There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
“Every one of us ought to read the woes against the pharisees and tremble as we recognize that the judgment pronounced on them we also ought to face.”
(Josh Rieger) The Great Sequoias are one of the most majestic things on earth. They grow to enormous sizes. They live for millennia. But as amazing as they are, they require fire to reproduce. Apart from forest fires their cones won’t open and release the seedlings, the ground won’t be clear from underbrush and leaves for the seeds to germinate in the soil, and light and water will not be able to reach the forest floor to give them the proper conditions to grow.
This is remarkably similar to the way we see God’s judgment used in the Scriptures. In Hebrews God tells us that “for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (Heb. 12:11, ESV). But this is also what we see modeled throughout the Scriptures. When judgment is threatened or pronounced, apart from the final judgment, one of God’s key purposes is always to bring people to repentance. Think of Jonah who preached “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4, ESV), only for his pronouncement of judgment to be used of God to turn the Ninevites to repentance and life, delivering them from judgment. And Jonah knew this would happen. He tells God later, “I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.” (Jonah 4:2, ESV). View article →
The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it.Genesis 28:13
No promise is of private interpretation: it belongs not to one saint but to all believers. If, my brother, thou canst in faith lie down upon a promise and take thy rest thereon, it is thine. Where Jacob “lighted” and tarried and rested, there he took possession. Stretching his weary length upon the ground, with the stones of that place for his pillows, he little fancied that he was thus entering into ownership of the land; yet so it was. He saw in his dream that wondrous ladder which for all true believers unites earth and heaven, and surely where the foot of the ladder stood he must have a right to the soil, for otherwise he could not reach the divine stairway. All the promises of God are “Yea” and “Amen” in Christ Jesus, and as He is ours, every promise is ours if we will but lie down upon it in restful faith.
Come, weary one, use thy Lord’s words as thy pillows, Lie down in peace. Dream only of Him. Jesus is thy ladder of light. See the angels coming and going upon Him between thy soul and thy God, and be sure that the promise is thine own God-given portion and that it will not be robbery for thee to take it to thyself, as spoken specially to thee.
”You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” Isaiah 26:3
You may want to pull back from social media when you become consumed with how many likes you are receiving.
You may want to pull back from the accolades of men when it is determining your self-worth and your value.
You may want to pull back when you realize you have become addicted to the applause of others and life seems meaningless when you are no longer receiving it.
When you start becoming everything to everyone and your opinion matters more than God’s; it is time to pull back. We should always strive to be a vessel for God and not God Himself. We have been blessed with gifts and talents to strengthen and motivate others, but it should not take precedence over their relationship with God.
Maybe it is time for you to take a time out and examine your life. Are you thirsty for approval? Are you hungry for relationship? It may be time to unplug from social media, technology, and get alone with God. He is able to satisfy the longing within you.
Lord, may we always take joy in doing your will. May we long for your instructions and write them upon on my heart. When we step outside of your will nudge us back in the right direction. Lead us to the place of truth within our inner man to help us understand we no longer need approval of men; we already have your approval. We are fearfully and wonderfully made in Your image. Fill us again until we overflow with more of You in Jesus’ name, Amen.
“And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.” Matthew 14:28-29 (ESV)
My wife Caroline says sometimes I am too soft with Zoe, our 18 month old, which in truth – I am. However, it has been demonstrated, when Caroline has gently said: ‘no‘, Zoe stops straight away – almost, once she has realized there is not going to be a change in the final outcome! Zoe is growing in trusting our judgment. OK, so there may be the occasional episode of a head-bang on the floor to show frustration “and Zoe does the same sometimes too!”
She can now shuffle down the stairs, with the aid of a helping parent to keep her safe. However, I am not averse to offering a “carry” every now and then, despite her weight, just for the joy of having a bundle of love and friendship up close for a moment before she runs away again.
I beckoned to her the other day that I would carry her, so she ran out of the bathroom, straight across the landing, and out into the fresh air above the second step of the stairs, and straight into my arms. She was so fast that I had to use all my strength; I guess she dropped three or four inches, trusting in my embrace, as I reached out for the fulcrum of her out-stretched arms. I was a little taken aback, but she knew nothing of my alarm! She only knew with certainty: dad would catch her, and he did.
I believe Jesus delights in us today, especially those who come to Him with the same childlike faith rushing forward with determination. Whatever our situation, He will always receive us as we run towards Him.
If He commands it today, are we confident enough in our relationship with Jesus to step out – in body, mind, and spirit – to take that all important first step?
PRAYER:LORD, Your love for us is more than we comprehend: despite worldly appearances and lies from the Devil, because bad things happen to us here on earth. Your Love for us is eternal. Forgive us when we doubt Your love for us, or the capacity that You have to catch us when we fall, hold us close when we are down, or lift us up when no one else will, in Jesus’ name, amen.
‘No Hamas-linked prisoners to be part of hostage deal’ The face of Hashem is set against evildoers, to erase their names from the earth. Psalms 34:17 Israel is making sure that none of the Palestinian prisoners it may release as part of a potential exchange with Hamas are connected to the terrorist group, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.
Wildfires rage across Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina Wildfires have been burning across Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee, resulting in parts of the Appalachian Trail being shut down, according to officials. The U.S. Forest Service in North Carolina announced in a Facebook post Friday that part of the trail “from Interstate 40 to Max Patch,” had to be shut down as a result of the “Black Bear Fire” which started on Thursday.
South Korea, US revise deterrence strategy amid growing North Korean threats The defense chiefs of South Korea and the United States on Monday unveiled an updated security strategy, the first in a decade, specifically designed to counter the growing threats emanating from North Korean nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. South Korea’s newly appointed Defense Minister Shin Won-sik and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the completion of revisions to the Tailored Deterrence Strategy, a strategic guideline tailored to threats posed by North Korea.
Biden Poised To Sanction West Bank Settlers Attacking, Displacing Palestinians In the wake of surging violence inflicted against Palestinians by Jewish West Bank settlers, the Biden administration is poised to impose sanctions and visa bans on the perpetrators, according to a directive leaked to Politico and reported by the outlet on Saturday night.
Rep. Jordan Subpoenas Bank Of America Over Allegedly Sharing Jan. 6 Info With FBI The subpoena is part of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government’s probe “into major banks sharing Americans’ private financial data with the [FBI] without legal process for transactions made in the Washington, DC, area around Jan. 6, 2021” “The Bank of America, with no directive from the FBI, data-mined its customer base. And they data-mined a date range of [Jan. 5, 2021, to Jan. 7, 2021] any BoA customer who used a BoA product [meaning a Bank of America credit or debit card]. “They compiled that list. And then, on top of that list, they put anyone who had purchased a firearm during any date. So it was a huge list.”
TikTok is ‘creating the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis’ says Sacha Baron Cohen Adam Presser, TikTok’s head of operations, and Seth Melnick, the company’s global head of user operations convened the meeting with big names including Sacha Baron Cohen, Debra Messing and Amy Schumer. Cohen said “shame on you” to executives, demanding that they “flip a switch” to stop the flow of hate. “What is happening at TikTok is it is creating the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis,” he noted.
Biden calls for ‘revitalized PA’ control of Gaza after war Biden outlined on Saturday his administration’s long-term goal of ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “forever,” which includes a “revitalized” Palestinian Authority assuming control of the Gaza Strip after the war and a redoubling of the international community’s efforts towards a two-state solution. “goal should not be simply to stop the [Israel-Hamas] war for today—it should be to end the war forever, break the cycle of unceasing violence, and build something stronger in Gaza and across the Middle East so that history does not keep repeating itself.”
Russia’s Putin sees upside to Israel’s war with Hamas Vladimir Putin waited three days before commenting on Hamas’s massacre of Israelis, which happened to take place on his 71st birthday. When he did, he blamed the United States, not Hamas. “I think that many will agree with me that this is a clear example of the failed policy in the Middle East of the United States, which tried to monopolize the settlement process,” Putin told Iraq’s prime minister.
