely sane immigration policies. [...] The people who run Joe Biden looked around at their dumpster fire of an administration, and the smoking ruin they have wrought, and decided that what America really needs are tens of thousands of new employees for the IRS.

Time to Give the Conspiracy Theorists a Break?  How many times have you heard, "That sounds like a conspiracy theory to me"? Was it because you asked if the virus was released from a lab in China?  Or did you question the safety and effectiveness of the "vaccines"?  Did you ask why doctors and nurses are not free to treat their patients according to their best judgment instead of government protocols?  Or maybe you asked about the decrease in energy, selling our oil to China, the problems with supply chains, government deficit spending, censorship on social media, inflation, food shortages, the rise in racism, the burning of our cities, our unprotected border, and the release of criminals.  Did you wonder why everything is getting worse?  Is there is a plan to destroy Western civilization?

Why We Lost Trust in the Expert Class.  For years, European policymakers had assured the world that the relatively rapid "transition" to "green" energy was the world's preordained future — regardless of the costs.  Accordingly, many European Union governments followed the advice of green experts.  They eagerly shut down coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants to transition immediately to "renewable energy."  Most citizens were afraid to object that in cloudy, cold Germany solar panels were not viable methods of electrical generation — especially in comparison to the country's vast coal deposits and its large, model nuclear power industry.  As a result, German government officials warn that this winter, in 19th-century fashion, families will have to burn wood — the dirtiest of modern fuels — to endure the cold.  And there is further talk of "warm rooms," where like pre-civilizational tribal people, the elderly will bunch together within a designated heated room to keep alive.

The Point of No Return.  This is an election year.  But the issues this year are not about Democrats and Republicans.  The big issue is whether this nation has degenerated to a point of no return — a point where we risk destroying ourselves, before our enemies can destroy us.  If there is one moment that symbolized our degeneration, it was when an enraged mob gathered in front of the Supreme Court and a leader of the United States Senate shouted threats against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, saying "You won't know what hit you!"  There have always been irresponsible demagogues.  But there was once a time when anyone who shouted threats to a Supreme Court Justice would see the end of his own political career, and could not show his face in decent society again.  You either believe in laws or you believe in mob rule.  It doesn't matter whether you agree with the law or agree with the mob on some particular issue.  If threats of violence against judges — and publishing where a judge's children go to school — is the way to settle issues, then there is not much point in having elections or laws.

Everything Is Worse and You Are Just Supposed to Take It.  You are asking for too much, you terrible person.  You want cheap gas and a functioning supply chain, air conditioning and not to eat bugs.  But most of all, you expect the elite to actually do its job, and for that, you are terrible.  And racist.  Bums litter our streets figuratively and — in ghastly form — literally.  Criminals run rampant unmolested by the gendarmes, who have been told — expressly and impliedly — to let the crooks be.  Our economy is sensational, groovy, glorious — except for the inflation and the hollowing out of your 401K.  Try to buy a house instead of renting — just try.  The globalist elite has failed in doing what we want, but it seems to be doing what it wants.  It is gathering power and payoffs unto itself, and that is precisely the goal.

Denver — a 'hellhole' of drugs.  Once a cosmopolitan utopia of clean, safe, family-friendly neighborhoods and parks, Denver now looks and feels like a drug orgy.  The stench of marijuana wafts through neighborhoods where a small percentage of family dwellings have transitioned into pot farms.  Walking through much of Denver and other Colorado cities, one becomes accustomed to stepping over and around growing numbers of full-time drug users living on sidewalks, parks, medians, and lawns.  The broad-based degradation started when voters approved Amendment 64 in 2012, which established the civilized world's most lenient marijuana law.  Critics argue legalization, problematic on its own, became a "gateway policy" that lowers political resistance to other illicit drugs.  Indeed, in 2019, the Colorado Legislature and Democratic Gov. Jared Polis essentially decriminalized all schedule 1 and 2 drugs — including fentanyl, the nation's leading killer of people ages 18-45.

Air Force Includes Drag Show In Woke 'Diversity' Festival At Langley.  The U.S. military is hosting a drag show at a family-friendly festival at Joint Base Langley-Eustis (JBLE) at the end of July.  JBLE is hosting its first ever "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Summer Festival" on July 30, featuring a series of performances and speeches, including a poem on "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" and a drag show by Joshua Kelley, who performs under the moniker Harpy Daniels.

Chicago Mom Forbidden To See Teen Daughter After Refusing To Pretend She's The Opposite Sex.  Jeanette Cooper, a mom in Chicago, has missed her daughter's 13th, 14th, and 15th birthdays.  She doesn't get to be there as her daughter is learning to drive.  In fact, she has only seen Sophia for eight and a half hours in the last three years.  That's because Cooper lost custody of her daughter after refusing to go along with Sophia's belief that she is transgender.  When Sophia was 12, Cooper went to pick her up from a custodial visit at her father's house, but her daughter refused to come home.  Cooper learned that Sophia, whom the mother said had always come across as more feminine than Cooper, now identified as transgender and felt "unsafe" around her mom.

Recidivism rates for NYC criminals are off the charts.  More than two years ago, the new bail reform law in New York went into effect and the results have been obvious to pretty much everyone who lives in the Big Apple.  The law was ostensibly designed to "combat racism" and focus on "rehabilitation over incarceration."  The law's proponents claimed that most criminals are simply misunderstood and lacking in opportunities.  Given the proper motivation and a chance at a fresh start, most of them would happily take up nine-to-five jobs and turn their backs on gang activity and lives of crime.  But the latest NYPD crime statistics report shows us how that actually worked out.  The law basically alerted criminals that the door to the candy store was unlocked and they were free to ramp up their criminal business model with abandon.  Recidivism rates in Gotham are as much as three times greater for some categories of crime than they were before the law took effect.

The last major media holdout still shilling for Joe Biden.  By all accounts — by every economic indicator, every political poll, every overseas interaction, every lie at the presidential podium — Joe Biden is a miserable failure as president.  Inflation brought on by government spending has now tipped the economy into recession and there is no end in sight.  The border lies open, with the Border Patrol converted into a de facto valet and escort service for literally millions of unvetted illegal border crossers.  Crime is out of control.  America is a laughingstock abroad, with Biden's name on the most humiliating military pullout in U.S. history.  He's a man utterly unfit for the office, a man whose very placement in office demonstrates the horrific consequences of electoral fraud.

The Trans Fiasco:  Will There Be Accounting?  The "trans" fad has devastated the lives of many people, especially children.  Will there ever be an accounting?  In the U.K., there are signs of one: the National Health Service's Tavistock gender identity clinic for children is being shut down. [...] Basically, Tavistock was run according to a "trans" activist ideology, and therefore destroyed many lives.  So there is at least the glimmer of accountability in the U.K. How about here in America?  Hans Bader sums up where we stand in a long post at Liberty Unyielding.

FDA warns of brain swelling and permanent vision loss in kids taking puberty blockers.  The FDA recently added a warning to the puberty blockers used by transgender children, reports The Post-Millennial.  The warning was added after the FDA identified "a serious potential side effect" that can "cause cause a dangerous surge of spinal fluid pressure in the brain," as well as "headaches, nausea, double vision, and even permanent vision loss."  "The FDA identified 6 cases in females ages 5-12 years old who were diagnosed with pseudotumor cerebri" after receiving puberty blockers.  Pseudotumor cerebri "means 'false brain tumor' because the signs and symptoms in affected patients are similar to those of a large brain tumor."  "The agency considered the cases clinically serious... this potential serious risk associated with GnRH agonists justifies inclusion in product labeling," an FDA spokesperson explained.  As the Post-Millennial observes, puberty blockers are used for gender transitions (formerly known as sex changes) by children.

New Los Angeles bridge opens, then quickly closes amid chaos.  The newest bridge in Los Angeles, a $588-million architectural marvel with views of the downtown skyline, opened to great fanfare on July 10.  It has already been closed, to great dismay, several times since then amid chaos and collisions.  The 6th Street Viaduct — which soars over the concrete-lined Los Angeles River to connect downtown to the historic Eastside — quickly became a hotspot for street racing, graffiti and illegal takeovers that draw hundreds of spectators to watch drivers perform dangerous stunts in their vehicles.

The Editor says...
This is exactly the behavior one should expect in a state that's all crime and no punishment.

Military Recruiting Numbers Lowest Since the Vietnam War.  Recruiting among the nation's military branches is at historically low numbers as COVID, woke leaders and an anti-military culture are keeping young people away. [...] RedState has reported on the services' desperate efforts to encourage more volunteers to join, with the Minnesota National Guard placing a $77,000 ad buy in an LGBTQ magazine, and the Army toying with the idea of dropping its requirement that enlistees have a high school diploma or GED, but then realizing what a stupid idea that was and backtracking.  Military.com went to press Tuesday with the story of how the Army is giving recruits who fail to meet initial body fat and academic standards a second chance by launching two pilot programs to help them lose weight and/or improve their aptitude test scores.  We've also covered how the woke silliness currently being peddled by military leaders isn't sitting well with soldiers and potential soldiers.  Alex Parker reported on how the Army will reportedly force female soldiers to shower with biological males who identify as females, while the Navy will allegedly allow sailors to use whichever locker room suits their gender identity.  There's also a huge emphasis on race:  [Tweet]

As Crime Skyrockets And Democrats Deny Blame, Remember What They Said About Police.  There is perhaps no better example of gaslighting by today's Democratic Party than when it comes to the issue of "Defund the Police."  In the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in the spring of 2020, the mantra was all the rage in leftwing, Democratic circles.  Their media, their spokespeople, their elected officials — all of them — were singing the same song:  Police are evil, the system is racist, and we need to put our tax dollars to use doing something else.  The movement never made any sense.  Anyone who is old enough to remember the days of high-crime cities or who has watched movies like Taxi Driver and French Connection understand that a lack of law enforcement yields lawlessness.  And lawlessness yields more lawlessness.  Such a strategy will inevitably result in spiraling crime, and much of that crime will likely be of the "violent" variety.  Now, two years later, that highly predictable outcome has indeed come to fruition.  Since 2020 and their verbal attacks against police, Biden Administration officials have repeatedly tried to walk back their undeniable support for decimating our police departments.

The Demise of American Citizenship.  American citizenship and its one-of-a-kind written contract with the central government, the Constitution with its Bill of Rights, is under relentless assault by the nation's governing establishment and teetering on the edge of meaninglessness.  No nation can maintain its status as a nation without secure and identifiable borders.  Citizenship means nothing if untold millions of illegal immigrants openly defy the laws without consequence.  It is estimated that 22 million illegals resided in the United States as of 2018.  Responding to an explicit invitation from the Biden administration, another 2+ million have walked unchallenged across the border in the past 18 months.  These so-called undocumented immigrants are becoming legally indistinguishable from citizens as they openly reside in 500 sanctuary jurisdictions, receive welfare, education and medical care, are granted drivers licenses, and given tuition breaks at public universities as they, not legal immigrants or American citizens, are exempt from federal immigration, health and travel laws.

How Did Democrats Become So Out of Touch With the American People?  The republic is not in good shape.  Unforced foreign policy blunders, such as the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, embarrass America on the world stage.  Our homeland territorial integrity has never been more undermined, as a wide-open southern border permits an unprecedented flow of smugglers, traffickers and other miscreants.  Homicide and other violent crime, which skyrocketed in the 2020 "summer of love" riots, continue to spike; the New York City subway is unsafe, and Chicago is a veritable war zone.  Mobocracy runs amok; a sitting Supreme Court justice just faced a near-assassination attempt.  Inflation, now over 9% and smacking those lower on the economic ladder, is at a four-decade high; the national average for gasoline is well over $4 per gallon.

France to turn lights off at night.  French President Emmanuel Macron [...] is telling French citizens to engage in energy "sobriety" and to prepare for even higher food prices.  Macron added, "From now on, I will ask public bodies, and all companies that can, to consume less.  We will create a program and try to use lighting less in the evenings.  We are launching a load reduction and sobriety program.  We have to prepare for a scenario in which we have to give up Russian gas completely." [...] And France is by no means alone.  California, the erstwhile Golden State, the Land of Milk and Honey — and Hollywood — says it expects periodic blackouts this summer as the power runs low.  In fact, California has struggled to keep the power on the past two summers, due to progressive policies that range from the nonsensical to the insane.  France is not engaged in war with Russia but is using the war as an excuse to demand energy "sobriety" from her citizens.  California is not fighting Russia either.

State conservation bill from '19 could be to blame for increased shark presence.  Great whites and other sharks have been coming close to Long Island beaches this year to feast on a particular kind of bait fish that has been flourishing in New York waters ever since the state legislature voted unanimously to preserve it three years ago.  With the population of Atlantic menhaden booming, sharks are swimming into shore like tourists bellying up to a buffet, and in the process, they are coming close to bathers — with disastrous results, experts told The [New York] Post.  "The reason why people are interacting with sharks more often this year and more than last year is because of conservation efforts over the years [that] has protected a food source known as the Atlantic menhaden," Frank Quevedo, executive director of the South Fork Natural History Museum Shark Research and Education Program, told The Post.

How Did Democrats Become So Out of Touch With the American People?  The president of the United States, equal parts senescent and feckless, garners record-shattering low approval ratings seemingly each week. [...] It is not difficult to figure out why.  The republic is not in good shape.  Unforced foreign policy blunders, such as the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, embarrass America on the world stage.  Our homeland territorial integrity has never been more undermined, as a wide-open southern border permits an unprecedented flow of smugglers, traffickers and other miscreants.  Homicide and other violent crime, which skyrocketed in the 2020 "summer of love" riots, continue to spike; the New York City subway is unsafe, and Chicago is a veritable war zone.  Mobocracy runs amok; a sitting Supreme Court justice just faced a near-assassination attempt.  Inflation, now over 9% and smacking those lower on the economic ladder, is at a four-decade high; the national average for gasoline is well over $4 per gallon.

The Left Should Be Happy with Biden.  The Left should be ecstatic that Joe Biden has given them everything they wanted.  The Left likes inflation.  It reduces the value of old money by printing lots of new money.  Those richer who have it, lose the value of their money; those poorer who don't have any money, suddenly do.  When combined with low interest rates, inflation roars even louder.  Not since Jimmy Carter has a Democrat been so insistent on inflating the money supply.

Why Is Conservative Media Calling a Male Rapist by Feminine Pronouns?  It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry when leftists insist that "men get pregnant" or refer to mothers as "birthing people" and otherwise ignore the material reality of biological sex.  While we've generally understood that this is the latest cause célèbre of the radical left, we don't really expect conservative media to follow suit.  Yet the recent case of a male inmate at a New Jersey women's prison who impregnated two inmates has shown that conservative media has also been successfully pressured to kowtow to the transgender cult, the Media Research Center has found.

The Long March to Nowhere.  [Scroll down]  Americans harbor a healthy skepticism of intrusive government and an intolerance for useless, broken institutions.  An institution is a tool with which to address a social need.  Schools should teach.  Companies should turn a profit.  Government agencies should be primarily concerned with the activity stated in their name (Commerce, Health, Defense, etc...).  And so on.  The Left has a nasty habit of tool abuse.  Any organization that progressives infest is inevitably subverted to advance their agenda, to the detriment of its official purpose.  And so, schools preach.  Companies insult their customers.  The Commerce Department destroys industries.  The CDC actively makes people sick.  The Department of Defense punishes soldiers who don't bow to the ideological flavor of the month.  Which lately involves cross-dressing. [...] Americans, being practical people, will sooner or later question the wisdom of supporting or retaining useless tools, or institutions.  Some we will abandon and replace.  Disney and the Democratic Party are two that come to mind.

Biden and The Destruction of Wisdom.  There used to be an agreed-on body of wisdom, which both Left and Right, Republicans and Democrats, generally accepted.  Heated arguments and invective centered on implementations and methods of solving problems, which at least both sides agreed were problems.  Both ideologies accepted a common core of wisdom, despite their radical differences in interpreting it.  Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and especially Biden's strange cabinet of loud Jacobin amateurs, reject the very hallowed knowledge upon which civilization is based.  In that sense the public has begun to recognize them as nihilist and anarchist.  Nearly two out of three Americans in some polls hold unfavorable views of the Biden Administration.  They fear that it is decoupled from both the past and reality, and quite capable of destroying their lives as they have known them.

Transgender woman who impregnated 2 inmates removed from N.J.'s female prison.  A transgender inmate who impregnated two women while incarcerated at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women has been moved to a new facility, according to the Department of Corrections.  Demi Minor, 27, was transferred to Garden State Youth Correctional Facility, a prison for young adult offenders in Burlington County, last month, Dan Sperrazza, a Department of Corrections spokesman, said.  He said the DOC moved Minor to the vulnerable unit at the facility and that she is currently the only woman prisoner on the site.  Sperrazza said he could not comment on the DOC's specific housing actions in Minor's case because of policies around privacy.

After 18 Months of Biden, Have We Hit Bottom Yet?  The latest data confirm the destruction that he and his fellow Democrats have wrought:
  •   Inflation stood at 1.4%, year over year, in January 2021.  By June 2022, that figure was 9.1%, the worst such increase in the Consumer Price Index since November 1981.
  •   Gross domestic product grew 6.4% in 2021's first quarter.  In the first quarter of 2022, GDP shrank 1.6%.
  •   The Dow Jones Industrial Average was 31,188 on Jan. 20, 2021.  The Dow closed Wednesday at 30,722.  Pension savings, 401(k) plans, and other investment portfolios have shriveled under Biden.
  •   The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index measures short-term expectations for income, business, and labor markets.  That metric has slid from 92.5 in January 2021 to 66.4 last month—its lowest level since March 2013.
  •   The National Federation of Independent Business' Small Business Optimism Index has retreated on Biden's watch from 95.0 to 89.5 -- its weakest showing since January 2013 under the Obama-Biden administration. [...]
  •   West Texas Intermediate crude oil traded for $53.24 per barrel as Biden took over.  It sold Wednesday [7/13/2022] for $96.87 -- up 82%.  A gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.39 as Biden arrived.  It hit $5.01 before easing to $4.63 on Wednesday -- up 93.7% since Trump jetted off to Mar-a-Lago.
  •   Border Patrol agents apprehended 754,538 illegal aliens during Trump's final 16 months in office (Oct. 1, 2019, through Jan. 31, 2021 -- including Biden's first 11 days).  In Biden's first full 16 months in power (Feb. 1, 2021, through May 31), Border Patrol confronted a stunning 2,975,135 illegal aliens -- up a staggering 394%.

The U.S. Misery Index Worsens as Unchecked Bidenflation Grows.  The U.S. government announced Wednesday that June's federal inflation numbers increased to a staggering 9.06% — a 40-year high.  According to the official Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) news release, inflation is being felt keenly and across the board: [...] From the updated BLS data, economists quantify the economic health of the country.  To do so, they add the current U.S. unemployment rate, which is a stagnant 3.6%, to the current rate of U.S. inflation, which is a jarring 9.06%, to produce a snapshot of the country's economy.  The result is known as the U.S. Misery Index.

Producer Price Index Hits Peak 11.3 Percent Inflation Driven by Biden Energy Policy — Service Prices Now Indicate Recession.  The "Producer Price Index" (PPI) is essentially the tracking of wholesale prices at three stages:  Origination (commodity), Intermediate (processing), and then Final (to wholesale).  Today, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) released June price data showing another 11.3% increase year-over-year in Final Demand products at the wholesale level.  Overall, the wholesale inflation rate is being driven by energy prices.  The June calculation shows exactly that problem with energy prices embedded in goods driving 10% of the price increase.

The Editor says...
Yes, gas and grocery prices have gone up rapidly in the last year or so, but have you bought 9-volt batteries lately?  They used to be 69 cents apiece, and they're now over five dollars each.

Glenn Beck Asks Five Important Questions About The Tragic Story Of The Ten-Year-Old Ohioan.  One of the biggest stories in national media right now has been, in one form or another, about how a ten-year-old-girl was raped, got impregnated, and due to her residency in the state of Ohio was forced to travel to Indiana for an abortion.  The story took off after Joe Biden referenced it in the immediate aftermath of leftist outrage over Roe's overturning at the Supreme Court.  Mind you, abortion was not made illegal with that ruling; it was simply returned to the states to decide on a course of action.  After all, nothing in the Constitution lays out a legal framework for federalizing infanticide.  It shouldn't even be an issue, and it certainly shouldn't have been decided in 1973 that rights were magically found in penumbras, but that's judicial activism for you.  Because the corrupt leftist media is in bed with the even more corrupt Biden Occupation, the story conveniently left out the fact that the alleged victim was raped by a monstruous illegal alien and pretended that the real problem was that she couldn't attain an abortion in her home state.  They said nothing of the act of rape itself or the fact that it was perpetrated by one of countless illegals welcomed into the country by the party of open borders.

Eva Vlaardingerbroek Summarizes all the Merging Food, Energy and Farming Issues with Stark Advice to Americans.  Eva Vlaardingerbroek is a GB News correspondent and conservative voice from Holland.  In this interview segment with NTDNews Ms. Vlaardingerbroek outlines what is happening in the Netherlands with the Dutch farm protests and how it connects to the larger Agenda 2030 goals.  In the last 20 seconds of the segment, Vlaardingerbroek has some solid advice for Americans.  [Video clip]

Cataloguing Biden's Ineptitude On Inflation.  The public would do well to ignore anything Biden says about inflation, given his horrible track record when it comes to this topic.  Since prices started their upward climb in March 2021, Biden has by turns claimed that it was the result of a booming economy, that it was temporary, that it was the result of supply chain bottlenecks, and most recently that Vladimir Putin is to blame[.]  When not making fact-free claims like those, Biden simply lies.  Take his oft-repeated claim that Europeans have it far worse on inflation.  Even Newsweek magazine felt obliged to conclude in its fact check "that Biden's statement that U.S. inflation is the 'lowest of almost every major nation' is largely inaccurate."  We don't expect readers to simply take our word for it that Biden has been out to lunch on inflation.  So we assembled a handy chart showing the annualized rate of inflation each month since January 2020.  It matches up that record with statements Biden made about inflation.

How to Cure Inflation.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics released two reports Wednesday morning [7/13/2022] that confirm the fiscal incompetence of the Biden administration and its confederates on Capitol Hill.  The BLS reported that the Consumer Price Index rose yet again in June:  "Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 9.1 percent before seasonal adjustment."  The BLS also released its Real Earnings Summary:  "Real average hourly earnings decreased 3.6 percent, seasonally adjusted, from June 2021 to June 2022."  In May, President Joe Biden announced, "I want every American to know that I'm taking inflation very seriously and it's my top domestic priority."  Other than blame-shifting and bluster, however, his plan to fix it has been all but invisible.  Consequently, a number of polls indicate that a majority of Americans believe Biden and the Democrats bear the responsibility for inflation.

Inflation Hits 9.1 Percent in June, New 40-Year High.  The U.S. annual inflation rate climbed to 9.1 percent in June, reaching its highest level since November 1981 and topping the market estimate of 8.8 percent and May's annual rate of 8.6 percent.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the consumer price index (CPI) rose by 1.3 percent month-over-month.  The monthly inflation also was higher than economists' expectations of 1.1 percent.  While the core inflation rate, which removes the volatile food and energy sectors, eased to 5.9 percent, that was higher than the forecast of 5.7 percent.  On a monthly basis, core inflation rose at a higher-than-expected pace of 0.7 percent.  Food prices soared by 10.4 percent, while the energy index advanced by 41.6 percent.

The Rise of Black Girly Men.  I've noticed that when media represent so-called "transgender" men and highly effeminate males, they are often black.  Perhaps far too many people are desensitized to the pollution in our mass media to notice the disproportionate number of high-profile effeminate black men showcased in high rotation in all mass communication media.  These "gender-fluid" celebrities all display a common exaggerated and dramatically "flaming" exhibitionistic effeminate behavior.  It is my simple observation that whenever the secular humanist liberal class desires to impose non-traditional values into the public square, they often employ compromised black individuals or assume "black causes" to advance their self-serving agenda.  These elites care nothing for blacks or America, just their own pursuits.  The elites use blacks as human shields, as window dressing to manipulate, deflect, suppress, and silence any debate, dissent, or opposition from the majority of Americans who fear airing ideas or opinions that would result in being labeled as racists, homophobic, fascists, or all three.

Inflation jumps to 9.1%, highest in four decades.  Inflation accelerated to an explosive 9.1% for the 12 months ending in June, according to the consumer price index, the highest level in four decades.  The much-anticipated numbers reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday revealed that inflation is still soaring, despite the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes, and is near the worst it has been since the Great Inflation that helped bring President Ronald Reagan to office.

How Angela Merkel's Green Agenda Caused the Economic Collapse of Germany.  Remember how the world, especially the American media, fawned over former German Chancellor Angela Merkel?  The adoration was so over the top that in 2015 Time magazine named Merkel its "Person of the Year."  It described her as the "Chancellor of the Free World."  Time owes whatever readers it has left a solemn apology.  Today, Germans are suffering the bitter fruits of nearly every major economic and geopolitical decision Merkel made as chancellor.  Start with the German economy that she attempted to reset for the 21st century, which is reminiscent of how President Joe Biden explains to inflation-weary voters that we are going through "an incredible transition."  But Merkel's Germany was ahead of us in its "transition."  Today, the German economy is in tatters.

Biden's Twin Dumpster Fires:  Raging Inflation and Open Borders.  Faced with several serious domestic and foreign policy problems all at once, the Biden administration's reaction has been so catastrophically incoherent, it's hard to know whether to blame leftist ideology or just plain incompetence.  Inflation hits all of us right now. [...] Meanwhile, the effects of rampant illegal immigration are felt insidiously by most of us in crowded schools, the flow of illegal drugs, more expensive health care, and numerous other social costs, but they are hitting especially fast and hard in border communities.  After 17 months of record illegal immigration, the leaders of several Texas border counties have reached their limit in responding to the catastrophe.  They have just declared that they are under invasion, in an effort to get Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to enforce immigration law and protect them from an unprecedented, unchecked flood of illegal entrants — more than 1.5 million apprehended at the border just since October.

When Governments Do Truly STUPID Things.  They tend to collapse spectacularly and the "powers that be" almost-never survive politically — and frequently physically.  Sri Lanka is the latest example; they are literally bankrupt, having bought into the "green" thing and then... oops.  The root causes were many, but chief among them were overspending and a commitment to "green" farming practices, which decimated crop yields, spiked prices and then of course here comes higher oil costs.  The combination proved fatal to the economy.  "The rich" are being literally chased down and slaughtered, with "rich" being defined as "has something, when we have nothing."  The President fled the nation and, at least report, the Presidential home has been stormed by protestors.

Dear Democrats, THIS Is What Your Oppressive Global Initiatives Lead To.  After suffering from weeks of brutal food and fuel shortages, as well as crippling inflation, Sri Lankans have had enough.  Riots have broken out throughout the impoverished country.  Police have used tear gas and water cannons but to little effect.  Shortly after thousands of angry citizens stormed the presidential palace, even going so far as to swim in his pool, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa declared that he will step down.  Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe agreed to resign as well after his home was torched.  [Tweets with video clips]

'Complete Collapse': Here's How ESG Destroyed One Nation's Economy.  Sri Lanka is in a last-ditch effort to stave off economic collapse after an allegedly climate-friendly ban on artificial fertilizers devastated one of the country's largest industries, according to experts.  Sri Lanka has been wracked with poverty, inflation and fuel shortages on a massive scale, with the Prime Minister declaring Tuesday that the country has gone "bankrupt," according to Business Insider.  A ban on chemical fertilizers, implemented April 2021 in an effort to promote organic farming, proved the final straw after a string of missteps, decimating Sri Lanka's primary source of income and forcing it into bankruptcy, experts told The Daily Caller News Foundation.  "Our economy has faced a complete collapse," Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said on June 23, according to CNN.  The government lifted the fertilizer ban in November 2021, but the damage had already been done, Peter Earle, a former financial markets trader and economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, told The DCNF.

Protesters Storm Presidential Palace in Sri Lanka After Climate Hysteria Destroys the Nation.  Sri Lanka is in the middle of a full-scale collapse after the president announced the nation is "bankrupt," having run out of both money and energy.  Hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets, and things have devolved into a dystopian nightmare.  In the last several hours, the presidential palace was taken over by a sea of people, angry at the government for putting them in such a precarious position.  And as I'll explain, Sri Lanka's woes were not only avoidable but were purposely brought on to please climate change fanatics in faraway lands.  [Tweet]  Sri Lanka's government has been implementing ESG policies (environment, social, and governance) for years, following the lead of the World Economic Forum.  That includes banning agrochemicals such as fertilizers in an effort to lower nitrogen emissions.  Flowery tales of "organic" farming and saving the planet have now been replaced with horror, as the island nation's top exports have been laid to waste.  People are starving, they can't get gas or electricity, and none of the globalists who used Sri Lanka as a testbed for their green fantasies are coming to help.

Where Science Ends and Morality Begins.  Under the Biden administration, we are getting a foretaste of a green future.  The high costs of gasoline, heating oil, and electricity; the consequent high prices of everything else; the food shortages; and economic recessions will all be permanent features of a green America.  Tried flying lately?  Consider the phase-out of air travel to be already underway.  Supply chain problems causing empty shelves at the store?  Not to worry; when "buy local" is your only choice, you won't have to worry about supply chains.  Don't like arbitrary government mandates?  Don't like what the COVID lockdowns did to your constitutional rights?  Don't like seeing the rule of law abandoned before your eyes — from our open southern border to the homes of our Supreme Court justices?  Consider all this your introduction to socialist governance.

Army Training Says Soldiers Must Shower with Transgender Persons of Opposite Sex.  An Army training slide obtained by Breitbart News instructs soldiers to shower with transgender members of the opposite sex even if they have not undergone a surgical transition.  The training slide offers a "vignette" instructing soldiers on what to do if they encounter a female soldier who identifies as male according to the Department of Defense's personnel tracking system known as Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS), but has not surgically transitioned and still has "female genitalia."

The Disappearing American?  During the nearly two-year-long COVID-19 shutdown and economic downturn, firms cut costs by laying off millions of employees.  As a result, some in their early- or mid-60s simply retired early and never came back to work.  Federal and state governments also vastly expanded financial support to the unemployed.  Other workers figured they would not make all that much more by working and so are staying home on government checks.  Still other former full-time employees became used to the new, more leisurely lifestyle and are loath to return to a full 40-hour work week.  Employers also are now convinced that a hard recession is on the early 2023 horizon when the trillions of dollars of newly printed money run out.  Many are willing to put up with worker shortages now, rather than hire too many employees only to have them idle when consumer demand soon crashes.

Did reefer drive the Highland Park parade 'killer' Robert Crimo to madness?  Those who knew the 21-year-old suspect, Robert Crimo III, say he habitually smoked cannabis, a habit he appeared to share with young mass shooters, including at Uvalde, Dayton, Parkland and Aurora.  Obviously weed didn't make them commit their evil acts, but it may have scrambled their brains enough for empathy to take a holiday.  As the country rushes headlong into the embrace of Big Weed, we need to heed the warning signs, not least in the scientific literature that increasingly shows that cannabis triggers psychosis, and in the emergency rooms where mentally ill kids are the living proof of its harms.  The higher the potency of THC, the worse it is, especially for the developing adolescent brain.

The greatest threat to "democracy" is from our elected representatives.  Federal policies have caused inflation to hit a 40-year high of 8.6% (or, using Carter-era calculations, 16%) for this past year, with energy prices rising 34.6%, eggs up 32.2%, and gas prices up nearly 50%.  The cost of meat — ground beef, steaks, pork, poultry — might more than double next year, as the costs to raise livestock skyrockets.  The average national price for gas exceeded $5 for the first time in history, causing the typical American household to spend "$160 more on gas a month than a year ago."  Overall, "typical US household is spending about $460 more every month than they did last year to purchase the same basket of goods and services."  That's a penalty of at least $5,520 per year for the average American household.  But don't worry, CNN promises "inflation can actually be a good thing for many working-class Americans" and the dumbest person at the New York Times thinks inflation is no big deal.  In reality, for many Americans, this merely adds to the pressure of significant increases in home and rental prices, and the soaring costs of college and health care.  The government has priced the future out of the American dream.

Netherlands farmers, fisherman revolt against government greenie impositions.  Greenie policies have destroyed Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and they destroy pretty much any economy wherever they go.  The revolt has now hit the Netherlands. [...] The government passed a greenie law to cut nitrogen and carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 and then blandly declared that, yah, yah, "the honest message ... is that not all farmers can continue their business."  So for the Dutch farmers, who are among the world's most productive, who feed a continent and beyond from their tiny artificially created landscape, with, yes, cows, which are all about creating this newly created problem of nitrogen as well as cow-[emission] carbon, are suddenly the target.  They've got to quit producing and die.  Pay no attention to the fact that not every nation can sustain cows but would like to buy beef and leather and gelatin and milk and all the other things cows produce.  They all will now see shortages at the supermarkets and, worse still, shortages of cow "byproducts," which are sold as crop-saving fertilizer around the world.  Pay no attention to the unintended consequences the Dutch farmers are warning about.  The tsentral planners have spoken, and now the cows must die.  Too bad about the farms and farmers and consumers.

Yes, You CAN Blame Biden For High Energy Prices.  [O]n May 12, Biden's Interior Department blocked a proposal to open up more than one million acres of land in Alaska for oil and gas drilling.  Two days later, Biden's Environmental Protection Agency blocked plans to expand an oil refinery in the US Virgin Islands.  Biden and his defenders said he had to block the expansion of the Virgin Islands refinery, given how polluting it was.  But had Biden's EPA allowed the Virgin Island refinery to expand, the owners would have poured nearly $3 billion into retrofitting the plant so it produced gasoline and other products more cleanly, while significantly increasing production at the same time.  Furthermore, anybody who cares about air pollution and climate change should want more oil and gas drilling, not less.  US emissions declined 22% between 2005 and 2020, mostly because cheap natural gas has replaced coal.

The Bait Car of History.  Sometimes it seems the 2020 presidential elections was history's equivalent of a bait car, a trap for those who thought it was a prize.  "Over the last 18 months, as we have confronted a range of unanticipated global challenges — from Covid variants to Putin's war", National Economic Council Director Brian Deese told CNN. "Give us a plan or give us someone to blame," one exasperated House Democrat said.  The administration is jinxed and it would be nicer for the Democrats if the whole catastrophe had befallen Donald Trump instead; but it's too late now.

