We are seeing at least one governor who is fighting back against the “queering” of America’s children. His name is Ron DeSantis, the governor of the Sunshine State.
He has:
Signed legislation to keep sex out of K-3 public school classrooms.
Taken on Disney on their attempts to groom children for sex.
Taken on teachers unions who want to queer pubic school classroom with gender ideology.
Refused to cow tow to Biden on his policies and mandates.
Defended parents and protected Florida’s children.
Removed mathematics books that teach CRT and push social agendas rather than teach mathematics. See teaching Queer Mathematics.
Now Governor DeSantis is taking a stand against gender affirming care and the castration of young boys.
We fully agree that this national effort to queer our underaged children is both wrong and is child abuse. Those who do it from the public school house to the White House must be held accountable.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2022-08-04 06:25:532022-08-04 06:39:34VIDEOS: Florida Governor DeSantis says Gender Affirming Care ‘Wrong’ and Floridians should Sue Doctors who Castrate Young Boys
“From day one, when the Supreme Court made this extreme decision to take away a constitutional right, it was an unconstitutional action by them,” she said.
She then described abortion as “a right that was around for almost 50 years,” as well as “a right that women had to make a decision on their bodies and how they want to start their families.”
Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) press secretary Abigail Marone commented on the White House press secretary’s incompetence, tweeting, “It honestly feels cruel to put her on the podium and make her answer questions each day.”
Telegraph contributor Nile Gardiner described Jean-Pierre’s statement as “Truly Orwellian disinformation from the Biden White House.”
The Heritage Foundation’s John Cooper seemed perplexed, tweeting, “Karine Jean-Pierre just said the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling was ‘unconstitutional,’ which is certainly a…unique take.”
Conservative commentator Ian Miles Cheong pulled no punches, writing, “That KJP is a moron isn’t a secret. It’s on full display.”
Accusing Republicans of Lying about Critical Race Theory
After Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe in a stunning upset in the Virginia gubernatorial election of November 2021 – an outcome that was at least partially attributable to Republicans hammering away at Democrats for supporting the teaching of the tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) to schoolchildren — Jean-Pierre attacked Republicans. At a press briefing on November 4, she said: “Republicans are lying. They’re not being honest. They’re not being truthful about where we [Democrats] stand [regarding CRT]. And they’re … cynically trying to use our kids as a political football. They’re talking about our kids … when it’s election season, but they won’t vote for them when it matters.”
A leftist organization called “The Queer Mathematics Teacher” is seeking to embed gender theory in K-12 math classes.
Brandie Waid, the director of The Queer Mathematics Teacher, laid out a plan for incorporating gender theory into math classes in a blog post on the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) website. CASEL is sponsored by the Allstate Foundation.
The Queer Mathematics Teacher is an educational consulting firm that seeks to promote “queer mathematics” in American K-12 classrooms. The firm sells a book titled “Talking about LGBTQ+ Identity,” which includes chapters titled “The Gender Unicorn,” “How Do I Talk About LGBTQ+ Identity With My Students,” and “What if I Receive Pushback?”
The firm also offers coaching services to teachers, which include curriculum design, district-wide audits, and professional development workshops. The site claims, “The ability to consider sexuality irrelevant in the mathematics context is a heteronormatively privileged position” and notes that some areas of expertise include “queer pedagogy,” “teaching mathematics for social justice,” “Fostering Students’ Growth Mindset (While Advocating for Systemic Change),” and “humanizing Mathematics Education for LGBTQ+ Students.”
Waid confesses in her article that math used to be a source of anxiety for her, which she links with her sexuality. She writes, “I associated mathematics with profound anxiety, intricately tied to my fears of confronting my queer identity.”
Waid also argues, “Something about mathematics is failing to instill a sense of belonging that draws 2SLGBTQIA+ students to and keeps them in the field,” adding, “How can we cultivate mathematical spaces where 2SLGBTQIA+ students feel affirmed in their queer identity and thrive personally and mathematically?”