Netanyahu: With attack on ship, Iran has ratcheted up its aggression Tehran has increased its aggression against Israel and the free world, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after Yemen’s Houthis, an Iranian proxy group, had seized a British-owned and Japanese-operated cargo ship in the southern Red Sea. Netanyahu immediately blamed Iran. “We strongly condemn the Iranian attack against an international ship,” Netanyahu said.
WATCH: ‘Iran’s war of attrition will destroy the West’ Iranian scholar and strategist Alireza Panahian reveals what the actual goals and future of this war are, to root out Zionism in the Western world through a ‘war of attrition.’
Following repeated threats, Yemen’s Houthi rebels hijack Israeli-linked ship Houthi rebels from Yemen claimed to have hijacked an Israeli-owned cargo ship sailing in the Red Sea. According to the initial report in al-Arabiya, there were 25 crew members on board the “Galaxy Leader,” which was transporting cars from Turkey to India.
CRISIS UPDATE: Gaza’s 1,000 Christians need urgent prayers, aid, and a safe haven lest they face genocide from Hamas concerns regarding the safety, security, and future of these Palestinians Christians are now, in fact, being discussed at the highest levels of the Israeli government. Both Israeli civilian and military leaders – including those in the war cabinet and the security cabinet – have been informed and are having internal discussions regarding the crisis facing the Christians holed up in the three churches in Gaza City.
Rescue efforts underway following major flooding in Dominican Republic Heavy rain and flooding are forecast to continue through Monday for parts of the Dominican Republic, including significant and potentially life-threatening flash and urban flooding. At least 20 deaths have been caused by the flooding rains since Friday.
NWS warns of rapidly changing weather conditions across the U.S., impacting Thanksgiving travel A vigorous cold front is currently sweeping across the western United States, bringing a mix of high-elevation snow, coastal and valley rains, and strong winds, as reported by the National Weather Service. This weather pattern is expected to rapidly progress eastward, potentially impacting Thanksgiving travel with a series of severe thunderstorms, heavy rains, and snowfall anticipated to hit the central and eastern regions of the country early next week.
Brazil Welcomes Leftist Taylor Swift with Projection on the Christ the Redeemer Statue The iconic Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro was used to feature a special projection celebrating leftist pop star Taylor Swift’s arrival for her “Eras Tour.” This decision, announced by Mayor Eduardo Paes, is being criticized by various groups who see it as a blasphemous act of idolatry.
Anti-Christian hate crimes on the rise in Europe There has been a “strong” increase in the number of anti-Christian hate crimes taking place across Europe, with particular concern expressed about the treatment of Christians in the UK.
Behold One Of The World’s Largest Construction Sites, Future ’15-Minute City’ Investigative journalist Ben Swann posted footage from the Chinese Communist Party’s Xiong’an City project, one of the world’s largest construction sites.n Xiong’an has been called the “city of the future” and Xi Jinping reportedly has been personally involved in making decisions for its development. The massive site is set to be a 15-minute city.
More And More Ukrainian Women Are Dying On BattlefieldSouth Front The number of videos from Ukrainian frontlines, showing women serving in the ranks of the Ukrainian army, has significantly grown in recent weeks. Most of female Ukrainian servicemen are busy filming senseless TikTok videos, which are largely promoted by Kiev media amid the ongoing campaign aimed to push women to the front. Unfortunately, more and more Ukrainian women are now filmed by the Russian military and they do not prove the effectiveness of female warriors. Some of them are lucky to surrender, but more of them are dying in trenches.
Surveillance State Exposed: The chilling echo of Snowden’s warning This article unravels the chilling revelations of the documentary ‘CITIZENFOUR,’ spotlighting Edward Snowden’s courageous stand against mass surveillance and the evolving landscape of state power versus individual freedoms.
Leaked Pfizer Reports & COVID Vaccinated Death Rates Solidify Deagel’s Shocking 2025 Depopulation Prediction A controversial forecast by Deagel, a global intelligence and consulting firm, recently gained attention for its startling prediction of a significant depopulation event by 2025. While initially dismissed as a speculative estimation, current events and emerging trends have led many to question whether there may be more to Deagel’s forecast than meets the eye.
94% of COVID-19 Deaths over past year were among Quadruple Vaccinated The Office for National Statistics recently published an update on deaths by vaccination status in England and it has shockingly revealed that the vaccinated population accounted for 95% of COVID-19 deaths in the 12 months between 1st June 2022 and 31st May 2023, and 94% of those deaths were among either the triple or quadruple vaccinated population.
“Wish not so much to live long as to live well.” —Benjamin Franklin (1746)
On this day in Patriot history in 1789, the Bill of Rights was ratified by the state of New Jersey, the first of the 13 states to do so. Today we’re tackling everything from Joe Biden’s classified docs probe to his crisis on the border to the new lab for researching bat viruses in Colorado. —Mark Alexander
By refusing to charge Joe Biden for years of mishandling classified docs, Robert Hur is demonstrating fealty to the corrupt attorney general who appointed him.
Douglas Andrews
The Wall Street Journal’s headline would be laugh-out-loud funny were it not so infuriating: “Biden Expected to Face Harsh Criticism in Classified-Document Probe.”
Surely that’s “harsh criticism and multiple criminal charges,” right?
Wrong. As the Journal reports, “The prosecutor investigating why classified documents ended up at President Biden’s home and former office is preparing a report that is expected to be sharply critical of how he and his longtime aides handled the material, but the probe isn’t likely to result in a criminal case, according to people familiar with the matter.”
Harsh criticism, eh? That’ll teach him.
This reminds us of the sternly worded memo that Hillary Clinton got from disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just prior to the 2016 election. Your remember — the one in which Comey called her “extremely careless” instead of “grossly negligent” so as to avoid putting Clinton in legal jeopardy after she’d set up an unsecured private email server to avoid congressional oversight of her State Department communications, after she’d deleted and acid-washed some 33,000 emails while they were under congressional subpoena, and after her team had smashed their cell phones with hammers.
We haven’t heard much from Biden’s special prosecutor, Robert Hur, since his appointment by corrupt Attorney General and Biden buddy Merrick Garland on January 12. By contrast, Donald Trump’s special prosecutor, Jack Smith — the hatchet man whose conviction of former Virginia Republican Governor Bob McDonnell was unanimouslyoverturned by the Supreme Court — has become a media darling and a champion of the Trump-hating Left.
As the Journal notes, “Hur has interviewed roughly 100 of Biden’s aides, colleagues and family members, including his son, Hunter, culminating in a two-day interview with the president last month.”
So Hur interviewed both Joe and Hunter, the two principal members of the Biden Crime Family, and he didn’t find anything even the least bit suspicious about their conduct over the years? We suspect this is the first time a special prosecutor didn’t pursue a tangential lead and didn’t go on an investigative fishing expedition. What a coincidence.
When the former and perhaps future president, Donald Trump, learned that Biden was unlikely to face charges, he took to Truth Social, switch to Caps Lock, and let loose: “WOW! FAKE NEWS CNN, THROUGH A LEAK FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF INJUSTICE, HAS JUST REPORTED THAT NO CHARGES WILL BE FILED IN THE (MUCH BIGGER THAN MINE!!!) CROOKED JOE BIDEN DOCUMENTS CASE. WE ARE LIVING IN A VERY CORRUPT COUNTRY!”
To be clear, the classified-documents investigations into Trump and Biden are different. Many legal analysts think that of the 91 felony charges heaped upon Trump — most of them by sleazy and unscrupulous hyper-partisans like Jack Smith, Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, and Fani Willis — the documents charges are the most perilous legal threat he faces. But that doesn’t mean Biden’s decades-long mishandling of classified documents at multiple locations isn’t worthy of criminal charges. After all, Trump, as president, had the right to declassify any documents he wanted to, whereas Biden, as a U.S. senator for 36 years and as Barack Obama’s vice president for eight years after that, had no such right. And whereas Biden and his lawyers were afforded every legal courtesy to clean up his documents mess, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was raided without warning on the morning of August 8, 2022, while Trump was 1,200 miles away in Manhattan.
