Consumer spending accounts for approximately two-thirds of the U.S. economy, so Joe Biden's crushing…
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Image of the Day: "Bidenomics" Crushes Consumer Confidence

Consumer spending accounts for approximately two-thirds of the U.S. economy, so Joe Biden's crushing impact on consumer confidence helps resolve his apologists' confusion over Biden's economic disapproval.  After inheriting an economy rebounding from the Covid shock, Biden's policies quickly drove consumer confidence back downward, where it continues to stagnate.  No wonder he finds himself in such electoral hot water.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="849"] Bidenomics Crushes Consumer Confidence[/caption]

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May 08, 2024 • 12:39 PM

Liberty Update

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Notable Quotes
 
On the Formal Accusation by House Government and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer That Then-Vice President Biden Abused His Office to Help His Son Score Foreign Business Deals:
 
 

"House Government and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer on Wednesday formally accused Joe Biden of abusing his power as vice president by allowing his son to travel aboard Air Force Two to help score foreign business deals, formally demanding the National Archives turn over all flight records from such trips.

"'The Committee seeks unrestricted special access under the Presidential Records Act (PRA) to certain records related to then-Vice President Biden's foreign travel with his family on Air Force Two and Marine Two,' Comer and fellow committee member Rep. Byron Donald, R-Fla., wrote in a letter to the National Archives and Records Administration.

"It has long been known that Hunter Biden took trips aboard his father's government jet during the Obama administration, including one in late 2013 to Beijing in which Joe Biden met with one of his son's prospective business partners in a major investment fund in China. Fox News recently reported there were at least 15 such trips during the Obama era."

Read the entire article now.

 
 
— John Solomon, Chief Executive Officer and Editor in Chief of Just the News
— John Solomon, Chief Executive Officer and Editor in Chief of Just the News
Posted August 31, 2023 • 08:38 AM
 
 
On Jonathan Kanter, Head of the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division:
 
 

"Mention progressive antitrust in Washington, and the discussion turns to Lina Khan -- who rose in half a decade from Yale Law School student to become the most powerful, and controversial, Federal Trade Commission chair in history.

"After courts tossed out four major FTC antitrust cases in a row, Rep. Kevin Kiley, a California Republican, asked Khan, 'Why are you losing so much?' When the Biden administration rejected the standard that antitrust cases are about consumers, and instead reoriented enforcement along social justice lines, former FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson wrote that Khan was in the thrall of Marxism.

"Almost wholly unnoticed amid these fireworks is Jonathan Kanter, head of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, which shares the antitrust portfolio with FTC. While Khan taunts and dodges like a rodeo clown, Kanter operates with low-key effectiveness. Where Khan fits Washington's idea of 'hipster antitrust,' Kanter tells podcast journalists that if they could see his hairline, they'd know he's no hipster. Where Khan was a star student at Yale Law, Kanter shined at the solid Washington University law school in St. Louis.

"In large measure due to Kanter's leadership, antitrust has become one of the five pillars of the president's economic platform."

Read the entire article here.

 
 
— Robert H. Bork Jr., President of the Antitrust Education Project
— Robert H. Bork Jr., President of the Antitrust Education Project
Posted August 30, 2023 • 07:55 AM
 
 
On the Push for New Mask Mandates:
 
 

"Unfazed by data, scientific research, or common sense, the maskaholics are back. In response to an uptick in Covid cases, they've begun reinstating mask mandates. So far, it's just a few places -- a college in Atlanta, a Hollywood studio, two hospitals in Syracuse -- but the mainstream media and their favorite 'experts' are working hard to scare the rest of us into masking up yet again.

"Never mind that at least 97 percent of Americans have Covid antibodies in their blood as a result of infection, vaccination, or both. Never mind that actual experts -- the ones who studied the scientific literature before 2020 and drew up plans for a pandemic -- advised against masking the public. Never mind that their advice has been further bolstered during the pandemic by randomized clinical trials and rigorous observational studies failing to find an effect of masks and mask mandates. Scientific evidence cannot overcome the maskaholics' faith."

Read the entire article here.

 
 
— John Tierney, Contributing Editor at City Journal
— John Tierney, Contributing Editor at City Journal
Posted August 29, 2023 • 08:27 AM
 
 
On California's Smash-and-Grab Crime Epidemic:
 
 

"Smash-and-grab robberies are happening in broad daylight at stores throughout California and no one seems to be doing anything to stop them. ...

"California's criminal-justice system is broken and state voters helped to break it.

"But voters had help from deceitful activists and politicians who tricked them into thinking they were voting for greater public safety.

"One of those deceivers is George Gascon, now district attorney of Los Angeles County, where nearly 10 million residents in 88 cities are living with the full consequences of the 2014 initiative Gascon co-authored, Proposition 47.

"The authors named the proposed law The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act."

Read the entire article here.

 
 
— Susan Shelley, Columnist and Editorial Writer for the Southern California News Group
— Susan Shelley, Columnist and Editorial Writer for the Southern California News Group
Posted August 28, 2023 • 07:55 AM
 
 
On the Impacts of Climate Change:
 
 

"Ghoulish scold John Kerry, the White House's climate hobgoblin, has repeatedly warned that the world is not on track to contain a 1.5-degree Celsius increase in global temperature above the pre-industrial level, and this means disaster is looming. Others have made the same point, and the media just goes along for the ride. Their predictions are worthless, though. We know this because the United Nations told us so.

"The rock-solid, undeniable fact is that it's impossible to make long-term climate predictions, because our climate is ever changing and volatile. It says so in the Third Assessment Report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:

"'The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.'

"And it has said this since 2001, when that report was put together."

Read the enitre article here.