Waid, who refers to herself as a “queer Latinx independent math coach and activist scholar,” also criticizes legislatures that have responded to parents’ calls to combat the presence of progressive ideology, writing, “With recent legislative attacks on CRT, social and emotional learning, and 2SLGBTQIA+ youth, centering thriving and humanness in our everyday practice is urgent.”
The left-wing activist even goes so far as to suggest that activist educators should teach critical race theory and gender theory, even if it means breaking the law. Waid writes, “I implore my colleagues to ask: How can we work within (or outside) the confines of these laws to center Transformative SEL and student thriving in our teaching?”
Waid also provides educator-activists with a number of activities that can be used to implement gender theory in math classes. One such activity focuses on the thoroughly debunked wage-gap myth and is called “An Intersectional Look at the Gender Pay Gap.”
The lesson, which is intended for math classes, asks students questions like “What genders are represented?,” “What other genders are there?,” and even “What would considering other gender identities add to our understanding?” The notes for teachers portion of the activity reminds educator-activists that “students may need additional support in LGBTQ+ terminology.”
One lesson, called “Progress Pride Flag,” is intended for elementary school children. It showcases a pride flag featuring a triangle with black, brown, and other colors that represent the transgender movement and suggests that educator-activists ask students questions like “What does this symbol represent?”
Another lesson plan, intended for middle school students and titled “Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation by Generation,” asks children to speculate as to why there has been an increase in LGBT self-identification among younger generations.
George Soros should be banned from the U.S.. We must pass a “Stop Soros” bill like Hungary did. Soros presents a grave dangerous to the democratic process.
A proposed constitutional amendment in Michigan by a Soros-funded group would prevent both strict voter ID requirement and a ban on private donations to election officials from being enacted.
While federal agencies under the Biden administration are seeking to increase voter registration and turnout, a group linked to left-wing megadonor George Soros is pushing for a constitutional amendment in the battleground state of Michigan that would allow Zuckerbucks to be used in election administration.
Biden issued an executive order to all federal agencies in March 2021, instructing them to send him “a strategic plan outlining the ways identified under this review that the agency can promote voter registration and voter participation.”
The order gave agency heads 200 days to determine how their public services could be used as voter registration agencies, and directed them to notify the states in which their agencies provide such services that they “would agree to designation as a voter registration agency.”
Earlier this year, departments such as Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, and Labor turned their assisted housing centers, public health centers, and American Job Centers, respectively, into voter registration agencies.
Federal agencies participating in voter turnout efforts “is wrong” because they will target who they want to turn out to vote, “and government can’t be engaged in that process” because it’s “partisan politics,” Phill Kline, director of The Amistad Project, told Just the News.
Meanwhile, with midterm elections approaching in November, a left-leaning organization called Promote the Vote submitted nearly 670,000 voter signatures — more than the roughly 425,000 required — for a new Michigan constitutional amendment to be placed on the ballot in the November election.
The amendment would “require state-funded postage for absentee applications and ballots”; “require state-funded absentee-ballot drop boxes”; allow voters to be sent an absentee ballot for every election by requesting it on an absentee ballot application; and “require 9 days of early in-person voting.”
It would also prevent enactment of both strict voter ID requirements and a ban on private donations to election officials, following approval of such safeguards by the Michigan Legislature before the legislation was vetoed by the governor.
Michigan currently doesn’t allow early voting, but requires election officials to accept, in at least one location, absentee ballots during business hours and for at least eight hours on the Saturday and/or Sunday prior to an election, the Detroit Free Press reported.
The signatures submitted by Promote the Vote must be reviewed by the Board of State Canvassers to determine the petition’s validity before certifying the petition and placing the amendment on the ballot, with the deadline to do so being two months prior to the November election.
Soros gave nearly $10 million in 2019 to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which gave $250,000 to Promote the Vote in 2018.
The left has “become very supportive and open to billionaires” influencing U.S. elections, Kline said Tuesday. He argued this is dangerous to the democratic process, as candidates receiving funding from Soros would be beholden to him, and that “unless action is taken, we’ll reach a crisis where Americans no longer have faith in elections.”
The left, he added, is “trying to enshrine in law all the problems in the 2020 election” because its focus is not on “running the government objectively, but obtaining power.”
Why the Biden administration wants the “experts” to determine if there’s a recession.
