0% Inflation

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That’s what President Joe Biden (D) said, just a few days ago, when overall inflation came out unchanged in July vs June. (I’ll elide, here, the year-on-year inflation rate of 8.5% in July, which is a little different from 0%.)

Today we received news that our economy had zero percent inflation in the month of July. Here is what that means: while the price of some things went up last month, the price of other things went down by the same amount.

Among those things whose price went up is food, which all of us need for survival, even as we don’t need gasoline or airline tickets just to survive.

…in July, food prices accelerated further, the Labor Department reported on Wednesday. The food at home category, which tracks the cost of groceries, surged 13.1% over the last year, the most significant increase since March 1979. On a monthly basis, prices jumped 1.4%.

The increase in the cost of food for our families was somewhat more than zero. In fact, annualized, that 1.4% month-to-month increase works out to 18.2%, even larger than that realized annual increase of 13.1%.

Biden is determined to make a big deal about one short-term inflation statistic, and he’s equally determined to pretend another short-term inflation statistic, one that’s critical to families, doesn’t exist. He’s speaking Newspeak, not English.

Deflection, or Not Understanding?

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Last Wednesday, following the FBI’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s (R) Mar-a-Lago home, a reporter asked FBI Director Christopher Wray about the possibility of his agents planting evidence. This is, after all, the same FBI that falsified evidence in order to support FISA court warrants that would be used against Trump supporters. This also is the same FBI that refused to allow Trump’s lawyers to watch the FBI as it searched Trump’s home during that raid, even forcing those lawyers present to leave. This is the same FBI that, on the conclusion of its raid and removal of a number of boxes of…somethings…refused to leave behind a receipt for the items confiscated, or even an unsigned list.

Hence the reporter’s question [my corrections to grammar, spelling, and Close Captioning’s misunderstanding of isolated words]:

Former President Trump is raising the prospect of agents planting evidence in the FBI search of his residence in Mar-a-Lago, saying his lawyer’s team is not allowed to observe this search. Can you address that, particularly as many of Mr Trump’s supporters online vision of call to arms and threats against your agents?

Wray responded by expressing his own concern regarding the safety of his agents; however, the kicker is his response to the first part of the reporter’s question regarding evidence:

Well, as I’m sure you can appreciate, that’s not something I can talk about, so I’d refer you to the department.

Here’s the Director of the “department” directing the reporter to his department for her answer regarding his department’s behavior. Last I checked, the Director of the FBI was the head of his “department.”

Christopher Wray is a man who is, clearly, in over his head. He needs to be replaced.

This Says It All

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The Republic of China’s Mainland Affairs Council has issued a statement in response to a People’s Republic of China policy statement that did not include phrasing that ruled out the dispatch of Chinese troops and civilian administrators to Taiwan as had prior editions. In their own statement, the RoC, among other things,

declar[ed] that “the Republic of China is a sovereign country,” referring to the government in Taipei by its formal name.
“The CCP regime has never ruled Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu for a single day,” the statement read….

Hear, hear.

Public Pension Fund Bail-out

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The Editors’ subheadline illustrates the mistake.

As stock prices fall, public pensions may need taxpayer help.

Quite a large number of public pension funds are in serious financial trouble as a result of their excessively optimistic expected rates of investment returns and the last several weeks of stock market drop.

No, they don’t need taxpayer “help.” What the public pension funds need is to be allowed to fail as a result of their politically-driven, rather than fiscally- or financially-driven, management.

Another Lie by Progressive-Democrats

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This one exposed by The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board; it centers on immigration.

First move:

When President Biden first proposed in April to end Title 42, several Democrats joined their GOP peers in backing a bill to keep it in place.

Second move:

Republican Senator James Lankford [OK] proposed an amendment [to the just Senate-passed Build Reduced Back bill] to extend Title 42….

All of the Senate Progressive-Democrats voted Lankford’s bill down in a strictly party-line vote.

Third move:

Senator Tester [Jon, D, MT] proposed another. His version also pledged to restore the border-expulsion policy, but unlike Senator Lankford’s it lacked a funding provision. This time Mr Tester backed the amendment, joined by Senators Sinema, Kelly, and Hassan, along with Catherine Cortez Masto and Raphael Warnock.

Fourth move:

[Senate] Majority Whip Dick Durbin [D, IL] challenged the amendment on procedural grounds, saying its lack of funding violated Senate budget reconciliation rules. The amendment fell short of the 60 votes it needed to pass and was left out of the bill’s final version.

And with that dance, Progressive-Democrats can proclaim their support for immigration controls while simultaneously and deliberately doing nothing at all about immigration.

All very carefully choreographed by Party.