In addition, Trump kept his documents secured at Mar-a-Lago, under Secret Service protection, while Biden kept his classified docs all over the place and within arm’s reach of his crack-addict son. And speaking of Hunter, there’s evidence that he was using this classified info in some of those overseas business dealings that his dad had never spoken to him about. On top of that, as Matt Margolis reminds us at PJ Media, “Soon after the scandal broke in January, we learned that the documents had been originally discovered before the midterm elections, indicating a cover-up.”
For those of you keeping score at home, that’s 91 felony counts for Donald Trump, and zero for Joe Biden. And one tier of justice for those of us on the Right, and another one for those on the Left.
“Happy” Birthday to Joe? Joe Biden turns 81 today, but things don’t seem too festive there at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Indeed, the octogenarian occupant of the White House has been downright grumpy lately, lashing out at those who dare question his fitness for another four years in office. Just ask David Axelrod, who got under Scranton Joe’s skin recently when he looked at some recent head-to-head polling with Donald Trump in the battleground states and suggested Biden might perhaps maybe reconsider his desire to run for another term. The oldest president in American history — and the most cognitively incapacitated since the stroke-stricken Woodrow Wilson of more than a century ago — apparently dismissed Axelrod with an obscenity that rhymes with “stick.” So much for restoring dignity to the White House. Axelrod was matter-of-fact in his reply, though: “I don’t care about them thinking I’m a [word that rhymes with stick], that’s fine. I hope they don’t think the polls are wrong because they’re not.” For the record, we were warning folks about Biden’s cognitive condition long before the 2020 election. Too bad Axelrod and his ilk decided to put party before country at the time.
Rest in Peace, Rosalynn Carter: She was born 96 years ago in Plains, Georgia, and she died peacefully there yesterday with her husband and family by her side. She leaves behind the former president, who at 99 is history’s oldest living former president and has been under hospice care since February. It needn’t be said, but we’ll say it anyway: The Carters were different from the Clintons and the Obamas. They were genuinely kind and decent and humble people. Our Mark Alexander, who was personally acquainted with the Carters after their White House years, can attest to this firsthand. Jimmy, of course, was a failed president whose politics strayed irritatingly leftward in his post presidency, but his dedicated work with, for example, Habitat for Humanity spoke to his strong Christian faith. All the while, the woman who came to be known in Washington as the steel magnolia was by his side. The Carters were married a mind-boggling 77 years ago, a year after World War II ended and before Joe Biden was even in kindergarten. Jimmy called Rosalynn “my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” and he often said that the best thing he ever did was marry her.
House Republicans release the J6 tapes: It’s been nearly three years since the events of January 6, 2021, shocked the nation and caused the Democrats no end of obsession and gave them a reason to impeach Donald Trump for the grave offense of having encouraged his supporters to “peacefully and patriotically make their voices heard.” And now the Democrats have another reason to gnash their teeth: House Republicans are going to make most of the security footage from the Capitol riot available to the public, said House Speaker Mike Johnson Friday. As Roll Call reports: “Starting Monday, members of the public will be able to set up in-person appointments to view the Capitol Police security footage in designated rooms within the Capitol complex. Eventually, around 95 percent of the 44,000 hours of tape will eventually be made available, excluding segments that contain sensitive security information or information that could lead to retaliation against private citizens, Johnson said.” Some of the footage — such as the clashes between hooligans and Capitol Police will no doubt be grim, but other footage will surely put the lie to the Democrats’ hyperbolic assertion that January 6 was worse than Pearl Harbor and 9/11 combined. It may also be helpful in determining just how many federal agents and contacts were involved in the hooliganism — a question that Democrats and their FBI colleagues have consistently dodged.
Argentina elects “far-right” Trump supporter: So much for South America’s leftward lurch. Argentinians, utterly fed up with crippling triple-digit inflation and poverty, elected a populist-conservative outsider by the widest margin, 56-44, of any presidential election since the country went democratic in 1983. Javier Milei, the country’s new president-elect, is a self-described anarcho-capitalist economist, a TV personality, and a Donald Trump fan who calls his leftist opponents “s**t leftards.” For a sense of Milei’s style, take two minutes to watch this remarkable clip of an interview in which he straightens out a left-leaning news interlocutor. As Fox News reports, “On the campaign trail, Milei, with his wild hair and inflammatory rhetoric, pledged economic shock therapy and to slash the size of the state.” One can sense the despair among the Leftmedia: “Billionaire Elon Musk on Sunday said after Mr. Milei’s victory that ‘prosperity is ahead for Argentina,” lamented The New York Times. “Mr. Trump congratulated Mr. Milei. ‘I am very proud of you,’ he said in an online post. ‘You will turn your country around and truly Make Argentina Great Again!’”
Unvaxxed soldiers exhorted to come back: With potential war looming on the horizon, the Biden administration has made an about-face on its claim that U.S. military personnel refusing to get a novel vaccination pose a “present risk to the force and jeopardizes readiness.” Joe Biden’s ill-conceived COVID vaccine mandate prematurely ended the military careers of thousands of young, healthy soldiers. But with the U.S. Army struggling to meet recruitment targets and the world becoming more dangerous by the day, the Pentagon has decided it wants those soldiers back. While Biden’s military COVID vaccine mandate was rescinded back in February, most ousted soldiers still haven’t reenlisted. Now, the Army is actively re-recruiting these former service members with a letter that promises to wipe clean their COVID vaccine refusal discharge records. “Individuals may request a correction to military personnel records, including records regarding the characterization of discharge,” the letter reads. “Individuals who desire to apply to return to service should contact their local Army, U.S. Army Reserve (USAR), or Army National Guard (ARNG) recruiter for more information.”
Lewd behavior = “being gay in public”: California Governor Gavin Newsom sounded the “homophobia” alarm when he posted a story on X with the following claim: “A city in Tennessee has banned being gay in public. This is just the beginning. We have to call this out.” The linked New Republic story noted that Murfreesboro had passed an ordinance back in June that bans “indecent behavior,” including “indecent exposure, public indecency, lewd behavior, nudity or sexual conduct.” So, how is this a “gay ban”? Unless Newsom is equating the above listed behaviors to being gay, that is. Indeed, Murfreesboro explicitly eliminated the term “homosexuality” from a previous 1949 code that had included it as “sexual conduct.” In short, Newsom, who should be focused on the declining condition of his own state, has instead sought to distract from his abysmal leadership by throwing shade at Tennessee with fake news. On second thought, maybe this is a clever ploy by Newsom — with San Francisco’s crime problem getting so bad, he’s trying to discourage members of the city’s infamous homosexual population from being tempted to pull up stakes and move to safer regions of the country.
Good news: SNL lampoons men against women in sports: “Saturday Night Live” actually found its old comedic boldness again. In a sketch lampooning woke rejection of biological gender distinctions, SNL depicts a fictional Netflix’s “Untold Stories” episode of a long-forgotten pro tennis match in 1969, one that supposedly preceded the famous “Battle of the Sexes” between Billy Jean King and Bobby Riggs. The sketch features actor Jason Samoa humorously but effectively demonstrating why there are separate leagues for men’s and women’s sports. The skit is a breath of fresh air given the current craziness surrounding the Left’s effort to erase innate and biological sex distinctions between men and women.
Texas school choice voted down again: Republicans in Texas need to get their act together on education. On Friday, the Republican-controlled state House of Representatives had an opportunity to pass legislation that would have offered Texas families school choice. Dubbed the Texas Education Savings Account, the measure would have allowed parents the freedom to send their children to the school of their choice with a program that would allocate tax dollars to their chosen school. Texas’s Republican-controlled Senate has passed several school choice bills that the House has subsequently failed to pass. This latest measure failed to pass on an 84-63 vote, with Republicans who voted against it claiming that the legislation was bad policy. Governor Greg Abbott wasn’t buying that excuse, pointing out that school choice is favored among the majority of Texans and arguing that it failed to pass because a small number of Republicans are more beholden to union interests than their constituents. Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz called the vote “shameful,” promising that parents would be working “vigorously in the primaries to defeat” these union-beholden Republicans.