Facebook is now censoring posts and videos about the Biden recession by using partisan fact-checks from left-leaning outlets to wrongly condemn them as “misinformation”.
The fact checks rely on the same argument being propounded by the Biden administration and its media allies that only the National Bureau of Economic Research and, more specifically, its Business Cycle Dating Committee, can officially decide if there’s a recession.
And anyone who isn’t on the Committee talking about a recession is spreading “misinformation”.
That’s an obvious problem because 2 out of 3 American voters, including even 53% of Democrats, believe that there’s a recession. That’s a whole lot of people to censor.
Totalitarian Communist regimes in Russia and China have criminalized discussions about domestic economic problems, and the American Left is trying to deploy its propaganda machine of partisan media outlets, fact checkers and Big Tech monopolies to duplicate their efforts.
It’s bound to fail.
Declaring that only a small group of “experts” is allowed to call it a recession despite the fact that two consecutive quarters of a shrinking economy is the definition of a recession is a gatekeeping fallacy.
And the experts are hardly any more objective than the fact checkers citing them.
Peter Blair Henry, the current vice chair of the National Bureau of Economic Research, was the head of the Obama campaign’s economics advisory team and then served on his transition team. And Henry has promoted Biden’s disastrous inflationary “Build Back Better” plan.
Of the eight economists on the Business Cycle Dating Committee, the team that the White House and the media insist are the only ones who get to decide if it’s a recession, several held posts in the Obama administration, and others were clearly aligned with the Democrats.
Christina and David Romer, a husband and wife team, already an innate conflict of interest, were described as “staunch Obama supporters” in an IMF profile. Romer had provided “briefing memos” to Austan Goolsbee, Obama’s radical economic adviser, during the campaign, and she went on to chair Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. In that role, she aggressively pushed for an even bigger “stimulus package” than the one that damaged the economy under Obama.
Robert J. Gordon compared Trump to Hitler and declared that he would miss Obama’s “eloquence”. He claims that America’s growth is over and proposes a program of a “progressive tax code”, eliminating deductions, legalizing drugs, and providing a lot more welfare.
Gordon had joined lefty economists in arguing that the era of permanent economic malaise was upon us. During the 2016 election, his “The Rise and Fall of American Growth” was frequently cited as expert evidence that serious GDP growth of the kind Trump was urging was impossible.
The economist, or someone by that name from his university, appears to be a donor to Democrat candidates, the DNC and at least one anti-Republican PAC.
Gordon was also a signatory to an open letter titled, “Economists Oppose Trump’s Re-Election”.
The pro-Biden and anti-Trump letter included the contention that Trump “claimed to have the unique ability to generate growth (in real GDP) of between 4% and 6%, but never surpassed 2.9% in his first three years in office. Furthermore, analysts at Goldman Sachs and Moody’s Analytics have projected that Joe Biden’s economic plans, if implemented, would actually generate faster growth in both employment and real GDP.”
Gordon, along with other lefty academics, was expressing a political preference for Biden over Trump while claiming that this position was backed up by their “expert” opinion.
Biden’s economic plans led to a massive disaster, but there’s no reason to think that Gordon or any of the other economists involved in this letter are ready to admit that they were wrong.
And that Biden has inflicted a recession on America.
Another of the members of the Business Cycle Dating Committee who also signed the anti-Trump and pro-Biden letter is Mark Watson of Princeton. Watson was also the co-author of an infamous argument claiming that the economy performs better under Democrat presidents.
His work was cited by Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers co-authored together with James Stock, a member of the council who serves as another member of the Business Cycle Dating Committee.
Obama had appointed Stock to his Council of Economic Advisers in 2013. Stock was both an Obama and a Hillary donor. He also contributed $2,800, close to the maximum, to Biden.
The political conflict of interest in determining that the economy is in recession is obvious.
Of the remaining Business Cycle Dating Committee members, Robert Hall appears to have donated to a Democrat candidate. James Poterba hadvocally praised Obama’s economic council members, calling them “realists and pragmatists who are looking for what will work to address the particular problems we are facing”.