The Editor says...
Obviously "the whole catastrophe [would never have] befallen Donald Trump," because Joe Biden aggressively un-did everything Trump had accomplished, whereas Donald Trump would have let the post-Covid recovery continue.  Joe Biden — or whoever makes his decisions — is entirely to blame for five-dollar gasoline, billions wasted in Afghanistan, vaccine mandates, crime without punishment, dangerously high inflation, the wide-open Mexican border, the baby formula shortage, and drag queens at the public library.

Immoral Democrats Make Excuses, Blame Others, and Divide.  [Scroll down]  America's economy is on the brink of recession.  Inflation is through the roof.  Americans are struggling with the worst price increases in their lifetimes at the gas pump and in the supermarket.  Parents are desperate to find baby formula.  Could it be that printing and spending trillions of dollars during the pandemic was shortsighted?  Is it possible that out-of-control U.S. debt and central bank "quantitative easing" devalue the dollar over time?  Is it likely that President Biden's Green New Deal policies have had their intended effect: to make it more difficult for energy companies to drill and refine hydrocarbon energy in the United States?  Is it possible that the administrative state's often-mindless issuance of regulations and rules for private businesses has inadvertently produced a nationwide infant formula shortage?  That would make too much sense.

The Coincidence of Crises.  COVID-19, Joe Biden, and Russian-Ukrainian 'crises' are pages from the same playbook written by an international clique that controls both sides. [...] The Keystone Pipeline, French nuclear plants, and German coal plants have all been intentionally and simultaneously shuttered under the façade of the convenient eternal enemy of 'Climate Change'.  A paltry sum of Russian foreign exchange reserves — already recouped by Russia due to the skyrocketing price of oil instigated by Biden and his cronies — was illegally seized, providing Russia ample casus belli to demand payment only in rubles.  Rather than ceasing to purchase Russian oil altogether, it is simply sold to Europe through India, further bolstering the oil industry and the Russian economy. [...] Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, constituting some of the largest producers of wheat and fertilizer in the world, were 'forced' to shutter their exports, just as there has been a dramatic and inorganic uptick in farm and food processing plant 'accidents' which conveniently avoided all of WEF-aligned Bill Gates' agricultural assets.  The ruble strengthens every week in tandem with both the price of oil and the controlled collapse of the dollar through inflationary money-printing.

No one should be forced to declare their pronouns.  Look closely next time you pop into your local bank, department store or supermarket and you'll notice an addition to the uniforms of put-upon cashiers and clerks: the pronoun badge.  It might be a little rainbow pin displaying 'he/him/his' in bold letters, or, far less often, 'they/them/their'.  Or it might be a small rectangle featuring the company logo alongside the employee's name and pronouns.  Pronoun badges have been around for a few years now, but in that time they have moved from the fringe to the mainstream.  They are no longer the preserve of over-enthusiastic Student Union reps or tie-dyed Labour Party conference attendees.  They've migrated on to the High Street.  Pride month is the perfect opportunity for companies lagging behind to catch up, and for those who have long been on the bandwagon to remind the world of their virtue.  Halifax is one of many banks that now expects employees to declare their pronouns.

Concerned Graduates of West Point Challenge Leadership of Military Academy:  Letter.  Three retired U.S. military officers — LTG Thomas McInerney, USAF; MG Paul Vallely, U.S. Army; and Colonel Andrew O'Meara Jr., U.S. Army — signed a letter authored by "Concerned Graduates of West Point and The Long Gray Line," protesting against mandatory vaccinations, CRT classes, sanitary conditions, progressive political activism, and other "woke actions," in the military academy.  "The Long Gray Line" refers to the continuum of graduates United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.  "We wanted to challenge the leadership of the Academy and the Defense Dept on their WOKE actions, CRT, Diversity training and the other discrepancies in the Academy.  We found it pervasive at the Naval and Air Force Academies so we knew it was directed from the highest levels of our Military Leadership," Vallely told The Epoch Times.

Americans Are 'Collateral Damage' In Dems' Insane War On Energy.  Maybe the Jan. 6 hearings are, as some assert, really about distracting Americans from the Democrats' shocking policy failures.  How else can one explain the refusal of President Joe Biden and the Democratic Congress to address our ongoing energy crisis?  And, no, it's no exaggeration to call this a crisis.  With consumer prices rising at a four-decade-high of 8.6% in the most recent year-over-year comparison, Americans are watching their standard of living fall fast.  A just-released national survey has found that 83% of U.S. households are cutting their personal spending and travel due to soaring inflation.  These cutbacks are being driven almost entirely by energy costs, which have spiked nearly 35% in the past year.

The Invisible Power Controlling the US Government.  I have written extensively on inverted totalitarianism, that being the once nascent, now entrenched form of government that truly controls the levers of federal power in the United States.  This behemoth has turned the USA into a "managed democracy"; a bureaucracy which cannot be held accountable by the elected representatives of the people.  Sometimes called the 4th estate, this monster is also referred to as the "deep state" the civil service, or the administrative state.  Inverted totalitarianism does not have an authoritarian leader, but instead is run by a non-transparent group of bureaucrats.  This unelected, invisible ruling class runs the country from within.  They are easily influenced by corporate interests due to both the lure of powerful jobs after federal employment and the capture of our legislative bodies by the lobbyists serving concealed corporate interests.

The Astonishing Implications of Schedule F.  The administrative state for the better part of a century, and really dating back to the Pendleton Act of 1883, has designed policy, made policy, structured policy, implemented policy, and interpreted policy while operating outside the control of Congress, the president, and the judiciary. [...] From 2020 and onward, the American people got to know this administrative state well.  They ordered us to wear masks.  They deployed their influence to close small businesses and churches.  They limited how many people we could have in our homes.  They festooned our businesses with plexiglass and told everyone to stay six-feet apart.  They demanded two weeks of quarantine when crossing state borders.  They decided which medical procedures were elective and non-elective.  And they finally demanded compliance with vaccine mandates at the penalty of job loss.  None of this was ordered by legislation.  It was all invented on the spot by the permanent staff of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  We had no idea they had such power.  But they do.  And that same power which allowed those egregious attacks on rights and liberties also belongs to the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Labor, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Homeland Security, and all the rest.

The Military Went Woke.  Now It Can't Find Recruits.  The military is facing the worst recruiting environment since the end of the Vietnam War.  The Army is at only 40% of its recruiting numbers for the fiscal year despite raising its maximum enlistment bonus from $40,000 to $50,000.  It now offers new recruits up to $10,000 for showing up to basic training in 30 days.  And is no longer even asking them for a high school diploma.  "We've never offered $50,000 to join the Army," Maj. Gen. Kevin Vereen, head of U.S. Army Recruiting Command, said.  While the Army runs anime lesbian wedding ads, it's pushing away the recruits it needs, young patriotic men from traditional backgrounds.  When the Biden administration's brass decided to mandate vaccinations, they automatically rejected the 60% of potential recruits who aren't.

US Army Drops High School Diploma Requirement as Military Faces Unprecedented Challenges Under Joe Biden.  After completely bending the knee to woke ideology and gutting itself with unconstitutional mandates that forced an experimental and dangerous vaccine, the US Military is taking the hacksaw to the standards that are used to find and train new recruits as the Armed Forces struggle through what some officials are calling the "most challenging recruiting year ever."  In addition to lowering almost every single physical qualification for new recruits to pass their initial training, the US Army has now dropped its requirement that recruits must have a high school diploma or a G.E.D. degree in a desperate effort to attract new blood into the ranks.

The degradation of our military.  I believe that the Biden Administration, most Democrats, and a good number of so-called Republicans are dedicated to the destruction of the traditional USA by various means:  economic, political, cultural, immigration, and military.  This essay addresses that last listed avenue of destruction — the military.  Napoleon Bonaparte is often quoted as saying that "An army marches on its stomach," meaning that no Army can move without food.  I would submit that, today, in addition to food, an Army cannot march without fossil fuels.  The complicated logistics of modern life and warfare require reliable, consistent, and readily available fuels.  The reduction in our military capabilities is the most frightening, imminent, and insidious threat to our very existence.

LGBTQ agenda emasculating police in Columbus.  Police in Columbus, Ohio, have a new vehicle in their law enforcement lineup — a shiny white SUV painted in Pride Month glory in glossy rainbow stripes and adorned with the movement's signature phrase, "Love Is Love."  And all the criminals go:  Yay.  This is worse than "defund the police."  At least defunding means cops exit, stage left, with their dignity intact.  But this — this police cruiser blasting out pro-Pride messages with unicorn and fairy-like, cupcake-frosting fancy — this is emasculating the police.  And that's worse because Columbus can claim that it staffs its police force and that it fully supports law enforcement — all the while Not.

America Is More Fragile Than the Left Understands.  Our major cities are no longer safe.  Somehow, the Left has nearly wrecked San Francisco in less than a decade.  A once beautiful and vibrant city is lawless, dirty, toxic, often boarded up, and losing population.  It has turned into a medieval keep of well-protected knights in secure fiefs while everyone else is engaged in a bellum omnium contra omnes.  We know it is so because California public officials talk of anything and everything — Roe v Wade, transitions to electric cars, hundreds of millions of dollars in COVID-19 relief for illegal aliens — to mask their utter impotence to address feces in the street, the random assaults on the vulnerable, and the inability to park a car and return to it intact.  Ditto the Dodge City downtowns of Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Baltimore, Washington, and a host of others.  In just four or five years, they have given up on fully funding the police, aggressive prosecutors indicting the violent, and ubiquitous civil servants ensuring the streets are free of trash, vermin, flotsam, jetsam, and human excrement.

Hundreds of NYC prosecutors [are] quitting [because of] woke bosses and onerous reforms.  The number of prosecutors fleeing the city's district attorneys offices has spiraled in the wake of criminal justice reforms that have created what one ex-top prosecutor called "insanity."  Sixty five assistant district attorneys, or about 12 percent of the staff, have resigned so far this year from Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's office, up from about 44 through the end of March.  During all of 2021, 97 ADAs quit.  The situation is nearly the same in the office of Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez, where 67 of some 500 prosecutors, or about 13 percent, have also called it quits as of June 17. Another three resigned on Thursday, according to a source.  That is compared to 84 who left in all of 2020 and 94 last year.  In the Bronx, 59 prosecutors have walked from January through May.  Reps from the Queens and Staten Island DA offices did not respond to requests for data.

We Are Witnessing What Happens When Unrestrained Youth Gets Power.  When most of us think of the worst emperors in Roman history we think of names like Commodus, Nero, Caligula, and Elagabalus.  To a man they were vain, self-centered, bloodthirsty hedonists who took what they wanted and tortured and killed many thousands of Romans and provincials. [...] Every day in America we see modern-day Commoduses or Caligulas wreaking havoc on our streets and in our stores, restaurants, schools, and more.  Instead of a single entitled Emperor, America in 2022 is being ravaged by a generation of young men — many of whom have grown up fatherless — who have been told that they can do and say anything they want and that, regardless of what they do, there will be no consequences for them.  Just as Elagabalus et al brought nothing but blood, despair, and dysfunction to the Empire, these 21st-century youth are bringing blood, despair, and destruction to America.  A generation of Americans has grown up being given "time outs", "participation trophies," and grades that have nothing to do with actual academic success, while at the same time they've been told that all inequality is due to racism, sexism, homophobia, or anything other than individual choices or actions.  The consequence of this indoctrination is that far too many young Americans think they can do anything with impunity.  If they want something they take it.

Tucker Carlson savages Republican politicians' disrespect for Americans.  Despite the media's covering for Biden, people have noticed raging inflation, a recession, lawlessness, broken borders, a tenderness for Ukraine denied to America, cultivated race-hatred, efforts to disarm law-abiding citizens, and the arrogance of the LGBTQ+++ crowd — and they don't like any of it.  It turns out that mean tweets aren't so bad when compared to a government that's hostile to its own citizens.  The Democrats' intentional mismanagement is so extreme that the party is losing Hispanics and blacks in droves.  In theory, this should be a golden age for Republicans.  It's not, though, and that's the fault of the Republican political class, few of whom seem to embrace conservatism or Americans.

Six major cities on pace to pass historic 2021 violent crime totals halfway through 2022.  Violent crimes are on the rise in six of America's major cities and set to outpace the already historic levels of 2021 violent crime.  Baltimore, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Atlanta, and New York City are all on pace to break their 2021 levels of violent crime halfway through this year, with the nation's largest city leading the group, according to crime data reviewed by Fox News.  New York City has seen a 25.8% jump in violent crime at this point in 2022 compared to the same time in 2021, despite seeing a small decrease in the amount of homicides recorded in the city.  Violent crime, which is typically defined as homicide, rape, assault, and robbery, had already been on the rise since 2020.  Homicides have been one of the factors driving up rates of violent crime, rising 30% from 2019 to 2020 and another 5% between 2020 and 2021.

How liberal policies have killed black communities.  Michael Pack:  You have talked a little today about how life in the black community has not been improved by many well-intentioned social programs.  Do you think, in some sense, it is worse than when you grew up?  Clarence Thomas:  It's a disaster.  When I grew up, you had family, you didn't have drugs, you didn't have gang-banging.  You could walk down the street.  There was a change in our society.  I think that these programs certainly had an impact.  Just go back to Savannah and take a look around you.  Our worst fears were realized.  We didn't want to be right; we wanted to be wrong.  It wasn't about winning an argument.  No, we wanted to lose the argument.  We did not want the damage to occur; that's why we were involved.  I don't particularly like public life; I never wanted to be in public life.  I'd like to go to football games.  I'd like not to make decisions about other people's lives, but what drags you into it is when you see these principles being undermined, which leads to such destruction.  The policies destroy people, and, ultimately, I think, we're going to destroy the very thing that allows us to have liberty and to have a free society.

Do Republicans Even Know What Democrats Did to Them With This Anti-Gun Bill?  The economy is primed to enter a recession as the second-quarter report is bound to show another period of economic contraction.  The supply chain crisis is still ongoing.  The pain at the gas pump lingers.  Inflation is torching the wallets of working Americans.  American mothers still can't find baby formula.  The southern border remains a mess.  There is not a single crisis that's being managed in any meaningful way.  Biden's crew has done nothing.  They can't even get a WNBA star out of Russia who's supposedly being unlawfully detained.

The Great Biden Recession of 2022 Is Already Here.  Last week, I was invited to testify before a House committee hearing titled:  "How the Biden American Rescue Plan Saved the Economy and Lives."  I am not making this up.  Can you imagine taking a victory lap, given our current conditions?  I told the Democrats on the committee that the idea that Congress would hold a hearing like this when the economy is coming unhinged only reinforces the suspicion held by most people that the Washington swamp is totally out of touch with the lives and hardships of everyday America.  The reality of our predicament is best summarized by JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who warned investors to "brace yourself" for what he called a fast-approaching economic "hurricane."

Trans Suicide Is Not a Response to Bigotry.  In 2018, the Heritage Foundation reported suicide rates for individuals 15 years after surgical transition 20 times higher than the that of the population overall.  Even in Sweden, with long availability of transgender medications and surgeries, and social acceptance of transgender individuals, the high suicide rate is consistent with rates in other locations.  Trans activists consistently attribute high suicide rates to irrational hatred, bullying, and rejection targeted at the individual.  However, according to Dr. Paul McHugh, formerly of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the high numbers of suicides are usually years after surgery.  The trigger, according to Dr. McHugh, is the persistent and undeniable reality that that genital surgery has not transformed the individual's sex, leading to despair.  Perhaps elevated rates of suicides and attempts among trans-identifying individuals should be no surprise.  The whole point of "transition" is that an aspect of an otherwise healthy body is so unbearable as to justify a lifetime of artificial hormones and multiple irreversible surgeries.

Biden's energy hypocrisy.  Joe Biden promised on the campaign trail in 2020 that he would "transition away from the oil industry," convert to 100 percent "clean" energy by 2035, and "end fossil fuels."  Shortly after taking office, he started to make good on this pledge by suspending all new gas and oil leases on federal property and ending the Keystone XL pipeline.  Now, faced with gas prices at a record high $5 per gallon and runaway inflation — aka the consequences of his own actions — Biden is looking for an off-ramp.

The Coming Economic Storm.  Was the Trump presidency, with $2 gas, low unemployment and inflation, peace and prosperity, the calm before the current economic storm?  Did Trump know what lay ahead, teasing out a prediction?  Regardless of what President Trump was alluding to, an economic storm is definitely coming, not just on the horizon but already taking its toll on hard-working Americans.  Inflation is at 8.6 percent, the official government number for the CPI.  This is based on a basket of goods and depending on what is measured and how it is weighted, may misrepresent the inflation rate facing consumers on a daily basis.  For example, the Truflation Dashboard reports inflation at 13.2 percent, with food costs up 26.5 percent.  The producer price index rose 10.8 percent in May, foretelling higher consumer prices soon reaching store shelves.  Small business optimism fell to a new 48 year low.  Pessimistic business owners will not be hiring new employees or expanding their businesses.  Many may close up shop instead.

American decimation:  On the front lines of the tearing of our social fabric.  When the Hampton Battery was dedicated here in 1871 to a young Civil War soldier who lost his life protecting the Union at Chancellorsville, Virginia, the granite monument was a point of pride for residents of this neighborhood. [...] Today, the battery's founder, Capt. Robert B. Hampton, who was remembered by the men who served under him as a born commander with "the chivalric nature of an honorable gentleman," is now part of a different carnage in America as he stands watch over an open heroin market that has taken over the once grand park.  Residents say the Civil War statue is literally surrounded by drug dealers, buyers, and users around the clock.  They are getting more aggressive with panhandling, trespassing, and theft.  Just yards away, along the old Pennsylvania canal, a man walks down the street, carrying a brand new patio chair stolen from the porch of a nearby home, toward the new and growing homeless camp.  Last week, there were two tents or makeshift abodes.  Now, there are over a dozen.

To Fight Marxist Education, We Need a New Kind of School.  Those with no understanding of history lack the acumen to steer the future.  Those deprived of great literature remain ill prepared for complex ideas or weighty emotions.  Those who don't first train their minds with the foundations of mathematics and logic lose their potential to build anything new.  To create automatons incapable of dissent or resistance, the Marxists simply destroyed education.  The unsavory result has been that America is now a nation of people with many titles and degrees but diminished capacity for critical thought and reflection.  Just as Congress and the White House work today to disarm Americans of their constitutionally protected firearms, the successive governments behind the Department of Education's demolition of public schooling have disarmed too many Americans of their potential for reason and rationality.  Anyone who doubts that unassailable truth need only look around to see a society unable to distinguish men from women, alleviate its existential angst over ridiculously ludicrous tales of climate apocalypse, or comprehend that the very people who speak endlessly of "saving democracy" or "fighting fascism" are the same ones destroying democratic institutions and promoting the State's totalitarian authority.

Buttigieg Is Angry That Employees Aren't Coming To Work At Airlines.  Airlines across the country, like just about every other industry in America, have been struggling for over a year now to properly staff their operations.  They just can't get enough people to come work for them, and with the employees that they have hired, they're experiencing high levels of absenteeism.  And there are several reasons why.  We have the Biden Administration's "American Rescue Plan" which provided handouts to millions of would-be workers and paid them for doing nothing.  Then there was the repeated extension of unemployment benefits by Mr. Biden, which incentivized workers to just stay home.  And of course, we have the ridiculously high price of gas which makes it much more expensive for an employee to get to work.  All these issues and more have resulted in the wage-price-spiral that we see today.  Inflation is skyrocketing because employers must pay employees more to come work for them.  But then that additional money employees have is worth less because of high prices.

Man Tries to Give Blood Amid a Shortage, Is Rejected Because He Won't Say Whether He's Pregnant.  For any men wanting to donate blood, make sure you're medically self-aware.  For example, you should be adequately informed as to whether you've been impregnated.  Such was a lesson reportedly learned by Leslie Sinclair this month.  The central Scotland resident had hoped to give life-sustaining fluid to others in need.  Sadly, the effort encountered coagulation.  According to the Daily Mail, the 66-year-old was handed a form asking if he was currently pregnant.  Furthermore, the facility needed to know if he'd been knocked up within the last half-year.  The inquiry left him less than impressed:  ["]When he complained that as a man in his 60s this question did not apply and he should not have to answer it, Mr Sinclair said staff at the clinic told him they could not accept his blood.["]

How's that Biden baby formula shortage working out?  Remember when Joe Biden "solved" the baby formula shortage by flying in big Care Package-style shipments in huge jets from Europe?  It was embarrassing, given that the U.S. isn't a typical recipient of foreign aid.  But not to Joe Biden, who had the cameras all over it.  Turns out the big public relations show did nothing.  It was about as effective as Joe Biden releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to solve high prices at the pump.  Same as the price of oil, the baby formula shortage is worse than ever.

The Democrats' Capricious Energy Policy Has Been a Disaster.  Democrats have spent decades warning that the United States must stop using the most efficient and affordable energy sources or it will be consumed by heat waves, fireballs and cataclysmic weather events.  Every flood, every hurricane — every natural event, really — is now blamed on climate change.  We have burdened our children with an irrational dread over their future.  Then again, many in The Cult of Malthus won't even have children.  So, why, if we're on the precipice of this apocalypse, if saving the planet trumps every other concern, is President Joe Biden begging everyone to drill?  On the days Democrats aren't blaming Vladimir Putin for rising gas prices (a cost the president not long ago argued was worth paying for "freedom"), they're blaming oil companies for profiteering.  Wednesday, as the national average hit $5.014 (nearly $2 higher than last year), Biden sent letters to refining companies threatening to once again abuse his executive powers if they do not immediately alleviate high prices — a political appeal to the imaginary "greedflation."

Wall Street finishes its worst week since the 2020 pandemic crash.  Wall Street has closed out its worst week since the COVID-19 pandemic crashed markets in 2020, despite a modest bounce on Friday.  For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial average was down 1,504 points, or 4.8 percent.  The S&P 500 lost 5.8 percent and the Nasdaq dropped 4.8 percent.  It marks the S&P's worst week since March 2020, when stocks were in free-fall as the global economy suddenly shut down at the onset of the pandemic.

The Biden Administration's Push to Normalize Drug Use Will Result in More Deaths.  We have been covering several stories related to the escalation of drug deaths across the country, namely due to fentanyl (now the leading cause of death for young Americans).  In a normal world, there would be a push to stem the recreational use of powerful narcotics.  However, the Biden administration and progressives across the country are pressing to normalize drug use.  For example, we reported that Biden's Health and Human Services department provided $30 million in funding to dole out crack pipes to drug addicts as part of its 'Harm Reduction Plan.' In the same piece, we noted that Biden's Department of Justice says it might be open to allowing safe injection sites, which are places where people can shoot up heroin and other narcotics.

Rolling Blackouts [are] on the Way.  In the recent past, California and Texas have suffered blackouts due to inadequate electricity supply.  This year, as the summer heats up, it is the midwestern states served by the Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO) that are most likely to see their lights go out. [...] Why are blackouts suddenly occurring after many decades of reliable energy?  Because of profiteering by "green" energy hucksters.  ["]MISO may simply not have enough reliable power plants on the grid this summer after 3,200 megawatts (MW) of reliable power plants, mostly coal and nuclear, retired last year.["]  This is a scandal.  "Green" energy liberals have demanded, successfully, that reliable coal and nuclear plants be closed so they can be replaced by wind farms and solar installations.  But those unreliable, intermittent sources can never replace power plants that actually work 24/7.  Hence the blackouts that are now beginning, and will become more and more widespread if we continue to rely increasingly on undependable sources of power.

Oregon's drug decriminalization effort [is] a 'tragedy'.  The streets of downtown Portland, Oregon, resemble an open-air drug market.  Heroin, meth and fentanyl use is rampant and often visible on city streets.  Portland police officers drive by homeless addicts buying and using.  The signs of drug addiction are actually increasing throughout the state, according to law enforcement sources.  Oregon ranks second-highest among U.S. states for substance abuse with nearly one in five adults addicted.  In November 2020, voters overwhelmingly passed Measure 110.  The Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act secured 58% of the votes and decriminalized possession of small amounts of hard drugs such as heroin, meth, cocaine and fentanyl.

Biden's Deathly Presidency.  Under Trump, America was in so many senses vibrant and "alive" with pride in our country and hope for its future.  Now we have regular mass shootings in which citizens disarmed by the State have no way to defend themselves.  Overseas, we have a war in Ukraine, the threat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, and Iran developing nuclear weapons with the encouragement of the Biden administration.  The common thread is death and the fear that goes with it.  And this does not even include Biden's aggressive defense of abortion on demand. [...] Long-term death rates are more a matter of demographics than policy, and they have been rising ever since Obama took office in 2008.  But murder rates, deaths in war and civil unrest, drug overdose deaths, and accidental deaths are attributable to policy, and they have been rising under Biden, even during his short time in office.  Under Biden, the U.S. murder rate, which had been declining under President Trump, is the highest in 25 years. [...] As a citizen, it is difficult to watch my country besieged by violence.  Biden's presidency has been deadly in every respect: turning off economic growth and imposing environmental restrictions, proposing inflation-adjusted cuts in national defense while paying off student loans, and putting citizens at risk with his anti-police rhetoric.  There is little chance of a second Biden term, but just another two and a half years is painful to imagine.  How many thousands will lose their lives because of one incompetent and wrong-headed leader?

The Fed Created the Next Recession.  The long-term driver of inflation, and the reason we have so much inflation, is the fact that we printed six and a half trillion dollars in 48 months and grew the money supply by 40%.  That is simply what's driving all of this, and all of the other things are just sort of add-ons to the supply chain.  Is Russia's invasion of Ukraine driving some of it?  Yes.  Is that the main driver?  No.  The longer-term structural issue is the fact that we grew the money supply by six and a half trillion dollars.  That's what's driving inflation at the end of the day.  It takes 12 to 18 months for all that government spending to get into the system.

Team of Fools:  Biden's Cabinet Picks Prove He is Unfit to Lead.  I have written extensively about Biden's shortcomings.  Nothing exceeds his capacity for choosing the wrong people. [...] Not to be outdone, we have Biden's Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellin.  Listen to the congressional hearings — Yellin sounds like a homeless person.  Since Biden took over, the price of gasoline and other key commodities has doubled.  "Not only did Janet Yellen fail to see any of this coming," said Tucker Carlson, "Yellen more than any single person in America caused it in the first place.  If you're mad about the current state of the economy, Janet Yellin is the first person you should blame."  When asked about inflation, Yellen originally predicted that "Inflation, if it happens, will be transitory."  Now her excuse is that no one could have anticipated the record inflation that is plaguing Biden's presidency. [...] Why didn't Yellen see it coming?  And what is her response?  "I do expect inflation to remain high," Yellen says, "although I very much hope it will be coming down now."  "Is that where we are," asks Tucker Carlson, "very much hoping?  In a functioning country, Janet Yellen would be in a retirement home.

White House says Biden has sparked 'historic economic boom' as Dow plunges into bear market amid record inflation.  The White House defended President Joe Biden's economic record on Monday as the nation experienced historic inflation, gas prices over $5 a galloon and the stock market dropping.  White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre argued President Biden actually made historic economic gains, which would help the American people go through these economic 'challenges.'  She blamed inflation — prices in May were 8.6% higher than a year earlier — the greatest increase since 1981 — on the covid pandemic and on Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in the Ukraine.  'You know, with this price, high inflation coming, coming out every once in a generation, global pandemic, all of those things play a factor,' Jean-Pierre said.  But, she argued, that America would bounce back under Biden.

Biden blames Republicans, Russia for soaring inflation.  President Joe Biden on Tuesday blamed Republicans and the Russian invasion of Ukraine for soaring US inflation, in a bid to deflect voter anger over his inability to keep prices down.  Speaking to trade unions in Philadelphia on the eve of the Federal Reserve's likely decision to raise interest rates again, Biden said inflation is "sapping the strength of a lot of families."  Biden said he feels Americans' pain, having grown up in a family where news that the price of gasoline had gone up "was a conversation at the dinner table.  It mattered."  But he rejected arguments that his government's massive spending to stimulate the economy at the tail end of the Covid-19 pandemic was to blame, instead citing shockwaves from Ukraine and Republican obstruction.

All Stock Market Gains Erased Since Biden Took Office.  The stock market has lost all the gains it made since President Joe Biden was sworn into office, according to recent data reported by Fortune on Monday [6/13/2022].  The S&P 500 took a sharp downturn, closing on Monday 151 points below where it was in January of 2021. The other two major indexes, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite fell by 876 points and 530 points respectively, both below where they were when Biden took office.  Cryptocurrency has also taken a hit.  Bitcoin lost 15% of its value, and Ethereum lost 16%, according to Fortune.

U.S. annualized inflation just peaked 17 percent for the first time since WW2, the highest rate in 75 years.  [Threat reader]  The media are misreporting the real data, and I'll explain why.  Inflation is properly defined as an expansion of the money supply.  However in the 20th century, the federal government began a series of steps to expand the money supply to facilitate more expansive federal spending (removing the gold standard, removing the gold peg, suppressing interest rates as "stimulus," printing money directly into the Treasury, etc.).  All of these are inflationary, and prices rose far more in the 20th century vs. the largely deflationary 19th century.  To cover their tracks, the Fed changed its definition of inflation from meaning an expansion in the money supply to mean rising prices.  (Again, previously, the terms were basically synonymous as an expanding money supply ALWAYS means higher prices.)  The CPI as originally conceived was intended to track the cost of maintaining a constant standard of living.  In 1980, the Fed altered its tool for calculating inflation such that it was no longer measuring a constant "basket of goods" but rather a "quasi-substitution-based basket of goods"; now, via "hedonics," the Fed would, for example, use tech improvements to offset rising prices [...]

Joe Biden Gets Smashed by Resurrected Clip, Karine-Jean Pierre Flails in Response.  If you have any money in the stock market, today was a good day to not look at it.  The Dow Jones cratered by nearly 900 points with the other markets following the same trends.  For the first time, the markets are now currently lower under Joe Biden than when he took office.  This is what a full-scale collapse looks like.

New Charts Reveal Harms of Biden's Budget-Busting Binge.  President Joe Biden has been engaging in extra-strength political spin by repeatedly taking credit for a reduction in the budget deficit.  Yet this happened despite Biden's policies, not because of them:  Record-setting deficits during the COVID-19 pandemic were already expected to come back down to earth as the worst of the pandemic seemed to wane.  A more accurate way to see whether Biden has been good for the nation's financial health is to compare where things stood when he took office with where they stand today.  The comparison in the chart [not shown here] makes it clear:  Biden has repeatedly chosen to make things worse.

The Latest Mask Research Is Bad News For Branch Covidians.  Unless you're visiting a medical facility still taken in by the mask-cult or you live in a big city or some obscure California county run by hypochondriac Democrat whack-jobs, you're probably generally living your life without being forced to wear a useless, bacteria-laden piece of t-shirt material over your face. [...] Indeed, the unabashed insistence that masks 'work' has become one of the most insane and evil lies in all of human history.  Not only did it create a false sense of security that doubtless led to more infections than would otherwise had occurred, it also led to years of speech and developmental delays in children, untold disruptions of societal cohesion, millions of tons of useless and pointless medical waste in our oceans and landfills, massive psychological issues in countless people who still mask-up in the absurdest of places and situations to this day, and even actual medical harms that are just being uncovered.  All while doing absolutely nothing towards their intended purpose.  If there has been a worse trade-off, I'd love to see it.

Inflation spoils the January 6 show.  Call it bad timing or Trump luck, but most people today are talking inflation.  This is from Fox News:  ["]The Labor Department said Friday that the consumer price index, a broad measure of the price for everyday goods, including gasoline, groceries and rents, rose 8.6% in May from a year ago.  Prices jumped 1% in the one-month period from April.  Those figures were both higher than the 8.3% headline figure and 0.7% monthly gain forecast by Refinitiv economists.  It marks the fastest pace of Inflation since December 1981.["]   Well, I remember 1981 and the recession that followed in 1982.  In other words, my memory tells me it's going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.  Wait until companies shut down and lay off people.  It's coming because I saw this movie 40 years ago.

The Editor says...
You joined that movie in progress, sir, because Gerald Ford was desperately trying to "Whip Inflation Now" in 1974.  (And also tried to solve a gasoline shortage by reducing the speed limit to 55 mph nationwide, which created the CB Radio boom and made Radio Shack stores very popular.)  Eventually he turned the inflation problem over to Jimmy Carter, who made matters worse.  But even Carter never dreamed of spending a trillion dollars at a time.

NYPD exodus:  Police on pace to quit, retire in record numbers.  More than 1,500 NYPD officers have either resigned or retired so far this year — on pace to be the biggest exodus of officers since the statistics have been available, The [New York] Post has learned.  Some 524 cops have resigned and 1,072 have retired as of May 31, NYPD pension stats obtained by The Post show.  The 1,596 total is a 38% spike from the same period in 2021, when 1,159 cops called it a career, and a staggering 46% climb from 2020, when 1,092 left the force by the same date.  Anti-cop hostility, bail reform, and rising crime have fed into frustration among the NYPD rank and file, according to one NYPD officer who recently fled for greener pastures at a Long Island police department after 6½ years with the New York's Finest.

The Subordinate Citizen.  There are lots of reasons why the looming November midterms will likely see historic levels of pushback against the Biden administration, Democratic candidates, and the entire progressive agenda.  Take your pick of the many self-induced Biden disasters, among them hyperinflation, unaffordable gasoline, out-of-control crime, and foreign policy humiliations.  But one reason why voters are furious is rarely expressed.  Americans feel that ordinary citizens like themselves who follow the rules are treated more harshly by their own government than are both noncitizens and our own progressive elites.  And they are right, and they are angry, and we will hear from them very soon.

Biden Has America on its Knees.  There have been a number of books released recently that highlight America's collective buyer's remorse in electing Joe Biden as President.  As we came through a spring of Biden's administration starting a new Cold War with Russia, skyrocketing inflation, and a baby formula shortage; the opportunities for authors to highlight the multitude of failures is easy.  You know it is dire when no one on the Left is writing a book about the glowing successes of the Biden administration and its domestic and foreign triumphs.

What would it take for the White House to commit treason?  A number of prior actions by the Biden administration directly harmed rather than helped the U.S.  These injurious executive decisions include suppression of domestic oil and natural gas production (note current gas prices); opening the southern border to a massive wave of illegal immigration, deadly drugs, and human-trafficking; fabricating a COVID scam that destroyed public trust in Washington; mandates that nullified the Bill of Rights; printing trillions of fiat dollars; abrogation of rule of law causing the current crime wave; and promotion of anti-white racism CRT (Critical Race Theory).  While all these actions hurt the American people and are frankly anti-American, they do not satisfy the definition of treason:  "betraying one's country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government."  But what the White House is currently planning behind closed doors may be a different story.