Headlines
Texas Governor Greg Abbott endorses Donald Trump for president (Washington Examiner)
Colorado judge rules Trump can stay on primary ballot, dismissing 14th Amendment challenge (National Review)
Only 3.6% of Americans got updated COVID-19 shots as of October 31 (Daily Signal)
Hamas terrorists took hostages into Gaza hospital, Shifa cameras prove (Jerusalem Post) | Israeli Defense Forces find mortar shells stashed in Gaza kindergarten (National Review)
Israel: Iran behind Yemen’s Houthis seizure of ship in Red Sea (Jerusalem Post) | Iran threatens “further expansion” of Israel-Hamas war (Washington Free Beacon)
Feds want speed reduction tech in every new car. Are American drivers ready? (Tech Crunch)
Sounds familiar: Canadian musician and indigenous icon is actually a white woman from Massachusetts (Hot Air)
Humor: AOC says she was “nearly killed” by release of January 6 footage (Genesius Times)
Giving Thanks: This Thanksgiving week, your Patriot Post team is grateful for all the ways our supporters have stepped up to keep the message of Liberty in front of grassroots conservatives. The Patriot Post would not exist without those efforts. We are trying to reach the halfway point in our year-end fundraising that keeps our doors open into the new year. If you can, please make your gift to the The Patriot Fund’s Year-End Campaign today. Thank you for contributing to our mission! —Nate Jackson, Managing Editor
This time, the debate is over whether he endorsed anti-Semitism on his X platform.
Nate Jackson
Elon Musk owns so much real estate in the minds of censorship-crazed leftists that he doesn’t even have to say things for them to hate him for it.
“Jewish communties [sic] have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them,” said some random guy on X. “I’m deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest s**t now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much.”
We find this interesting for a couple of key reasons. First, as we indicated at the outset, Musk’s stand for free speech is so antithetical to what modern leftists stand for that he drives them even more insane almost by virtue of existing. He’s a successful (South) African American who’s really thankful to have emigrated to America. And he put $44 billion of his own money where his mouth is to buy one of the most influential social media platforms on the planet.
They’ll never forgive him.
In fact, some big companies are pulling advertising from X over Musk’s comment. Apple, IBM, Disney, Comcast/NBCUniversal, Lions Gate Entertainment, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Paramount among others all announced a “pause.”
The White House even weighed in, saying, “We condemn this abhorrent promotion of Antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans.”
And we all know how much Joe Biden’s White House cares about our core values.
That brings us to the second reason this episode is intriguing. Media Matters for America says that Musk “endorsed the pernicious antisemitic conspiracy theory,” which happens to be “the same one that motivated the deadly 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting.”
We confess that we don’t tend to visit the corners of the Internet where anti-Semitic conspiracy theories thrive, so we can’t speak to whether Media Matters’ assertion is accurate — other than to say we don’t trust a left-wing rag like Media Matters to tell the truth.
Media Matters clearly has an agenda here, too, pointing to all the “bigots and paid far-right extremists” Musk has allowed to have a voice on X. “Corporate advertisements have also been appearing” next to unsavory accounts, Media Matters alleges.
As a side note, we do sometimes wonder whether anyone can ever say anything critical of a Jew or Jews without being labeled “anti-Semitic.” There is anti-Semitic hatred, and there is legitimate criticism of the behavior or choices of individuals or groups. They are two different things.
The original tweet with which Musk agreed was certainly ugly, but even ugly free speech is still free speech.
Still, at a time when Israel recently suffered the worst loss of life since the Holocaust and anti-Semitic hates crimes of various sorts are soaring in America, Musk’s comment was at best a bad look and he was unwise to promote it.
Yet there are also obviously Jewish groups that are very left-wing, and therefore on the same political side as the most rabid “pro-Palestinian” haters. American Jews face a time for choosing, as it were.
“Certain Jewish organizations have bought into and promoted things like diversity, equity, and inclusion, which are gross distortions of the American dream,” said commentator Ben Shapiro, who is Jewish, in defense of Musk. “Many of those groups have also pushed for open borders. It is also true that some of those organizations are now realizing post-October 7, that actually open immigration for people who hate Jews on an intersectional basis was pretty stupid.”
In follow-up comments on X, Musk insisted he was specifically referring to the left-wing Anti-Defamation League “and other Jewish groups [that] are pushing replacements of whites.” He and ADL do have a long-running dispute over how much censorship should be employed against people on X. He says his criticism doesn’t “extend to all Jewish communities.”
He was not nearly clear enough about that in his first comment, which Shapiro also acknowledged.
In any case, the aforementioned companies agree with Media Matters. But the ad boycott has Musk threatening a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against Media Matters, which he argues “colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company.”
We’re left to wonder if anyone at those companies is as angry with the people chanting Hamas’s genocidal “from the river to the sea” refrain as they are with Musk for an ill-advised and vague comment.
The latest on the Mayorkas impeachment, migrants, and Texas’s new bill.
Emmy Griffin
Our borders are a huge source of worry … at least for reasonable Americans. Under this administration, any action to secure it seems to immediately be shot down and squelched. Here are the latest stories regarding border security leadership, illegal immigration, and attempts by border states to protect America’s sovereignty.
Mayorkas Impeachment
House Representative Majorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) put forth a resolution seeking to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas back in May. Last Monday, it was shelved with the help of eight Republicans.
The first question is: Why? Clearly, Mayorkas is doing a terrible job — though it’s the job the Democrats clearly want him to be doing. But why did eight Republicans provide an out for the Democrats by shelving the resolution? One thought is that, although the resolution might be popular, some are extremely hesitant to sign on to motions brought forth by a firebrand like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Another is that impeaching Mayorkas and potentially ousting him from his position doesn’t mean a more competent person will fill his shoes. There is a reason that President Joe Biden has Mayorkas where he is. A wide-open border is part of the Democrat agenda.
For the eight Republican holdouts’ part, they didn’t view shelving the impeachment motion as killing it. According to Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA): “We didn’t kill a Mayorkas impeachment. We voted to launch hearings and make our case to the entire nation. If we impeached Mayorkas today, the Senate would have rejected it today. House Democrats will now have to defend Biden or admit his border disaster. We can win this.”
The holdouts want to wait until they can ensure that the Senate — which is currently occupied by Democrats — will play along. And as frustrating as that is at present, there is an element of futility in impeachment proceedings when it won’t get out of the House of Representatives. In other words, a House-only impeachment motion would be little better than a virtue signal.
For her part, Greene is going to make another attempt to impeach Mayorkas after Thanksgiving.
The Monetary and Human Cost of Illegal Migration
Biden’s “brilliant” plan to flood the country with illegal immigrants is working just about as well as you’d think it would. Under his watch, the number of illegal crossings has broken the year-over-year record yet again. This is not the sort of record you’d like to set as the leader of a free people. This absolute flood of humanity swarming over the border is causing a wake-up call among lawmakers and the migrants themselves.
The House GOP has released a new report stating that Americans potentially could pay up to $451 billion in taxes just to support illegal immigrants. Democrat city mayors such as Eric Adams of New York City are watching as the policies that their leader Biden is enacting systematically destroy and bankrupt their cities.
Conditions in these cities are not great for the immigrants themselves. In an ironic twist, some illegals are leaving the U.S. and returning to their home countries. Those who came to America for the American Dream (i.e., a chance at a better life for themselves and their families) are disillusioned by the inability to get jobs or quickly embed themselves in American society.