 
 
— Issues & Insights Editorial Board
— Issues & Insights Editorial Board
Posted August 25, 2023 • 07:24 AM
 
 
On Public Education and School Boards:
 
 

"Parents across the country are learning the hard way that we have collectively left the American public education system on autopilot for far too long and the results are troubling. ACT scores are the lowest they've been in more than 30 years. 13-year-olds' test scores on The Nation's Report Card are worse than this time last year, 'continuing a decade-long freefall,' and math scores experienced the largest drop in 50 years.

"But rather than push students to achieve excellence -- or even competency -- in basic academics, many public schools have instead prioritized ideological groupthink. One needn't look far to see examples of curriculum or policies regarding gender, sexuality, race, or any cultural topic-du-jour garnering headlines.

"All of this has many parents asking the question, 'who is accountable, and how do we get back on track?' In most cases, the answer starts with the school board."

Read the entire article here.

 
 
— Alleigh Marré, a Mother of Three and President of Free to Learn and Free to Learn Action
— Alleigh Marré, a Mother of Three and President of Free to Learn and Free to Learn Action
Posted August 24, 2023 • 08:25 AM
 
 
On the Sharp Decline in Housing Affordability:
 
 

"On Monday, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate reached 7.48%, marking the highest level since the year 2000. Even prior to this recent surge in mortgage rates, housing affordability, as monitored by the Atlanta Fed, had already deteriorated beyond the levels seen at the housing bubble's peak in 2006. Once this latest mortgage rate surge is factored in, August 2023 will become the worst month for housing affordability this century.

"The journey to this predicament can be traced back to last year's sharp rise in mortgage rates, which escalated from 3% to over 7%. That rate surge, coupled with the Pandemic Housing Boom pushing U.S. home prices up over 40% in just over two years, deteriorated housing affordability (or better put the lack thereof) across the nation.

"'The housing market is at a pivotal point as we head into fall. Mortgage rates are now at more than a two-decade high and for some home shoppers, those higher rates are enough to cause them to step back from the market,' wrote Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright MLS, in a statement to Fortune. 'It is likely to be a very slow fall [in the] housing market this year. Home prices, which had rebounded this summer, will dip in some markets as new listing activity increases at the same time a segment of the home buying population sits the market out.'"

Read the entire article here.

 
 
— Lance Lambert, Fortune
— Lance Lambert, Fortune
Posted August 23, 2023 • 07:59 AM
 
 
On the Danger Posed to Marine Life by Offshore Wind Farms:
 
 

"As whale deaths mount on the east coast, the Biden administration can no longer pretend offshore wind farms are harmless to marine life.

"FOX News Digital revealed that the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is quietly offering a grant to study interactions between wind farms and critically endangered North Atlantic right whales. Even though government-issued permits allow the offshore wind industry to kill whales, scientists and allied nonprofits have loudly denied any connection between wind farms and dead whales to protect the industry.

"The Biden administration's total and hypocritical, if not illegal, disregard for the welfare of whales is consistent with the regulatory and financial favoritism it extends to foreign green energy companies who are industrializing America's coasts. The government's many accommodations to these entities puts the lie to claims that wind energy is good for the environment.

"The whole path is greased: mandates, subsidies, permits, and see no evil regulators."

Read the entire article here.

 
 
— Steve Milloy, Senior Fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute
— Steve Milloy, Senior Fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute
Posted August 22, 2023 • 07:55 AM
 
 
On America's Free-Market Economic System Being Superior to the Top-Down, Autocratically-Run Economies of China, Russia and Others:
 
 

"Winston Churchill famously said that democracy is the worst form of government -- except for all the others that have been tried.

"Something similar might be said of our democratic and free-market economic system.

"For all its faults, it beats hands down the top-down and autocratically run economies of our main political rivals.

"Anyone who doubts the superiority of our system over that of our rivals has not been paying attention to the wheels coming off the economies of Xi Jinping's China, Vladimir Putin's Russia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey.

"The one thing these three faltering economies share is autocratic leaders who make their country's key economic decisions without the checks of independent and well-functioning economic institutions."

Read the entire article here.

 
 
— Desmond Lachman, American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow and Former Deputy Director in the International Monetary Fund's Policy Development and Review Department
— Desmond Lachman, American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow and Former Deputy Director in the International Monetary Fund's Policy Development and Review Department
Posted August 21, 2023 • 09:26 AM
 
 
Reporting On Numerous Pseudonyms Used by Then-Vice President Joe Biden in Correspondence with Son Hunter Biden:
 
 

"President Joe Biden's use of multiple pseudonyms during his vice presidency appears to have hidden some of his communications from that period, including some involving Ukraine policy and his son, Hunter Biden.

"The House Oversight Committee asked the National Archives on Thursday for communications involving three of Joe Biden's aliases: Robert Peters, Robin Ware, and JRB Ware.

"The committee sought correspondence between those aliases, Hunter Biden, and two of his former business partners, Eric Schwerin and Devon Archer."

Read the entire article here.

 
 
— Sarah Bedford, Washington Examiner
— Sarah Bedford, Washington Examiner
Posted August 18, 2023 • 08:09 AM
 
Notable Quote   
 
"I didn't expect debates in 2024. It seemed to me that there was too much risk involved for both Biden and Trump. Nor is there a mandate of heaven for presidential debates. But the two candidates calculate risk differently -- that's probably why they are presidents. In their view, the potential upside of watching your opponent melt down is greater than the risk of tripping up. If you do implode, you…[more]
 
 
— Matthew Continetti, Washington Free Beacon
 
Liberty Poll   

Do you believe televised debates between President Biden and former President Trump will actually happen or will fall apart for many potential reasons?