How Progressive Ideology Transformed America.  Most people have now caught on to how progressive ideology has inched its way into American life through critical race theory and gender ideology.  However, few are aware of how America has been radically transformed over a period of time.  People notice the adverse effects but cannot connect the dots back to progressivism.

Trump's Right of First Refusal Isn't Enough.  [Scroll down]  Trump's tiresome tirades about his re-election having been stolen — while true enough — get in the way of the more important message for 2024:  how he will fix in 2024 all of what the Democrats have destroyed since January 2020.  This is not to say election integrity isn't a big deal, but Trump can't do anything about it now, and needs to stay focused on what matters right now.  What really matters is crippling runaway inflation, the war on energy, the invasion on the southern border, the anarchy, violence, and dystopia of Dem-run American cities, and the endless catastrophes in foreign policy and national security.  Of course, most Trump-aligned Marys and Joes are annoyed about the stolen 2020 election, but they are terrified by the state of the nation and how it is affecting them and their families — right now.  Trump needs to relentlessly pound away at the root causes of that raw fear now and every day, and what he would do about it on day one of his second term.

The dystopian state of our nation.  [Scroll down]  Fear-mongering is their number-one tool; the media, electronic and social, are completely on board.  Fomenting crime, unnecessary COVID mandates, lockdowns, calculated supply chain shortages, the doubling of gas prices, etc. — all these are part of their program to disrupt and destroy what was once the greatest nation on the planet.  Despite the seeming randomness of what is happening, it's all part of their plan:  wreck America as founded, and reconstitute it as their oligarchic playground.

Have We Become Amerika?  A 1987 television miniseries that visualized the condition of the U.S. a decade after the country had surrendered to the Soviet Union was probably not far off the mark.  Life in "Amerika" was nothing like life in America before the Soviet takeover. [...] Unlike the Americans in "Amerika," we didn't surrender to the Soviets.  We have simply handed power to the left.  The hard (and unrelenting) left controls most of the media, sets the tone for popular culture, and has hegemonized most of our institutions and many of our businesses.  Consequently, freedoms have been overrun, dissent forbidden, free speech shredded, and crime allowed to thrive.  Our Second Amendment rights are in grave jeopardy.  The price of energy is intentionally being increased.  Failure to conform to leftist demands risks ostracization.  The rule of law is being ignored.  Our justice system has been corrupted by politics.  Both policymakers and activists want to increase the middle and lower classes' dependency on government.  Wealth is not to be created but redistributed by elected officials and their functionaries in the bureaucracy.  Inflation caused by Democratic policies has wrecked the value of the dollar.  Abundance has been replaced by shortages, the worst of which are yet to come.

Seattle Implodes After Defunding Police.  Seattle's efforts to defund its police department and transfer its duties to other city agencies resulted in $5 million worth of wrongful parking tickets and other administrative dysfunction, according to The Seattle Times.  Seattle is refunding roughly 100,000 parking tickets worth approximately $5 million total after transferring parking enforcement duties from police to civilian parking enforcement officers in the fall of 2021, finding that the civilian officers lacked the legal authority to write the tickets, according to The Seattle Times.  Parking officers also conducted more than 10,000 car tows and impounded 1,700 cars without the proper authority during this period.  "What's going to happen here is that we're going to get sued, I can guarantee it," said Chuck Labertew, president of Lincoln Towing, which has the sole contract for city-initiated towing, according to The Seattle Times.  "And I'm going to forward every one of those lawsuits on over to the city."  The decision to remove this responsibility from police was part of a push in 2020 to reduce police funding and have civilians take on jobs typically handled by police, according to The Seattle Times.

The green agenda's role in global inflation.  As inflation rises and the prospects for our return to normality following the pandemic fade ever more into the distant future, criticism is rightly focusing on financial institutions and regulators.  They claim that printing money, which has inevitably caused prices to rise, was necessary to mitigate the economic chaos of lockdowns.  But now they appear to be behind a third act of immense self-harm to help to steer the world to inflation and deliberately prevent economic recovery.  The rise in energy prices the world has seen were not the result of an unforeseeable supply crisis, but engineered by those charged with managing the economy. [...] It turns out that the chief regulator of the UK economy (the sixth largest in the world) and his predecessor were far more concerned with the putative risks from climate change than with developments in geopolitics.  The Bank of England's webpages could have been written by an XR activist.  'Climate change creates financial risks and economic consequences,' it claims.  'These risks and consequences matter for our mission to maintain monetary and financial stability.'  Endless volumes of reports and links to pages after pages make the case, citing equally endless scientific reports that I have always considered to be suspect.

Guns Are Not the Problem.  [Scroll down]  It is considered offensive or stodgy even to suggest that things are not as they should be.  We're living in a male-dominated world, we are told over and over.  Men are thriving.  But it's the women who are thriving.  They are getting educated more than ever, making more money than ever, and they are finding the pickings of marriageable men with secure jobs (thanks, globalization) are slim.  The result is fewer marriages, or marriages delayed, and fewer families.  Our infertile, androgynous blob-society has destroyed masculinity and femininity both, leaving the sexes repulsed by one another.  Society ridicules masculinity and sets men up to fail with terrible advice: become docile and vulnerable, and be more like women.  While men have softened, femininity is becoming a rare quality in women.  The typical modern "boss b****" talks and acts like a man, is fatter than her predecessors, and has a sense of entitlement and an inflated sense of what she has to offer.  The marriage market is a minefield, and it's not hard to see why members of both sexes are approaching with caution.

South Africa:  Warmism creates blackouts.  South Africa — supposedly one of Africa's advanced economies — is reeling under severe power shortages and daily rolling blackouts — some for as long as eight hours.  In May, most households, commercial buildings, and industries experienced hours of blackouts.  The South African state-run power utility ESKOM supplied no power between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. due to a "loss of generation capacity."  Last month, social unrest was reported in parts of the country after frustrated citizens took to the streets to protest power failures, cable theft, and years of inefficiency at Eskom.  The utility has been notorious for corruption, poor maintenance, and failure to increase generation capacity.

Hurricane Joe — A Category Five Economic Calamity.  Hurricane season is officially underway, beginning June 1, extending to November 30.  Expect the usual stories about hurricanes becoming more frequent and severe due to global warming, despite contrary evidence.  What about a new type of hurricane?  Not rain and wind, but an economic hurricane of stagflation, a toxic combination of high inflation and stagnant economic growth.  This hurricane is so miserable that a term was coined to measure the misery, aptly named the misery index, the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates.  The misery index is currently in double digits, near 12, and if economic malaise continues, expect this number to creep closer to 20, territory last seen during the Jimmy Carter presidency, the last time both the misery index and malaise were commonly discussed.

Tucker Carlson:  Biden's Lunatic War Against Putin [is] Crushing The U.S. Economy.  Let's say just for the sake of a mind experiment, that you're the secretary of transportation for the United States of America.  That's a big job, but what would you do all day?  Well, [...] your first concern would be the price of diesel fuel.  Diesel fuel is what makes transportation possible in this country. [...] Your second concern, if you were transportation secretary, would be domestic air travel.  This is a huge country.  It's far too big a country not to have reliable commercial flights from one place to another. [...] So, that's what you would be worried about if you were the secretary — diesel and airlines — and yet, remarkably, in less than a year and a half under Joe Biden, both of these things, fuel costs and air travel have gone dramatically in the wrong direction.  The price of diesel is now hit its highest price ever recorded in history. [...] Wasn't it just the other day that the United States was energy independent?  Yes, but now we're begging dictatorships to sell us oil, but it won't be enough.  Industry officials are predicting shortages very soon.  [Video clip]

The Cost Of Gas Has More Than Doubled Since The Day Biden Took Office.  The average cost of a gallon of gasoline has officially more than doubled since the day President Joe Biden took office on January 21, 2021.  On Saturday [6/4/2022], AAA reported that the average price of a gallon of gasoline was $4.819. On the day that Biden was inaugurated, gas cost motorists just $2.393 per gallon on average. [...] On Wednesday, The Daily Wire reported that Biden suggested the high cost of gasoline is here to stay for quite some time, as he lamented to reporters that it is "not likely" he can simply "click a switch" to bring down prices.  Biden made his remarks regarding gasoline from the White House-crafted fake Oval Office set — which he reportedly uses so that he can stay on a script from a teleprompter.

Matt Schlapp says Biden failures prove he's 'simply not up to the job'.  The wheels are completely coming off of the Democratic Party clown car as it spins out of control headed for the brick wall of the November midterm elections and to top it off, things are even worse inside a White House that has descended into dysfunction and disarray as it becomes more apparent to voters that the Biden administration is an abject catastrophe.  With the nation battered by record gas prices with no ceiling in sight along with the worst inflation in four decades, food and baby formula shortages, and a regime that burns through money faster than the proverbial drunken sailor on a foreign conflict where no American interests are at stake, things are looking increasingly bleak for a Democratic Party that is determined to tear down the nation and its institutions and which could be only five months away from the mother of all electoral bloodbaths.

State Officials Admit Drug Decriminalization Has Been a Massive Failure: 'We Have Overdoses Increasing at Drastic Rates'.  A 2020 ballot measure that decriminalized drug use has failed in its purpose of improving lives, Oregon state officials were told this week.  Oregon's House Committee on Behavior Health was told in testimony that the law has not done what it claimed it would do, according to the Washington Examiner.  "When the voters of Oregon passed Measure 110, we did so because it was a change of policy in Oregon to improve the lives of people, to improve our communities," Secretary of State Shemia Fagan said.

Our Rulers Have Lost Their Minds.  Have a look at the shock on people's faces as they leave the grocery stores these days, or the look as they stand filling up their tanks at the gas station.  Their jaws drop and they wonder what is happening to the world.  The answer is the policy disasters of the last two years.  The bill is coming due and everyone but the masters of the universe is paying it.  The value of the dollar is sinking rapidly, more rapidly than in our lifetimes.  The people who hold power today seem completely clueless about why this is happening.  Actually, that's a charitable interpretation.  They might just think it is great.  High gas prices are pushing a shift to electric cars, presumably to manage global climate (I'm a serious doubter that anything like that is possible by policy).  Or maybe there is an impulse here just to redistribute wealth and disorient people to create new levels of dependency.  Whatever the reason, I'm seeing absolutely no signs that anyone at the top has any intention to put a stop to this.

The Left Despises People of Color.  Under the guise of caring and concern, the Left continues its assault on Black people, aka People of Color.  First, it began with substandard education to Black children and the control of the school systems by the teachers' unions, who shill for the Democrat party.  Not surprising, these very children could not compete academically because they were never given the basic tools to do so.  But the seed was planted fostering the implicit bias that Blacks were simply not capable of doing well.  So, the next step was to institute affirmative action.  After 60 years, it has been discovered, for example, that while these very students could have done well in second tier law schools, far too many could not compete in the elite schools and dropped out.  The chaos that now describes American education has created ignorance of a magnitude that is terrifying.  Of course, it has affected the Caucasian students, but it has only worsened things for the Black students.

Our Economic Misery Isn't an Accident, It's the Plan.  There are predictions that gas will hit $6 a gallon nationwide by the summer because the Biden administration has worked hard to raise energy prices and create artificial shortages.  Biden's people just got through once again sabotaging oil and gas leases because they want higher energy prices.  $6 a gallon is not the result of political inattentiveness, that is the plan.  Inflation isn't an unintentional accident either.  The Left spends like drunken sailors to feed its agenda, but also because spending is an innate good in the Cloward-Piven sense.  Devalue money and you wipe out the middle class.  Then you can reboot the economy on new terms.  Biden wasted trillions of dollars and is busy blaming "corporate greed" for high prices. [...] The utterly blatant goal is to eliminate millions of cars by making it too expensive to drive.  And Democrats are working on this on multiple ends, from environmental and safety regulations, to raising gas prices, to artificial car shortages.  Even those who can afford an electric car or get a government subsidized one will be kept off the road by high power rates.

How The White House Fumbled The Inflation Football And Lost The Game.  Wasn't it not even a year ago we were told that inflation would, in fact, be a "good" thing?  That it was "transitory"?  Not a serious threat.  Now we're finding that the media, Wall Street economists, Fed officials, but most of all, the Biden administration, were all wrong.  Does anyone pay a price for gross incompetence anymore? [... Inflation] skews business and personal decisions, wrecks family budgets, makes millions of low-income families even poorer, destroys personal thrift and wealth, undermines faith in the economy, distorts financial markets, and discourages investment and innovation.  And, eventually, it destroys real economic growth, undermining the very underpinnings of our prosperity and standard of living.  We're on the way to that now.

The return of reefer madness?  Reefer madness is not a joke, but a real problem.  Why do you think George Soros is investing so much money in legalization?  Drugs add to the dystopian scene of our cities:  homelessness, crime, squalor.  Our current dilemma is a becoming a dirty and degenerate rendition of Huxley's Brave New World (1932).

Government Officials Blame Biden For Inflationary Surge Hurting Most Americans.  Officials in the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) have released reports that squarely place the rate of inflation on President Biden's stimulus efforts during the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic.  The CBO notes that President Biden is culpable for the record-high inflation creating undue pressure on America's workforce in its latest annual report.  The nonpartisan CBO report also says that Biden's preferred fix, increasing taxes, will worsen the economy.  The CBO's annual economic outlook squarely blames Biden's 2021 COVID stimulus bill for today's high inflation.  The report notes that the stimulus checks sent to Americans in 2021 significantly boosted demand, causing inflationary pressure.  The report also notes that Biden's COVID stimulus artificially "slowed the recovery of labor force participation" by paying workers not to work.  The continued lack of employees has strained supply chains, creating an additional source of upward pressure on consumer prices.

The Fed Chair Explained How He Flooded the System by Printing Money.  President Joe Biden is meeting with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at the White House Tuesday [5/31/2022] for the first time since taking office in January 2021.  The meeting comes as inflation wreaks havoc on American families with prices on essential items continuing to skyrocket.  [Tweet]  The meeting marks a new strategy by the White House to focus on the issue, with allies in the media deflecting blame from Democrats.

America Today:  Liberals Did It.  Let's talk money.  A century ago, it took about $20 to buy an ounce of gold.  Today it takes about $2,000.  So a dollar today is worth one percent of its grandfather a century ago.  Has this been a Good Thing?  Or the worst thing since fossil fuels?  It's your Keynesian economics that has done this, liberals, as in:  Got a problem on the economic front? A war?  A crash?  A COVID?  No problem, just print a bunch of dollars.

USDA Raises Food Price Forecast to Highest Level in 42 Years.  Have you ever seen egg prices at $1 per egg range, or $12/doz?  Hold on a few months and perhaps you will.  That is the context for the scale of food price increases the USDA is now starting to predict.  The highest predicted change in food costs in well over 40 years, that's the USDA warning in their revised May "Food Price Outlook".  This month the USDA just re-re-revised the forward price outlook, and things are grim. [...] When the USDA predicts egg prices increasing by 19.5 to 20.5% (from where those prices are now), there will be regions with much higher retail increases than estimated.  Just two months ago, USDA had egg inflation at 2.5%-3.5% range, year over year.  Again, that's the scale of change; from a 3.5% forward outlook to a 20.5% forward outlook effective right now.  Food at home (grocery store) prices: up 7% to 8% in this monthly review, versus the April outlook of a rise of 5% to 6%.  That means the USDA is predicting the highest grocery store price rise since 1980 when prices rose 8.1% (prices rose 7.2% in 1981).  There is no reason to think the USDA forecast will not rise again in June.

Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.  Inflation is running rampant.  The Producer Price Index, the most useful measure of general inflation, is up a whopping 16.3% from April 2021, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  That means that roughly $1 out of every $6 that people earn has been lost to inflation in a single year. [...] Inflation comes when you have too much money chasing too few goods.  The spending part provided the excess money, but the Biden team was right there helping to ensure fewer goods, too.  Gas prices going up?  Not only was Biden's spending program stimulating inflation, but at the same time Biden policies were reducing the amount of gasoline, diesel and heating oil those dollars could buy.  Biden went wild canceling pipelines, ending gas and oil leases, imposing stricter environmental rules and — in cooperation with big institutional investors — choking off the finances of people trying to produce new fuel supplies.

How Long Can You Eat if Your Power Goes Out?  U.S. fertilizer prices have risen dramatically, in some cases fourfold in the last few years.  This not only creates huge upward price pressures, but impacts usage, potentially impacting yields.  Also Union Pacific has reduced major U.S. fertilizer companies, like CF Industries, one of America's largest, to shipping about 80% of their potential volumes.  This can result in some of America's premier farmlands, the Corn Belt, not getting adequate fertilizer during the critical spring planting season.  Ironically, "Union Pacific has said it is limiting rail traffic and hiring aggressively as part of a plan to improve service after grain and ethanol shippers complained about shortcomings."  So U.P. is limiting the food supply to further limit the food supply by converting more corn into ethanol — a devil's twofer.  And the Biden administration plans to increase ethanol limits.  A threefer.

Militarizing The Baby Formula Crisis Is Infantile.  America is unique in having this problem because its regulatory state caused it.  The proximate cause of the shortage was the February recall of products made at America's largest manufacturer of baby formula, Abbott Labs' facility in Michigan.  The Food and Drug Administration was concerned about outbreaks of death and illness among infants fed with the formula but was slow to inspect the facility.  Abbott has indeed announced that it will reopen the facility, as the FDA found no evidence of contamination.  As 40% of America's supply comes from that facility, the shortfall hit supplies hard.  Ordinarily, however, the market would respond to such a shock by two means — raising prices to signal a shortage and importing substitutes from abroad.  However, regulation precludes those two responses.  Much of the American market depends on price agreements with the country's welfare agencies, which are there to stop poor mothers from having to face difficult choices for their pocketbooks.

It's Not The Guns:  America's left-wing culture of death and self-mutilation is a factory that produces mass shooters.  In the wake of the mass shooting yesterday in Uvalde, Texas, we must remember that on the very same day, over 2,700 human babies were murdered in America via abortion factories, according to reliable abortion estimates.  The same Leftists who demand abolishing the Second Amendment by falsely claiming it will stop shootings also celebrate the mass slaughter of human babies as they're being born... or even after they're born, via "post-birth abortions" that the Left celebrates.  What they care about is stripping armed Americans of their last remaining line of defense against tyranny:  The Second Amendment.  Left-wing Marxists and tyrants know that if they can successfully take away firearms from the American people, they can then run whatever totalitarian scenarios they want, including rounding up conservatives and throwing them into concentration camps under the cover of an "outbreak."  If Americans give up their guns, the radical left-wing fascists will treat the American people in the same way Australia's government treats their citizens:  Like prisoners in a giant prison camp.

Cannabis causes psychosis.  Psychosis causes violence.  Yep, there it is, the first reference to cannabis use by Salvador Ramos, the Texas elementary school killer.  In the New York Times.  Took 24 hours, give or take.  ["]And Ms. Rodriguez recalled he would often talk about how much he despised his mother and grandmother, whom he told her did not let him smoke weed or do what he wanted.["]  [Source]  This is only one case.  Except it's not.  Nikolas Cruz, the Florida high school shooter, was a heavy user and told the police detective who interviewed him that he heard voices.  Devin Patrick Kelley — who shot up a Texas church and killed 26 people in 2017 before blowing his head off — had THC in his system when he died.  (Kelley had anti-anxiety drugs too; a lot of heavy cannabis users wind up using Xanax or Klonopin to try to tamp down their paranoia.)  Darrell Brooks Jr., last seen allegedly racing through the Waukesha Christmas Parade, is a self-described stoner.  Meanwhile, cities like Portland, Oregon have suffered an explosion in violence following the legalization of cannabis.  Portland had 16 murders in 2013, the year before voters in Oregon approved full legalization.  Last year it had 90.  It's on pace to have even more in 2022.  It has gone from being one of the safest medium-sized cities in the United States to one of the most dangerous.  Denver has seen a similar trend.

A Dark Age in America.  America has been fundamentally transformed — and not for the better. [...] Racism is rampant.  Not only is racism accepted, but it is celebrated.  With Critical Race Theory, schools teach children to hate anyone who looks different, to feel guilty if they're white or empowered because they are not white.  Children barely out of diapers are being taught to question their sex before they are capable of comprehending what sex is.  Our southern border is nonexistent, and politicians are loath to do anything about it.  Illegal aliens pour across and then demand — as if it were their God-given right — support and acceptance.  If they're intercepted by Border Patrol, they get medical care and free transport to wherever they want to go.

Democrats are breaking America.  AP amused me with its tale, "After 3 months of war, life in Russia has profoundly changed." [...] With Biden's ignorant economic sanctions, he has brought down two economies.  I could not care less about Russia, but the United States is in deep trouble.  Destroying America is the goal.  I call it the Venezuelation of America.  The combination of runaway inflation and shortages is astonishing and unprecedented here, but common throughout the communist world.  Along with a rampant rise in violent crime, Democrats are scorching the Earth to punish Americans for daring to elect Donald John Trump as president.  Democrats desperately are speeding up their fundamental transformation of America into a Union of Soviet States of America.  The use of mail-in voting to accommodate illegal ballot harvesting installed Biden in the White House.  Democrats know they have very little time to make the changes they desire.

We Aren't Raising Adults.  We Are Breeding Very Excellent Sheep.  I taught English at Yale University for ten years.  I had some vivid, idiosyncratic students — people who went on to write novels, devote themselves to their church, or just wander the world for a few years.  But mostly I taught what one of them herself called "excellent sheep."  These students were excellent, technically speaking.  They were smart, focused, and ferociously hard-working.  But they were also sheep: stunted in their sense of purpose, waiting meekly for direction, frequently anxious and lost.  I was so struck by this — that our "best and brightest" students are so often as helpless as children — that I wrote a book about it.  It came out in 2014, not long before my former colleague Nicholas Christakis was surrounded and browbeaten by a crowd of undergraduates for failing to make them feel coddled and safe — an early indication of the rise of what we now call wokeness.

They Want You to Suffer.  In a sentence I've typed way too often over the last year, inflation continues to sit at astronomical levels, gas prices keep increasing, and the border is in shambles.  To make matters worse, over the past month, the stock market has crashed, eating away at people's retirements and investments.  Dreams that people had are now going to be on hold for years based on the hope that things will recover, and time isn't something you can get back.  The response from the White House in the face of so many of their self-inflicted wounds hasn't been empathy, though.  Not that such would mean much, but it would at least give people peace of mind knowing that their leaders aren't actively rooting for their destruction.  Unfortunately, that's exactly what appears to be happening.  These people want you to suffer.

The consequences of the stolen 2020 election are increasingly catastrophic.  [Scroll down]  The elephant in the room is this: why has no DOJ investigation been mounted, given the overwhelming volumes of evidence of election fraud?  Why have the courts dismissed each case without even looking at the evidence?  The only answer is that the DOJ, every other federal law enforcement agency and the corporate media are corrupt.  They are all agents of the Democrat party.  As Dennis Prager often comments, truth is not a left-wing value.  Beyond the mules; the illegally harvested ballots; fake ballots that were never folded, mailed, or signed; the finagling of people like Republican Gov. Kemp and sec. of state Raffensperger of Georgia and the NeverTrump powers that be in Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan and probably numerous other states, the 2020 election was the most dishonest, the most unscrupulous in American history.  Unable to accept her defeat in 2016, Hillary Clinton fabricated the notion that Russia facilitated Trump's win, which gave birth to the entirely phony Mueller investigation, the trumped-up impeachments based on nothing, and the equally fabricated "insurrection" charges about January 6.

My Biden-Voting Friend Had 'No Idea' Things Could Get This Bad.  A friend told me yesterday he voted for Biden because he was tired of Trump's "drama." He said he "didn't vote for Jared Kushner or Ivanka" and didn't like them "hanging around" the White House.  "Right message, wrong guy," he said of Trump.  My buddy considers himself a "non-Trumping, Democrat-hating conservative."  I guess his "non-Trumping" bias trumped (heh-heh) his hatred of Democrats.  He claimed he had "no idea things would get this bad under Biden."  My friend also doesn't like the far-left judge in the Bronx who has a habit of releasing violent criminals from jail.  He lives nearby.  "She's causing a one-woman crime wave," my friend lamented.  He fears for his family's safety and worries about his 2-year-old granddaughter's future.

The Collapse of Trust.  Looking at the issues facing our country, there seems to be something pernicious for which we don't seem to know what to do to correct the downward trajectory that is shaking us to our core. [... For example,] The sky-high cost of energy:  Why do we have a shortage of energy and are we being told the truth?  The salient question every American should ask is, have they been deceived by the President?  Old "circle back" Psaki was asked endlessly why we are producing less energy, even today?  Pre-Pandemic, under Trump, the U.S. was producing a record 13 million barrels of oil per day and we were even exporting it.  Production fell 3 million BPD due to slackened demand.  Production is now back up to 11.6 [million] BPD but is not accelerating.  Why?  Could the underlying reason be the simple truth that Biden articulated in 2019 "I want you to look at my eyes.  I guarantee you.  I guarantee you.  We're going to end fossil fuel."  Is he just keeping his promise and lying to the rest of us?  My take is simple; he wants high prices and cares not about the damage to the American family and its position in the world to support his Green New Deal initiatives.

It Sure Looks Like Joe Biden Is Trying to Purposely Destroy the Country.  The last several weeks in the United States have been a wild ride.  Everything that could go wrong, short of a full-blown apocalyptic situation, has gone wrong.  The stock market is currently in the midst of a collapse, with the Dow Jones losing nearly 5,000 points over the last 30 days.  Inflation clocked in at 8.3% for April, representing another crushing blow to Americans.  Of course, gas prices continue to break milestones on a daily basis. [...] With all that in mind, you'd expect the current administration to be scrambling to fix things, or at the very least, soften the blow.  Instead, it sure seems like Biden is purposely trying to destroy the country.  For example, in the midst of exploding gas prices and a diesel shortage, which exacerbates inflation because products have to be transported, the administration decided to cancel more oil and gas leases.

Morgan Stanley analyst directly blames Biden's 'excessive' fiscal stimulus for surge of inflation.  An analysis of the economy by Morgan Stanley put the blame directly on the "excessive" fiscal stimulus spending by the Biden administration for the surge of inflation that is hurting so many Americans.  Michael Wilson led a team of analysts in the assessment released on Monday.  "In summary, the slack created by the covid recession is being absorbed much faster than usual.  While some of this absorption is due to the supply disruptions created by the lockdowns, we think it was more so due to excessive fiscal stimulus provided during the pandemic, particularly the last $1.9T package at the end of March 2021 just as the economy was already emerging from the lockdowns," the analysis read.  "In our view, this was what turbocharged consumption and drove inflation to 40-year-highs," it continued.

How the Left Shuts Down Talk of Election Fraud.  [For instance,] The Law of Merited Impossibility:  This is when Leftists tell you, "Oh, what you're worried about will never happen," and then when it does, tell you, "It will be for the best and you deserve it, anyway."  One example of this, to counter the Right's "slippery slope" concerns, might be, "Oh, just because men are able to self-identify as women, that doesn't mean they'll be exposing themselves in locker rooms!  Goodness, that will never happen."  And then, when it does, they say, "Now it's the way it should be, and if you have a problem, deal with it because you're homophobic."  As I apply this to election fraud, it might start out with them saying, "Mail-in balloting will never lead to fraud big enough to change elections!" Then, when you suspect it has, they say, "Hey, the important thing is to make every vote count and not disenfranchise any racial group, you racist."

Put a Fork in Portland.  Portland use to be one of my favorite towns to visit.  It had fun bars and groovy thrift stores.  Now it looks like Detroit on a bender.  The difference between my hometown, the Motor City, and Portland is that Portland's death was intentional.  Whereas Detroit was murdered by a perfect storm of crotch-kicks from the auto industry and a racist, corrupt mayor, Portland was killed by its own citizens and the Democratic Party.  I should have seen what the future of Portland would look like.  The last time I was there was in 2010.  Everything seemed fine except for the huge homeless population.  Note to self:  when you have hundreds of drugged-out homeless people living wherever they want in a town, death is nigh.

The Takeover of America's Legal System.  The adversarial legal system — in which both sides of a dispute are represented vigorously by attorneys with a vested interest in winning — is at the heart of the American constitutional order.  Since time immemorial, law schools have tried to prepare their students to take part in that system.  Not so much anymore.  Now, the politicization and tribalism of campus life have crowded out old-fashioned expectations about justice and neutrality.  The imperatives of race, gender and identity are more important to more and more law students than due process, the presumption of innocence, and all the norms and values at the foundation of what we think of as the rule of law.  Critics of those values are nothing new, of course, and certainly they are not new at elite law schools.

What's Wrong With Price 'Gouging' In Baby Formula Crisis?  As night follows day, the shortage of baby formula around the country has politicians shouting about the evils of "price gouging" and vowing to stop it.  But what if "price gouging" relieves shortages and makes sure parents who need the formula the most can get it?  News accounts tell the story of panicked mothers who've had to drive hours in all directions to find formula.  In response, President Joe Biden is pressing the Federal Trade Commission to "bring all of the Commission's tools to bear" to stop sellers from raising formula prices.  Parents would be better off if the Biden administration had instead focused on boosting supply.  The Food and Drug Administration sat on warnings about contamination at a major plant in Michigan for weeks.  And then dawdled in getting the plant cleared to reopen.  It was only after the shortages made headlines that Biden claimed to be "on top of it."

Democrats Blame Inflation on 'Greed,' Instead of Their Own Failed Policies.  Democrats in Congress and the White House are reticent to take any responsibility for inflation with their reckless spending and deliberate hampering of getting petroleum products out of the ground and into cars and homes.  After presiding over a more than doubling of gasoline prices during his first year and a half in office, President Biden is adding fuel to the inflationary fire by canceling offshore oil lease sales in Alaska and the Gulf Coast.  Gas prices hovered around $2 per gallon during most of 2020 only to set records four days in a row this past week, settling at $4.44 per gallon, hence the ubiquitous Joe Biden "I did that" stickers peppering gas pumps nationwide.  Not only fuel, but also food prices, increasing at the fastest rate in 40 years according to the US Department of Agriculture.  For example, meats, poultry, fish, and eggs are up 14 percent with fruits and vegetables costing 8 percent more.

Inflation:  The Price You Pay for Biden's Delusions.  When the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that inflation had risen at an annual rate of 8.3 percent in April, the White House and many news outlets made much of the minuscule decrease from the 8.5 percent rate reported for March.  President Biden issued a statement, for example, that called the infinitesimal decline "heartening."  CNN ran a story titled, "US inflation slowed last month for the first time since August."  This wasn't terribly comforting, however, considering that the inflation rate has nearly doubled since last April while real wages declined by 2.6 percent.  Nor is it "heartening" to see that Biden is still in denial about the role his administration's spending has played in igniting inflation.

Lawlessness.  Everybody to the right of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez knows that the root cause of the crisis facing America — the most serious since the Civil War — is lawlessness.  And everybody not under the spell of the Democrat spin machine understands that the lawlessness begins at the top, with government and the many agencies of the executive branch who are tasked by our Constitution with enforcing the law.  Whether by failing to enforce our immigration statutes, or failing to prosecute criminals in our streets, or violating our election procedures to favor one party, Democrat administrations in our nation's capital and our major cities have brazenly supported criminal behavior carried out by Black Lives Matter rioters, common street thugs, and anti-Supreme Court agitators seeking to extort decisions by fear.  The effect has been to systematically undermine the rule of law, stoke the fires of anarchy, and sow chaos in our institutions.  This trend has been evident since the revival of the radical left on the eve of the 9/11 attacks and its creation of Sanctuary Cities designed to flout the law and prevent the enforcement of the PATRIOT Act.  It escalated with Obama's illegal, unconstitutional — and self-acknowledged — violation of America's immigration laws.

The November 2022 election is going to be really hard to steal!
Baby formula crisis punctuates steep decline in support for Biden, Dems, with suburban moms.  President Biden and his Democrats were already in trouble with suburban women due to inflation, high gas prices and an agenda these voters say does not align with their priorities.  Then baby formula disappeared from store shelves.  Images of empty store shelves and stories of frantic parents searching for food to feed their infants, coupled with reports that the Biden administration is shipping pallets of scarce formula to the southern border to feed illegal immigrant children, now threaten to crater the party's already weakened support among suburban women.  "Democrats have seen a double-digit decline among their strongest groups, especially women who are already struggling to stretch a dollar," Republican strategist Ryan Girdusky told the Washington Times.  "But now they're trying to find food for their children."  Women were a pivotal voting bloc for President Biden and Democrats in 2020.  Exit polls show they backed Mr. Biden over Donald Trump 57% to 47%. But over the past few months, polls show women have soured on Mr. Biden.

Biden's supply problem isn't just 'treadmills' anymore.  It wasn't that long ago that former White House press secretary Jen Psaki was downplaying the nation's supply chain problems as "the tragedy of the treadmill."  Just as she dismissed the topic of inflation as something that only affects rich people, Psaki spoke of the broken supply chain as if only leisure purchases for the wealthy were at risk.  But even as they put on a brave face, officials in the Biden administration were aware that the problem went much, much deeper.  And they did nothing.  The administration's handling of completely predictable supply chain problems stemming from COVID-19 has been just as appalling as Psaki's earlier insouciance suggests.  And this is how the current baby formula shortage was made possible.  Biden and Democrats don't have any answers to the current inflation crisis, nor the supply-chain crisis that is contributing to it.

Pop Goes the Presidency.  Nice-sounding growth, job, and wage numbers do not count for much when the American standard of living is in decline.  Inflation has outpaced income gains since last year.  It remains at a 40-year high.  Gas costs more than four dollars per gallon — sometimes much more — in every state.  Americans under 40 years old are experiencing consumer delays, shortages, and scarce necessities, including baby formula, for the first time in their lives.  According to the Pew Research Center, 70 percent of Americans say that inflation is "a very big problem."

Producer Price Inflation Continues Surging at 11 Percent, Annualized Processed Food Increases Now 34.8 Percent.  The "Producer Price Index" (PPI) is essentially the tracking of wholesale prices at three stages:  Origination (commodity), Intermediate (processing), and then Final (to wholesale). Today, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) released April price data [Available Here] showing another 11.0% increase year-over-year in Final Demand products at the wholesale level.  Last month when looking at internal economic activity that showed a contraction in consumer purchases of goods, we said pay attention to the service side of the ledger now.  Knowing people have stopped buying 'stuff', if people are starting to run out of money, they will cut back in the service sector (dining out, etc).