The irony is that so many illegals are all vying for the same jobs that they are left living in makeshift housing situations for months on end with no opportunity in sight. It is absolutely the federal government’s fault, but not for the reasons the illegal immigrants and Democrat mayors believe. They blame the federal government for not providing enough money. Hmph. The real reason it’s the federal government’s fault is because it’s failing to do its most important job: protect the sovereignty of the nation by securing the border.
Texas Bill
Texas is attempting to use federalism to clean up the mess that the Biden administration has foisted upon it. Senate Bill 4 (SB4) was passed last Tuesday and would make it a crime in the state of Texas — as opposed to just federally — to cross the southern border illegally. It has yet to be signed into law.
This bill would empower Texas law enforcement to arrest, detain, and deport illegal immigrants. Texas lawmen would have a choice about how to prosecute illegal immigrants who are flaunting American border laws. They could choose to put them in jail — first-time offenders would only receive a misdemeanor, which would put them away for a year, and serial offenders would be charged with a felony and a maximum sentence of 20 years — or they could deport them to Mexico. It would essentially bypass federal law interference. It would also help turn back the tide.
This bill, however, is a risky move for Texas.
Arizona already tried to empower its police force to help with the tide of illegals rushing over the border back in 2012. Arizona’s bill was slightly different because the main issues that the Supreme Court justices had with it had to do with employment of illegals and forcing them to carry papers identifying their immigration status. The Supreme Court ruled in Arizona v. United States that individual states do not have the right to make their own immigration laws. I.e., border security is the purview of the federal government alone.
But this is a different time. Our country in 2012 wasn’t dealing with hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants crossing the borders every month like we are now. Texas thinks it has a case to plead with SCOTUS.
These are desperate times in which we live. If New York City Mayor Adams is overwhelmed, just imagine how the citizens of every border state are feeling at this juncture. For his part, Texas Governor Greg Abbot is ready and willing to sign SB4 into law. He said in a post on X (formerly Twitter), “Texas won’t wait on Biden to secure the border.”
What could go wrong? We’ve seen this movie before, and it yielded a pandemic.
Thomas Gallatin
Why is the National Institutes of Health spending $6.7 million to help construct a bat research lab in Colorado? Inquiring minds want to know.
The NIH has partnered with Colorado State University (CSU) and EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) — the same group NIH used to fund gain-of-function research in the biolab in Wuhan, China, that was the epicenter of the COVID pandemic — to build a new facility specifically purposed to study bat-borne diseases.
This “new center will be a one-of-a-kind facility dedicated to maintaining bat colonies for research,” says Greg Ebel, CSU professor in the school microbiology, immunology, and pathology department and director of the school’s Center for Vector-borne Infectious Diseases. He hopes to “dramatically increase our ability to study the role of bats in disease transmission and help us become even stronger in researching emerging zoonotic pathogens.”
The current plan is for a 14,000 square foot facility that will house bats from around the globe, as well as a Level 2 biosafety lab, which is classified as moderate hazard. A 2022 document from research associated with the project indicates a plan to “infect horseshoe bats with SARS-CoV2 and a SARSr-CoV detected in these bats.”
The Daily Mail reports that some of the proposals for the facility include storing and studying “some of the most transmissible pathogens on the planet — including Ebola, Nipah virus and Covid-19.”
The fact that this bat lab was first approved back in 2019 may figure into why Dr. Anthony Fauci was so adamant about promoting a natural origin explanation for COVID while dismissing and suppressing the lab leak as a legitimate origin possibility. The preponderance of evidence, of course, points to a leak from the Wuhan lab as the most plausible explanation, which is why it’s now the most widely accepted view for the origin of COVID.
Upon learning of this planned bat lab, Republican Senator Joni Ernst weighed in: “Americans have suffered enough from Fauci-funded risky research, which is why I am working to defund EcoHealth that funneled taxpayer dollars to the Chinese state-run Wuhan Lab. The world cannot afford another lab leak, especially one on U.S. soil or near our military bases.”
Ernst isn’t the only one objecting to the lab. Residents in Fort Collins, Colorado — a city of 168,000 just 60 miles north of Denver and the location of both the CSU campus and the planned lab site — are none too thrilled with the prospect and have been voicing their concerns.
White Coat Waste Project (WCW), an organization dedicated to stopping taxpayer-funded research using animals, was responsible for digging up much of this information via a Colorado Open Records request. And according to WCW senior vice president Justin Goodman, “The records outline years of coordination between EHA, CSU, Fauci’s NIAID, DOD, foreign collaborators, and even the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) to set up the facility.”
“Together these actors put in a considerable effort to establish the CSU bat facility over many years and exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to receive funding for it,” Goodman adds.
EHA’s involvement is especially concerning. There has yet to be a full reconning with NIH’s partnering with EHA — apparently directed by Fauci — to get around gain-of-function bans in the U.S. and fund such research in Wuhan, China.
No one has answered for this apparent violation. That violation may have allowed for the development and subsequent leak of a novel virus that resulted in a global pandemic that killed millions of people. And now we find out that the same group is funding the construction of a new bat lab in the U.S.
“Taxpayers shouldn’t be funding EcoHealth Alliance or the construction of new US labs that import Asian bats for risky virus research that can cause a pandemic on US soil,” asserted Montana Republican Senator Matt Rosendale. “My common sense amendments to the NIH’s 2024 spending bill would undo some of the damage done by Anthony Fauci by defunding NIH research programs he supported that put public health and national security at risk.”
In order for Americans’ trust to be restored in federal government agencies and institutions, transparency and accountability must happen. So long as those are lacking, the distrust in these institutions will only grow. And so will the danger.
Because I know you want to get these dates on your calendar next year.
Mark Alexander
It is always amusing to check my opposition research inbox and see what the hate-hustlers at the so-called “Southern Poverty Law Center” are stirring up to raise money.
Over the weekend, the SPLC, a hypocritical facade pretending to have some connection to the South, poverty, and rule of law, was churning out fundraising appeals for national “Hate Crimes Awareness Month.” I did not hear a word about that in my daily Demo email from Joe Biden and his socialists cadres.
Turns out, of course, that “Hate Crimes Awareness Month” was actually an SPLC fundraising fabrication, and it was last month, not November. However, this morning, their latest fundraising charade is promoting “Transgender Day of Remembrance.”
I had never heard of that one, but apparently that is today.
SPLC, in conjunction with fellow hate-hustlers at the so-called “Human Rights Campaign” (a.k.a. “homosexual rhetoric campaign”), are riding the mini-wave from Biden’s latest hate crime report last month, and joining his collective distraction from the inconvenient truth that the real epidemic of violence in America is black-on-black.
But apparently the SPLC, which was founded on exploiting racist and anti-Semitic hate crimes, decided that fundraising on the fallacious Islamophobia narrative would not work. Notably, in recent years, SPLC appeals based on white supremacy bogeymen have also lost their luster because, well, attacks linked to white supremacy are very rare.
Thus, SPLC is attaching its fundraising wagon to the LGBTQ+ (ad nauseam) “hate” claims train, considering the lineup of dates it can now use as fundraising fodder.
There was a time when the LGBTQ+ agenda was only promoted in June as “pride month” — and that was 30 days too many. But in recent years, national gender confusion dates have flooded calendars.
For your review, after a quick assessment of the current LGBTQ+ celebration dates now being promoted, I have compiled the partial list below.