What that means is that of the eight Business Cycle Dating Committee members, a quarter are former members of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, half are public Obama supporters, one is a Biden donor, two have expressed public opposition to Trump and support for Biden.
This group of experts is anything but non-partisan and the lean is anything but conservative.
It’s fair to say that 6 of the 8 Business Cycle Dating Committee are either Democrats or aligned with Democrats. Another is ambiguous and only one has expressed no recent public political preference.
It’s obvious why the Biden administration is betting that a group stocked with its own political allies will be less likely to state the obvious about the state of the economy. Democrats, their media and their tech monopolies are using expert gatekeeping by their own allies to deny that there’s a recession even though the vast majority of Americans know that it’s already here.
It doesn’t take the Business Cycle Dating Committee to state the obvious. All it can do is stonewall what everyone can see around them. Beyond their political allegiances, many members of the Committee have a history of being fundamentally wrong about the economic measures of the Obama and Trump administrations. Many supported the Obama era inflationary spending that deepened our national debt and suppressed our economic potential.
There’s no reason to think they’ve learned to be any more correct or any less biased.
The new technocratic totalitarianism insists that the nature of reality is controlled by small groups of partisan handpicked experts and that ordinary people have no right to disagree, and that furthermore it is the job of the tech monopolies who control the marketplace of ideas to immediately stamp out such dissent as “disinformation” and a “threat to democracy”.
But reality isn’t controlled by experts and the efforts by the Biden administration to build a wall of experts around reality is as doomed to failure as similar measures in totalitarian states.
After first denying the reality of inflation, the Biden administration is trying to deny the recession.
The same experts who tried to deny the disastrous effects of Obama’s economy are trying to tell the same lies for Biden. But no amount of lies will turn a recession into a recovery.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2022-08-04 05:02:542022-08-04 05:04:52The Democrat Economists in Charge of Deciding ‘If’ There’s a Recession
Voters across five states held primary elections Tuesday night with more than a few Trump-endorsed candidates raking in enough votes to head to the general election on November 8. One America’s White House Correspondent Daniel Baldwin breaks down the results.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2022-08-04 04:49:062022-08-04 04:50:05VIDEO: Primary Elections Show the Power of Trump Endorsements
Upset and disappointed, many felt betrayed when Senator Joe Manchin cut a deal with ultra-left-wing colleague Chuck Schumer and created the laughably named “Inflation Reduction Act.” Yet anyone thus aggrieved should consider a simple fact: As of June 2 of last year, Manchin had voted with Joe Biden 100 percent of the time.
That’s 100 percent — as in voting with Nancy Pelosi every time.
And he has voted with the Democrats over his career’s course approximately 80 percent of the time.
Oh, don’t be surprised. Here’s the reality: No matter how conservative or liberal a politician seems on the campaign trail, no matter compelling his rhetoric, no matter how outside-the-box he appears, he’ll virtually always vote with his party the vast majority of the time. (This is especially true of Democrats.)
To further illustrate the point, question: Who now is probably the most loathed GOP politician by the Republican base, the one most likely to be primaried? If you answered Rep. Liz Cheney, I agree. But note:
She voted with President Trump 93 percent of the time.
Really.
This isn’t to say she isn’t stomach-turningly perfidious or that she shouldn’t be kicked to the curb. She should. But before I get to what I am saying, let’s look at some more RINOs and their voting records.
Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) voted with Trump 81 percent of the time.
Senator Susan Collins (R-Me.) voted with Trump 67 percent of the time.
Rep. Adam “Crocodile Tears” Kinzinger voted with Trump approximately 90 percent of the time. (Note: Of late, he has been supporting much of Biden’s agenda.)
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Ala.) voted with Trump 72.6 percent of the time.
These are just about the worst the GOP has to offer, too — and they still vote more sanely than Mountain Mama’ Manchin.
Oh, this isn’t to say they’re better people; about that, I’ve no idea (Kinzinger could be a sociopath). But the point is that politicians belong to a party for reasons. First, a party offers reelection support — which they likely won’t get if they vote against their party’s agenda more than their state’s consensus ideology dictates they must. (E.g., no one expects a W. Va. senator to survive in office if he votes like Florida’s Donna Shalala.)