Get ready for more blackouts because of environmentalist policies.  People across the United States and in many other countries are already experiencing sticker shock when they receive their utility bills this year.  The price of energy is continuing to climb along with the price of gasoline.  Unfortunately, according to the leader of one energy industry analysis group, that's not going to be the end of the bad news.  There are already places where the electrical grid is under so much strain that rolling blackouts have been enacted again and we're only going to see more of that going forward.  This issue has little or nothing to do with Russian energy supplies or the war in Ukraine.  The reality is that in many parts of the United States, we're barely producing enough electricity to meet the demand for power, and thanks to environmentalist policies put in place by the government, we're shutting down coal-fired power plants at a rate far faster than we can replace all of that juice through other methods.

Biden's America:  The Land Of  Plenty  Shortages.  It's taken President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats all of 16 months to turn the land of plenty into one plagued by empty shelves and rationing.  Well, Biden did promise to "transform" America, but how many voters knew that this is what he had in mind?  The latest in the growing list of shortages is the chronic and dangerous scarcity of baby formula that is causing new parents to scramble to find supplies and stores to ration how much customers can buy.  The latest industry data show that 40% of America's baby formula supplies are out of stock, up from 29% in March and 11% last fall.  This is a potentially deadly situation if parents can't get the food they need for their babies or try to make their own formula.  As CNN reports, "Specialized formula is even harder to locate amid the widespread shortage.  Parents are driving to neighboring states to try their luck, and many are pleading for help on social media, imploring strangers to share or even barter any extra supply they may have."  One industry observer said that "supply chain issues, product recalls and historic inflation" are driving the baby formula crisis.  As it turns out, Biden is at least partially responsible for all of those.

Electric grid operators warn of potential summer blackouts.  While some major cities are already seeing their lights go off due to electricity use overload, grid operators and energy advocates gave a warning to states closing their coal-fired power plants even quicker than they can build new ones.  "Any plans to remove nuclear plants or coal power plants or natural gas plants that are slated to be closed, that has to be completely suspended," Power the Future executive director Daniel Turner told FOX Business' Jeff Flock Tuesday [5/10/2022].  Eighty coal-fired power plants are slated to close across 14 states in the next six years, Flock mentioned in his report, which poses a threat as some blackouts have already begun and coal and nuclear power still source 41% of the country's electricity, according to the Energy Information Administration.

HVAC Company Refuses to Take Downtown Jobs, Citing 'Needles, Human Feces, Vans Getting Broken Into'.  A Colorado heating and air conditioning company is now refusing to provide service to businesses in downtown Denver, Colorado, citing dangerous conditions in the area.  Tony Cirbo, operations manager for AC Mechanical and Engineering, explained why his business would no longer service the area in an interview with KCNC-TV.

Grocery Store Prices Up 10.8%, Most in Nearly 42 Years.  It got even more difficult in April for American families to put food on the kitchen table in January.  Food prices rose 9.4 [percent] compared with a year earlier, data from the Department of Labor showed on Wednesday.  That is the fastest rate of inflation for food since 1981.  Grocery store prices were up by even more, 10.8 percent.  The broader Consumer Price Index rose by 8.3 percent.

Tom Cotton Torches Woke Military Brass Over Pathetic Standards.  One of the more ingenious aspects of our Constitution is its requirement that our military leaders are accountable to non-military officials.  All our generals and admirals ultimately report to the Secretary of Defense and his underlings at the Pentagon who are part of the Executive Branch of government.  Our Legislative Branch of government, aka Congress, is responsible for, among other things, funding and monitoring the Executive Branch, aka the White House, which is why we have committees such as the Senate Armed Services Committee.  During hearings run by that committee on Thursday, we saw firsthand how valuable Congressional oversight of the White House can be, as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) completely schooled Secretary of the Army, Christine Wormuth.  Watch, and note that the set-up to the video erroneously refers to Wormuth as Secretary of the Navy:  [Video clip]

The Impending Economic Crash.  This week, Donald Trump's favorite Latino food supplier, Bob Unamue, CEO of Goya Foods, spoke of an impending food shortage that we should all start to see by this summer.  As a byproduct of fertilizer shortages emerging from the Russian/Ukrainian War, food suppliers are tamping down expectations of food availability later this year.  It is yet another indicator of a global economy on the retreat. [...] I'm not an economist and I don't pretend to be one, though it's debatable that the mainstream discipline has shot straight with us to date.  If you were attuned to the corporate press, you might be led to believe that the growing hardships we are experiencing were unforeseen.  Far from it, much of what we are experiencing we were warned about by economists across the political spectrum.  Some might say that the Biden administration selling the American economy down the river is a matter of incompetence.  I tend to lean toward malice.

Our Immigration System Isn't Broken, Democrats Are.  Our immigration system worked just fine (not perfectly, mind you, but fine) until a few years ago.  What happened then?  Democrats decided to stop deportations in any real way.  Yes, Democrats had already screwed it up by introducing the concept of birthright citizenship — meaning anyone born here to illegal aliens was given citizenship, a concept so incredibly stupid it's only been adopted by third world hell-holes and the United States, thanks to Democrats.  But the stopping of deportations made things exponentially worse.  Sanctuary cities and states made it clear to would-be illegal aliens that the thousands of dollars they were thinking about dropping on the drug cartels to smuggle them or their children several thousand miles would not be in vain.  The odds of them being returned to wherever they're from if they made it to, say, California were slim to none, even if they committed heinous crimes, because California changed its laws to protect non-citizens over citizens.  Kill a citizen and you might face deportation after a prison sentence, but rob a liquor store or drive drunk repeatedly, abuse a child or spouse?  Meh, the chances the state bothers to call federal immigration authorities increases only slightly, but still don't register in any real way.

Inflation Can't Be Censored.  An increasingly disturbing feature of American politics is the routine suppression of major news stories that reflect poorly on candidates favored by the Fourth Estate.  The most egregious example in recent years occurred in October of 2020 when corporate news outlets and social media platforms colluded to bury a New York Post article on Hunter Biden.  Fortunately, some stories just aren't susceptible to such censorship.  Inflation is a case in point.  It can't be hidden from the voters because soaring prices shout the bad news from every grocery store shelf and gas pump in the nation.  And the voters don't like what they're hearing.  A new Gallup poll reports:  "Americans' confidence in the economy remains very low, and mentions of economic issues as the most important problem in the U.S. are at their highest point since 2016."  Moreover, when asked to specify the most important economic issue, inflation topped the list.  Not coincidentally, the survey found that Americans identified "the government/poor leadership" as the most important non-economic problem facing the country.

Things Are Going Well in the Capital of Police Defunding.  Portland was one of the few places to defund the police by $15 million.  The efforts to lynch police officers over battles against violent rioters and left-wing mobs led to massive resignations and retirements leaving the city with the smallest police force on record in a generation.  Violent crime continues to rise and Portland cops are shorthanded.

A Government Disinformation Board?  You Don't say!  Under Biden and as a result of his misbegotten policies, the price of natural gas is up 192%, diesel 176%, regular gasoline 74%, and foodstuffs 59%. Supply chain problems are creating shortages of building supplies, fertilizer, food, medicines — you name it.  Massive government giveaways have gotten many people used to the notion that work is unnecessary, and employers are having difficulty staffing up.  While homeowners in many places may feel richer because the value of their homes has increased on paper, fewer homes are now within reach of buyers, and replacement housing for sellers — obviously — will have risen as well.  The stock market tumbled and, with it, a large chunk of many people's savings as inflation eats up what's left.

Natural Gas UP 192% Under Biden, Diesel UP 176%, Regular Gasoline UP 74%, Foodstuffs UP 59%.  We all know (except for Biden apparently) that inflation is up 8.5% YoY as measured by the change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). However, the CPI change doesn't fully capture what is crushing Americans' pocketbooks.  Here is a brief update on where we stand prior to the upcoming Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meeting on May 4th.  Since Biden was installed as President on January 20, 2021, prices for key commodities have soared.  Natural gas futures UP 192%, Regular Gasoline prices UP 73.6%, Commodity Research Bureau Foodstuffs UP 59%, Low sulfur Diesel futures UP 176%.

What if Joe Biden forgives all student loans?  [Scroll down]  Let's say we go down that road and the government forgives all student loans because education is a right.  Why stop there?  Perhaps home loans could be forgiven too because every human being deserves to live with dignity under a roof.  Why should only students and homeowners be the beneficiaries?  How about forgiving loans of businesses?  Small businesses in particular suffered losses during the COVID-19 lockdowns and they deserve to be bailed out.  Why just small, though?  Let's help big businesses too, because they employ thousands of people.  What about farmers?  They literally are providers of food, why not waive their loans as well?  What about doctors who have set up practices?  Quite soon, everybody from the big corporates houses to the smallest borrowers begins to feign poverty because they know the government will pardon their loans.

Team Biden finally admits there's a war on cops — which it's inflaming.  The Biden Justice Department is finally acknowledging the war on cops:  FBI Director Christopher Wray denounced the 59% increase in cop murders in 2021.  An officer is murdered nearly once every five days, yet violence against law enforcement "doesn't get enough attention," Wray said Sunday on CBS's "60 Minutes."  That is an understatement.  Wray's bosses — Attorney General Merrick Garland and President Joe Biden — have instead focused almost exclusively on alleged white-supremacist criminality, which they claim is the biggest domestic threat facing the country today.  That charge is preposterous.  It is violent street crime — drive-by shootings, sadistic robberies, carjackings — that has been destroying lives at an increasing rate since the George Floyd race riots.  White-supremacist violence played no role in the record-breaking 29% national homicide increase in 2020 or in the ongoing crime surge since then.

Stagflation is staring Biden in the face — but he refuses to change course.  First we were told inflation was imaginary.  Then we were told it was "transitory," the result of COVID-inflicted supply-chain problems.  Then we were told it was Russian President Vladimir Putin's fault.  Now people are starting to admit the massive runaway spending of the Biden era has something to do with it.  But we're also facing stagflation, a mixture of inflation and slow growth, and the government also plays a role in turning inflation into stagflation.  As Milton Friedman famously warned, inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.  When the government pumps the economy up with excess dollars — something usually referred to as "printing money," though a too-literal USA Today fact-checker hastened to assure us that much of the money created isn't actually printed on paper — inflation results.  When you have more money in the system than goods, the price of goods goes up.  That's inflation, and it's what's happening now.

The Inflation Draining Your Wallet, Grocery Cart, And Gas Tank Is Far Steeper Than 8 Percent.  The Labor Department's March inflation numbers released this month skyrocketed past February's, hitting a 12-month increase of 8.5 percent and the steepest annual increase since 1981. [...] According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in the average U.S. city, ground beef is up 14.9 percent since last March, boneless stew beef is up 24.3 percent, bacon is up 23.1 percent, boneless chicken breasts are up 17.6 percent, eggs are up 25.9 percent, milk is up 17 percent, frozen orange juice concentrate is up 18 percent, and ground coffee is up 15.8 percent.  Meanwhile, fuel oil has jumped a whopping 71.5 percent, and utility gas is up 23.3 percent.

The Editor says...
I can report, from my own shopping experiences, that rice pudding has gone up 35 percent in the last year, and Diet Coke is now holding steady at $1.98 (for two liters), whereas it was $1.38 a year ago, and 98 cents about three years ago.

Democrats: 'It's Not Us, It's You!'  Considering we've entered a currency inflation death spiral, violent crime rates are through the roof, the foreign invasion at the southern border grows exponentially, and the FBI continues to hunt half the country as "terrorists" not deserving of constitutional protections, I'm not sure how many more Slow Joe "accomplishments" we can survive.  Or perhaps the real quandary is this: who actually benefits from all these magnificent "achievements"?  Certainly not the American people!  Most Americans alive today have never been more financially insecure, less safe, or more uncertain about their futures.  Never have so many Americans or their loved ones been struggling with alcohol and drug addictions.  Never have Americans reported feelings of isolation, loneliness, and despondency in such high numbers across all demographics.  Never have more Americans agreed that the nation is following a broken moral compass and headed in the wrong direction.  After years of enduring psychological abuse from governing institutions selling nothing but fear and invasive bureaucratic mandates, parts of the country look as if they've been rattled into a permanent state of PTSD.

The terrible unintended consequences of the Biden presidency (unless they were intended).  As a result of all the left's skullduggery, the American people are facing the highest inflation in forty years.  The invasion across the southern border has brought over two million migrants into the country since Biden took office.  Many of these people are being secretly flown to cities throughout the country.  Count in it:  the Democrats plan to give them all amnesty so they can vote.  They assume they will all vote Democrat, but one has to wonder if that is true; they are all fleeing crime-ridden totalitarian tyrannies.  They just might opt for a law-and-order civil society.  On top of this obvious moonbattery, the Biden administration has eviscerated our once world-class military by weeding out Trump supporters and those who chose to remain unvaxxed.  The damage this progressive cult has done has crippled America in nearly every way possible.

Fraud is the Only Issue.  From a straight political standpoint, things are not going well for the Democrats.  It's difficult to cite a time in post-World War II America when so many things on so many fronts went this badly this quickly, and the voting public knows it's their fault:
  •   Inflation at 40-year highs and spiking energy prices
  •   Out of control illegal immigration, being encouraged by Democrats to bolster liberal voting rolls
  •   Weakened military, with an inexplicable emphasis on woke social issues instead of combat readiness
  •   Crime running rampant, with many big-city DA's refusing to prosecute the offenders
Woke policies and wildly disproportionate attention on gender and diversity issues eroding the once-dependable foundation of American society
These Democrat policies have tangibly and dramatically degraded the quality of daily life in America, to the point where many people are starting to doubt that things will ever return to normal.

Prepping the Mind.  [Scroll down]  Those running the clown show in Washington D.C. are flush with this collectivist resentment toward the success of a free market and free people.  Killing both of them is the goal, not to achieve anything, or cure any ill, but just to destroy.  They think in finally ending the supremacy and wealth of Americans they will achieve some sort of victory for the cause.  In the last few years, they've tried to bankrupt the US, with help of the federal government and the federal reserve and have largely succeeded.  They've tried to poison not only America, but Western civilization.  Now, they're trying to starve us all.  Twenty something food distribution centers have gone up in flames recently.  American farmers have been paid to stop planting crops.

Baltimore has been expunging the criminal records of felons and people are dying.  For some time now we have covered the disappointing and dangerous trends in the courts of Baltimore, Maryland that make it harder to convict criminals of anything.  This has resulted in the same "revolving doors" in the jails and courthouses that we see today in so many large cities.  But in Charm City, they've taken this trend another large step further.  In addition to making it harder to lock anyone up, for the smaller number of people who do manage to be apprehended and prosecuted, they've been erasing the criminal records of many of them.  This makes it impossible for the public to research potential problems and removes information that prosecutors may need when the individual is arrested again and they have to determine the charges to be filed.  In an editorial at the Baltimore Sun this week, former Deputy State's Prosecutor Page Croyder describes the damage that these changes have wreaked on the legal system and the impacts they have had on the citizens.

Biden surpasses Jimmy Carter as the most incompetent steward of the American economy.  President Joe Biden has accomplished in just 14 months what many thought was impossible — surpassing President Jimmy Carter as the most incompetent steward of the American economy.  Biden just broke another record, leaving Americans saddled with 8.5 percent inflation — energy alone is up 32 percent since last year. [...] President Biden's actions to date appear to be directly taken from President Carter's playbook.  Excessive spending and anti-supply-side policies have contributed to the worst inflation since the Carter era.

Biden Economy:  Dow Down 981 Points at Close — Worst Day Since June 2020.  The Biden economy is doing bad and getting worse.  Inflation is at an all-time high by some measurements and at 50-year highs by other measurements.  With inflation at all-time highs, Biden's economy is a mess.  The cost of gasoline has reached all-time highs.  Interest rates are up near 7% now, the highest rates in years and still they are way behind inflation.  This all happened due to Biden's reckless spending.

Politics Is Downstream from Culture, but What Is Culture Downstream From?  The profundity of the nightmare we are living through is hard to grasp.  The tone of our everyday lives as Americans is an anti-civilization controlled by the government-media-educational megalith that is anti-God, anti-American, and pointedly anti-Christian.  American social process now originates in the bitter energy of left-wing politics as replacement for religion.  That element of opinion maintains an inquisition of judgment of good and evil people based on a false, anti-historical obsession with long gone oppression by race, sex, and sexuality.  Left-wing politics operates as increasingly divisive fanaticism, which can be called scientistic materialism.  Science is prostituted to justify a hollow-eyed, humanity-hating doomsday cult of climate change.  The reverse cycle of civilization originating in godless political opinion has made a sacrament of disposing of pre-born humans, which idolatry is inexorably expanding to include post-natal infanticide.

Why Food Prices Are Expected to Skyrocket.  According to a recent NPR report, the global food price index hit its highest recorded level in March 2022, rising 12.6% in a single month.  On average, food prices were one-third higher than in March 2021.  In the U.S., food prices rose 9% in 2021, and are predicted to rise another 4.5% to 5% in the next 12 months.  But while the Ukraine conflict is cited as the primary cause, it's not the sole reason.  Price inflation was already ramping up well before Russia went into Ukraine, thanks to the uncontrolled printing of fiat currencies that occurred in response to the COVID pandemic.  Governments' COVID response have also wreaked havoc with global supply chains, causing disruptions that continue to this day.

In 13 months, Biden has just about finished the job of destroying America.  It has not taken long at all for fake "president" Joe Biden to finish the job of collapsing the United States.  In just 13 relatively short months, the Resident-in-Chief helped usher in the highest gas prices on record, along with soaring food costs.  Millions of Americans were also forced to get injected with mystery chemicals from Operation Warp Speed, and all for a manufactured plandemic that never really was.  The country went from a trend towards energy independence to becoming a net importer of crude oil ever since Geriatric Joe started occupying the White House.  Biden's destruction of the Keystone XL Pipeline project certainly contributed to this.  Americans are worse off than they have been for quite some time as housing prices skyrocket and wages stagnate.  Millions of them are now having to work multiple jobs just to barely stay above the poverty line.

How America Became La La Land.  America was energy independent until the arrival of the Biden Administration.  On the orders of his Green New Deal masters, Biden immediately began canceling federal oil and gas leases.  He stopped new pipelines.  He jawboned against the private financing of fossil-fuel production.  Biden was hellbent on his way to fulfilling his campaign promises of eliminating the use of natural gas and oil on his watch.  Then prices soared and the public grew irate.  In response, still more incoherence followed.  The Biden Administration would not reverse its destructive energy policies.  But as it floundered in desperation, Biden begged American enemies Iran, Russia, and Venezuela to pump more oil on our behalf.  In vain, it beseeched Saudi Arabia to produce more of the hated icky stuff that we had in abundance but would not fully produce ourselves.  Biden tapped the strategic petroleum reserve.  Yet the existential peril was not war or natural catastrophe but Biden himself and his far more dangerous policies.

Massive increase in Black Americans murdered was result of defund police movement: experts.  Support of Black Lives Matter and calls to defund the police reverberated across America in 2020 following the death of George Floyd, igniting social justice protests and riots at a time when the coronavirus and lockdowns upended society in unprecedented ways.  What was left in 2020's wake was a massive increase in the number of murders, dealing a disproportionate blow to Black Americans.  "Certainly, the protests and riots mid-2020 after the death of George Floyd followed a pattern of spiking violence that we've seen following past viral police incidents, such as the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray.  This pattern has been termed the 'Ferguson Effect': police pull back while violent crime spikes precipitously," Hannah Meyers, director of the policing and public safety initiative at the Manhattan Institute, told Fox News Digital.

Earth to Prognosticators:  Cool Your Jets.  [Scroll down]  The question is not to "remember the past" but to dodge the ruling class's self-serving narrative about the past, for instance that our rulers first freed the slaves, then protected the workers, then stopped Hitler, then liberated the women, then rolled back Jim Crow, then saved the environment, then protected gays, then sent transphobes to somewhere where the Florida sun don't shine.  My self-serving narrative is that the rulers have successively led workers, women, blacks, and LGBTs into the wilderness.  That's why workers are "dying of despair," women are less happy than they were in the Fifties, blacks like Frank James have been carefully taught to hate and to fear whites, and transgenders are humiliating and canceling the feminists.  The way I understand the world, I would expect that, after this unjust rule of the last century, the ordinary people of America would be getting restless.

How History Will View the Biden Years.  [Scroll down]  When Biden took office, the first big economic debate was over his nearly $2 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package, the so-called American Rescue Plan.  Coming on the heels of multiple Trump COVID-19 stimulus policies, many leading experts in both parties warned that Biden's spending was going too far.  Overstimulating the economy in this way, they argued, would come with the risk of high inflation. [...] The "Putin Price Hike" is only the latest Biden attempt to deflect responsibility.  At first, the White House insisted that inflation was "transitory."  This was, of course, repeated throughout the press.  Those who dared dissent were even fact-checked.  Inflation was all about COVID-19, they argued.  Then it was all about "supply chain disruptions." All this would come to an end, and everything will be fine, they told us.  This was all before Vladimir Putin even began his war.  Now it's Putin's fault.  People often don't have the time to study issues at length, but they can smell pure political spin from a mile away.

LA Residents got What They Wanted:  Criminals Who Aren't Afraid.  This is what the people of Los Angeles wanted.  They put their police force on a short leash, blaming the overworked officers for the least amount of violence against criminals while at the same time absolving the criminals of responsibility.  It has led to increasing numbers of officers leaving the force or retiring early.  With fewer officers on the street and those that are being hesitant to act, the criminals are taking advantage of the situation.  The Los Angeles Police Department recently started warning people not to wear expensive jewelry in public, or they might become the target of thieves.  Thieves have become so brazen that they smashed in the front window of Luxury Jewels, a Beverly Hills jewelry store, in broad daylight and fled with merchandise estimated to be worth $3 to $5 million dollars.

Two inmates at all-women's New Jersey prison are pregnant after both had sex with the same transgender inmate after.  Two women at New Jersey's only all-women's prison have both fallen pregnant after having sex with transgender inmates.  The pregnant women, who were not identified, are housed at the embattled Edna Mahan Correctional Facility, in Clinton, which New Jersey Governor announced plans to close last year.  Prison bosses said that in both instances, the sex was consensual.

Yes, It's Biden's Inflation.  This week, America received news of yet another shocking inflation report: over the past 12 months, inflation has skyrocketed 8.5%, outpacing wage gains by 2.9%.  That inflation has flooded every area of American life, from gas (up 48%) to airfare (24%) to furniture (16%) to milk (13%).  Inflation is costing the average American family hundreds of dollars per month — and, as we know, inflation is a highly regressive tax, harming those at the bottom of the income spectrum the most.  For its part, the Biden administration blames Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.  White House press secretary and incipient MSNBC employee Jen Psaki announced, "we expect March CPI headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated due to Putin's price hike," and blamed gas prices alone for the spike.  That, of course, is ludicrous.

Inflation rises to 11.2% in producer index, highest on record.  Producer prices increased a scorching 11.2% for the year ending in March, according to a report Wednesday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the highest on record.  The inflation rate in Wednesday's producer price index report was up 1.4 percentage points from the previous month and is the highest in the gauge's 11-year history.  Wednesday's [4/13/2022] news signals more inflationary pain to come for households.  The producer price index gauges the wholesale prices of goods, which are eventually passed down to consumers.  The news came just a day after a report for the month of March found consumer prices increased by 8.5% — the fastest annual rate in more than four decades.  The high rate of inflation has wounded President Joe Biden politically and undercut support for his spending proposals.

Inflation exposes the arrogance of the Biden Democrats.  Of all the Democrats' gestures of contemptuous indifference toward ordinary people, President Joe Biden's 8.5% inflation rate is the most provocatively insouciant.  Bidenflation, more than any of his many other culpable failures, will prompt voters to respond in November with a gut punch to the party's solar plexus.  One should not minimize the impact of other blows to public morale from outrages such as the cultural revolution against every traditional norm, the disgrace of U.S. capitulation to a ragtag army of medieval Afghan farmers, Biden's abandonment of national sovereignty at the Mexican border, or the performative diktats of his tinpot COVID bureaucrats.  All these contribute to our sour national mood. [...] Biden's decision to print money, enthusiastically backed by congressional Democrats, has produced the sharpest inflation spike in four decades.  This was entirely predictable and frequently predicted.

Inflation surges 8.5% in March, hitting a new 40-year high.  Inflation accelerated to a new four-decade high in March as supply chain constraints, the Russian war in Ukraine and strong consumer demand fueled rapid price gains that wiped out the benefits of rising wages for most Americans.  The Labor Department said Tuesday [4/12/20222] that the consumer price index — which measures a bevy of goods including gasoline, health care, groceries and rents — rose 8.5% in March from a year ago, the fastest pace since December 1981, when inflation hit 8.9%.  Prices jumped 1.2% in the one-month period from February, the largest month-to-month jump since 2005.  Economists expected the index to show that prices surged 8.4% in March from the previous year and 1.2% on a monthly basis.  So-called core prices, which exclude more volatile measurements of food and energy, climbed 6.5% in March from the previous year — up from the 6.4% increase recorded in February.  It was the steepest 12-month increase since August 1982.

Consumer prices rose 8.5% in March, slightly hotter than expected and the highest since 1981.  Prices that consumers pay for everyday items surged in March to their highest levels since the early days of the Reagan administration, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday [4/12/2022].  The consumer price index, which measures a wide-ranging basket of goods and services, jumped 8.5% from a year ago on an unadjusted basis, above even the already elevated Dow Jones estimate for 8.4%.  Excluding food and energy, so-called core CPI increased 6.5% on a 12-month basis, in line with the expectation.  However, there were signs that core inflation appeared to be ebbing, as it rose just 0.3% for the month, less than the 0.5% estimate.  That in turn sparked some hope that inflation overall was easing and that March might represent the peak.

California school enrollment drops even more — and somehow, 'experts' don't know why.  They think it's a COVID problem.  They call it a 'gentrification' issue.  They say it's housing costs.  They say it's 'demographics.'  That's the response from the 'experts' to the [bad] news about California's school enrollment. [...] What they don't say is that mask mandates, vaccine mandates, Zoom classes, wokester critical race theory in the classrooms, drag queen story hour, school officials working behind parents' backs to promote transgenderism among kids and treat their parents as enemies, state-encouraged abortion on demand, ending advanced and honors classes in the name of 'equity,' and massive numbers of Californians fleeing the state for economic and tax reasons have all taken their toll on enrollment.  Chase the locals out, don't be surprised to see fewer kids in school.

MSNBC Panics About Midterms as Inflation Looks to Get Even Worse.  Axios has a scoop on the new inflation number that's scheduled to drop tomorrow and it's bad.  They're citing analysts from FactSet that expect the new number to be 8.4 percent, the highest inflation rate since December 1981.  That's up from the rate from last month, which was 7.9 percent.  Some of that will be reflecting the high gas prices that have since moderated somewhat.  However, even without counting gas and food, the forecast is 6.6 percent, the highest since August 1982.  So while the Biden team ordered the release of a million barrels of oil a day for 180 days from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and it might have a tiny effect on the prices, he hasn't done anything to change the general trajectory of inflation — the cause for the rise to begin with.  He's just basically emptying our reserve which is supposed to be for emergencies — not to avoid doing the right thing for the country to save himself politically before the midterms.  But it's not changing the problem ultimately.

White House warns of 'extraordinarily elevated' March inflation rate.  White House press secretary Jen Psaki admitted Monday [4/11/2022] that fresh monthly inflation data will be "extraordinarily elevated" when it's released Tuesday[,] after inflation hit a 40-year high of 7.9 percent last month.  "We expect March CPI headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated due to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's price hike, and we expect a large difference between core and headline inflation reflecting the global disruptions in energy and food markets," Psaki said at her regular press briefing.  NPR reporter Asma Khalid pressed Psaki on the White House's attempt to blame Putin's invasion of Ukraine, saying she had just returned from a reporting trip to Michigan, where many people told her "they feel that inflation has predated this war."

There are some things you can question and some things you can't.  In today's America, there are some things one can question... and some things one cannot.  You can question the existence of God. [...] You can question your own gender, but you can't question the LGBTQ agenda in any way, shape or form — for any reason.  Nor can you question the process or results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, in any way, whether on a national, state, or local level.  If you do, you will promptly be cancelled, disappeared, or otherized.  Seriously questioning how COVID-19 was loosed upon the globe is also strictly verboten.  As is asking questions about the Biden family's ties to — and relations with — China or Ukraine.  In fact, you can't ask a pertinent question of Biden at all.

"Green" Dreams Kill People.  Currently, the war between Russia and Ukraine dominates the headlines.  We all know that global petroleum supplies have been disrupted by the war, but perhaps more significant is the war's impact on agriculture.  Ukraine and Russia are two of the top grain-exporting countries in the world.  Ukraine has been selling grain to the West since ancient times.  With those supplies disrupted, a global food shortage impends, and many are predicting that populations in some vulnerable areas that can't produce enough food for themselves will starve.  So where are the environmentalists in all this?  They are doing their best to reduce agricultural output.  In Sri Lanka, the government mandated organic farming, with the result that yields declined catastrophically, prices skyrocketed, and, no doubt, many died.

Speaker Carl Heastie's 'mercy' leaves a teen girl dead at hands of another teen.  Angellyh Yambo had just turned 16 when she got caught in gangsta crossfire outside a Bronx high school, torn from this world far too soon.  Yet her accused killer, Jeremiah Ryan, might have escaped jail pending trial under New York's insane laws, merely because he himself is a teen.  This is justice according to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and his all-too-many allies in the Legislature.  Ryan even had a perfect score to qualify for release, according the city Criminal Justice Agency, because he has no priors.

The Leader Who Never Was.  [Scroll down]  But the sequential disasters Biden's struggled to manage in the last few months are not mere accidents of fate; they're cumulative, with progressive policy blunders setting the stage for the next failure.  Appeasing the green new deal fanatics in their war on American fossil fuel production even before his Oval Office chair was warm, predictably pushed energy prices sharply higher, lighting a fuse to runaway inflation that's won't be easily stamped out.  Opening the human floodgates on our now notional southern border — aside from the exploding crime and youth-poisoning fentanyl implications — signaled to the world a lack of commitment to the basic defense of the nation that goes beyond mere incompetence, to near self-immolation.  The Taliban quite understandably recognized a propitious moment, so their offensive operations intensified, leading to our horribly ill-considered, disgracefully botched flight from Afghanistan — for which no one has as yet been called to account.  Such incomprehensible malfeasance was not lost on the covetous Vladimir Putin, convincing him his time had arrived.  And so his bloody grab for Ukraine began.  The "presidential" bearing that was the major selling point of Biden's campaign pitch is decomposing before our eyes.

Fed Study:  Stimulus Checks Worsened Inflation.  Four economists at the Federal Reserve say the high rate of inflation in the United States compared to the rest of the world is due to the COVID-19 stimulus checks given to Americans during the pandemic.  The direct payments to American citizens enlarged the money supply enormously and overheated the economy. [...] Larry Summers, the Harvard economist and former Treasury Secretary, has been warning about this almost since Joe Biden took his oath of office.  Summers believes that massive government pandemic spending — including stimulus checks — has put too much cash into circulation while the pent-up demand from the pandemic isn't catching up to supply.  Supply chain bottlenecks don't help.  But how bad would they have been if far more modest and targeted pandemic relief had been proposed?  Now we have the war in Ukraine effectively shutting off one-quarter of the world's supply of grain.  Food prices are going to skyrocket, and it's going to hurt everyone.

COVID Stimulus Checks Worsened Inflation.  Inflation has surged across much of the developed world in the past year as COVID-19 lockdowns eased and pent-up demand for goods and services collided with ongoing supply chain snafus.  But inflation is running higher in the United States than just about anywhere else right now.  Why's that?  According to a new paper from four economists at the Federal Reserve of San Francisco, it's because the American government was relatively more generous during the pandemic, borrowing and spending trillions of dollars to not only fund COVID-19 relief efforts but to line the pockets of Americans with direct payments that enlarged the money supply and overheated the economy.

Has Biden become expendable?  Why are the media suddenly attacking the president when they supported many of his policies during the 2020 primaries? [...] The corrupt media called President Trump's border fence "racist" while praising Biden's promise to provide free health care for anyone crossing the southern border illegally.  With such a generous and rewarding immigration policy, the media knew that the southern border would see an explosion of illegal crossings — and so there was.  As illegal entries hit record levels, murder, drug crimes, and sex crimes skyrocketed in the border states.  Suddenly, Biden's border policy was being criticized by the propaganda media.  They were all in until things started collapsing.

Texas governor's plan to bus illegals to Washington D.C is amusing, but not practical.  Homeland Security reported that more than 2.5 million illegal immigrants crossed the southern border since Biden took over.  The Title 42 policy, that President Trump implemented during the pandemic, empowers border officials quickly to expel migrants on health grounds.  Under Biden, that will be terminated on May 23.  The migrant caravans are now massing in Central America and Mexico, and would-be illegals have told the press they are tightly focused on that day.  Once the surge of migrants makes it in the states, the migrants are then transported to poor and working-class neighborhoods.  The result is that working-class citizens either lose their jobs, or else face depressed wages because the migrants often work off the books for less than the minimum wage and don't pay taxes.  Resources such as hospitals, law enforcement, and fire services that are meager in working-class areas, are already overburdened.  Free spaces such as pavement and parks that are occupied by migrants are rendered unhygienic.

Babies Struggle to Understand "Basic Facial Expressions" as a Result of Adults Wearing Masks.  Adults wearing masks as a result of COVID lockdown rules has created a generation of babies who struggle to understand "basic facial expressions" and have stunted speech and language development.  The conclusion os based on an Ofsted report that warns of serious delays in learning caused by lockdown restrictions.  "Children turning two years old will have been surrounded by adults wearing masks for their whole lives and have therefore been unable to see lip movements or mouth shapes as regularly," states the report.  Despite a highly contentious debate over the effectiveness of face masks, mothers giving birth were forced to wear face coverings in NHS hospitals.