January Third Friday: International Fetish Day February 12: National Freedom to Marry Day February 25-29: Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week March: Bisexual Health Awareness Month March 1: Zero Discrimination Day March 20-24: National LGBT Health Awareness Week March 31: International Transgender Day Of Visibility April 6: Asexuality Day April 22: Day of Silence April 24-30: International Lesbian Visibility Week April 26 International Lesbian Visibility Day May 7: International Family Equality Day May 16: National Honor Out LGBT Elders Day May 17: International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia May 19: Agender Pride Day May 24: Pansexual & Panromantic Visibility Day June: Pride Month June 26: Anniversary of Sam-Sex Marriage Legalization July 6: Omnisexual Visibility Day July 10-16: Non-Binary Awareness Week July 14: International Non-Binary Day July 16: International Drag Day September 17-23: Bisexual Awareness Week September 23: Bisexual Visibility Day October: LGBTQ History Month October 8: International Lesbian Day October 11: National Coming Out Day October 18: International Pronoun Day October 19: Spirit Day October 22-28: Asexual Awareness Week October 26: Intersex Awareness Day November: Trans Awareness Month November 5: Trans Parent Day or Transgender Parent Day November 8: Intersex Day of Remembrance or Intersex Solidarity Day November 12-18: Trans Awareness Week or Transgender Awareness Week November 20: Transgender Day of Remembrance December 1: Worlds AIDS Day December 8: Pansexual Pride Day December 10: Human (Homosexual) Rights Day
I know — you are wondering what happened to August, devoid of a single LGBTQ+ celebration date.
I predict that SPLC and HRC will find one for 2024!
Punished by California for Defending Himself — NRA member Vince Ricci was coming back to his LA home on a quiet evening when two robbers jumped his wall and pointed guns at his chest. Now, California is suspending his rights.
Social Justice Fallacies — In his new book, Social Justice Fallacies, Thomas Sowell debunks some of the biggest myths within the social justice movement.
“We are absolutely making [the border] secure.” —Vice President Kamala Harris
Rule of Law = “Bloodlust”
“The Republican presidential primary campaign is heavy on bloodlust.” —NBC News headline
Useful Idiot
“Interestingly, the Times had a really interesting interview with Hamas leaders a week or so ago. They basically were feeling so isolated in the region that they launched this attack as kind of a last resort because they felt completely abandoned by everybody else and realized that this was the last thing they could do.” —New York Times’s Elisabeth Bumiller
Observations
“A cease-fire now only benefits the terrorists of Hamas. How would we have reacted if the U.N. had demanded that we stop fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban a month after 9/11? Should we have granted Hitler a cease-fire one month after D-Day? Hamas does not deserve a ‘time-out’ either.” —Gary Bauer
“We can never forget the extent to which we ourselves, through determined inculcation in our own schools, have made students from right here in the United States haters of Israel and the West. Altogether, we’ve created the conditions for the ongoing cataract of anti-Israel agitation, coupled with outright antisemitism and harassment of Jews, that shows no signs of abating.” —Rich Lowry
“If one word could be said to characterize this generation and their progeny, it might be ‘hubris.’ It’s understandable that groups of people who fought for righteous causes, defended marginalized members of society and broke down unjust barriers would repose great confidence in their own judgment. But being correct on any one issue does not mean that you will inevitably be correct about all issues, a realization that seems to have been lost.” —Laura Hollis
“It is easy enough to go back in history and to denounce any departure from what passes for enlightenment today. It doesn’t take much wit or courage today to come out against slavery. But to put yourself in the position of a leader who wants to destroy slavery in a country that doesn’t — the position of Washington and Lincoln — is more unsettling.” —Michael Barone
For the Record
“In 2016 and 2020, the American news media became convinced that the American-owned companies Facebook and Twitter were disinformation platforms being used by Russia to promote Donald Trump. As we head into 2024, the top news source of young Americans [TikTok] is literally controlled by the military of a foreign adversary that not only uses the platform to spy on Americans, but also uses it to feed our youth malicious disinformation designed to turn them both against their basic biology and against the nation.” —Erick Erickson
“The big automakers didn’t pledge to go electric because they care about saving the planet. It’s all about government regulations and mandates. If they can make money off the latest fad, they’ll jump on board regardless of its impact on Mother Earth.” —Brian Mark Weber
Village Idiot
“I think [Mike Johnson is] right about God being mad at America. I mean, why else would he give us Mike Johnson as speaker?” —”comedian” Stephen Colbert
And Last…
“San Francisco’s miracle gave me an idea for any city in America that wants to quickly solve its homeless problem. Get the mayor to invite Dictator Xi for dinner.” —Michael Reagan
Gatestone Institute senior fellow Gordon Chang joins ‘Morning with Maria’ discusses the threat and risk of war posed by China, President Biden’s meeting with X Jinping and companies with links to the Chinese military in market indices. #FOXbusiness
A battle has been brewing over whether Hamas used the Shifa Hospital as a terror hub. Now, Israel is offering proof on video that Hamas was in fact using the building for holding hostages. Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, life partner and the closest adviser to Jimmy Carter during his term as U.S. President died peacefully at home Sunday. When Hamas began its massacre on October 7th, ordinary Israeli civilians sprang into action to defend their homeland and save lives…
Close allies to President Joe Biden are ramping up an operation called the “bubble wrap” strategy to keep the now 81-year-old president from tripping and falling ahead of the 2024 election, according to a New York Times (NYT) report. While some current and former Biden administration officials argue that staff close to the president should […]
You will want to bookmark this post for future reference.
Recent footage released by InvestigateJ6 reveals police officers started firing on unsuspecting Trump supporters on January 6, 2021, without warning.
The footage also reveals that DC police continued their fire on the protesters with rubber bullets, explosive munitions, and gas canisters.
The Trump crowd that gathered on the west side of the US Capitol had no idea they were going to be fired on. There was NO WARNING.
Four Trump supporters were killed that day, including Benjamin Phillips and Kevin Greeson, who were killed when police started firing munitions on the crowd.
The fake news reported the two men had heart attacks – without adding that the men were being bombarded with exploding munitions without warning while they stood in the crowd with tens of thousands of fellow Trump supporters.
Rosanne Boyland, Benjamin Phillips, Ashli Babbitt, Kevin Greeson, were killed on January 6.
The Trump supporters also had no idea that federal officers, and undercover police had inserted themselves inside the pro-Trump crowd that day.
InvestigateJ6 released a video in September that shows police firing on unsuspecting Trump supporters without warning.
Look at all this early J6 footage @TuckerCarlson could show the world, but won’t.
His producer @gregg_re and his team at Fox were given all of this last year. #J6CoverUp
J6 protestors were fired upon with NO warning. USCP Chief Waldow lied saying he gave warnings but never did. pic.twitter.com/xNNsB8XfBy
This was a government assault on the people. In May 2021, The Gateway Pundit first reported on the exploding flash grenades that were fired by police on the Trump supporters.
In May 2021, TGP reported on Capitol Police firing on the peaceful Trump crowd, including seniors and children!
InvestigateJ6 has several videos posted on Rumble of the police violence on January 6.
Oscar Taylor is scrambling to cover household expenses for the first time in his adult life.
“It has gotten so dismal that my wife is planning on looking for work after the new year,” said Mr. Taylor, owner of Barrett Rifles in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images, Freepik)
He said his wife hasn’t had to work a job since the birth of their first child nearly seven years ago.
Sioux Falls has additional challenges. The city has a population of about 200,000 people, and Mr. Taylor said it’s been hit by a “slew of layoffs.”
This is compounded by the “ever-increasing prices” of grocery staples like eggs, milk, and bread. Mr. Taylor says some everyday items have nearly doubled in price over the past few years, and wages aren’t keeping up.
People shop at a grocery store in New York City on May 31, 2022. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)
The Taylor family isn’t alone in the struggle.
One survey noted 70 percent of Americans are feeling stressed about their personal finances. And an August analysis revealed that 54 percent of mothers have a hard time finding a job that accommodates the dual task of raising children.
“We have had to make the choice. Pay our bills or save money. We’ve obviously chosen to pay our bills, but had to stop contributing to our retirement fund for the time being,” Mr. Taylor told The Epoch Times.
It’s a decision many Americans now face: choosing near-term survival at the cost of their future.
One in every three U.S. workers says they’re “significantly behind” on retirement savings, according to a September Bankrate analysis. Nearly a quarter of Americans couldn’t contribute to their retirement savings at all in 2022 or 2023.
John Lin, owner of JB Motor Works in Philadelphia, said he’s felt the “downward trend” of the U.S. economy on multiple levels.
“As a small business owner, saving money has always been a bit of a challenge. But it’s certainly become much harder with the increased cost of utilities, rent, and other general expenses,” Mr. Lin told The Epoch Times.
“The pie has effectively gotten smaller, while slices needed from it have gotten bigger.”
John Lin, owner of JB Motor Works in Philadelphia, said he’s felt the “downward trend” of the U.S. economy on multiple levels. (Courtesy of John Lin)
Mr. Lin said that with the increased cost of car parts for his business over the past year, he’s been forced to increase service prices. But, he also sympathizes with his customers, since he’s in the same boat, paying inflated prices on everything from food to housing and utilities.
“Besides increased service costs, we’ve seen decreased customer visits as people now try to cut back on expenses and are more hesitant to invest in car repairs. As the owner, that directly affects my income stream and overall financial stability,” Mr. Lin said.
Small businesses are considered a barometer for measuring the economic health of a nation. The Biden administration announced more than 10 million applications for new small businesses between 2021 and 2022. Yet, as with most numbers, it doesn’t capture the reality for many business owners.
Last year, high inflation threatened to close 65 percent of American small businesses. Even with lower inflation this year, more than half of U.S. business owners say it remains their number one challenge.
In general, under the Biden administration Americans have higher credit card debt, fewer savings, and a housing crisis that has only worsened since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“To be sure, the high inflation of the past 2-plus years has done lots of economic damage,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, posted on X, formerly Twitter.
President Joe Biden makes his way to board Air Force One before departing from Andrews Air Force Base in Md., on April 14, 2022. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Mr. Zandi said that in July this year the average American household spent $202 more than in July 2022 and a staggering $709 more than July 2021.
And while the Biden administration uses reduced inflation and the creation of 13 million new jobs as a counterpoint, the message fails to resonate in households that are struggling to make ends meet.
Research shows just 43 percent of U.S. adults have enough in a savings account to cover a $1,000 emergency bill. In August, 61 percent of adults said they’re barely making it between pay periods, according to a CNBC poll of 4,000 people.
PORTSMOUTH, NH — Immediately after Argentinians did the unthinkable and elected an actual libertarian to an actual political office, a shipful of libertarian immigrants was seen departing a New Hampshire port Monday morning “in search of a better life in the New World of Argentina.”
The libertarian pilgrims say they hope to find the freedom and liberty America once offered in the strange new country. They boarded the U.S.S. Memeflower with all their goods and possessions — consisting mostly of video games and weed — this morning and set sail for their new life.
“We embark on this voyage in hopes of seeing our libertarian utopia finally implemented,” said the captain of the ship, Greg Reynolds. “For life! For liberty! And the gold standard!”
“Freedooooom!!!” he cried as the ship was christened by breaking a bottle of homebrewed IPA against the vessel’s hull.
The motivations of the pilgrims vary wildly, with some searching for religious freedom, others looking for better economic opportunities, and a significant percentage “just wanting to smoke some dank weed,” according to sources. “Some of us want to be able to practice our religious beliefs without interference, while others want to invest in crypto without government meddling. Others just really, really like guns.”
He gestured toward one passenger huddled up against some barrels. “That guy 3D-printed an M1 Abrams tank.”
At publishing time, an argument had broken out over whether their new society would use Dogecoin or precious metals as currency.
Their culture is not your costume. DO NOT appropriate ghost, zombie, or vampire culture this Halloween.
As reported last night, the outspoken libertarian candidate Javier Milei, also known as Argentina’s Donald Trump and not to be confused with Brazil’s Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, both of whom, however, have Milei’s endorsement…
Javier Milei 2023🇦🇷
Donald Trump 2024🇺🇸
Jair Bolsonaro 2026🇧🇷
… decisively won the second-round presidential election in Argentina, Latin America’s third largest economy with 45 million people. With 99.3% of the votes counted, Milei obtained 55.7% of the valid votes, while incumbent Finance Minister Sergio Massa received 44.3%. Massa conceded the results of the election before the results were even released, and stated that “starting tomorrow” Mr. Milei “is responsible for providing certainty.” President Alberto Fernandez similarly acknowledged the election results. Later, it was reported that Massa could request a leave of absence from his position as Minister of Finance. Mr. Milei’s presidential term begins on December 10.
Milei campaigned against the political establishment and parts of the elite. Amusingly, even the staunch establishmentarians at Goldman Sachs admit that “his diagnosis of the country’s economic woes is accurate: the size of the government has grown too large, it spends more than it collects, and it uses the central bank to finance its shortfalls.” In other words, just like the US.
As a result, fiscal profligacy is the root of the inflation problem (also just like in the US). In response, Milei has proposed an agenda of radical and transformative policies for the Argentine economy. Among his flagship economic proposals are closing the central bank, the dollarization of the economy, an aggressive cut to public spending, and the elimination of tight trade and capital controls.
In his victory speech, Milei did not deviate much from his libertarian campaign rhetoric and commented that “today begins the reconstruction of Argentina” and emphasized that “Argentina’s current situation is critical.” That said, Milei’s proposals carry significant implementation risk. For example, dollarization, which was absent from Milei’s speech tonight. That said, there is no free lunch and adopting, preserving, and benefiting from dollarization could be challenging.
Milei is the next President of Argentina — Will be interesting: dollarization without any usable dollars at the central bank is a technical challenge (to put it mildly)
Milei is the next President of Argentina —
Will be interesting: dollarization without any usable dollars at the central bank is a technical challenge (to put it mildly)https://t.co/EvbF2i9EqN
Not sure tho that dollarization leads to the risk of hyperinflation (as Bloomberg suggests) — “dollarizing the $622 billion economy at a time when international reserves are depleted could tip the South American nation into another bout of hyperinflation”
the immediate risk of course is that the peso depreciates sharply (technically, Argentina can only dollarize at a very depreciated peso).
But the subsequent risk is less hyperinflation and more generalized default …
Dollarization — if done for real — implies that all domestic liabilities are redenominated into dollars. And it isn’t at all clear how a government with no dollars would be able to honor its domestic dollar liabilities.
It is completely unclear how Milei will implement his plans — the BCRA’s remaining dollars are pledged to back the banks required reserves, and China may well want its CNY back. The IMF isn’t keen on lending Argentina more. The core constraints won’t go away.
But it will be a test of many different theories about the stabilizing (or destabilizing) impact of abandoning one’s currency, and with it, an important amount of sovereignty
In a similar note overnight, Bloomberg columnist John Authers reminds us of the “money quote” from Milei’s interview with Bloomberg back in August: “Central banks are divided in four categories: the bad ones, like the Federal Reserve, the very bad ones, like the ones in Latin America, the horribly bad ones, and the Central Bank of Argentina” and writes:
A self-described anarcho-capitalist who wants to abolish the central bank and do away with the country’s currency, he represents change and an ambition to make things better. He’s now been given that opportunity fair and square, and a fascinating experiment awaits. He recognizes the task ahead. “Argentina is in critical condition,” Milei said in his victory speech, adding that “there’s no room for gradual measures.” If that sounds as though he’s preparing to throw all caution to the winds, it’s encouraging that he also behaved more like a normal politician by thanking the center-right conservative politicians who had decided after much angst to endorse him rather than accept another term of Peronism
For his part, Authers remains skeptical: “Anarcho-capitalism, like the communism espoused by another Argentine idealist, Che Guevara, sounds really great. It’s hard to imagine it working so much better than Cuban-model communism. The devaluation that lies ahead, and the kind of austerity that will accompany it, is a lot to ask of anyone. Beyond that, effectively letting a foreign central bank run your economy didn’t work terribly well for Greece, and doesn’t sound like a friendly environment for anarcho-capitalism — although at least on Milei’s analysis, the Fed is better than the Central Bank of Argentina.”