Mask Wearing Has Left a Generation of Toddlers Struggling With Speech and Social Skills.  Lockdown restrictions, including adults wearing face masks, has left a generation of babies and toddlers struggling with speech and social skills, according to an official report.  Inspectors working for Ofsted found that infants being surrounded by adults wearing face masks for significant periods of time over the last two years has damaged their learning and communication abilities.  Those turning two "will have been surrounded by adults wearing masks for their whole lives and have therefore been unable to see lip movements or mouth shapes as regularly," the report found.  "Some providers have reported that delays to children's speech and language development have led to them not socialising with other children as readily as they would have expected previously," it added.

Understanding the Progressive Mind.  Everyone in Washington understands the basic causes of inflation.  If you print more money than you have real assets like gold to back it up, you devalue your currency and make everything cost more.  If you declare war on fossil fuels, shut down pipelines, close vast oil fields like Anwar, and don't approve drilling licenses generally, you cause the price of everything to go up, because virtually everything requires energy to produce.  If you spend vast amounts of government money inducing individuals not to work, employers will raise wages to entice them to work, and that, too, will cause prices to go up.  It's not rocket science.  Despite understanding these consequences, the Biden administration has instituted all these inflationary measures, and avoided taking responsibility for them and the suffering they cause.  They did this to advance their progressive agenda, which is really a reactionary socialist agenda that has not changed its fundamental premises since 1848, when Marx published what is and has always been the progressive agenda.

Why is a "study" necessary to prove that which is obvious?
New Fed study shows Biden owns our economic disaster.  President Joe Biden loves to blame our sky-high inflation on corporate greed and Vladimir Putin.  But a new study from the San Francisco Fed shows it was Biden himself who put America on this grim trajectory.  Specifically, it was the massive $1.9 trillion stimulus dumped into the US economy in early 2021 by the president's American Rescue Plan.  As the nearby chart demonstrates, the nation began heading into the inflationary stratosphere in early 2021, while other advanced economies, the other countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, haven't seen anything like the soaring prices now punishing workers across America.  Which means that the spike is due to something US-specific, rather than global prevailing conditions.  That policy, was, of course, Biden's signature economic "achievement."

Hillary Clinton Doesn't Understand Why People Don't Appreciate Everything Democrats Are Doing for Them.  [Scroll down]  So, which is it?  Is this administration getting nothing done, or are the Democrats accomplishing so much that we don't understand their greatness?  What I'd love to ask Clinton is this: which accomplishment should we peons appreciate the most?  Should we give Biden credit for skyrocketing gas prices?  Is a flippant response of "just buy an electric vehicle" one of those accomplishments?  Should we celebrate spiraling inflation, which, by the way, affects minorities disproportionately?  Or should we just combat it with the advice of out-of-touch urban elites?  Should we get excited about the Democrats' ridiculous attempts to gin up racial animus by talking about "voting rights"?  Are we missing something about the administration's efforts to wrest elections from state and local control?  What about the sexualization of everything — including our schoolchildren?  Is that something to be thankful to the Democrats for?

Already stretched thin, border agents must now use politically correct pronouns under new edict.  Battered by COVID-19, waves of illegal immigrants and fears of even larger surges ahead, Customs and Border Protection officers have a new burden: they must now be sure to use proper pronouns for LGBTQI+ migrants.  The new requirement was included Thursday at the bottom of a much larger announcement by the Homeland Security Department concerning changes instituted on International Trans Day of Visibility.  "Facilitating effective communication at U.S. ports of entry and beyond:  CBP has provided a job aid and memorandum to all staff that will serve as a guide for facilitating effective communication with the diverse public CBP serves, including LGBTQI+ individuals," the agency said.

What the Bible Says About Money Inflation, Debt, and The Fed.  It's now common knowledge that the U.S. dollar is in danger of losing its status as the world reserve currency.  This is primarily due to two factors, the first being the Federal Reserve's inflation of the money supply, which drives price inflation.  Money inflation destroys the purchasing power of the dollar, acting as a crippling tax on the poor, middle class, and retirees on fixed incomes.  But the money inflation also distorts prices, supply and demand structures, and markets.  This drives the boom-bust economic bubbles which blow up into recessions.  In addition, the money inflation also funds America's destructive welfare state (which only incentivizes additional welfare) and America's bankrupting wars of choice, as well as the ever-expanding federal Big Government.  All of the above are as destructive as they are unsustainable.  What they amount to is fraud and violence against the American people.

Democrats in New York Debate How to Hide Their Radical Proposals on Bail and Incarceration.  The debate happening in New York state over Gov. Kathy Hochul's proposals to show how tough Democrats are on crime mirrors the debate happening across the country and in Washington, D.C.  On the radical left, the debate is over:  no bail, light sentences for everything except violent offenses, and don't send too many black people to prison because ... slavery, or something.  But Hochul is running for election in November after taking over when the serial sexual harasser and rapist, Andrew Cuomo, was forced to resign.  She has to run in the real world where there are an awful lot of people scared witless about crime.  Not everyone in New York is a crazy, left-wing nut.  The same holds true elsewhere in the United States.  The facts are that releasing people without bail isn;t leading to more crime and more violent crime.  Democrats like Hochul might recognize that but are still running scared.

LGBTQ+: Leftism's corruption of God's sacred gift to humankind.  [Scroll down]  But today's secularism has dropped society into an intellectual quicksand that repudiates matters of faith and objective reality.  It is fitting to define this neopaganism as "sexolatry," with sexuality warped into a bizarre dark comedy of dysphoria and disorientation.  Now it's "hookup culture," it's a casual "participation sport."  The unremitting truth of male and female — something assigned immutably at conception — yields to a whole zoology of "preferred pronouns," with a spectrum of genders absurdly more varied than a fat folder of decorator's paint chips.  This toxic climate of deranged permissiveness has desensitized the population to a torrent of coarseness and spawned an epidemic of tragedy.  Teen pregnancy.  Human trafficking and sexual slavery.  Public school teachers demonically pushing gender manipulation on students.  Pornographic graphic novels in school libraries.  Teacher-conducted "Pride" festivals.  Jarring messaging from the entertainment world.  Reared in this sexual jungle and drenched with such thought, word, image, and deed, it seems unsurprising that some, even many, young people emerge, confused and depressed, into adulthood.

A World Gone Mad.  There is no denying it.  There is a madness, a type of cancer that has taken hold of our world.  Yes, this planet has never been at peace... mankind is what it is, we go our own way, but we are seeing a craziness at a level never seen before.  Governments everywhere, including here in the USA, have abandoned God, good government, law and order, common sense, and traditional Judeo-Christian values.  They have jumped in with both feet into the dark and shadow without bothering to look back at seeing what they have already wrought.  Absurdity and hypocrisy are everywhere.  The Left insists that we abandon fossil fuels NOW without even the slightest idea of a viable alternative.

Democrats Have Painted Themselves into a Corner.  [Scroll down]  The Democrats do not have a single reasonable leader that is acceptable to any major portion of real America.  Whatever moves they make or don't make will have little effect on the November election.  The destruction that Democrats have unleashed on America is mind-boggling.  Who would possibly imagine that doubling gas prices would gain votes?  Sanctioning Russia while simultaneously sanctioning our domestic energy industry is beyond insanity.  And it has been done with such rapidity that even voters with short memory can see it.  Inflation around ten percent according to the Everyday Price Index is hitting poor Americans in the wallet.

People Are Getting Tired of One-Way Tolerance.  There was a time not long ago when even the most based conservative was willing to live and let live with all manner of divergent and bizarre people, but live and let live has become "I live and you submit" and that's just not going to work out in the long run.  The tolerant have been rewarded for their tolerance with intolerance, and if you look, you can already see the backlash brewing.  The breaking point may have been when the man who won the women's swimming championship and all the smart, moral people of our garbage elite demanded we celebrate it.  Or it might be weirdos trying to chat up our kindergarteners about sex.  Or it might be CRT. Regardless, people are getting fed up.  There's a difference between living your life as you wish and making the rest of us live their lives as you wish too, especially when it's a lie or when it means some freak gets to groom our kids.

America's Truck Driver Shortage.  There is a trucker shortage... and it's worse every year.  This is not news; this national driver shortage is no shock to businessmen or policymakers.  Our driver shortage contributes to empty store shelves, idled assembly lines, retail price inflation, a reduced Gross Domestic Product, and the global supply chain crisis.  This is not just one industry's problem; it's everybody's problem.  What is odd, however, is that so many people believe the trucker shortage is caused entirely by not enough people choosing the profession of truck driving as a career.  While that is certainly a part of it, it's not our real problem.  In fact, our truck driver shortage is caused primarily by a series of destructive government policies at every level.

No Amount Of Incremental Wind And Solar Power Can Ever Provide Energy Independence.  With war raging in Ukraine following Russia's invasion, there is a renewed concern in many quarters for "energy independence."  Until recently, the sophisticated countries of Europe had thought the whole idea to be passé.  They built large numbers of wind turbines and solar arrays, while simultaneously banning fracking for natural gas and shuttering electricity plants that used coal and even those that used no-carbon nuclear.  Suddenly, at the very worst possible time, they found themselves completely dependent on Russian gas for heat and reliable electricity.

How Democrats Made America Dependent on Russian Uranium.  Uranium prices have shot up by as much as 40% since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.  With nuclear power providing about a fifth of our energy, this is another blow for Americans.  Unfortunately our nuclear power plants are dependent on uranium imports from Russia and countries in its sphere of influence because our domestic mining industry was suppressed.  In December 2016, on his way out the door, Barack Obama announced that he was inventing the Bears Ears "National Monument" on over a million acres of land.  While California environmentalists celebrated, tens of thousands of locals bitterly protested the move.  Billboards and stickers reading #RescindBearsEars were plastered across Utah towns in the area that expected catastrophic consequences from the destruction of their livelihoods.  Among these was uranium mining.  A uranium mine in the area has the potential to yield 500,000 pounds of uranium.  Miners warned that the Bears Ears monument would force us to rely more heavily on foreign uranium.  But the Democrats, still busy blaming their election defeat on some sort of phantom Russian-Trump conspiracy, did not see any problem with making America dependent on Russia.

Here Comes the Food Shortage!  Socialist takeovers always progress to the food shortage stage sooner or later.  Remember reading in horror about how Venezuelans were gobbling up their zoo animals in an effort to remain alive?  Seems like it was only yesterday.  But since horsemen Pestilence and War have already galloped through, I guess Famine can't be far behind. [...] But our Democrat leaders, together with their Globalist pals, are here to heap food scarcity on top of the supply chain crisis, fuel crisis, and violent crime epidemics they've already brought us.  And as usual, we'll be told it's all the fault of our enemy-du-jour, Vladimir Putin.  But, hey, when you're trying to stampede everyone into a war that doesn't affect them, I guess making it affect them is one way to accomplish your goal.

Gas rationing, food vouchers and hunger are now being normalized for the war phase of the plandemic.  As predicted, Russia's invasion of Ukraine is advancing the next phase of the plandemic, which involves widespread shortages of fuel and food that lead to mass starvation.  Already in Ukraine, residents are running out of food and medicine.  And the economic fallout from this is spilling over into the rest of the world, too.  The chance of a U.S. recession in 2023, according to banking giant Goldman Sachs, has risen to 35 percent.  Conversely, global growth indicators are being slashed as everything continues to move downwards amid the conflict.

KBJ Hearings Typify Our Debased Political Discourse.  Since Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was chosen by President Biden to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court, we've been encouraged by the White House, congressional Democrats, and the corporate media to celebrate her as the "first Black woman" nominated to serve on the Court.  Yet, when asked during her confirmation hearing to define the term "woman," she responded, "I can't ... I'm not a biologist."  The problem with this answer isn't just that it was unworthy of a serious SCOTUS nominee.  It is symptomatic of a debilitating disease that has infected our political discourse, rendering substantive policy debate all but impossible and endangering the republic.

Democrat policies destroy lives.  A gruesome crime of murder occurred in New Orleans this week.  Four black teens, ages 15-17, walking down a sidewalk, decided to push a 73-year-old white lady, Linda Frickey, out of her car and go for a joyride.  As one of these teens pushed the pedal to the metal, the lady's arm got caught in her seat belt strap.  While all four teenagers were in the car, this lady was hanging out of her car being dragged in the street, that is until her body broke off from her arm still entangled in the seat belt.  These teens continued to drive approximately ten minutes longer until they abandoned the car. [...] This murder is a result of Democrat policies.  The three main policies pushed by Democrats affecting crime are:  defund the police, critical race theory (best described as hate whitey), and free or reduced sentences of criminals.  All three of these policies have been marketed to our citizens — and our children have taken notice.

The Editor says...
It is inaccurate and misleading to say, "our children have taken notice."  The carjackers in New Orleans, Washington DC, New York and California are all black, as far as I can tell from the news reports.  Not everybody's children act like that.

Consumer Sentiment Sinks as Hope Crashes and Inflation Expectations Hit Four-Decade High.  Everyone has jobs and no one is happy because prices are rising so sharply.  U.S. consumer sentiment fell in March to the lowest since 2011 despite the level of jobless claims declining to the lowest level in decades and unemployment likely sinking to multi-decade lows.  The University of Michigan's sentiment index dropped to 59.4, from 62.8 in February, data released Friday showed.  This was lower than the mid-month read of 59.7. Economists had projected no further deterioration from the mid-month reading.  "Inflation has been the primary cause of rising pessimism, with an expected year-ahead inflation rate at 5.4 percent, the highest since November 1981," said Richard Curtin, the surveys chief economist, in a statement.  The sentiment index has taken a severe beating in the first year of Biden's presidency, falling 30 percent compared with March of 2020.

What's happening to the Marines?  Lately, when we think about what's happening to America's military under Biden, we've been focusing on the Pentagon's obsessions with race, LGBTQ+++ issues (especially transgenderism), women's rights, and political "wrong think" (i.e., conservativism).  That obsession has consistently put progressive social policy ahead of military cohesion and readiness.  However, Jim Webb, who was a Marine infantry officer while in Vietnam, then the Navy secretary under Ronald Reagan and, lastly, a Virginia senator during the Obama years, has written an op-ed about a different concern:  The potentially damaging, purely operational changes Marine commandment Gen. David Berger intends to impose on the Corps.

The pandemic city exodus revealed:  New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago lost the most residents.  New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and other large cities lost the most residents during the pandemic city exodus last year as about 75 percent of U.S. counties experienced a loss in population, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau.  The agency revealed on Thursday [3/24/2022] that American's fled metropolitan areas between April 2020 to July 2021 in favor of the South West, with Dallas, Houston, Austin and Phoenix among those to see the largest growth last year.  The Census Bureau said:  'In 2021, fewer births, an aging population and increased mortality — intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic — contributed to a rise in natural [population] decrease' across the country,' but particular hitting big cities the hardest.'

The Editor says...
Covid is the all-purpose fig leaf for other problems created by socialist Democrats.  All four of the cities named in the headline above are Democrat-controlled cities where violent homeless people roam the streets, mobs of looters do whatever they want because leftist prosecutors don't want to incarcerate blacks, and taxes are sky-high.  Covid has little or nothing to do with this mass exodus.

LAPD: You probably shouldn't wear expensive jewelry anymore.  The Los Angeles Police Department has a message for the denizens of Tinseltown and the rest of the City of Angels.  When you go out and about, you should probably avoid wearing any sort of flashy, expensive jewelry or other expensive possessions.  Why would they say that?  Because thieves have continued to become more and more brazen about pulling a weapon on pedestrians or motorists and robbing them of their belongings.  And displays of wealth will just make you more of a target for these types of crimes.  At the same time, gangs are also stepping up attacks on jewelry stores and other outlets selling expensive and easily fenced merchandise, so you might want to avoid those stores as well.  LA is looking more and more like a scene from Escape from New York these days.

Did The New York Times Admit Joe Biden Is Corrupt So Democrats Can Get Rid Of Him?  Biden of course also has the advantage of a wildly favorable press and social media monopoly while Trump had the strong headwind of a wildly negative one.  That factor obscured for a great many of American voters actions that easily demonstrated long before his election that Biden was unfit for the presidency.  Now that he's president, however, and very publicly bungling essentially every major issue all the way up to U.S. national security, Biden's weakness and incompetence have been impossible for the corrupt media to entirely cover up.  Biden's appalling withdrawal from Afghanistan may have been the first major blow to public confidence in his governing ability, and it's been followed by blow after blow:  the repercussions of ending U.S. energy independence, historic inflation caused by massive government spending, aggression by America's foreign foes, a tacitly open border with human trafficking of historic proportions, not to mention fueling America's legalized mass killings of unborn infants and forcing schools to inflict gender dysphoria on the children in their care.

The Biden Administration Does Not Have a Strategy.  The current U.S. administration's blunders are only mounting and already include the following:  a complete lack of strategy for energy security, the chaotic exit from Afghanistan, a softening on Chinese aggressiveness by abandoning the Department of Justice's "China Initiative," and rising inflation that is swiftly decreasing the living standards of average Americans.  The administration seeks to blame the problem on Russia or various supply chains issues while refusing to admit that its own reckless government printing and directionless infusion of capital into the economy, combined with its nonsensical policy of cutting domestic oil production, are to blame.  These issues are the result of an administration that has either a lack of understanding or worse, great contempt, for realist geopolitical strategy.

UK Hospital Denies a Victim Was Raped Because the Ward Was for 'Women Only'.  There are times when reading about how we are adapting to a many-gendered world that I have to check to make sure I'm still on good old Planet Earth and have not been transported to Cloud Cuckoo Land to live with people who deny the reality of existence.  The Cloud Cuckoo Landers who 30 years ago may have been living under lock and key in some insane asylum are now taking their place in positions of authority and are dictating how the rest of us should view reality.  It would be amusing if there weren't real-life victims of this nonsense.  A British woman reported to police that she had been raped during a stay in a hospital.  But the police were told that simply wasn't possible because the ward where the woman claims she was raped was for "females only."  And since there "was no male in the hospital, therefore the rape could not have happened."  Emma Nicholson, the Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, stood before the members of the House of Lords and pointed out that the rape was caught on CCTV, but it took nearly a year for the hospital to admit there was a transgendered person in the ward who raped the victim.

Obama's Lawless Legacy Is The Cancer Consuming America Today.  You don't have to be any kind of intellectual savant to recognize this increasingly hyper-accelerated and precipitous decline our nation has been stricken with now for over a decade.  A deliberate decline, wholly manufactured and implemented with malevolent intentions among the usual suspects of political ruling class malefactors and their various radical militant acolytes.  A calculated decline whose subversive, accelerated machinations I believe to have been set in motion and implemented throughout the 8 years of Barack Hussein Obama's dumpster blazing presidency, setting the stage for these subsequent years of successive, surreal and intensifying social anarchy, civil unrest and unparalleled political corruption.  All done for the express purpose of seeking to subvert and decimate the pillars and foundation of our Republic.  To be sure, no one man could accomplish as much division and social upheaval as Obama managed to do without the help of accomplices and fellow conspirators.  How else can you explain an obscure community organizer whose own past was shrouded with vague content, going from an unaccomplished Illinois state senator with the sort of radical political associations that would see any of us put on an FBI terrorist watch list, to a U.S. senator to president of the United States in the span of a decade, void of having any substantive legislative achievements and possessing no executive experience?

Amazon Bails Out of Downtown Due to Violent Crime Surge, Dodges the Consequence of Woke Policies.  Amazon is getting out of Dodge.  Well, more accurately, Seattle.  The massive, mostly online retailer announced recently that it's relocating 1,800 employees out of a downtown Seattle location due to a huge uptick in violent crime.  "Given recent incidents near 3rd (Ave) and Pine (St), we're providing employees currently at that location with alternative office space elsewhere," an Amazon spokesman said, according to the New York Post.  "We are hopeful that conditions will improve and that we will be able to bring employees back to this location when it is safe to do so."  The Post noted that violent crime has rocked the city.  In just the first week of March around the Amazon offices, a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed, a homeless man was stabbed, and police had to shoot and kill a man who rammed into a federal building and fired a rifle.  Amazon has been only too eager to hop aboard woke causes, but the company seems a little less enthusiastic about woke consequences.

Will Joe Biden Oversee The Collapse Of The U.S. Dollar?  Will Joe Biden oversee the collapse of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency?  Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell appears to think it's a possibility, based on his recent quip:  "It's possible to have more than one reserve currency."  This is a staggering admission from the one person who wields the most influence over the dollar.  Then again, given the $30 trillion-and-counting federal debt, Powell's comment should come as no surprise.  Distilled, the chances are multiplying daily that the Biden administration is hurtling towards ringing the death-knell for the dollar as the world's reserve currency.

10 Realities of Ukraine.  [#6] The Ukraine war did not cause inflation and record gas prices.  Both were already spiking by early February 2022.  The cause was the Biden Administration's year-long radical expansion of the money supply at a time of post-COVID, pent-up consumer demand.  It foolishly continued de facto zero-interest rates.  Its generous COVID subsidies for the unemployed discouraged a return to work, while slashing U.S. oil and gas production and pipelines.  Prior to Putin's invasion, Biden was quite publicly blaming greedy corporations, oil companies, COVID, and former President Donald Trump for the inflation he had birthed in 2021.  And he was claiming undeniable high prices were only temporary or mostly an obsession of the elite.

First, Do Some Harm.  Until now, the people in full control of the minds of our youth have been the army of 31-year-old TikTok-and-Adderall addicts with multiple piercings and furry fetishes and baroque multisyllabic pronouns who seem to work at every preschool and elementary school in the country.  I don't know where these weirdos come from, but I want to thank the China-owned TikTok app for giving them a platform on which to expose themselves. [...] But don't get too comfortable.  A new, even more powerful enemy has entered the game: the pediatric industrial complex.  This battle is going to be more difficult.  Why?  Because if your school is bad, at least you can switch schools or homeschool.  But unless you went to med school and can write prescriptions, stitch a wound, and reset a dislocated shoulder, you can't home-doctor.  Teaching multiplication is one thing, diagnosing pediatric cancer is quite another.

Why Don't American Cities Deserve the Same Care as Ukraine?  Of course, Russia's "special military action," otherwise known as an invasion of Ukraine, is a humanitarian catastrophe.  Photo-journo accounts of hospitals suffering rocket attacks, civilians slaughtered by bomb bursts and sweeps of gunfire, apartment buildings, entire neighborhoods obliterated, are indeed horrific.  Some two million refugees pouring into Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia add to the despondent emotions.  While the spreading incineration in Ukraine is impossible to ignore, neither should be conditions in American cities.  The scenes of ravaged American inner cities, with entire sections of cities burned out, abandoned and derelict, are no less war zones than what we see in Ukraine. [...] Have you driven through urban battle zones from the Bronx to Philadelphia, to Baltimore, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, St Louis, Los Angeles, and now Seattle, Portland and Minneapolis?  You could interchange photos of those American cities almost indistinguishable from scenes in Kyiv to Kharkiv to Mariupol.

Biden is to blame for inflation and driving America off an economic cliff.  Since the first day of his presidency, Joe Biden has waged all-out war on our domestic energy industry, crippling our nation's ability to provide the needed resources to sustain our own economy.  It was a grievous mistake that has caused prices to soar and left consumers struggling financially.  Americans are smart.  They know that Biden is responsible.  70 percent disapprove of his handling of inflation and gas prices, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll.  It is a damning indictment of Biden's policies, if not his incompetence.  Instead of having the fortitude to admit that his misguided green agenda badly damaged the U.S. economy, Biden blames Putin.  And our nation's oil companies.  And OPEC.  And bankers on Wall Street.  And transportation companies.  And COVID.  And the kid who kicked the cat.  Never once has Biden looked in the mirror for a moment of self-reflection.  He is incapable of recognizing that he was wrong in his decision to reverse our nation's energy independence.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide:  A little perspective, please.  When President Biden was sworn into office, crude oil was selling for forty dollars a barrel or less.  The price was reasonably stable, and gasoline and diesel were affordable for most drivers.  Biden came into office preaching the benefits of clean energy and stopped the new drilling on and leasing of federal lands to promote it.  As a result, the United States went from being an exporter of crude oil and natural gas to an importer with a large source of imported oil being Russia.  As the supply tightened, producers raised the price and the crude that was selling for forty dollars a barrel when Biden took office has been selling for up to one hundred and thirty dollars a barrel and the price of fuels has increased proportionately.  The cost of shipping goods has increased to reflect this cost of fuel which has given the United States a problem with inflation.  Biden has said he can't do anything about solving the problem he caused, by stopping drilling on federal land.  It is not a matter of him being unable to do anything.  It is a matter of him not wanting to because he believes the carbon dioxide from the exhaust of vehicles burning gasoline is causing global warming.  This is what he has been told, not a conclusion he has the knowledge to arrive at on his own.

Four Charts Prove Biden Is Lying About Putin And Inflation.  As inflation has continued to climb, so have the number of President Joe Biden's excuses for why he's not to blame.  First, it was a "transitory" effect of the economy rebounding from COVID lockdowns.  Then it was the result of supply chain problems because ports didn't operate 24/7.  Then it was due to a lack of competition among beef suppliers.  Then it was greed.  Now he's settled on Vladimir Putin.  None of it is true.  But the White House is so determined to take advantage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine it invited TikTok "influencers" to propagandize them.  The mainstream press had already fallen in line, delivering stories about why Biden is not at fault.  But Biden is to blame.  He set off the current inflationary spiral with the $2 trillion "rescue plan" he and his fellow Democrats jammed through at the start of 2021.  They claimed the money was desperately needed to get the economy back on track (it wasn't) and dismissed warnings from even liberal economists that dumping all that money (while paying people not to work) at a time when the economy was rapidly rebounding would spark an inflationary spiral.

What Did Democrats Deliver?  What have Democrats delivered?  How about the worst inflation in four decades thanks to President Joe Biden's American Rescue Plan and misguided energy policies?  They've delivered near-record prices at the pump and at the grocery store.  Delivered endless supply chain woes.  Delivered a wobbly economy and equally volatile stock market.  Delivered an open border and growing concerns about the security of the nation.  But there's more.  Democrats have delivered prosecutors who are weak on crime, especially in the nation's biggest and bluest cities.  They've delivered more division in an already divided country, more hostility between schools and parents, and a foreign policy record that gives new meaning to the words "leading from behind."

Get ready:  Here comes the Biden Recession.  Yes, just when you thought things could not get worse, along comes the very real possibility of a downturn, thanks to Bidenomics, the war in Ukraine and an inept Federal Reserve.  A year ago, during a robust recovery, such a forecast would have seemed ludicrous.  A top Wall Street economist recently conducted an informal poll of his firm's clients.  To his surprise, 100 percent thought the U.S. would be in a recession by next year.  Why such gloom?  It starts with accelerating inflation, caused by out-of-control government spending and measures taken by the Biden White House that kept workers on the sidelines.  Inflation is also being fueled by soaring energy prices, thanks to lower U.S. production amid reviving growth and now the disruption to Russian oil exports.

Put a Fork in Seattle.  When Detroiters are laughing at your city, you know you've made a mistake.  I grew up in the Motor City and I have no sympathy for what used to be Seattle.  Detroit's death was drawn out over years and involved a perfect storm of nonsense, including foolish decisions by auto execs, stupid import/export laws, and a corrupt mayor named Coleman A. Young.  Detroit languished.  Seattle was executed.  Hundreds of local Seattle businesses are leaving, and Seattle residents have no one to blame except voters and the communists they've elected.

Does Anyone Recognize This Country Anymore?  The present has been marred by riots, which are not only condoned but even encouraged by the insiders, who are at war with those they consider to be deplorable outsiders.  This establishment, which like the revolutionaries of the 1960s is hoping to reshape Western society, has also brought us historic inflation; a new oil shock; rising food prices and scarcity; orders to give up fossil fuel-powered automobiles in favor of electric cars or public transportation; greater dependency on expensive and unreliable "green" energy; cruel pandemic lockdowns; and iron-fisted vaccine and mask mandates.  It wants more privilege and power for itself, less autonomy for the working class and those who aren't on board with its manipulations.

House Democrats Cancel Looming Embarrassment.  Even as post-Covid demand surged in an America and world that still rely on oil, gas and coal for 80% of their energy, Congressional Democrats, the White House, federal agencies and activist groups worked in consort to cancel pipelines, impose leasing and drilling moratoriums, slow-walk permits, and pressure financial institutions to stymie funding for oil and gas operations.  As they choked off production and supplies, oil, natural gas and gasoline prices nearly doubled during Mr. Biden's first year in office.  The price of food and nearly all consumer products and services soared in response.

Larry Summers Is [the] Second Obama Economic Adviser To Blame Biden For Inflation.  This week Obama economic adviser Steve Rattner said that Biden shouldn't be blaming Russia invading Ukraine for inflation.  He said Biden owns this.  Now another Obama economic adviser, Larry Summers, is blaming Biden for inflation.  Biden used to work with these men in the Obama White House.

The Frictionless Souls Addicted to the Cause.  [Scroll down]  Replacing religion with politics has made for more frictionless souls who never grow.  The emotional retardation can be seen everywhere as adults behave like teenagers and teenagers behave like children.  No one ever grows up, instead they feign maturity through politics.  Advocating for causes makes them seem like they care about something more than themselves.  The right politics bestows membership in a community based on politics, but behind all the virtue signaling is the fundamental immaturity of people who only truly care about themselves.  That is the dirty secret of leftist politics whose egocentrism is thinly masked as altruism.  Leftism is not an act of conscience, but an escape from conscience.  Its causes, legitimate or illegitimate, are manifold, but what they all have in common is an underlying denial.  The only form of liberation that their politics truly offer is the liberation from moral accountability and personal growth.  The more radical the politics, the more radical of an escapism it represents.

"Bacon is as expensive as filet mignon used to be.".  The New York Times hired Morning Consult, a polling firm usually associated with Politico, to ask people where inflation hits hardest.  It was a pretty good piece of journalism. [...] From the Times story:
"A car battery costs almost two times as much."
"Bacon is as expensive as filet mignon used to be."
"Cold cereal has gone up, and the box has shrunk."
"Gas.  It's painful at the pump."
"Horse feed keeps going up every week."
"I never thought I would ever see eggs at $5 a dozen."
"The cheap brand of hamburger meat is not cheap anymore."
"The price of pet food is hard to even fathom."
Morning Consult asked 2,200 people and those are some of the answers given.

Don't let Biden lie his way out of the energy crisis he created.  President Joe Biden is trying to distance himself from soaring gas prices by blaming Russia and lying about his restrictive energy policies.  Deflection and dishonesty — the two things at which Biden is best.  "It's simply not true that my administration or policies are holding back domestic energy production," he told reporters Tuesday.  "That's simply not true.  Even amid the pandemic, companies in the U.S. pumped more oil during my first year in office than they did during my predecessor's first year."  That last claim from Biden is particularly insidious because it omits two material points.  First, domestic oil production only decreased during former President Donald Trump's last year in office because the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down; second, domestic oil production could be higher, but instead, it has been steadily decreasing ever since Biden's first day in office.  The decrease is no coincidence.  Contrary to what the White House might say, the explicit purpose of the climate agenda Biden has spent the last year pushing is to rid us of our dependence on fossil fuels.  To him and to most Democrats, that means less domestic oil and gas production.

From Massachusetts, 10 talking points to counter Democrat positions.  A Democrat vote means you favor:
  [#1]   No fossil fuel production.  Like the price of gasoline, heating oil and natural gas these days?
  [#2]   Inflation at a 50-year high.  The government prints money and hands it out, and it becomes worthless.
  [#3]   No freedom of speech.  Say the "incorrect thing," and you're sued.  Or fired.  No opinions allowed.
  [#4]   No civil liberties.  Don't think the vaccine is right for you or truly safe?  Sorry — you have no say.
  [#5]   De-funding the police.  Smash and grab.  No bail for criminals.  Policemen being shot.  Feel safe?
  [#6]   A weakened military.  Our top generals are more concerned with "equity" than winning wars.
  [#7]   Higher taxes.  You think the government spends your money more wisely than you do, right?
  [#8]   Unrestricted illegal immigration.  Your taxes support their education, health care, and housing.
  [#9]   Choosing your gender.  Do you like 45-year-old men in the girl's room with your daughter?
  [#10]   Woke corporations.  Everything is racist all of a sudden.  Color and sex far outweigh qualifications.

As Financial Markets Crash and Ukraine Burns, There's Nowhere Left to Hide for the Biden Administration.  Time, they say, is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once.  If that's so, then maybe time has stopped because all of a sudden everything seems to be happening at once.  Three things, actually:  1) a Russian military operation in Ukraine that a lot of people in America want to turn into World War Three;  2) an epic crack-up of the world financial system; and  3) the breakdown of the fishy Covid-19 affair and especially the story behind its holy avatar:  the mRNA vaccine.  In a sane society, that might be enough to trip the institutional reality-test apparatus, but we are not a sane society these days, so we plunge ever-deeper into a hurly-burly of wrongful endeavor vectoring toward self-destruction.  The immediate problem is a nation (us) that is powerfully bamboozled, led by a figurehead nobody believes in, backed by a hidden coterie of actors who appear to hate our country enough to try to sink it.

The 'Hobbes Index' Is Making A Comeback Under Biden.  Americans are becoming poorer as the highest inflation rate in 40 years cost the average household $3,500 last year.  The erosion of wealth has no end in sight as the annualized inflation rate hit 7.5% in January.  Real wages are declining as prices have risen across the board, with food and fuel leading the way.  In contrast, annualized inflation stood at 1.4% and oil was $55 dollars/barrel in January 2021, when Biden terminated the Keystone XL pipeline, a mindless infliction of pain reminiscent of Franco's bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War in its lack of strategic benefit.  Coherence not among his strengths, Biden curtailed domestic energy production while simultaneously imploring OPEC to increase production.

Award-Winning HIV Researcher Forced Into Re-Education For Dressing Up Like Michael Jackson.  A resurfaced blackface photo wasn't enough to get Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam fired, but a medical researcher was forced out of her senior vice president position last month after dressing up as Michael Jackson for Halloween in 2009.  Dr. Julie Overbaugh was an award-winning senior vice president at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center ("Fred Hutch") and a faculty member at the University of Washington Medical Center.  She's known for her research on HIV in Kenya.  But her career is being ruined over a costume.  Nearly 13 years ago, Overbaugh attended the party at a lab at Fred Hutch.  The theme of the party was Jackson's album "Thriller."  But after a photo of her costume was anonymously emailed to senior leadership at the University of Washington, UW Medicine, and Fred Hutch, she's been forced to undergo "an intensive education process."

This Invasion Is Brought to You by ... Western Environmentalists.  The Democrats came into power in 2021.  The average closing price of oil in 2020 was $39.68 a barrel; the closing price of oil in 2019 was $56.99 a barrel.  As of this writing it is $138.00 a barrel.  The extremely high price of energy — a direct result of the environmentalist policies of the Democratic Party and the liberal and Left parties in Europe — is one of the two primary reasons for the ever-increasing rate of inflation.  (The other reason is the result of another Democrat policy:  the printing of trillions of dollars.)  Serious inflation leads to very bad things.  The Nazis did not come to power because of their antisemitism or even because of the Versailles Treaty as much as they did because of the terrible inflation under the Weimar Republic.

Expect To Pay $3,000 More This Year For Gas And Food As Prices Skyrocket.  Prices at the pump have now soared to $4.173 per gallon for regular gasoline, according to Price Information Service (OPIS).  This firm collects and calculates US pump prices for American Automobile Association (AAA).  On Monday evening [3/7/2022], prices surpassed the previous record high set in 2008 and continue marching higher Tuesday.  As gasoline prices increase and inflation reaches the highest levels in four decades, times are becoming much harder for the average consumer, experiencing a persistent rise in the prices of many goods and services.  Steeper gas and food prices have forced millions of people to rejigger household budgets.  The latest research note from Yardeni Research estimates the average household will spend an additional $2,000 per year in gasoline on top of an extra $1,000 in food expenses.  Adding this all up, the typical household will spend $3,000 less this year on other things.

The Crude Hypocrisy And Rot Of Green Politics.  That gasoline prices are becoming unaffordable to many Americans is becoming old news.  What got us here, though, is a story unheard by much of the public.  It starts and ends with green politics.  As gasoline reaches prices that made it a luxury good during President Joe Biden's year in office, the White House is considering asking the Saudis to produce more oil.  At the same time, the administration apparently wants more oil from Venezuela, which is languishing under a dictatorship that's squarely aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Iran, a member in good standing with the axis of evil.  "Joe Biden is frantically searching the globe to see if anyone but Texas might have some spare oil," says a tweet from Bryan Dean Wright, a former CIA officer and Oregon Democrat, that sums up well the comical blundering as well as the corrupt decision-making of the current White House.

Why Should Deplorables Fight for Those Who Hate Them?  [Scroll down]  Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe the wars of the future will all be fought by politically correct, "detoxified," androgynous know-nothings marching uniformly into battle because MSNBC, Google, and Teen Vogue tell them doing so will prove they are committed to fighting racism and global warming.  Maybe that gender-confused pipsqueak huddled in a "safe space" because he/she/they/it is afraid of being "triggered" by words or the carnage of free speech is just what the U.S. military needs when going mano a mano against the Russians.  I'm sure those pink [...] hat-wearing womynx are ready to jump out of a good airplane, parachute into chaos, and start slitting throats for good Ol' Uncle Sam (or is it non-binary Auxnt Sam now?).  Where are all the climate change warriors when their country needs them?  Come on, "gladiators," get to it! Go find out what it's like to fight something that's fighting back.  Let's move, wokesters!  Show the mean Russkies how dangerous you are with your ski masks, bike chains, and fondness for attacking people from behind.  All that burning, looting, and murdering in cities across the USA over the last few years had to prepare Democrats' wannabe soldiers for something, right?

In Wisconsin, a fight over whether children belong to the state or the parents.  In 1991, the European release of Zero Wing, a Sega video game, contained a now-classic badly translated phrase:  "All your base are belong to us."  In the massive battle shaping up across America, public school districts are metaphorically carrying a banner saying "All your children are belong to us" in their battle against parents over children's gender (not to mention racial issues).  What's happening in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, exemplifies this battle and can be summed up in a sentence from a staff training session:  "[P]arents are not entitled to know their kids' [gender] identities.  That knowledge must be earned."  That arrogant message came from a "professional development facilitator guide" that was used in the school district at a staff development session: [...]

Food Prices [Have Gone] Up 20% Over the Past Year.  If your grocery bills continue to frustrate you, you're not alone.  The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) released its report on worldwide food prices for February, and prices hit a record high last month.  The February FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) reached a new high of 140.7 points, which reflects an increase of 3.9% over January and a whopping 20.7% over this time last year.

How 'Social Justice' is Killing the Military.  "Some 41 percent of the military identify as members of minority groups," the Department of Defense (DoD) reported on Feb. 9, 2021. [...] Yet, while admitting that 41 percent of the military identified as minorities, the DoD reported that diversity, inclusion and equity were military necessities.  Diversity, Inclusion, Equity (DIE) is the language of Critical Race Theory (CRT).  Diversity is the promotion of division based on identity quotas or targets.  Inclusion is code for exclusion of specific groups based on race, gender and sexual identity.  Equity is CRT's ambiguous terminology, easily confused with equality.  Equity is equality of outcomes (usually quotas), which is reformulated Marxism.  Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services, Inc. ("STARRS") was formed in 2021 to educate the services and America that our once-capable military has been diverted from its core national defense mission into social justice warriorship.  STARRS has incontrovertible evidence that this divisive threat spans all branches.

7 Major Failures of the Biden Presidency.  [#3] Return to Energy Dependence:  In 2018, during Donald Trump's presidency, the United States became a net exporter of oil for the first time in 75 years.  Technological innovations, alongside the Trump administration's policies to open up more opportunities for drilling while eliminating regulations, dramatically boosted American energy independence and global influence on energy issues.  Not only did this energy independence benefit Americans economically, it weakened the position of petro states such as Russia.  But the Biden administration shifted away from this strategy.  It encouraged an increase in green energy projects at the expense of fossil fuels and nuclear energy.  These renewable energy sources are a long way from meeting global energy needs.  Biden put more regulatory burdens on the oil and natural gas industry, slowing its production considerably.  And perhaps most dramatically, he shut down the Keystone XL pipeline project to move oil from Canada to the U.S. while effectively greenlighting financing of Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline to carry natural gas to Germany.

Owner of Seattle bakery says she was forced to close her business because drug users were constantly blocking entrance to her store and police would do nothing to help.  A Seattle bakery owner has slammed city leaders after she says she was forced to close her shop due to the record-breaking high levels of crime.  Piroshky Piroshky bakery owner Olga Sagan, 38, made the tough decision after she constantly found the entrance blocked with drug users who refused to move — and she says the Seattle Police Department did nothing to help.  The last straw was when a man was shot dead just round the corner from the city center bakery.

Biden's war on fossil fuels has strengthened Putin and weakened America.  Russian President Vladimir Putin was emboldened to launch his full-scale invasion of Ukraine because he believed that President Biden was bluffing when he threatened serious consequences.  On Thursday, Biden proved him right.  Not only did the United States and its NATO allies fail to kick Moscow out of the SWIFT banking network used by almost all major financial institutions to wire money — which would effectively exclude Russia from the global economy — Biden failed to sanction Putin's two most significant exports:  oil and natural gas.  To the contrary, Biden announced that he had specifically designed the sanctions "to allow energy payments to continue."  Putin gambled that Biden was not willing to risk sanctioning his lucrative energy exports, and thus driving up energy prices for U.S. consumers just months before the midterm elections.  The bet paid off.  This failure of deterrence shows the folly of Biden's war on fossil fuels.

Fake 'Environmentalism' Fueled the Ukraine War.  The truth is that people like [John] Kerry and many of his colleagues and predecessors who have been obsessed with the same supposedly imminent ecological disaster literally for decades now, are to blame as much as anyone — with the exception of Vladimir Putin, of course — for the carnage in Ukraine.  This environmental obsession obviously swept up our current president to such a degree that from the minute he was inaugurated he worked to reverse the American energy independence achieved under the Trump administration.  He succeeded and then some in less than a year.  Result:  The United States imports oil to the tune of millions of dollars a day, including from Russia (even as it invades Ukraine).  As Bloomberg reported last year, Russia provides more oil to the United States than any other country, except Canada.  Around 20 million barrels per month.  This makes the so-called sanctions a pathetic sideshow — laughable, really.

The green dream goes lethal.  Britain's capital has been dubbed "Londongrad," because British governments have allowed so many of Putin's fellow oligarchs to use its infrastructure to launder stolen Russian funds — contributing in the process so much to Britain's GDP.  Then there's the European embrace of pacifism, which has led Britain and other European states to cut their defence spending and rely instead on America's protective umbrella which they all took for granted.  That parasitic illusion went belly-up with the advent of the Biden administration, whose refusal to defend the free world and its preference instead to throw in the towel wherever possible — as demonstrated most graphically by America's disorderly scuttle from Afghanistan — has been duly noted by Putin, along with the regimes in China and Iran, as evidence that the Biden administration would take no effective action to counter their own aggression.  But even more shocking that all this is that, through their unhinged obsession with "climate change," America, Britain and Europe have handed Putin his greatest weapon against them.

The West's fixation on climate change is proving disastrous.  The crisis in Ukraine has highlighted, once again, the foolishness of the Western world's climate change gambit — that is, shackling ourselves with economy-crippling restrictions that the globe's largest, dirtiest, and most dangerous countries will ignore. [...] Years ago, I shared on the radio about a scientific study that compared the general scientific knowledge of those who were panicked about the imminent calamity of man-made climate change to the scientific knowledge of those who were skeptical of such hysteria.  Despite all the routine claims from the former that the latter are little more than knuckle-dragging flat-earthers, it turned out that the skeptics scored slightly higher.

This Is Downtown Seattle At Night.  If this looks like a scene from an apocalyptic movie set from Hollywood, guess again.  This is a typical night from downtown Seattle, filled with homeless people and junkies tweaking out.  The area of 3rd and Pike is just one of the man areas that keeps getting worse and worse, unsafer and uninvestable.  [Video clip]

What if San Francisco Does Not Recover?  San Francisco looks worse now than I've ever seen it.  Like any major city, San Francisco had bad areas before 2020 — those rough areas you knew to avoid — but you could go anywhere else, basically unmolested.  Today is something entirely different.  The streets are dirty.  Homeless encampments, trash, and excrement can be found all over.  Car break-ins are so frequent that it has basically become a non-government-imposed tax for people who come here.  Of course, some areas are much worse than others, but almost all areas of the city suffer from this decay, and it is appalling.  Every year, the city seems to find new ways to dig deeper and deeper toward ruin.  But what happens to San Francisco if it really does not recover?  What if the financial woes, homeless encampments, rising crime, and dwindling police force are the new normal for this once great city?

The Americans Who Voted For Joe Biden Owe The Rest Of Us An Apology.  We have an affirmative-action Supreme Court nominee who will join the leftist wing of the court in attacking the U.S. Constitution for likely another 30 years.  We have Congress contemplating eye-watering spending while the nation's economy is not only extremely weak but also saturated with the most government debt in all of world history.  We have historic levels of price increases especially harming the poor and working class. [...] We have a southern border that has been opened wide to mass human trafficking by international drug cartels and a presidential administration flying unknown foreigners all around the country in the dead of night.  The United Nations is even aiding this effort to end U.S. sovereignty, as it has for other manufactured migration "crises."  Don't forget the rising crime, deterioration of infrastructure, the self-destruction of our K-college education systems, the refusal of historic levels of able-bodied, working-age men to work, governments and employers doubling down on pitting Americans against each other based on race, the allowance of election systems that befit a banana republic, forcing predatory males into girls' and women's private areas, and the now-repeated deployment of the U.S. military against American civilians.

Check out how beautiful the streets of Seattle are.  Yo, huge shoutout to Joe Biden for throwing money toward safe syringes so the folks on the streets of Seattle can get high.  They seem to be putting them to good use.  You know what we should do now?  We should get the government out there recycling these bad boys in case the addicts run out.  We wouldn't want them to go without their drugs, now would we?  [Video clip]

Before We Go To War, Let's Take A Look At The Current State Of The U.S. Military.  If we are going to have a war with Russia, perhaps we should determine if our military is actually prepared to fight such a war first.  Unfortunately, as I will detail below, the answer is very clear.  At one time, the U.S. possessed the greatest fighting machine ever assembled, but decades of neglect, incompetence and cultural deterioration have taken a devastating toll.  Just look at what happened in Afghanistan.  After nearly two decades of fighting, we couldn't even defeat a ragged bunch of drug dealers and goat herders known as the Taliban.  In fact, the Taliban appears to be even stronger today than when we first invaded.  And now we think that we can take on the Russian military?  Sadly, the truth is that we aren't ready for any sort of a major conflict at this stage.

A New Age of Barbarism.  Political leaders in the US, Canada, Germany, and France — all NATO countries — got back on script yesterday. [...] The part we do not see is that many of these people — together with media organs and administrators of many deep-state bureaucracies — are absolutely thrilled to start a new season.  Away with the appalling mismanagement of the pathogen.  Away with public anger toward the lockdowns and mandates.  Forget the collapse in children's literacy, the rise in cancer, the waves of depression, the trucker protests, the collapsing polls of many elected leaders, and forget too the inflation, the federal debt, supply-chain snarls and goods shortages.  Forget all the astonishing botches of everything.  Life was never as good in living memory as when we had a solid foreign enemy named Russia with a leader with a name and a face.  Everything wrong with the world could be personalized, and with storybook thematics:  good vs evil, freedom vs despotism, democracy vs dictatorship.  This great struggle was so good for both sides that they made it last 40 years.

Key inflation gauge hit 6.1% in January, highest since 1982.  An inflation gauge that is closely monitored by the Federal Reserve jumped 6.1% in January compared with a year ago, the latest evidence that Americans are enduring sharp price increases that will likely worsen after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.  The figure reported Friday [2/25/2022] by the Commerce Department was the largest year-over-year rise since 1982.  Excluding volatile food and energy prices, core inflation increased 5.2% in January from a year earlier.

Is this the end of the climate change scam?  Perfectly phrased by John Kerry's nonsensical plaint that the Russian invasion of Ukraine will increase the combustion rate of fossil fuels is the abject silliness of the whole concept of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).  Particularly recent U.S. policies against fracking, pipelines, coal, and internal combustion engines have placed us at a severe strategic disadvantage.  It has taken only a couple of days for it to become common knowledge that such policies have seriously enriched Vladimir Putin.  The grotesque human price of such a debacle will continue to mount, as will resentment for the foolish notion that weather can be subject to political influence.

Law Enforcement Pins Colorado Overdose Spike to Dem-Passed Law.  On Sunday [2/20/2022], five people died of fentanyl overdoses in a suburban Denver apartment, leaving a four-month-old baby parentless as a result. [...] The tragic event has revived calls from local prosecutors and police to reverse a 2019 law that made the possession of four grams or less of many hard drugs — including fentanyl — a misdemeanor instead of a felony.  That law passed shortly after Colorado Democrats expanded their majority in the state House and captured control of the state Senate.  At the time, Colorado prosecutors called on lawmakers to exempt fentanyl from the penalty reduction, noting that four grams of fentanyl is the equivalent of 13,000 deadly doses.  But the bill's sponsors refused, and opioid overdose deaths in the state went on to spike by 54 percent in 2020.

A Decade of Deceit and Division:  What Trayvon Wrought.  [Scroll down]  Outraged by the [George Zimmerman] verdict, three Marxists "of color" promptly formed a group called Black Lives Matter.  Working their combined magic in Ferguson a year after George's acquittal, BLM and the media helped reverse an eight-year downward trend in homicides.  As a result of the so-called "Ferguson effect," 3,000 more Americans were murdered in 2016 than in 2014.  BLM was just warming up.  The multi-city mania BLM helped generate in 2020 — Minneapolis, Louisville, Kenosha — triggered a nationwide 30-percent-plus increase in homicides over 2019, the greatest annual spike ever recorded.  Had the media paid any attention to Los Angeles filmmaker Joel Gilbert's brilliantly researched book and film, The Trayvon Hoax:  Unmasking the Witness Fraud that Divided America, released in the fall of 2019, much of the death and destruction could have been avoided.

US projected to give up net oil exporter status this year.  The United States is projected to lose its status as a net petroleum exporter this year as refiners and other customers seek out more product from elsewhere amid ballooning demand.  This change in trade dynamics would disrupt what the Energy Information Administration described as the "historic shift" that took place in 2020, when the U.S. became a net exporter of petroleum products due to its strong production output and the effects the COVID-19 pandemic had on oil markets.

Biden misses deadline for reporting how many jobs were lost due to canceled Keystone pipeline.  The Biden administration is flouting a law that requires it to produce a report on the number of jobs lost by canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, in addition to describing how its action may have affected energy costs.  The roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden in November included a provision mandating the Department of Energy to produce a report to Congress detailing the impact to American jobs and energy as a result of Mr. Biden's decision to end the pipeline.  The legislation allowed Energy Department Secretary Jennifer Granholm 90 days to provide the information to Congress.  But that Feb. 13 deadline came and went last week with no response from Ms. Granholm, according to several Republican lawmakers who have since pressed for answers.

Masking Facial Expression in Children.  We humans are social creatures that communicate through complex languages and facial gestures.  Our personalities are ingrained in these unique expressions, which impart visual messages that words alone cannot convey.  Facial expressions provoke a variety of cognitive processes, including emotional gesticulations that elicit rapid responses and ostensive ones that signal a willingness to communicate.  A hidden face deprives us of one of the most basic aspects of humanity and the ability to constructively interact in social settings.  Face masking children constitutes a sacrifice on a scale that can only be made in response to a danger of proportionate magnitude.

Bidenflation Runs Hot Sending Rents Soaring Across the Country.  First gas, then heating and now rents.  Runaway inflation is driving rents skywards across Joe Biden's America, delivering an average of a 20 percent increase in the U.S.'s biggest 50 cities over the past 12 months, a study details.  At the same time, U.S. Census Bureau statistics show rental vacancy rates during the fourth quarter of 2021 fell to 5.6 percent, the lowest since 1984 in the the world's largest economy.  The rent spike has stung wallets nowhere more than in the Miami metro area, where the median rent surged to an eye-watering $2,850, 49.8 percent higher than the previous year.

Fifth-Grade Parents at California School Discover Men Using 'Non-Male' Pronouns Allowed to Sleep in Girls' Cabins on 3-Night School Trip.  Parents of a California elementary school were shocked to discover recently that their daughters had male counselors sleeping in their cabin for three nights at an annual science camp organized by the school.  One parent of a student at Weaver Elementary School in Los Alamitos, said she couldn't believe it when her daughter returned from the trip and said the girls cabins were staffed with adult males who shared their sleeping area for the three-night trip.  She contacted the school to ask if men were actually sleeping in the same room as the young girls, but they could not confirm.  The camp, however, did not hesitate to confirm that men employed with the camp are allowed to stay in the cabins that suit their preferred pronouns.  Men who used "they/them" pronouns are allowed to choose.  Apparently these particular men chose to stay with the girls.  That's not creepy at all.

The Power of the Powerless Is Real.  The growing tyranny in the West has not happened overnight.  It did not suddenly arrive at our doorsteps with the Chinese Flu.  It has been a nightmare decades in the making.  The difference today is that previously slumbering citizens once sublimely content in the normal humdrum of their lives are waking up to realize that the enemies from our past have returned with a vengeance.  Free speech is treated as dangerous.  Western governments, corporations, and social media platforms engage in rampant censorship.  Race and sexual identity are used as the defining attributes of a person to the exclusion of talent, character, and achievement.  Teachers' unions openly demand the right to indoctrinate children according to the interests of the State.  Parents are threatened for believing that their children belong to them.  The criminal justice system is used as a place to punish political opponents and to protect political friends.  Religious expression is outlawed.  Leftists' "secularized religion" is imposed.  Freedom is disparaged as "right-wing."  Coercion has replaced consent.  Victimhood has replaced virtue.  Conformity has replaced individuality.  "Correct" thinking has replaced freethinking.  "Social justice" has replaced real justice.  And the protection of government has become more important than the protection of human rights.

Why are the police we revere doing the tyrants' bidding?  The American left has made its contempt of our police abundantly clear for several years now.  Encouraging the BLM riots, excusing the damage done, decreeing no punishment for those who did billions of dollars in property destruction over the summer of 2020 was their coin of the realm.  Lacking common sense and any skill at predicting the consequences of idiotic policies, they have doubled down on stupid as cities like N.Y., Chicago, D.C., and L.A. rack up homicides committed by career criminals repeatedly let loose on an unsuspecting public.  On a daily basis, innocent victims are attacked, injured, or killed by violent perpetrators who have been released by cavalier lefty judges who have become self-appointed social justice warriors.  This explains the parade massacre in Waukesha, Wisconsin and nearly every other violent assault on innocent victims for the last year.  Our American left reveres criminals over law-abiding citizens.  There can no longer be any doubt about that fact.  The Democrat party is, quite simply, pro-criminal.

Biden the Bloodshedder Steals Our Livelihood.  [Scroll down]  One industry has been especially hard hit, and not because of the normal business cycle.  The decline in the oil and gas industry is almost entirely Joe Biden's fault, and instead of apologizing for it, he brags about it.  The long held dream of the left is to force energy prices high enough that consumers will turn to wind and solar.  With gas prices heading toward five dollars a gallon, electric cars may seem more attractive.  There should have been a huge recovery in U.S. oil production, what with oil prices more than quadrupling since their COVID low.  That has not been the case, and that is why gas prices have remained high — as have prices for heating oil, natural gas, and other petroleum products.  The most recent rig count figure is 392, down from 900 or more through most of 2019 and 2020.  Current drilling is not much improved from the lows of 2021, when economic activity stagnated due to Biden's handling of the epidemic.  Drilling is less than expected because Biden has carried out a war on fossil fuels, including his executive orders halting the Keystone XL pipeline, banning new drilling on federal lands including ANWR, and strong-arming banks not to lend to energy producers.

Leftist Nonsense Is Killing Washington DC, And It's Time To Let It Die.  [The District of Columbia] has been [deteriorating] under Democrat leadership for a while.  Homicides in D.C. were up 14 percent in 2021 over 2020, which was up 19 percent from the year before that.  Motor vehicle theft was up a whopping 50 percent in 2020 and then another 8 percent in 2021.  Last spring, I watched an attempted carjacking right in front of my own car in a "safe" neighborhood at dusk.  The month before that, a Pakistani immigrant and UberEats driver was murdered by two teenage girls when they tased him and stole his car with the owner still hanging off the side.  Long before the vaccine mandate went into effect, the city was suffering under other heavy-handedness that the government blamed on Covid-19.  Isolation exacerbated civil tensions and drove many restless Americans to the breaking point.  The mentally ill became sicker still, and the parts of the city once populated by excited tourists were overtaken by vagrants and tent burroughs.  This skyrocketing crime — thanks to "progressive" policies, unchecked rioting, and severely understaffed police departments — paired with a government-induced Covid craze, chased the first wave of D.C. residents out of the District and into the rest of the country.  But it's amazing how rapidly the pointless, month-long vaccine power trip wreaked so much additional havoc on the D.C. residents and businesses that remained, turning our nation's capital into a bleak and pathetic ghost town.

The Crazy Years.  Precisely who's gone crazy is a matter for debate.  But some of the headlines seem to hint at odd behavior by ostensibly sober statesmen.  It is almost as if they've forgotten how to act in their own best interests.  After two years of demonizing "fossil fuels," decommissioning nuclear plants, and shifting energy grids to things like windmills, the West is suddenly facing an oil shortage crisis that makes it vulnerable to blackmail by Vladimir Putin.

Heritage Foundation index:  U.S. economic freedom at all-time low after Biden's first year.  The conservative Heritage Foundation says economic freedom is at an all-time low under President Biden.  The Washington-based think tank said the U.S. fell 2.7 points from its 2021 Index of Economic Freedom to a record-low score of 72.1 and to its lowest ranking globally, from 20th last year to 25th, in 2022 as the U.S. struggles with rising inflation and debt.  "This year's Index of Economic Freedom paints a disturbing picture, both at home and abroad," Heritage President Kevin Roberts said in a statement reported by Fox News.  "The decline of American economic freedom is serious cause for alarm and has real and tangible consequences for all Americans, especially low-income families and the working class."

Joe Biden, Alchemist?  Unlike Joe Biden, even a child knows that too much demand and liquidity and too few available goods and services cause prices to rise.  The rate of inflation is increasing at an annualized rate not seen in 40 years.  And the jump already follows a prior 2021 annual rate of 6.8 percent.  The prices of gas, food, and houses — the stuff of life — are collectively rising far higher than just 7.5 percent. [...] Biden is hunting for the same magic excuses to fabricate a golden spin on crime.  After demagoguing the police, contextualizing the 2020 riots, and supporting openly or quietly the Soros district attorney revolution, crime has exploded.  Carjackings, smash-and-grab robberies, and violent assaults come to American screens each morning on social media and the news despite the denials of the Biden filters.  Rather than address the crime wave, the FBI prefers to harrass after parents at school board meetings, to fixate on mythical "white supremacist" conspiracies, or to retrieve lost property of the wayward Biden offspring.  Murder is at all-time highs in 12 major cities.

Biden's Popularity is Sinking Like the Titanic.  Domestically we have inflation hitting a 40-year high, which along with rising unemployment, is reminding older Americans of a blast from the past called the misery index, a relic of the Jimmy Carter presidency.  Our southern border is wide open to anyone and everyone from around the world, along with rising crime, homelessness, and squalor in American cities.  Biden promised to "Beat COVID," yet more Americans died of COVID in 2021, during Biden's presidency, compared to 2020 when Trump was in the White House.  Foreign affairs are faring no better.  Biden's Afghanistan surrender to the Taliban, a force we have been fighting for 20 years, left China smiling as we left billions of dollars of weapons and infrastructure behind, along with many Americans which the media are incurious about. [...] America at home is in a civil war, pitting Americans against each other based on everything from skin color to vaccination status to mask wearing, destroying families and friendships in the process.

How Biden and the Democrats Reignited Inflation.  As has been widely reported, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the latest inflation numbers last Thursday, and they were ugly.  The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 7.5 percent during the 12-month period ending in January, its largest one-year spike in 40 years.  This dwarfs the inflation rate of 1.4 percent that President Biden and the Democratic Congress inherited in January of 2021.  BLS also reported that real earnings decreased 1.7 percent from January 2021 to January 2022.  All of this is directly attributable to the incompetent economic policies of the Biden administration and wild spending by congressional Democrats in the midst of a supply chain crisis.  Inflation on this scale is new to most Americans.  According to the Brookings Institution, more than half the current U.S. population had not yet been born the last time prices were rising at such an alarming rate.

Biden issues a completely tone-deaf announcement about electric cars.  It's a certainty that Marie Antoinette never said "Let them eat cake," when she heard about France's peasants starving for lack of bread.  However, it's the absolute truth that, even as 82% of Americans are paying above sticker price for cars, while the last year has seen them struggle with rising fuel prices, Biden chose to announce that he's going to buy a whole new fleet of cars for federal workers — 600,000 cars, to be precise — all of them electric.  The past year has been a tough one for Americans.  Inflation has rocketed, with three primary causes:  the government's non-stop money-printing presses; rising fuel prices that boost the price of everything and hugely increase the cost of driving; and the supply chain shortages, including chips and other car parts from China.  It's no surprise, then, that Edmunds, the market research firm, says that 82% of Americans who bought a car from a dealership in the past 12 months paid above the sticker price.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu lit up on Instagram live by critics over vaccine mandates, COVID restrictions.  Boston Mayor Michelle Wu was lit up with criticism during an Instagram live video over the city's vaccine mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions.  Wu started up her Instagram live question-and-answer session this week addressing several coronavirus mandates in Beantown.  The stream did not go as Wu had planned.  Angry Bostonians unleashed a torrent of criticism at Wu over the COVID mandates.  "Why do you hate kids?  Teachers?  Cops?  Firemen?" one of the commenters said, while another accused Wu of "ruining" Boston.  Another user said Wu is "ruining our great city!"

My Latest Groundbreaking Interview with Trump.  Trump brought us prosperity, opportunity, mobility, jobs by the millions, the greatest middle-class income growth in history, a secure border, and peace around the world.  President Joe Biden has brought us massive inflation, supply chain disaster, open borders, a massive crime and murder wave, more COVID-19 deaths than ever before, vaccine mandates that have ripped this country apart, attempts to ban and censor free speech, the worst retreat in American military history in Afghanistan, and don't forget the news reports about free crack pipes to be handed out in minority communities.  Yes, I said free crack pipes.  Why not?  Biden runs the country like a man hooked on crack.

They're Coming For You.  You Know That, Right?  [Scroll down]  But the Democrats' destructive war on the country isn't simply limited to COVID.  Last month they tried to take over the way we conduct elections from the states while threatening some of their own party who wouldn't go along.  George Soros-funded Democrat district attorneys refuse to prosecute theft and violence in major American cities.  Homicides are through the roof.  Retail and auto theft is through the roof.  Homeless, drug-addicted zombies lay waste to city streets.  Worse, the Democrats who run these cities have gone to war with and called to defund and strip authority from the police officers that remain the single thin, blue line between anarchy and their residents.  Joe Biden's Department of Justice has conspired to frame Americans for wild, politically motivated schemes.  They currently hold many in federal custody without formal charges related to undefined law breaking on January 6th, 2021.  Two Republican members of Congress have accused the DOJ of going through their constituent mail and interrogating their staff.  They've threatened to deploy resources to school board meetings to keep an eye on parents who get too uppity.  Democrats want a peek into your bank accounts if you have $600 bucks or more.

Decoding the disastrous Bidenflation.  Joe Biden has once again led the US into unchartered catastrophes due to his ignorance about the fundamentals of economics.  On Thursday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that inflation in the US climbed to its highest level in 40 years in January, causing prices to rise by 7.5% from a year ago.  When Biden took up residence in the White House in January 2021, President Trump gifted him an inflation rate of just 1.6%.  This was when Covid-19 restrictions were still imposed, causing businesses to either be closed or operate with restrictions.  The current numbers are more troubling considering restrictions across the US have been eased.  To sum it up, in just one year, Biden managed to increase the overall rate of price increase by almost five times.

The Jig is up for Transgenderism as Child Abuse.  The campaign to convince minors that girls can become boys and boys can become girls continues unabated.  However, the consequences of that campaign are now being exposed and are proving unacceptable.  Critics of the campaign have long known of the dangers and have deemed them to be child abuse.  Federal, state, and local governments have ignored the obvious in a case of willful blindness, but the evidence that children and adolescents need protection is now so apparent that government must intercede.  Some states have already begun.

America's enemies are delighted to hear this:
US Army goes green, announcing new climate strategy.  The U.S. Army unveiled a plan this week to tackle issues surrounding climate change, including the establishment of an electric vehicle fleet, as well as the reduction of the branch's greenhouse gas emissions.  The plan, outlined by the Army in a document titled "Climate Strategy," calls for the service to cut its emissions by 50% by 2030 from 2005 levels and reach net-zero emissions by 2050.  The strategy aims to establish an "all-electric light-duty non-tactical vehicle fleet by 2027" and an "all-electric non-tactical vehicle fleet by 2035."

The bad inflation numbers are even worse than the government says.  You couldn't miss the headlines:  The annual percentage increase in inflation clocked in at 7.5%, making it the worst increase in 40 years.  For anyone on a fixed income, living off of savings, or in a low-paying job, this is a disaster.  Rich people don't feel it (much) but ordinary people do.  But here's the kicker:  Inflation is almost certainly worse than it was 40 and more years ago.  Moreover, because the government is in thrall to Modern Monetary Theory, it's going to get worse, lots worse. [...] Certainly, inflation has shot up with incredible speed, as happened in 1982, but real inflation is probably even worse than the accelerated rate suggests.  That's because, in 1990, the government changed how it calculated inflation (something it also did in 1980).

Biden's oil nightmare.  If you think the highest overall inflation rate in 40 years of 7% is bad, get ready for a real shock coming to a pump near you.  Oil prices are surging so much that, ironically, even the "Green New Deal" president is begging global and domestic producers alike to ramp up production and pump, pump, pump!  And despite his releasing millions of barrels of crude from the strategic oil reserve and pleading with oil-rich nations to increase their output, prices continue to climb.  In early December, oil was trading at $65 per barrel.  Today, it's over $90, which is more than a 50% increase in little over a couple of months.  This past week, the average price of gasoline in the United States hit a seven-year high at the pump, but there's still much more to come.

Inflation surges 7.5% on an annual basis, even more than expected and highest since 1982.  Consumer prices surged more than expected over the past 12 months, indicating a worsening outlook for inflation and cementing the likelihood of substantial interest rate hikes this year.  The consumer price index for January, which measures the costs of dozens of everyday consumer goods, rose 7.5% compared with a year ago, the Labor Department reported Thursday [2/10/2022].  That compared with Dow Jones estimates of 7.2% for the closely watched inflation gauge.  It was the highest reading since February 1982.

Inflation hits new 40-year high ... again.  [Scroll down]  Just yesterday, a Fed board member claimed that a 0.5% hike in the base rate was unlikely.  Well, it looks at least slightly more likely now, and perhaps a whole lot more necessary.  Even the 6% "core" reading is a disaster, but politically speaking, it's almost irrelevant.  Voters experience inflation mainly through food and energy prices, which means the political pressure from this report will skyrocket.

A Color Map of the Fronts of World War III.  Demographic warfare is most evident on our porous southern border.  But it's being waged from many directions and is a massive threat to national security.  Last year alone, two million people — from Haiti, Chile, Somalia, Eritrea, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries of terrorist concern — breached the U.S. illegally.  The campaign for "abortion rights" is also a part of the plan for demographic disruption.  If abortion seems reasonable, you might disabuse yourself of the idea with this statistic: in 2021, abortion was the leading cause of death globally (43 million), more than from cancer, malaria, HIV/AIDS, smoking, alcohol, traffic accidents combined.  Lawfare — or the legal fight against Western civilization — is evidenced by the plethora of lawsuits against First Amendment rights.  Corporations are coerced into having 'diverse' boards and workforces at the cost of competence and excellence.  University professors are fired, censured, or cancelled for 'wrongthink.'  Businesses face lawsuits for refusing to provide services that run against their owners' religious beliefs.

Black History and the Democrats.  During the [2020] riots, Democrats adopted an anti-police mantra to secure the African American vote.  Following BLM's leadership, they lined up in lockstep to defund the police and remove qualified immunity.  But it was minority communities who sought more, not less police service.  The impact was devastating.  Officers retired or resigned in droves, recruiting was stymied, ambushes of officers reached a fever pitch, and violent crime, especially in Democrat-run cities, has broken records.  Today, as in the past, with the election behind them, Democrats are backpedaling their "defund or abolish the police" support.  In other words, they are following their predictable historic pattern.  Democrats manipulating race for political gain is black history.