In any case, it is indisputable that a swift change from the failed economic policies of the past is imperative. The accumulated imbalances in the economy have grown too large and must be addressed promptly. Looking ahead, Goldman expects the economy to contract for the second year in a row in 2024 with annual inflation tracking at close to 150% and is expected to continue to rise in the coming months, the exchange rate is significantly overvalued, international reserves are at critical levels, net reserves are significantly negative (around -US$11bn on our estimates), the wide fiscal imbalances persist, sovereign bonds trade at distressed levels, the government lacks access to international financial markets, and the EFF program with the International Monetary Fund is off track.
In short, the country’s economic devastation is why Milei won. Now he has to fix it.
Can he do it? According to GS economists, a tangible and structural fiscal adjustment (e.g., moving to a sustainable primary surplus), a responsible independent central bank free from the grip of fiscal dominance, financial liberalization, and structural reforms to make the economy more open, productive, and flexible, are needed to put the economy on a sustainable path. Of note, economic subsidies in energy and transportation account for a significant part of the deficit, close to 2.5% of GDP, and are natural candidates for cutting spending. During the campaign, however, Finance Minister Massa implemented a series of populist measures that have the potential of negatively impacting the fiscal accounts.
Milei will have to work without a majority in congress. After the first-round election, part of the center-right Juntos por el Cambio coalition, the faction led by presidential candidate Patricia Bullrich and former President Mauricio Macri, announced their support for Milei. The bloc represented by the Radical Party, however, decided not to formally endorse any of the candidates. How they position themselves after Milei’s victory will be noteworthy.
Investors will now turn their attention to economic policy announcements by Milei and the current government. In the short term, the highly managed exchange rate will be a critical variable to follow. After the August primary elections, the government weakened the exchange rate by about 22% to 350 ARS per Dollar. Subsequently, the exchange rate was kept frozen at this level until a slow crawl resumed on November 15 (1.0% depreciation in the week).
Nevertheless, pass-through was high and inflation accelerated considerably after the post-PASO devaluation and as a result, the real exchange rate is now even more overvalued than before the August devaluation. The spread between parallel exchange rates and the official exchange rate remains wide. The dynamics of peso term deposits will also be closely watched, as a rapid withdrawal of funds could have important implications for financial stability.
With reserves at critical levels, the Argentine government faces important external payments to the IMF and hard currency bond holders in the coming months (December-January). Realigning the IMF program will likely take time, but we note that the next program review is scheduled for later this month.
Lastly, cabinet appointments by Milei, in particular the important Minister of Finance and key positions in the central bank will be key to watch. We note that Monday, November 20, is an official holiday in Argentina.
In conclusion, the question is now that he has the public’s mandate to do the painful things, will the public be just as willing to go with the consequences? As Bloomberg’s Authers notes, “the risks for the immediate future can be devolved into the very tricky decisions that lie ahead for how Milei is going to try to put his plans into effect. It certainly can’t all be done on “day one,” as presidential candidates are fond of saying. And much also rests on the shoulders of the man himself. Markets don’t know him well, and a lot of what they do know makes him sound like a character whose judgment can’t be trusted. That will amp still further the need for his each move to be calculated. If not “Mission Impossible,” it’s “Mission Mighty Difficult.”
But the bottom line is that Milei has received an endorsement from the Argentine people, who at this point know what they’re getting into (or maybe they don’t but they are about to find out very quick). “Massa would have represented more of the same policies that have been an abject failure. Rather than act like First World War generals and do the same thing again and again in the hope that it will work next time, they’re taking a big risk and more or less guaranteeing themselves even more pain in the short term, to see if they can turn it around.”
Some more background on Milei (courtesy of WuBlockhain)
Javier Milei was born in 1972 in Palermo, Buenos Aires. His mother was a homemaker and his father was a bus driver before becoming a businessman in the public transport sector. He had a strained relationship with his parents, stating that they abused and verbally insulted him, leading to at least a decade of no contact with them, effectively cutting ties and considering them dead. During his 2021 campaign for the Chamber of Deputies, he chose to reconcile with his parents.
Before 1989, Milei was a goalkeeper for the youth team of Club Atlético Vélez Sarsfield. However, due to hyperinflation during the tenure of Economy Minister José Os as in Argentina, he decided at the age of 18 to stop pursuing football and instead studied economics, aiming to make a living from it. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Universidad de Belgrano and two Master’s degrees from Instituto de Desarrollo Económico y Social and Universidad Torcuato di Tella.
He served as the chief economist at Máxima AFJP, a private pension company, and at Estudio Broda, a financial consulting firm, as well as a government advisor at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. He was also a senior economist at HSBC Bank Argentina. He has been the chief economist for various national and international public institutions. Since 2012, Milei has led the economic research department of the national think tank Fundación Acordar. He is also a member of B20, the International Chamber of Commerce’s Economic Policy Group (an advisor to the G20), and the World Economic Forum. Additionally, he has been a university professor for over twenty years, teaching courses in macroeconomics, economic growth, microeconomics, and mathematics for economists.
In 2020, Milei joined the Progressive Freedom Party (Avanza Libertad) and ran for the Argentine Chamber of Deputies in 2021, promising not to support any tax increases or new taxes, and also established the Liberty Advances Party. He frequently promoted himself on television, radio, and YouTube, gaining support from many young people. During his time as a deputy, Milei held monthly raffles, giving his entire parliamentary salary to the winners, open to anyone.
In 2023, Milei ran for president, proposing to allow people to freely buy firearms and human organs, promising to repeal the Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy Act, and advocating for the criminal punishment of abortion. In the August 2023 presidential primaries, Milei received 30% of the votes, becoming the first far-right candidate to win a primary since Argentina’s elections began in 1916. In the second round of voting held on November 19, Milei defeated his opponents and was elected the new president of Argentina.
Main Viewpoints
In economic issues, Milei is a staunch supporter of the Austrian School, once stating, “Beasts who support Keynesian economics are everywhere.” He considers Argentina a tax hell and advocates for rapid cuts in government spending to balance the budget. He frequently appears on television criticizing the excessive spending and financial mismanagement of Mauricio Macri’s government, the former president of Argentina. He advocates for the abolition of the Central Bank of Argentina, monetary substitution (allowing the use of the US dollar within Argentina), a return to the gold standard, and metallism.
However, his use of mathematical formulas and charts in his works to explain his views has also been criticized by Austrian School economists (who view economics as a social science), claiming his concepts are confused and his formulas incorrect. In April 2023, economist Constantino Hevia from Universidad Torcuato di Tella stated: “If you analyze it a bit, you realize that the public greatly overestimates Milei’s understanding of economics… Milei always shouts concepts he doesn’t understand himself, misleading the public who follow him. In fact, there are many concepts Milei doesn’t understand at all, as you can tell from his notes.” He concluded: “Milei’s lack of mathematical skills, coupled with his enormous arrogance, often leads to numerous mistakes in his statements.”
Politically, Milei is seen as far-right, right-wing populist, extremely conservative, and right-wing libertarian, though he considers himself a minarchist or classical liberal, advocating for anarcho-capitalism. In foreign policy, he is close to the United States and Israel, advocating for a struggle against socialistsand centralists, refusing to do business with socialists.
Milei is a supporter of Bitcoin, stating that it returns funds to their original creators and serves as a tool against government control and central bank policies. He openly supports the use of cryptocurrencies as a means for ordinary Argentinians to escape from the inflation of the peso. He also praises the limited supply of Bitcoin, considering it a safer alternative to gold or silver. (Note: Argentina’s cumulative inflation rate from January to September 2023 was 103.2%, with the past 12 months reaching 138.3%, and the full-year cumulative inflation rate for 2022 was 94.8%).
Nevertheless, his policy focus as president is not closely related to cryptocurrencies, focusing more on the complete liberalization of central banking, finance, foreign affairs, and other sectors. Considering Milei’s economic liberalism, it is unlikely that he would use state power to intervene in and promote the adoption of cryptocurrencies after becoming president.
Truth2Freedom's Blog 