Study finds Biden's climate policies added $1,000 to Americans' energy bills in 2021.  President Biden's plan to make combatting climate change a "whole of government agenda" resulted in Americans shelling out more than $1,000 extra in energy costs last year, according to a new report by conservative think tank Heartland Institute.  Mr. Biden's climate change policies coupled with rising inflation contributed to the highest single-year increase in energy costs in decades, found the analysis by the Heartland Institute.  "Rapidly rising energy prices are no accident, but instead the predictable result of Joe Biden's war on energy," said James Taylor, the president of the Heartland Institute.

Accelerated Buck Passing Ahead.  There is not enough space in this column to discuss all the boneheaded decisions that this President has made since assuming office. [...] There is a reason Brandon has become the least popular name for American baby boys.  Consider energy policy and the negative consequences his bad decisions have had.  Terminating the Keystone XL pipeline was only the beginning.  It didn't just affect the 10,000 hardworking people who lost their jobs, it has affected everyone.  Our economy has been compared to a giant ship.  It can't stop and turn on a dime.  So it is amazing that in less than a year we went from energy independence (actually exporting oil and gas) to again begging OPEC to open the spigots.  The administration is winning its war on domestic energy production.  American consumers are losing.  Gasoline and home heating oil prices have risen over 40% since Inauguration Day.

Germany to raze a 1,000-year-old forest in the name of 'going green'.  Germany, as we well know with its Russian gas capers, is a highly industrialized society in need of a lot of energy.  Fine and dandy.  But how they get it presents increasingly bad options.  They got rid of their nuclear power in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown after a big earthquake in Japan, (despite Germany not being in a quake zone), driving themselves to dependency on foreign suppliers.  That's presented problems for them what with Russia filling that role, so their other recourse has been the one Joe Biden is touting for America:  Green energy — like wind and solar power.  It's costly, requiring state subsidization, given that Germany is not a big sunshine zone nor particularly windy:  But it's costlier than just the wasted cash.  They also are now looking at the loss of their 1,000-year-old Reinhardswald old-growth forest — known as the Grimm's Fairy Tale forest.

Zero Clue:  Democrats' Quest For Zero Cancer Deaths, Zero Road Deaths, And Zero Covid Deaths.  It must be nice to be a Democrat in 2022.  Think about it:  You don't have to be constrained by truth, reality, or the consequences of ignoring them.  Isn't postmodernism great?!  Nothing — and I mean that literally — that a Democrat politician says or their clueless voters believe is rooted in objective truth.  Pick a position of theirs.  Any position.  Jen Psaki recently made a spiteful, idiotic comment that highlights this phenomenon.  The soft-on-crime approach that she scoffed at is resulting in record-breaking carjackings, murders, and retail theft.  When Chicago DAs refuse to prosecute witnessed murders in broad daylight or when California passes legislation to not even bother with retail theft worth less than $950, what do they expect will happen?  Yet somehow we're the ignoramuses?

Covid-era Americans are using public transit less and having more car crashes.  The Covid-19 pandemic has seen two pernicious trends emerge as to how Americans are getting around their country:  public transit is struggling with a reduced number of paying customers, while there has been a sharp increase in car crash deaths.  The shuttering of businesses, the rise of working from home and a fear of contracting the coronavirus saw public transport use plummet across the US — commuter rail alone reported a 79% decline in ridership in the year to September 2020.  Despite a slight resurgence in 2021, trips taken on all modes of public transit are still around half of what they were before the pandemic, federal government figures show.

The Editor says...
Maybe it isn't due to Covid.  Perhaps the public transit ridership is down because of all the violent crime aboard the trains and buses, as well as at the bus stops and platforms.  Maybe the traffic crashes are due to the "defund the police" people making the cops more scarce and more reluctant to enforce traffic laws.

The 'Ugly' of Progressive Public Policy.  In large part, policies currently implemented in many states show a profound misunderstanding of human nature. [...] The ideas of defunding police, sending social workers to active crime scenes, promoting "safe" drug use, and other idealistic remedies of the ugly, have known a flourishing in recent years, especially in Western society.  Moreover, a profound misunderstanding of the complexities of human sexuality has produced a "remedy" that consists of normalization at all costs, which has spilled over into promoting indiscriminate conversions from one sex to another in impressionable individuals who may have had mental disturbances that should have been addressed psychologically, and not surgically.

Austin Thinks Again.  In 2019, the city council of Austin had the bright idea to legalize homeless camps.  Unfortunately, they took the vote in the middle of the night — 2:00 am to be exact — when virtually all citizen stakeholders were asleep.  A year later, the same council voted to defund the city's police budget by more than a third.  These decisions caused wholesale disaster and immediate negative consequences for public safety.  Moreover, they led to even more chaos, violence, and, recently, a backlash from some grassroots groups actively rejecting the council's dangerous progressive agenda.  Like other cities across the nation, Austin residents had the chance to move in favor of restoring order as they voted on Proposition A to "re-fund" and restaff the police.  This ballot measure came a year after they voted on another referendum to curb the rampant homeless crises created by that first middle-of-the-night council vote.  But unlike other cities, Austin voted down the measure in early November.

Inflation.  Inflation is the worst in 40 years.  The price of cars is up 37%.  Gas is up 49%.  During the last few years, as politicians spent ever more money, experts told us not to worry.  Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, said inflation would be "transitory."  Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said, "I don't anticipate inflation is going to be a problem."  Now she says, "I'm ready to retire the word transitory."

First Black Woman Supreme Court Justice Could Be... a Man?  President Joe Biden has made clear he will keep his promise to elect the first black woman to the Supreme Court, following Justice Stephen Breyer's retirement.  But in a curious tweet announcing he will pick someone with excellent qualifications, he said, "And they will be the first black woman nominated to the United States Supreme Court."  They?  Yes.  Don't be surprised.  "Diversity and equity" are of paramount importance to the Biden administration.  He is making sure you remember it as he is making this announcement.  So why would you assume it is a "she"?  At least theoretically, the first black woman Supreme Court justice could be a biological male who self-identifies as a woman.  The move would go right along with current White House practice.  Recall that the Biden administration celebrated with great pride the appointment of Dr. Rachel Levine, a biological male who transitioned in order to appear as a woman, as the "first female four-star admiral of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps."

There is no such thing as a pregnant man.  Science is under attack.  Human biology, specifically, is under attack.  The attackers are those who falsely claim that men can have babies.  It is a lie — a fiction that must be challenged every time it is mentioned.  No matter how ardently leftists try to propagandize such things, men have never had babies.  They cannot have babies.  They will not ever be able to carry children.  Any claim to the contrary is nothing more than a Frankenstein-esque, scientifically altered concoction.  The truth demands that all such radical, toxic, left-wing indoctrination be rejected and repudiated by whatever means are necessary.  Such propaganda occurred late last week when it was revealed that Apple's latest software update, iOS 15.4, included a "pregnant man" emoji.  Obviously, the powers that be at Apple are trying to normalize such lunacy in the hope that there are enough stupid people willing to be bullied into accepting it.  In turn, this acceptance would (someday) lead to a cultural norm that men can indeed become pregnant — a scientific impossibility.

Biden's war on American energy made us dependent, again.  There are few issues where Trump and President Joe Biden have differed more broadly on policy than on energy production.  Trump went full speed on fossil fuel production.  He lifted drilling restrictions, especially in states such as Alaska and on federal lands in the continental states.  He gave the green light to vitally needed pipelines.  He blocked new extreme environmental regulations that were intended to choke off our oil and gas supplies.  He recognized the shale oil and gas revolution as an unparalleled opportunity to reduce reliance on foreign oil.  The Trump energy policy was an astonishing economic success story.  By January 2021, exactly a year ago and Trump's last month in office, for the first time in nearly 50 years, the U.S. was producing more oil than we were consuming.  We imported no net oil from Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel nations.  We were also producing more oil and gas than the Russians and the Arabs.

Joe Biden, enemy of America.  From the moment Joe Biden stepped into the Oval Office as president it became clear that he stole the job in order to destroy America from within.  He stopped the construction of the Keystone Pipeline on day one, costing thousands of good paying jobs.  He stopped the construction of the southern border wall, costing more jobs and leaving millions of dollars' worth of equipment rotting in the desert.  Biden would not even let Texas use the construction materials themselves; any wall would impede the Biden plan to import over two million migrants from around the world, to be given funds and to spread them throughout the nation into unsuspecting cities.  The Democrats voted unanimously that these illegal invaders would not be required to be vaccinated or even tested for Covid.  That should tell us everything we need to know about how seriously the left really takes this phony pandemic.  They know it is phony because it's wirked for their advantage from the outset.  They had to do something to derail President Trump.  So, with a stroke of Biden's pen, the energy independence Trump had achieved was gone.

Yes, Really: Apple is Adding a Pregnant Man Emoji.  Every day under the woke regime, one has to ask "can things really get more insane from here?"  The answer is always "yes," as Apple recently proved when it decided to add a "pregnant man" emoji to the iMessage emoji options.

NYC restaurants starved for diners — crime and COVID blamed.  Table bookings in Manhattan restaurants are down 64% in January 2022 compared to pre-pandemic January 2020 — only San Francisco (-66%) and Cambridge, Mass. (-75%) have fared worse, according to new data released by OpenTable and crunched by celebrity statistician Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com.  Brooklyn boites are starved for diners, too, with reservations down 55%.  Data for the other boroughs were not available.  "It's a ghost town out there," one Little Italy restaurant manager told The [New York] Post, citing the failure of city officials to contain crime and chaos, which drives away both tourists and local diners.  "New York City can't recover unless bars and restaurants are at the core of the recovery," said Andrew Rigie, executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance.

Police Officers [were] Attacked in Five States in the Last Week:  What Gives?  At least 10 police officers in five states — mostly in big cities — have been attacked in the last eight days.  What's especially troubling is that several of the incidents appeared to target police officers specifically.  Both criminal justice reform advocates and police unions blame the same thing: a violent crime crisis.  Reformers think the violent crime spree is the result of inequality and police brutality.  The cops think it's due to lax prosecutors and spineless politicians.  Whatever the reason, the number of lives lost is rising.

Supply chains:  Kick them when they're down.  I have written previously about societal planners actively working to disrupt supply chains and devalue currencies in pursuit of a reimagination of global capitalism.  They have advertised their intent in recent years, utilizing corporate finance publications like Forbes and Bloomberg to sell their vision of a new system with themselves positioned comfortably at the top.  Others like The Hill advertised the Biden administration's devotion to this vision of a new capitalism.  There was always going to be a correction after our ill-advised COVID retreat policies.  Locking down supply chains in an attempt to run from viral contagion based on a high-school experiment was never going to be without consequence.  Perhaps our greatest error was allowing these policies to persist unfettered for as long as we did.  Earlier course correction may have saved us from our current trajectory.  Recent reports of economic indicators saw inflation climb to 6.8 percent, the highest rate in forty years, and 4.5 million people quit their jobs in anticipation of OSHA-enforced vaccination policies, the highest number ever recorded.

Is the second American Civil War nearing its conclusion?  Leftists, through a combination of brilliant projectionist strategy and callously evil use of their political opponents' naïvité, decency, and tolerance, have transformed America's institutions.  They have weaponized them and used them against their less aggressive fellow citizens.  In the process, they have transformed Americans, their beliefs and expectations, too.  Much like the Chinese Communist Party, they own nearly all the levers of influence and power, exercising an iron grip on the education establishment, the mass media, Big Tech, Wall Street, corporate boardrooms, the health care industry, and Hollywood — and now the CIA, FBI, Defense Department, and ironically named Department of Justice (DOJ).  This in addition to effectively controlling all three branches of the U.S. government.  They are using this power to obliterate the democratic representative republic our Founders built, even as they loudly and incessantly claim they are trying to "save our democracy."

Chickenhawk Joe.  Say what you will about Donald Trump's foreign policies.  He didn't start wars.  He didn't vaporize a family of 10 in a suburb of Kabul, He did however vaporize actual terrorists.  He didn't abandon Americans in Afghanistan in a disastrous pullout that killed 13 American soldiers.  Crimea was abandoned to the predations of Putin during Barack Obama's watch.  Taiwan wasn't buzzed by Chinese fighters on a daily basis while Trump was in the White House.  Daily Chinese provocations are Joe Biden's enduring legacy.  The Ukrainian border is filled with a hostile Russian army and it's due, in no small part, to the fool in the White House.  The foreign policy of the former vice president is one of weakness and stupidity and mismanagement.  Joe Biden doesn't know what to do because he didn't bother to look.  He and his inept administration are now engaging in the silly practice of "hash-tag" diplomacy, apparently to frighten Putin into backing down?  Smart move when dealing with a thug.

Democrats Rushed to 'Reimagine' Policing in Washington State.  Now It's Unsafe.  Democrats in Washington state rode the wave of anti-police sentiment after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.  Their goal was to "reimagine policing," and it's exactly what they did.  Consequently, Washington experienced a surge of violent crime.  Now Republicans, and even some Democrats, are rushing to fix as much as possible.  With total control of the state Legislature, Democrats used the 2021 legislative session to rush through sweeping "reforms" that dramatically changed policing in the state.  These passed bills clamped down on police use of force and detainment, banned departments from deploying large-caliber weapons, and even prohibited most high-speed chases.

Americans' trust in science now deeply polarized, poll shows.  Republicans' faith in science is falling as Democrats rely on it even more, with a trust gap in science and medicine widening substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic, new survey data shows.  It's the largest gap in nearly five decades of polling by the General Social Survey, a widely respected trend survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago that has been measuring confidence in institutions since 1972.  That is unsurprising to more than a dozen scientists reached for comment by The Associated Press, but it concerns many of them.

Manhattan Rite Aid pharmacy closing after rash of thefts, customers and workers say.  The days are numbered at Rite Aid's Eighth Ave. and W. 50th St. location.  The 24-hour store and pharmacy is scheduled to fill its last prescription on Feb. 8, and the Hell's Kitchen community is already mourning its loss.  Workers and customers speculated that the store had been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and an endless stream of shoplifters who have hurt the store's bottom line.  They say the drug store should step up its security or cut back its hours before throwing in the towel.

The Editor says...
Retail stores exist to make a profit.  A pharmacy is not a magnanimous public service.  If shoplifting goes unchecked, theft goes unpunished, and violent crime is laughed off, every retail store will close, and the neighborhood will become even more insufferable than it already is.  In this case, Google Street View is especially useful, since I'll never see this intersection in person.  On the surface, it doesn't look like a terrible place, if you don't mind high-rise apartments and teeming masses of random strangers.  Unchecked crime can ruin any city, and that's what's happening here.

Biden's regulatory bender is crushing the US economy.  By so many measures, Joe Biden's presidential administration falls at the bottom of the scale.  But there is one metric by which Biden is tops — in fact, the very tops in all of history.  That is the regulatory costs his administration has imposed on the nation in a single year.  The American Action Forum, a conservative think tank that tracks government regulation, has tallied up what government agencies estimate their regulations cost.  The Biden administration has now imposed $201 billion in regulation — more than three times the cost that President Barack Obama's very left-wing administration imposed on families and businesses in its first year.

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser Asks Residents to Begin Voluntary Rationing of Food at Grocery Stores.  DC Mayor and COVID Compliance Minister, Muriel Bowser, asks residents in/around her region to enter a phase of voluntary rationing. What comes after the voluntary phase is the part many have been studiously preparing to avoid.  In the bigger picture, I find it rather revealing that only when leftist policies are followed to their natural conclusion do you see officials in the leftist economic system they created, a system not coincidentally always based on the outcome of scarcity, asking people not to engage in economic activity.  Chasing socialism always creates an outcome where the expressed intent from government is NOT to buy stuff, rationing.

Washington, D.C., slides into Soviet-style conditions.  Anyone alive during the Soviet era remembers that one of the hallmarks of Soviet countries was that there were chronic shortages of goods.  Without the profit motive, production never kept up with demand.  Rationing was the order of the day.  Now, in Washington, D.C., rationing is also the order of the day.  D.C.'s mayor, Muriel Bowser, has been asking people to ration voluntarily.  However, we all know that, if grocery items continue to be in short supply, mandatory rationing will soon replace that voluntary shtick. [...] This has a decidedly Soviet feel about it.  When governments interfere with the flow of goods and services, those goods and services cease to exist.

Why Accepting Child Transgenderism Will Pave The Way For Accepting Pedophilia.  The last several years can be viewed as a testament to the remarkable strategic power the woke left wields.  The speed at which absurd ideas have been thrust into the limelight by vested media and a wide array of well-financed academics and non-profits is both startling and impressive.  Not long ago, it would've been unimaginable that a seven-year-old boy's innocent preference for Polly Pockets over Power Rangers would find its tragic end in puberty blockers, chemical castration, and 15 minutes of fame on Snapchat's explore page.  Calling this abuse doesn't encapsulate the full extent of the damage.  It is a culturally bolstered, politically incentivized mass grooming campaign with a disturbing history.  Even worse, this all may be eclipsed by a much darker future should it continue unabated.

Biden's Economy is Setting Records with Some of the Worst Results Ever Seen in US History.  President Trump had arguably the greatest economy in US and world history in 2019.  The opposite is true with the Biden economy and Americans are really suffering as a result.  Under President Trump the US saw unemployment at less than 4%, the best in decades.  The stock markets were at all-time highs, real wages were growing and outperforming the increase in the cost of living.  The US GDP was the greatest in US and world history and inflation was near zero.  In addition, the US became an energy producer for the first time in decades and the price of gas was near or less than $2 a gallon.

"Safe streets worker" (replacing police) gunned down in Baltimore.  During the course of the madness that promoted "defunding" or abolishing the police, there was an emphasis placed on replacing police in some circumstances with "community safety" workers who would supposedly act as unarmed "violence interrupters" and reduce the number of lethal use of force incidents by police officers.  In Baltimore, Maryland's violent gang territories, an existing organization known as the "Safe Streets Program" gained a lot of attention and municipal support in this effort.  The goal of the program is to deploy former gang members into areas controlled by the gangs to negotiate nonviolent resolutions to conflicts.  Unfortunately, as we've seen with other proposed "violence interruption" programs in major cities, sending someone with a clipboard out to resolve a beef between gang members isn't always effective.

Is America Heading for a Systems Collapse?  In modern times, as in ancient Rome, several nations have suffered a "systems collapse."  The term describes the sudden inability of once-prosperous populations to continue with what had ensured the good life as they knew it.  Abruptly, the population cannot buy, or even find, once plentiful necessities.  They feel their streets are unsafe.  Laws go unenforced or are enforced inequitably.  Every day things stop working.  The government turns from reliable to capricious if not hostile.  Consider contemporary Venezuela.  By 2010, the once well-off oil-exporting country was mired in a self-created mess.  Food became scarce, crime ubiquitous.  Radical socialism, nationalization, corruption, jailing opponents, and the destruction of constitutional norms were the culprits.

The monetary chickens come home to roost.  The December 2021 all-item Consumer Price Index rose 7% since December 2021.  The companion Producer Price Index was up 9% for the same period.  This data should put to rest any suggestion that inflation was beginning to wither away.  What consumers in grocery stores and filling stations have known for months, politicians must now grudgingly admit:  The cost of living is going up and far faster than average wage increases will cover.  It feels a little late in the game to call inflation "transitory."  On average, we average people are getting poorer.

How to Counter Biden's National Security Incompetence in 2022.  From his disastrous withdrawal of U.S troops from Afghanistan, lack of coherent policies to deal with Russia and China, a stubborn determination to appease Iran to revive the deeply flawed 2015 nuclear deal, and an obsession with climate change as a national security issue, Biden in just one year severely undermined America's global reputation as a strong and principled nation.  Making this worse is a global perception that Joe Biden is not mentally competent to be the U.S. commander in chief.  America's enemies have been watching this unprecedented deterioration of American global leadership and are preparing to cash in.  This could include in 2022 China attacking Taiwan, Russia invading Ukraine, and increased provocations by Iran and North Korea, including possible nuclear tests by both nations.  There is also the threat to the United States directly by criminal and national security threats resulting from Biden's failure to secure our southern border.

Everything Is Worse Under Biden.  Everything.  Store shelves are bare, not all the time, but did you ever see that under The Donald?  Did you ever walk into a store, fuming because Trump had been mean to Rosie O'Donnell on Twitter, and see the aisles bereft of salad and milk?  No.  Did it cost you $75 bucks to fill up your sedan, like it did me in LA the other day?  No.  Did inflation hit 7% under Trump?  Did your pay get cut 7% under Trump?  Nah.  But no mean tweets, right?  That's worth 7% of your dough, right?  The pandemic is still here.  Who had more people buy the farm from COVID, Trump or Grandpa Badfinger?  I thought the rule was that if they die on your watch, they're your fault.  Looks like now they are going to solve that awkward problem by stopping counting.  Weren't we were informed by all the smart people that the crusty candidate was going to make the bad virus go away?  It has not gone away.

Mediocrity in power.  One can clearly see that today the upper echelons of government are bad managers and inept businessmen.  Everything they touch turns to ashes.  During the first year of their direct rule under the figurehead presidency of Biden, there has been a sharp decline in all economic indicators, and inflation has reached levels not seen since the failed presidency of Jimmy Carter.  The worst thing they have done to the country is the distribution of freebies — massive "stimulus" payments, even to those who don't need them, a form of universal welfare.  To keep the populace on a short leash, the mediocre have turned on the printing press and now are spending money like a drunken sailor.  The national debt is skyrocketing.  Fuel prices have doubled since 2020, everything becoming more expensive, and a situation unseen in history has arisen: millions have dropped out of the labor force and most businesses cannot find workers.  Apparently, people prefer not to work but to live on handouts.  Today, in a country with millions of idle hands there is an acute shortage of labor.  Free cash has destroyed the foundation of Americanism — the incentive to work and strive for personal success.  Why work when your government pays you to stay at home and do nothing?

Bidenomics cost the average worker nearly two paychecks in 2021.  Last year closed out with an annual 7% inflation rate, the Bureau of Labor Statistics finally announced Wednesday.  That price increase, further fueled by a 0.5% increase in December alone, constitutes the highest inflation rate since 1982 when Paul Volcker had to engage in a recession-inducing interest-rate-hike campaign just to crack down on the catastrophic stagflation of the 70s.  To put this into more practical terms, the average U.S. worker earns 26 paychecks a year on a biweekly pay schedule.  Inflation in 2021 effectively wiped out nearly two of those 26 paychecks.  Suffice it to say, the devastation of inflation is not evenly distributed, and as usual, the data demonstrate the damage is regressive.

US Woman Tells PA News 'I feel like I live in the Soviet Union'.  #BareShelvesBiden is trending on Twitter for the 3rd day in a row as more and more American's are beginning to realize that the Biden admin is the one behind the shortages, not China or any other nation.  The overwhelming majority of food American's buy is actually made right here in America according to a variety of studies.  So empty shelves shouldn't happen in regards to food.  But, it is!  And it's happening more and more by the day as regular products are now becoming hard to find.  [Video clip]

Who kills the police?  Put "race of people shooting police" into Google and your will get page after page of the opposite results, the race or ethnicity of people shot by police.  This is obviously no accident.  The media narrative is that police shoot people, mostly minorities, without justification.  The question of who shoots the police is one that the larger society is generally afraid to ask.  To ask that question might shed a different light on who the police shoot because it would put the question into a larger context about criminality.  For the defund the police crowd and the progressive minions of distributive and restorative justice, it would undermine an empowering narrative that has enabled them to shackle the police while letting criminals run free without bail and being rewarded with pleas to lower offenses.  For as long as the police and the "system" can be viewed as victimizing minorities, these minorities can be viewed as victims and not criminals.

The Biden Variant — Not Omicron — Is Behind The Shortages Everywhere.  Just before the holiday, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki took to the press room podium to laughably brag about how "we've saved Christmas" because President Joe Biden supposedly fixed the nation's supply chain crisis.  She said that "President Biden recognized this challenge early, acted as an honest broker to bring key stakeholders together, and focused on addressing practical problems across the global supply chain."  That was good enough for the mainstream media, which had turned a blind eye to the supply chain problems once Biden claimed he had a plan to fix it.  Except, less than three weeks later, #BareShelvesBiden is trending on Twitter, shoppers are sharing pictures of empty store shelves, and the media are being forced — however reluctantly — to report that shortages are actually a worsening problem.  Shortages are everywhere.  Whether it's goods, food, people, COVID tests, you name it.  The CEO of the Gristedes supermarket chain is warning of meat and egg shortages.  The Daily Beast reports that "shortages of glass and other materials continue, coupled with extensive shipping delays and skyrocketing freight costs."  One site asked readers to send examples of shortages, and cold medicine was in the top five.

Wholesale inflation hits a record 9.7 percent.  Prices at the wholesale level surged by 9.7 percent for all of 2021, setting an annual record and providing further evidence that inflation is still hammering all levels of the U.S. economy.  The producer price index, which measures inflation at the wholesale level, did slow on a monthly basis, rising just 0.2 percent in December compared with 1 percent in November, the Labor Department said Thursday.  Thursday's report came a day after the government reported that consumer inflation jumped 7 percent in December from a year earlier, the highest such inflation rate since 1982.

Producer Price Index Jumps a Full Year Record High 9.7%.  Businesses saw the prices of goods they sell rise a record 9.7 percent in 2021, the fastest full-year increase in prices in records going back to 2010.  The Labor Department reported Thursday [1/13/2022] that its Producer Price Index rose two-tenths of a percentage point in December.  That's a slowdown from November, when prices rose one percent, and October, when prices rose six-tenths of a percentage point.

Bidenflation sends a stumbling, bumbling Biden desperately searching for distractions.  Even as President Joe Biden was spewing deplorable falsehoods about his political opponents in Atlanta, the chickens of his administration's economy were coming home to roost.  Wednesday's Bureau of Labor Statistics report on inflation, revealing last month's 7% inflation rate, sets yet another 40-year record, harkening back to the bad old days of double-digit interest rates and Paul Volcker's bitter medicine for the economy of the early 1980s.  With this week's report, it is clear that the Biden economy is in an inflation crisis.  It is a crisis that neither Biden nor his useless Twitter-addicted senior staff has any clue how to fix.  But they have all kinds of ideas about how to make it even worse.

WaPo, Slate:  The grocery shortage isn't just real, it's expanding.  As Peter Allen once sang, everything old is new again ... including grocery shortages.  Joe Biden and Democrats initially scoffed at the idea that Americans can't find their choices at supermarkets, but the empty shelves have become so numerous as to defy denial.  The media is starting to abandon the Democrats' us-or-your-lyin'-eyes credibility test on the grocery-supply shortages.  It's going to get worse before it gets better, largely because of the CDC guidances on isolation over asymptomatic positives in the Omicron wave, [...]

Bidenflation conflagration:  CPI hits 7% year-on-year, a new 40-year high.  Not since mid-1982 have we seen inflation running this hot in the Consumer Price Index, and not since the late 1970s have we seen an administration less capable of grasping its sources and consequences.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that inflation hit 7% year-on-year, higher than the 6.8% annualized inflation rate from November.  The news casts a lot more cold water on Joe Biden's moribund spending plans in Build Back Better, but may do a lot more damage than that to his political standing: [...]

Dangerous Trucker Problem Coming.  Reports of bare shelves are coming from all over the country.  The supermarkets on Long Island are starting to look bare.  It seems to be a problem throughout the nation.  Joe Biden did nothing to help the supply chain crisis although he claimed he did.  Some of the bare shelves problems are due to COVID and local issues but we have a much worse problem coming and it seems that Democrats want it to take place.  They aren't all mentally challenged as Biden is so this must be what they want.  There are supply chain problems, there's a self-induced energy crisis, we have soaring inflation, rising crime, anonymous millions pouring across our borders, but then there is the imminent and very dangerous vaccine mandate coming our way.  Tens of thousands of truckers plan to quit rather than get vaccinated.

Democrats must abandon endless assault on police.  Today, on National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, we honor the courageous men and women who proudly serve our communities and keep our families safe.  Every day, they put their lives on the line to protect us, despite the rhetoric and policies of anti-police Democrats.  We must stand up against the radical "defund police" movement and show our law enforcement heroes that we have their backs.  We must reject the efforts of the Democrat politicians and liberal city councils who are defunding their police departments and refusing to prosecute violent criminals.  As violent crime surges across the country, most notably in Democrat-run cities, it is disturbing that liberal and progressive lawmakers do not take responsibility for how their extreme policies have crippled police departments and allowed violent criminals to run rampant throughout our streets.

What to Do with Feckless Republicans?  Whether it's a matter of gross incompetence or willful intention, nothing the current Democratic administration is doing is improving the lives of the average American citizen.  Nothing.  Consider:
  •   Inflation is raging out of control.  Gasoline prices [...] are a constant reminder of how far behind everyone feels like they're falling.
  •   Month after month, the new jobs data disappoint, missing the so-called experts' projections by a country mile.
  •   The divisive seeds of racial division are being sown by the Democrats like never before, for the inexcusable reason of political leverage.
  •   Illegal immigration is not merely out of control.  It is being actively encouraged.
  •   American energy production is intentionally curtailed, while we beg our OPEC rivals for greater production to make up for our shortfall.  Try to figure that one out.
  •   Russia and China — our main global adversaries, both economically and militarily — are gaining on us (if not surpassing us) with nary a whimper of opposition from the Brandon administration.
And there's the Big One:  the COVID pandemic.  Despite Biden's risible campaign squawking of "I'm not gonna shut down the economy; I'm gonna shut down the virus!," he's managed to do the exact opposite.

Minnesota Trucking Company CEO Warns About What [a] Vaccine Mandate Will Do to [the] Economy.  Here's a solid reference point for just one of the multitude of aspects related to the mandatory COVID vaccine and overall COVID mitigation rules that will come together to present an unavoidable outcome within the supply chain.  As CEO Eric Lawrence notes, even without the vaccine mandate, the testing mandate itself becomes an issue.  How and where exactly are truckers supposed to get these weekly, and depending on state, perhaps daily, Covid-19 tests.  How are they expected to modify their cross country routes, to avoid running afoul of the law, without having any idea where this testing is supposed to take place?  [Video clip]

The Four Horsemen of the Left's Artificial Apocalypse.  [#3] Supply chain crises, product shortages, sky-high energy prices, and runaway inflation — these are the fruits of increasingly communist government agencies regulating success out of existence and redistributing property in the name of "fairness."  What businesses COVID-1984's stifling edicts haven't yet killed, Green New Deal blunt force will finish off.  Why does government work so hard to impoverish its people?  Because a weak and poor populace lacks the will to fight back.  Government welfare is government enslavement.  Cradle-to-grave dependence is just another name for indentured servitude.

The States With The Highest Percentage of Outbound Moves Have Something In Common.  [Scroll down]  New Jersey, Illinois, New York, Connecticut, and California all have more people moving OUT than moving in.  The CNBC reporter notes that all these states are "expensive" and have "high taxes," and people want "a less hectic lifestyle."  But, as we discussed in yesterday's article, there are plenty of additional reasons to flee these states.  Unreasonable Covid restrictions and surging crime are two other major factors.  Another thing that these states definitely have in common is leadership.  Every single state listed in the top 5 where people are leaving en masse is led by the Democrat Party.

Joe Biden Has Destroyed Another Great American Institution.  I regret to inform you that Joe Biden has destroyed another American institution.  The classic Little Caesars $5 Hot-N-Ready pizza is, and you might want to sit down for this, no longer $5. [...] But I'm assured this is all a coincidence and that the president actually has nothing to do with the current inflation spike that the country is suffering under.  From the debt-busting $2T COVID "rescue plan" to the supply chain crisis that has caused raw materials shortages, we are all supposed to believe that Biden is just an innocent bystander. [... T]his once in a multi-generation inflationary boom just so happened to occur under his presidency, and not because of anything he did.  Of course, we all know that's nonsense, and Little Caesars is hardly the only example.  A few months ago, Dollar Tree, which had priced everything at $1 since its inception, announced that it was going to have to raise prices as well.  Biden is ripping away everything Americans hold dear.

Manhattan's 'progressive' new DA Alvin Bragg just gave a green light for anarchy.  Old:  If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.  New:  If you can't do the time, Alvin Bragg will be there for you.  That much just became clear, as the newly minted Manhattan DA issued marching orders to his hundreds of assistants and support staff. [...] Specifically, Bragg says his office "will not seek a carceral sentence" for anything short of murder or deadly assault ("carceral" being progressive double-speak for prison).  Also, he says minor crime won't be prosecuted at all.  In other words, jail is to be reserved for ax murderers and their ilk; armed robbers and heavyweight drug dealers are to be minimally inconvenienced — and just forget about the quality-of-life law enforcement that was the beating heart of the Giuliani-era rescue of New York City decades ago.

Far-Left District Attorneys Have Unleashed Murder In Cities Like Philadelphia.  We still debate the reasons that crime fell in the 1990s.  Better policing?  Longer jail sentences?  An aging population?  Removal of lead from the atmosphere?  They all may have played a role, along with other factors we are probably missing.  That debate is now academic.  Crime has been rising for several years now.  The new concern is why, and how we can get it to stop.  Again, there are many factors, but the rise of leftist prosecutors who are soft on crime must be at the head of the list.  In my hometown of Philadelphia, crime as a general matter has been getting worse for years, and there are statistics to prove it.  Philadelphia, like many big American cities, is experiencing more violent crime than at any point in its history.

Manhattan DA to stop seeking prison sentences in [a] slew of criminal cases.  Who needs soft-on-crime judges when the district attorney doesn't even want to lock up the bad guys?  Manhattan's new DA has ordered his prosecutors to stop seeking prison sentences for hordes of criminals and to downgrade felony charges in cases including armed robberies and drug dealing, according to a set of progressive policies made public Tuesday [1/4/2022].  In his first memo to staff on Monday, Alvin Bragg said his office "will not seek a carceral sentence" except with homicides and a handful of other cases, including domestic violence felonies, some sex crimes and public corruption.

Defunding the Police Has Been a Massive Failure.  It is absolutely stunning that some people thought this would be a good idea and actively pushed it.  Look at where we are now.

How Defund the Police backfired.  Over the last two decades, progressives have established a new consensus on crime.  Nonviolent felonies like shoplifting and drug possession should be reclassified as misdemeanours.  Cities should defund the police and spend the money on nurses, psychologists and social workers instead.  Offenders should have minimal involvement with the justice system — and be kept out of jail wherever possible.  But now, rising crime is rapidly undermining the progressive consensus.  Homicides rose 30% in 2020, and over two-thirds of America's largest cities will have had even more homicides in 2021 than in 2020.  At least 13 big cities will set all-time records for homicides, including Philadelphia, Austin, and Portland.  Meanwhile property crimes in California's four largest cities rose 7% between 2020 and 2021.  Car break-ins in San Francisco declined temporarily in 2020, because Covid emptied the city of tourists, but they have since skyrocketed, reaching 3,000 in November.  Many residents have stopped bothering to report crime.

The Woke Mob's Destruction of the English Language.  Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, a member of the progressive "squad," recently accused those who disagree with student debt cancellation of "policy violence."  That is, to disagree with the left now is "violence."  This kind of linguistic legislation by the left is now common.  Words mean whatever they want them to mean in order to achieve their far-left goals.  Pressley's statement is also an implied threat.  Since violence is justified in response to violence, Pressley is letting American's know what is coming if they do not get their way.  The venomous hatred spewed by the Woke mob in the name of tolerance and inclusivity is indefensible.  That is why they do not defend it.  Instead, they generally try to bully people into submitting to their demands.

U.S. crude oil production fell by 8% in 2020, largest decrease on record.  U.S. crude oil production fell by 8% in 2020, the largest annual decrease on record, the U.S. Energy Information Agency reports.  This plunge occurred one year after the U.S. reached a record annual average high of 12.2 million barrels a day in production in 2019.  In January 2020, U.S. crude oil production reached a peak of 12.8 million b/d.  But with federal and state lockdowns halting travel over coronavirus fears, demand for oil dropped and production became too expensive to maintain.  By March 2020, the oil and gas industry experienced a "bloodbath," and by April, the WTI was negative $40 a barrel for the first time in history.  Prices at the pump also reached historic lows.

Americans are Fed Up with Blue State Democrats, Fleeing their States In Droves!  Lately [the Democrats have] done everything they can to keep us divided.  At times even picking sides against their own groups.  Americans are waking up to that en masse and fleeing the states they control by the hundreds of thousands.  [Video clip]

Millions of Americans Are Getting 'Fresh Starts' in Red States.  There is a quiet revolution happening across America and it could mark the beginning of the biggest spiritual, cultural, and political changes this country has seen since the Civil War.  New data made public earlier this week by the U.S. Census Bureau makes clear that millions of Americans are leaving Blue high-tax, high-crime, high-COVID-mandate Democratic states and moving to Red Republican states where taxes are lower, the police aren't being defunded, and churches still thrive.  Consider the contrast between Texas and Idaho on the one hand and New York and the District of Columbia on the other, as described by the Census Bureau [...]

Study: Forced masking, isolation causes lower IQ in children.  A new study links Covid lockdowns and mask mandates to lowering intelligence in children.  According to clinical psychiatrists at Brown University forced isolation and face masks will create a generation of children with lower IQ's and deficient social skills.  Doctors found children developing during Covid-lockdowns are showing deficient verbal and motor skills as well as reduced cognitive performance.  This compared to childhood development before the lockdowns were in place.

The Ungracious and Their Demonization of the Past.  What will our grandchildren say of us who dumped on them over $30 trillion in national debt — much of it as borrowing for entitlements for ourselves?  What sort of society snoozes as record numbers of murders continue in 12 of its major cities?  What is so civilized about defunding the police, endemic smash-and-grab thefts, and car-jackings?  Was our media more responsible, professional, and learned in 1965 or 2021? Did Hollywood make more sophisticated and enjoyable films in 1954 or 2021?  Was there less or more sportsmanship among professional athletes in 1990 or 2021?  Was it actually moral to discard the "content of our character" and "equal opportunity" principles of the prior Civil Rights movement of 60 years ago?  Are their replacement fixations on the "color of our skin" and "equality of result" superior?  Would America have won World War II with the current labor participation rate of only six Americans in 10 working?  Would our generation have brought all American troops home and quit World War I, in fear of the deadly 1918 Spanish flu pandemic?

Nobody likes Joe.  Inflation, violent crime, job competition from illegals, and the monstrous Afghanistan pullout are taking their toll on old Joe's president[i]al approval ratings. [...] Joe threw blacks, women, independents, Latinos, suburbanites, and others over the side in his bid to please the AOC crowd.  Gas prices through the roof.  Bye-bye energy independence.  Federal drilling halted in the name of 'going green.'  A major pipeline shut down at the flick of Joe's pen.  No parental input in education.  Critical race theory drummed into the heads of the young.  Schools closed.  What teachers' unions want, teachers' union get.  Coddle and pay illegals with bottomless funding while border towns pay extra for the surge, crime, and spreading of COVID.  Throw the poor out of their jobs with vax mandates.  Reintroduce inflation, brought on by Federal Reserve money-printing to pay for Joe's big government spending.  Whip up whitey-as-bad-guy rhetoric, defund the police, ignore violent crime even as turns every blue city into another Caracas.

Over 110 Defendants Charged with Capital Murder are Let Loose in Houston, Thanks to Democrat Judges.  In Harris County, Tex., where the city of Houston is located, at least 113 defendants charged with capital murder have been freed and let loose on the streets thanks to criminal justice reform.  Fox 26 Houston reported the shocking news, which they claim is part of "more than 50,000 accused felons [benefiting] from the "catch and release" philosophy of "criminal justice" perpetrated by the current crop of democratic "reform" judges."

13 Happenings In 2021 That I Never Would Have Believed 5 Years Ago.  If you'd told me five years ago that men would be treated as women, criminals would not be prosecuted, and censorship would be widespread, I wouldn't have believed you.  What were once considered the most basic, scientific truths (such as that you're born with your sex and can't change it) have broken down.  Governments are no longer serving their primary function of providing security and protecting borders.  There are many more.

Six Political Predictions For 2022.  [Scroll down]  As of early-December there were twelve major U.S. cities — all run by Democrats — which had already set annual records for homicides, at which time there were still over three weeks left in the year.  It's also worth noting that five of those twelve cities "topped records that were set or tied just last year."  The situation is bad, but it's going to get worse.  And Democrats only have themselves to blame.  The left has demonized police by falsely accusing them of wrongdoing; please consider the shootings of Michael Brown and Jacob Blake as examples.  They've promoted the idiotic notion of "defund the police," and in cities like St.  Paul they've accomplished that goal only to end up on the aforementioned list of the dozen cities.  They've implemented bail "reform," which simply puts violent criminals back on the street.  They've decriminalized crimes (federal crimes) such as sex work and dealing drugs.  And, of course, they embraced last year's BLM riots that killed 25 Americans.  Put these actions all together, and we have a total disregard for the rule of law... and we have a recipe for disaster.

Here is what confuses me about San Francisco..  [Thread reader]  We have the most liberal, left-wing government & population in the country.  We have a $13B budget.  And we have 8,000 people sleeping in the rain this week. [...] Progressives tend to blame Republicans for almost everything.  Yet here we are — not a Republican in sight — and I think we may be the most deranged city on the planet.  Nowhere is there such inequality.  I have never seen destitution at this scale.

Heavy Blue Toll:  Law enforcement deaths hit record high in 2021.  More police officers have died in 2021 than any other year in U.S. history, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.  The latest occurred Thursday when a Baltimore officer was ambushed and died. [...] "Ambush-style attacks" were up 126% at the beginning of December from the previous year, the Fraternal Order of Police reported.  Crime rates across the country are skyrocketing as well.  Homicides have risen 30% from 2019 to 2020, according to provisional CDC data.  Murders increased even more in 2021. Twelve cities hit homicide records in December 2021, according to ABC News.  "Nobody's getting arrested anymore," former New York Police Department detective Robert Boyce said.  "People are getting picked up for gun possession, and they're just let out over and over again."  Many officers quit following the 2020 summer of riots associated with Black Lives Matter after the death of George Floyd.  One study over the summer found that "Officers resigned at a 279% increased rate."

These Stores Are Closing Due To Looting And Lost Profits.  As looting continues and lockdowns return, many retail companies have announced recently that they are shuttering some locations that have become simply too expensive to maintain. [...] Some of the country's major pharmacy chains have said that they plan to close a number of stores.  In November, CVS announced that it will close around 900 retail locations over the next three years, which amounts to about 9% of its 10,000 stores.  CVS locations across the country have been affected by looting over the past year and a half, but the company cited more customers shopping online in its decision to close stores.  Rite Aid said just this week that it is closing 63 stores in order to reduce costs and boost profitability.  In October, Walgreens announced that they would close five locations in San Francisco, citing rampant shoplifting across the city.

California's Zero-Bail Policies Have Been A Deadly Failure.  California's state lawmakers recently failed to pass bail reform legislation, creating a case study in how fundamentally poor public policy will self-destruct if it's exposed for what it is.  On the face of it, there is a logic to the continuing argument that cash-based bail is unfair to people who have little or no money.  But that simplistic premise is deeply flawed and has led to a huge increase in violent crime in California, as well as in other places that implemented the policy.  Unfortunately, the grim repercussions are not just statistical.  There is a human face to criminal justice reform gone bad — and ultimately it tripped up the legislators behind the latest attempt at force-feeding bail reform to the Golden State's citizens.

Lefty pols get a lesson in what 'defund the police' means.  It's pretty amazing when leftists have to live with the results of their own decisions.  Deep-blue San Francisco's descent into violent crime and chaos following its voters' choices to elect officials on platforms to "defund the police" is Exhibit A.  But for the political perpetrators of these imposed anti-police agendas, it doesn't usually happen.  They are, after all, a nomenklatura of sorts, and membership has its privileges.  But for two leftist politicos who unleashed 'defund the police' on the public, the result was so big they couldn't escape it.

Census: Americans Flee Left-Wing Lockdown States for Open, Red States.  Blue states that have repeatedly imposed mask mandates, vaccine requirements, and lockdowns over the last year have lost population to red states that have done away with such policies.  Newly released data from the United States Census Bureau reveals that while blue states like California and New York have increasingly lost population from July 2020 to July 2021, red states such as Texas and Florida have seen population increases.

California's Zero-Bail Policies Have Been A Deadly Failure.  In 2020, as an emergency measure during the COVID-19 pandemic, the California Judicial Council, hoping to prevent COVID's spread, had implemented zero-bail schedules to reduce jail populations.  Senate Bill 262 was later introduced in another of a series of attempts to eliminate most monetary bail.  For reasons having nothing to do with protecting health and safety, Senate Bill 262 would have made the schedules permanent.  In effect, if defendants could not afford bail, they would simply be released.  The grim reality of zero-bail policies became increasingly apparent as late summer turned to fall.  Dramatic expansions in crime.  Rampant retail theft.  Law enforcement and prosecutors unified in their complaint that the zero-bail schedule was a problem.  A big problem.  In fact, the Judicial Council had terminated the zero-bail schedule order even before its emergency authority expired, presumably because these policies failed.

White Men Are No Longer the Democrats' Most Pressing Electoral Concern.  Democrats face a mountain of issues.  They have an inflation crisis that voters seem primed to nail them to the wall over.  The supply chain crisis is still ongoing.  The economy is not well despite the endless propaganda peddled by the Biden administration.  Russia and China are flexing their muscles.  The southern border is a mess.  COVID is still not shut down.  And Build Back Better just got killed by Joe Manchin.  Now, moderate Democrats who cast their lot with the progressive wing and voted for the left-wing action items are saddled with this legislative fumble.  Meanwhile, Joe Biden's approval ratings are sinking faster than the Andrea Doria.

'Bail reform' costs 25 Chicagoans their lives, so far this year.  Another day, another dead person, another beneficiary of the George Soros chaos masterplan of "bail reform." [...] The woman killed was one of 25 murder victims who can't speak up about this "bail reform." She's also one of 93 victims who've been victims of such attacks, the non-dead ones likely recovering in hospitals for gunshot wounds or still taking the flashbacks of terror at what might have happened.  Sixty-one of these thugs have been "beneficiaries" of bail reform, which means no or low cash bail, meaning that they were permitted to await their trial dates in complete freedom, giving them the time to even the score with their hate targets ahead of their date with the judge and jury.  This fiend was one of them.  Bail reform has been a plague for years now, enabling violent criminals to walk free ahead of their trials.  The Soros left and its allies have been calling it a matter of economic justice, given that many thugs don't have the same kind of money as people with productive jobs[.]

For Deaf People Like Me, Mask Mandates Impose Never-Ending Isolation.  It's not a huge population in our country who have hearing problems, but to us it is a huge burden.  According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), approximately 2-3 babies born in America out of every 1,000 are born with a hearing disability.  Add those with people who lose hearing due to trauma, illness, and age, and approximately 15 percent, or 37 million Americans, over the age of 18 report at least some trouble hearing. [...] Trying to be "normal" and have a normal life was always my goal.  That has been nearly impossible for nearly two years now.  In spring 2020, the first face mask mandate due to Covid-19 went into effect.  I knew I was in trouble.

Judge Rules Anchorage Women's Shelter Is Allowed To Remain A Women's Shelter.  A federal court ruled on Monday [12/20/2021] that a faith-based women's shelter in Anchorage, Alaska, was allowed to remain open exclusively for women after the city passed an ordinance to mandate otherwise.  The Downtown Hope Center sued the city in 2018 when officials sought legal retribution against the charity over its refusal to allow an inebriated and injured biological man who identified as a woman to sleep at its facility alongside homeless women.  The shelter referred the man to a hospital instead where he was sent in a taxi paid for by the group.  A complaint was later filed with the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission and pursued by the city before a preliminary injunction in the shelter's favor led to a settlement that forced the municipality to pay the charity $100,001 in fees.  The Anchorage Assembly then opted to change a local ordinance to erase gender-exclusive shelters, which provoked the ongoing litigation.

Self-imposed term limits are the best kind.
Two More House Dems Make Mad Dash for the Exits as Joe Biden's BBB Agenda Implodes.  With voter concerns sitting squarely on uncertainties about the U.S. economy on issues like worsening inflation, the ongoing supply chain crisis, and the gloomy jobs outlook, a number of House Democrats have apparently concluded it's best to get out while they can.  As of last week, the number was at 20 with the announcement that five-term Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) would be retiring at the end of his term.  But today, barely 24 hours after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) dashed Joe Biden's hopes and dreams on the BBB bill, two more House Dems said in so many words that they're headed for the exits, too.

Owner of Seattle's Woodland Coffee frustrated by rising crime.  A frustrated Seattle business owner says she's tired of dealing with break-ins and threats to her customers and workers.  She's reaching out to nearby businesses to see if they want to band together to create a safer environment in their community.  Crime statistics from the Seattle Police Department show a rise in burglaries and thefts at businesses in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood.  Businesses in this area have dealt with countless break-ins and say when they call for help police can't always get there.

The Editor says...
And whose fault is that?  The police won't show up because they've been defunded and demoralized by the Democrats.  The criminals know they'll never spend any significant time in jail, because of the Democrats.  And yet you can bet the "Seattle business owner" will vote for Democrats every time.

America Is Much More than Its Government.  [Scroll down]  So here's where the scorecard stands:  Runaway inflation; a collapsing currency set in motion by an unconstitutional central bank that manipulates the dollar and destroys personal savings; a "health emergency" that has been systematically abused to blow up the Bill of Rights; a voting system that nobody trusts because of its inherent and intentional conduciveness for enabling fraud; schoolchildren who have never been dumber yet more indoctrinated by communist claptrap; an unprotected border that has helped destroy communities around the country with crime, division, and drugs; global war against amorphous threats of "terrorism" (which has morphed into a dangerous domestic war against Americans for their political beliefs); and endless attacks on traditional American culture by nasty, self-glamorizing moral poseurs intent on despoiling Western civilization, wrecking Judeo-Christian sanctities, squashing families out of existence, and plundering anything left over to help pay off some Treasury IOUs owed to China.  Let's be clear:  The American people built none of these catastrophes; their worthless government did.

The madness of King Brandon.  In August, Biden began a bizarre, ill-advised, and poorly executed withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, which stranded many U.S. civilians and military personnel there and left a reported $85 billion in taxpayer-funded, top-of-the-line, and completely operational military equipment for our Taliban enemies to plunder, which they did.  Biden decided that it was a great idea to evacuate troops first and let the rest of the area and our abandoned facilities fall into chaos afterward.  Images of people running to catch airplanes out of the war-torn cesspool flooded the airwaves, which served to underscore the incredibly bone-headed decision to remove the troops who enforced the rules and prevented the area from descending into chaos for many years.  With one stupid decision, Biden handed Afghanistan back to the savage and repressive regime that held it before.  This will be Joe's legacy.

The Elite's obsession with January 6:  Why do the Elite harbor this fevered obsession with Jan 6? [...] It reflects their habitual projection of their own evil onto the seething mass of deplorables.  Precisely what is this evil they are projecting?  In a word:  treason.  The US Constitution defines treason in Article III, Section 3, Clause 1 this way:  "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."  Are the Elite guilty of treason?  Let me count the ways[:]
  [#1]   In Afghanistan, delivery of $85 billion in military supplies and thousands of hostages to the enemy.
  [#2]   Mass destruction in our cities.  Politicians who protect the mobs are accessories after the fact and accomplices to this treason.
  [#3]   Defunding the police.  The primary responsibility of local government is to protect their constituents and keep the streets safe.  But the local Elites in many cities have sided with the criminal element against the law-abiding citizenry.
  [#4]   Sabotage of the military through wokification, [...]
  [#6]   Giving aid and comfort to China, not least through the attempted Building Back Better legislation that Sen. Manchin just jettisoned.
  [#7]   Destroying the economy with the flood of illegal aliens.
  [#8]   Destroying the economy with the climate hoax.
  [#9]   Destroying the economy with the war on energy:  Shutting down the XL pipeline, bankrupting energy companies, deliberate depletion of our oil reserves, etc.
  [#10]   Destroying the economy with the Covid hoax.

Our political divide is no longer between Democrats and Republicans.  I noticed the uptick in the crime in New York in January 2020 when the "Bail Reform" law went into effect.  Slowly on the local news, you heard about someone coming up the steps from the subway and getting cold-cocked in the face, elderly people getting thrown down and beaten, and other violent street crimes.  It grew from there and, after George Floyd's death in Minneapolis, the kerosene was thrown on the previously slow-burning fuse.  The Marxists tried telling us the crime wave was due to the pandemic but I knew — and believe others did too — that it started weeks before the first case of COVID was reported in the United States.  Like a cancer, the effects of these policies took a while to spread and then accelerated quickly.  The same pattern was repeated across America as other cities implemented "Bail Reform" and defunded their police departments.  All the while, George Soros and other Marxist billionaires hell-bent on destroying this country helped install District Attorneys who refuse to prosecute criminals and judges who put repeat violent offenders back on the streets.  Add in governors emptying prisons in the name of Covid and — voila! — instant anarchy.

Here's the Perfect Example of What a Failure 'Defund the Police' Is.  Democrats pushed to defund the police over much of the past year and a half.  You even had people like Kamala Harris applauding the defunding — cutting millions — from the Los Angeles police.  But when some cities caved and started cutting back on the police, it didn't end well.  One of those cities was Burlington, Vermont — not a city that people necessarily think of as a high crime area.  But residents and business owners ended up not feeling safe at night because the police department took such a hit from the defunding movement.

Awash in illegal pot farms, Oregon plans millions for relief.  A Democratic state senator from southern Oregon said his region, awash in illegal marijuana farms that are protected by gunmen, is starting to look more like a failed state.  After hearing him and others testify this week, the Oregon Legislature dedicated $25 million to help police, sheriff's offices and community organizations pay for the ballooning costs of cracking down on the thousands of industrial-scale, illegal pot farms.  Residents said the assistance is welcome but not enough.

California pot companies warn of impending industry collapse.  Leading California cannabis companies warned Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday that the state's legal industry was on the verge of collapse and needed immediate tax cuts and a rapid expansion of retail outlets to steady the shaky marketplace.  The letter signed by more than two dozen executives, industry officials and legalization advocates followed years of complaints that the heavily taxed and regulated industry was unable to compete with the widespread illegal economy, where consumer prices are far lower and sales are double or triple the legal business.

Man Dies Of Heart Attack Because Paramedics Refuses To Enter His Building Due To Commiefornia COVID LAWS.  Paramedics in Southern California refused to enter a post-acute-care facility to treat a man in cardiac arrest last month because of "some COVID-19 law," according to a Rialto Police Department report.  Body camera footage shows an officer arriving at the Rialto Post Acute Care Center on the evening of Nov. 11 and greeting two paramedics from the Rialto Fire Department, who were standing outside with their masks on.  The first 30 seconds of the footage are muted, which is standard for many police body cameras, but the officer wrote in his report that the paramedics were there for an unrelated patient and said the facility was being "problematic."  [Video clip]

The Editor says...
If your fear of germs is that intense, you shouldn't be a paramedic.

Probe launched after medics refuse to care for man in cardiac arrest over dubious COVID rule: police.  A third-party investigation is underway in a California city after two mask-wearing fire department paramedics allegedly refused to enter a rehab facility to render assistance to a man suffering cardiac arrest.  About an hour later, the patient was tragically pronounced dead at a local hospital after being transported there.  An officer responding to the scene in Rialto, California, said on his bodycam, in footage obtained by Fox 11 Los Angeles through a freedom of information request, that the medics wouldn't come inside because of some COVID-19-related rule, and that the patient, who reportedly wasn't breathing pursuant to the 911 call, needed to be brought out to them.

In San Francisco, People Now Leave Their Trunks Open So Thieves Won't Smash Their Windows.  People in California are reportedly leaving their vehicles' trunks open to deter thieves from breaking their vehicles' windows.  Vehicle break-ins are reportedly on the rise in San Francisco and Oakland.  To keep potential thieves from damaging their property, some people are emptying out everything of value from their vehicle, unlocking their doors, and leaving the trunk open while they go about their business.  [Video clip]

Inflation Devastation for the Democrats.  Most of you whippersnappers were not even Planned Parenthood targets back when inflation was last a thing.  It was the late-seventies, which you people associate with funky clothing and disco music.  Most of us who lived through that miserable decade associate it with economic malaise, notably including massive inflation and 18% interest rates.  Yeah, think about 18% interest, all you folks with an adjustable rate loan.  You're spoiled by cheap money and low inflation.  You are about to learn a lesson in economics.  See, when Uncle Sucker prints lots of money and there are fewer things to buy, you get inflation.  Prices rise.  And your standard of living falls.  Despite the economic insights of Joe Biden and his cast of mutants, there's no changing it.  And no, inflation is not evidence that all is well.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's Presser Should Alarm Everyone on Main Street.  The Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell made statements today akin to saying the emperor is wearing a beautiful coat.  I can share examples, but to really encapsulate the issues, it's actually easier to start by sharing a chart he presented when discussing inflation.  Do you notice anything missing in this chart? [...] The guy is talking about the issue of 2021 inflation and expressing his empathy that inflation is running "far ahead" of the federal reserve projections.  Yet, the graphic Powell uses doesn't even show the 2021 rate of inflation that he is expressing his concern about.  Why wouldn't the graphic show the rate of inflation for 2021?  Well, take one look at what the graph would look like, and you realize immediately why he would not want to put it in front of people.

America's Unamerican Smash-And-Grab.  [Scroll down]  Within the first section of Proposition 47 lies the primary driver of "smash and grabs."  Shoplifting is defined as "entering a commercial establishment with the intent to commit larceny while that establishment is open during regular business hours" where the value of the property does not exceed $950."  That is, according to the California penal code, if someone enters the store when employees are present (putting them at risk) and loots $950 worth of items (if not more, as seen in many of the smash-and-grab cases), they should be allowed to walk free without punishment.  This reclassification only allows criminals to get away with crimes instead of reducing crime itself.  For instance, on November 19th, 20 to 40 people organized a burglary at a San Francisco Louis Vuitton store.  It was not an act of opportunity but a raid organized to some extent through social media and messaging apps.  With only five officially arrested in the above case, criminals are growing bolder, leading to more smash and grab events, such as when 90 people raided a Nordstrom Rack at the Walnut Creek shopping facility on November 20th.  An estimated $100,000 worth of goods were stolen there.

Now that Build Back Better looks dead in the water, weird things are coming out of the mouths of Delusional Dems.  With the price of gas hitting $7 a gallon and a package of Oscar Meyer bacon hitting $9.59 out in California, you can bet inflation is on consumers' minds, and 80% of them know who did it.  Big government spending, the kind that requires the Fed to print more money than the economy can handle, is behind it.  The U.S. has passed a [...] lot of gargantuan trillion-plus-dollar spending bills for things such as COVID relief, "infrastructure," bailouts of favored industries, stimulus payouts, and more in the last few years and the economy is still struggling to digest it.  Inflation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has now soared 6.8% this year, the highest rise in nearly forty years, back when the U.S. was crawling out from the rubble of the Carter years.  And today's inflation is far from done, according to the Fed, which expects to initiate three rate hikes in 2022 to fight it.

Someone Finally Points Out The Obvious.  CNBC's Steve Liesman points out what all the financial pundits keep ignoring.  The price of raw material at origination is still climbing, which means the prices of intermediate manufacturing goods will keep climbing, which means the prices of finished goods (to wholesalers) will keep climbing, which means consumer prices will keep climbing.  [Video clip]  Here's the kicker.  The rate of raw material price increases are still higher than the rate of intermediate price increases, which are still higher than the rate of price increases in finished goods, which are still higher than the rate of price increases in consumer goods (retail).  As long as the rate of price increase for raw material, the very first step in the supply chain, remains higher than the rate of the price increase for the next step in the process, then you can guarantee future prices will go up.

Wholesale Prices See Biggest Annual Surge on Record, Adding to Broader Inflation Woes.  Wholesale prices rose at their fastest annual pace on record in November, with the newest inflation-related datapoint adding to broader concerns about the persistence of elevated prices as higher input costs for producers tend to trickle down to consumers.  The Labor Department said in a Dec. 14 statement that, for the 12 months ending in November, the final demand producer price index (PPI) jumped by 9.6 percent, the highest number in the history of the series, which goes back to 2010.  Consensus forecasts predicted a slower 9.2 percent rise in the PPI final demand measure.  On a month-over-month basis, the final demand PPI gauge rose 0.8 percent in November.  While that's lower than the record high 1.2 percent logged in January, it represents an acceleration in wholesale prices from the prior month's reading of 0.6 percent and a sign that inflationary pressures were once again picking up steam.

Former police chief:  America is devolving into a third world, feudal society — and we can thank the left for it.  Most right-thinking Americans, when they watch gangs of hoodlums go into stores and steal property unabated are horrified by the images.  Others — primarily those on the left — see no problem with it.  What recent events have proven is that there are indeed two Americas; one which still believes in the rule of law, the other which does not.  It also shows what happens to a country when secularism or atheism takes over.  No longer does the commandment "Thou shalt not steal" mean anything.  In fact for leftists, a good number of the ten commandments no longer apply.  For those of us who are Christians, we could see this coming.  For when you remove God from everything, when you don't think twice about the taking of a human life through the process of abortion and when you justify killing or stealing to achieve some kind of means, you have truly lost your way.

Even San Fran residents are getting sick of their liberal reforms.  To put it mildly, things haven't been going well in Nancy Pelosi's home stomping grounds of San Francisco.  The homelessness plague is out of control and crime has been on the rise in ways that even the most liberal and forgiving residents can no longer ignore.  The problem was compounded in multiple ways when Chesa Boudin was elected to be the District Attorney after running on a platform of getting rid of the police and promising to not prosecute "smaller crimes."  (Boudin is now facing a recall election.)  The filth and the property crime are driving some people to look for a way out and flee the city.  The Associated Press talked to several such beleaguered residents recently and heard horror stories that are increasingly familiar.

Key Inflation Metric Grows at Fastest Pace Ever Recorded.  The producer price index jumped 9.6 percent in November compared to the same month last year, the highest year-over-year increase since record-keeping began in 2010.  The PPI increased by 0.8 percent during the month of November 2021.  Prices still climbed 6.9 percent when excluding food and energy costs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  The PPI tracks changes in the sale price of domestically produced goods, and is a key gauge of inflation.

The Whitewashing of Black Crime.  NYPD has sought the public's help in identifying mob looters caught on security cameras.  Videos and photos unmistakably reveal inconvenient truths to those who ply their trade in racial obfuscations.  From San Francisco to Minneapolis and Chicago to New York City the choreography is the same, rampaging troupes of mostly young black males plundering in blue cities with do-nothing policies towards crime and mayoral diktats that prevent cops from interfering with or investigating retail theft.

Black Lives Clearly Don't Matter to BLM or to Soros-Backed Rogue Prosecutors.  Grim news confronts Americans in the closing days of 2021:  as they prepare to gather with loved ones around the Christmas tree, their fellow citizens are being gunned down in the inner city in ever increasing numbers.  And the news is likely to get worse.  That is because America's leaders and talking heads refuse to deal directly with the ongoing effort to gut law enforcement and the entire criminal justice system.  Nor are they willing to address the political violence that has led to the precipitous rise in homicides since the fateful year of 2020.  And the silence continues even though — just as news outlets were reporting record rises in murders in 12 cities — Black Lives Matter, the organization that led the political violence, released right on cue a new statement doubling down on its call for "the abolition" not just of police, but also prisons and the court system.

Democratic mayors under fire as crime, violence plagues Chicago, New York, Philadelphia.  Democratic mayors are raising eyebrows with their responses to the rising crime plaguing major cities like New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia.  The U.S. murder rate rose 30% between 2019 and 2020, according to FBI data — the largest annual increase on record, with Chicago topping the list.  At least 12 major cities, including New York, have already set historical murder records in 2021.  Robberies and assaults are also on the rise, and retailers in major cities across the country are reporting an uptick in organized smash-and-grab crimes during the busy holiday shopping season.  Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot faced criticism last week after she responded to the recent flood of robberies in her city by blaming retailers for not better protecting their merchandise.

Forty-year inflation high will become key midterm election issue.  Republicans are blasting President Joe Biden for the highest inflation increase in nearly 40 years, setting the stage for rising consumer costs to be a key issue in next year's midterm elections.  On Friday, the Labor Department's Consumer Price Index rose by 6.8% without seasonal adjustments over a 12-month period ending in November, the fastest annual increase since 1982.  Rising inflation has plagued Biden in the first year of his presidency, taking a toll on his approval rating that has dropped across several major polls in recent weeks.  Republicans, seeking to win majorities in the House and Senate in the midterm elections, blamed rising costs on Biden.

Biden makes shipping crisis worse.  Cargo ships are backing up to Hawaii as they await unloading.  Having Paternity Pete running the Department of Transportation was not bad enough.  Biden just appointed someone with no cargo shipping experience as the U.S. Maritime Administrator.  The job is one of those little known offices that are important in times of crisis.  You never really think of cargo shipping until someone foolishly shuts down the economy to stop a virus.  The aftermath resulted in inflation and supply shortages.  Cargo ships are coming in, but their cargo is not being unloaded and shipped by truck to stores across America. [...] Trump took shipping seriously.  Biden did not.  He appointed Rear Admiral Ann C. Phillips, United States Navy (Retired).  She is a highly accomplished and able sailor.  But her experience is in climate change, not shipping.  Logistics is a complicated but extremely important undertaking, as we all are learning at the store.

The Six Most Disastrous Members Of The Biden Administration.  #1: White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain:  If Biden is merely a barely functioning figurehead, which it seems clear that he is, then who is really calling the shots?  Who's the one pulling Biden's marionette strings?  We can't know for sure, but for me the most obvious culprit would be Mr. Klain.  As Chief of Staff, we can safely assume no one interacts more with Biden than Ron Klain.  No matter the topic, no matter the crisis, a Chief of Staff is going to have his fingers in everything the president does.  Biden's ridiculous spending plans?  There is no doubt that Klain weighed in on each one of them; heavily.  The decision to pull the trigger on the catastrophic Afghanistan withdrawal?  Klain absolutely had input there as well.  And while there's no question that Dr. Anthony Fauci and other authoritarian bureaucrats were pushing Biden to implement vaccine mandates and to acquiesce to teachers' unions with school closings, we can rest assured that it was Ron Klain who advised Biden and orchestrated the policies.  If we also consider the calamitous supply chain crisis, the Administration's insistence on divisive identity politics, the repeated missteps with China and Russia, and the apparent strategy to have Biden become Bernie Sanders' political clone, the Biden Administration is in tatters.  And Ron Klain has his fingerprints everywhere we look.

AP: Huh.  Maybe we shouldn't spend $5 trillion with this much inflation.  We learned yesterday from the CBO that Joe Biden's "Build Back Better" spending boondoggle would actually add three trillion dollars more debt to the country than had been advertised, once all of the budget gimmicks and sleight-of-hand language was stripped out of it.  That news came on the heels of a report that inflation had hit a level not seen in almost forty years.  (I lived through that inflation explosion and I can assure you that it was no fun.)  These events have forced even some of Joe Biden's most ardent cheerleaders in the media to take notice.  Last night the Associated Press was compelled to ask what really should have been an obvious question all along.  Is this really the time to be setting another $5 trillion in magical money on fire?

Where Dems Rule and Police Are Defunded, Blood Coats the Streets.  Philadelphia, the nation's sixth largest city, recorded 523 murders as of Dec. 7, surpassing its formal grim milestone of 500 murders, which was set in 1990, police data showed. [...] Besides the total control of the cities by Democrats for decades, what could possibly be the other factor in these cities that accounts for such high murder rates?

Whose fault is it that America is descending into Third World status?  Store theft is now done openly.  People load their arms or shopping carts with stuff they want and simply walk out the door.  After closing, mobs of them smash the storefront and grab what they want.  I'm reminded of stores in Mexico where padlocked steel curtains cover the glass storefronts each night.  After closing, the store become a little fortress.  The left explains that this isn't looting because ... reasons.  One reason is that it's really a protest for social justice, whatever that is.  Another reason is that stores have insurance, dontcha know, and so stealing from them isn't really stealing.  Another reason is that the looters are jobless due to COVID, and so their theft is excused by their hunger.  In other words, the left contends that stealing a Prada bag to feed their greed is just like Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's children.  Speaking of the jobless, employers are desperately seeking to relieve them of that status while the jobless are desperately seeking to maintain that status.  People have decided they'd rather not work, which is understandable since we told them they don't need to and we even pay them money not to.