Second, though politicians typically aren’t fonts of principle, they generally choose one major party over the other because their passions largely align with its platform.
So the point is this: Some voters will say, “I vote for the person, not the party,” but that’s only what they think. In the most important sense, they’re voting for the party no matter the person because they’re delivering another reliable vote for his party.
This isn’t to say that, for example, every Republican politician is the same; there’s a marked difference between someone who supports the party 100 percent of the time and one who does so 67 percent of the time. It is to say that there’s an even bigger difference between that Republican who supports Democrats 33 percent of the time and a Democrat that supports them 80 percent of the time. (And a W.Va. Republican would likely be down around zero percent.)
So it doesn’t matter if you’re in W.Va., Utah, Indiana or somewhere else; understand that if you vote for a Manchin or any other Democrat, you’re voting by and large for the Democrat agenda. This is ever and always true, 100 percent of the time, no matter how “conservative” the candidate sounds.
Of course, if you like the Democrat agenda minus its radical elements and think a Manchin will deliver that, perhaps he’s your man, and do then remember to vote on November 9. (Though, in reality, delivering on the Democrat agenda minus its destructively radical elements would require voting against it 99 percent of the time.)
So the actual Manchin con doesn’t really concern his deal with Schumer; it doesn’t even concern anything effected mainly by Manchin. It’s this: the most left-wing Democrats (Sandy Cortez and the Squad et al.) and mainstream media squealing about how he’s really a Republican when he bucks them on some radical legislation — and elated but naïve Republicans chiming in and heroizing him — and all of them together effecting the illusion that he really is, in practice, a “moderate” or “conservative” Democrat.
Then the good people of W.Va. can vote for Manchin the next time around, secure in the illusion that he’s like their granddaddy’s Democrat — and oblivious to how they’re electing an 80-percent Pelosi.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Selwyn Dukehttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngSelwyn Duke2022-08-03 12:47:062022-08-03 12:47:06When Joe Caved to Joe: The Real Manchin Con
Tim Wilson is a Senor Fellow at the London Center, a former British Army officer who served in a variety of command appointments on numerous operational tours during a 32 year military career. Lt Col Wilson has written for a range of publications on diverse topics including surviving a nuclear attack, terrorist tactics and asymmetric warfare and has appeared as a guest on numerous TV and radio shows. Since immigrating he has worked on a number of projects including research into the smuggling operations of Iraq during the UN’s Oil-For-Food program, sanctions evasion by Iran and suspicious North Korean shipping activities. As a direct result of his research he has briefed and advised Congressional staffs and officials at State, Treasury and other government agencies. Tim moved to the USA in 2005 and proudly became an American citizen in 2011. He is a firm advocate of The Constitution and Bill of Rights and believes in American Exceptionalism and the benefits of maintaining and continually improving the greatest military in the world.
TOPIC: We Need to Fight Crime, Not the Right to Bear Arms!
JACK KALAVRITINOS
Jack Kalavritinos is Executive Director of the Coalition Against Socialized Medicine. Jack has more than 25 years of experience in public affairs and health communications, served as director for Intergovernmental and External Affairs for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and as the associate commissioner for External Affairs at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He spent over seven years at Medtronic on policy initiatives. He also served as a senior official at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and as the White House Liaison at the Department of Labor. Most recently, Jack advised clients on strategic communications, policy, and advocacy as part of JK Strategies and APCO Worldwide’s International Advisory Council.
TOPIC: Resurrecting Failed Drug Price Controls Before the Midterms Won’t Help Americans.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Conservative Commandos Radio Showhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngConservative Commandos Radio Show2022-08-03 12:38:202022-08-03 12:38:20PODCAST: We Need to Fight Crime, Not the Right to Bear Arms!
FBI whistleblowers reported the Biden administration is pressuring agents to reclassify cases as domestic terrorism in order to make domestic terrorism look worse than it is. The administration has claimed that domestic terrorism is the greatest threat to homeland security. So now it’s cooking the books to support the phony narrative. But what would you expect from an administration that employs a top official – Attorney General Merrick Garland – who is not above treating ordinary parents who speak out at school board meetings as ‘domestic terrorists’ so a family member can sell more indoctrination material to school districts around the country?
Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio wrote a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray with the details of the whistleblower revelations. “(W)e have learned that FBI officials are pressuring agents to reclassify cases as ‘domestic violence extremism’ even if the cases do not meet the criteria for such a classification,” the letter states. “Whistleblower disclosures have also detailed the agency’s effort to exaggerate [Domestic Violent Extremism or DVE] data to satisfy the Bureau’s leadership…. [Agents] are encouraged and incentivized to reclassify cases as DVE cases even though there is minimal, circumstantial evidence to support the reclassification…. [FBI executives] have pressured agents to move cases into the DVE category to hit self-created performance metrics. According to whistleblowers, the FBI uses these metrics to dispense awards and promotions.”
Awards and promotions for cooking the books – my, my. Congressman Jordan demands the FBI produce all the agency’s communications regarding domestic terrorism case classification, including those with the Office of the President. Jordan wants to know if the fish is rotting from the head down.
There are consequences to cooking the books. Inflating the domestic terrorism statistics boosts public support for going after ordinary parents who object to pornography and transgenderism when they speak at school board meetings. In other words, cooking the books give cover for persecuting political enemies. Also, phony domestic terrorism cases detract from the significance of real cases of domestic terrorism which undeniably exist.
In addition, phony performance metrics skew agency priorities and divert resources from other real threats. For example, Kamala Harris and others have a history of pressuring the Justice Department and FBI not to pursue black identity extremism which is a very real threat. The Waukesha killer who mowed down six and injured 62 others was a black supremacist.
More to the point, the FBI completely ignores violence from Antifa and other radical Left-wing groups, violence which resulted in the burning of entire city blocks and injuries to 2,000 police officers in the riots of summer 2020. After all that, the FBI told Congress the FBI does not consider Antifa to be an organization and does not keep track of its violent activities. We also know from an FBI informant who became a whistleblower that the FBI pursued an agenda of ginning up the white supremacy and domestic terrorism threats while ignoring reports coming in of operations being planned by Marxist terror cells affiliated with Antifa, Black Lives Matter, the Communist Party USA, and other left-wing splinter groups. The informant had infiltrated several left-wing domestic terror groups, but his FBI handlers weren’t interested. They were only interested in white supremacists to build a phony narrative. They kept asking the informant, “Where are the white supremacists?” That’s all they cared about.
The FBI leadership has a one-track mind about domestic terrorism. This single-minded focus has compromised the agency’s ethics – they’re cooking the books – and blinded the agency to real threats like Antifa which is not going away. The single-minded focus is now producing delusional thinking at the agency. The FBI is teaching agents that the Betsy Ross flag and other images from the Revolutionary War are evidence of extreme and violent militia involvement. The FBI’s training also singles out the Gadsden ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flag. The Gadsden Flag was popularized by the Tea Party. Say what you will about the Tea Party, but nobody can claim with a straight face after 12 years of the Tea Party that it is a violent extremist organization.
Running the government on phony narratives has consequences. One of them is that the FBI is a sick organization and getting sicker by the day.
Does Biden deserve credit or does the second law of demand explain our less painful trips to the pump?
Anyone who has a car is breathing a sigh of relief this last week. After two years of increasing gas prices, we’ve finally had a significant fall in gas prices.
Gas prices are still high at $4.33/gallon (nearly double the $2.18 they were in July of 2020), but there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel.
Since the current administration has taken a great deal of heat over high fuel prices, perhaps it’s no surprise to see the White House taking credit for the lower prices. Earlier this month, President Biden noted that gasoline prices had fallen for 30 consecutive days.
“Our actions are working, and prices are coming down,” Biden said days later.
However, there is little evidence to indicate the majority of the price drop is due to any particular policy change.
This leaves us with an important question. Why exactly are prices falling?
Falling Demand?
Several outlets have undertaken the task of explaining this price decrease. Some seem to have arrived at an answer that is in the right direction.
An article on MarketWatch pinpoints the ultimate cause as falling demand. “Gasoline demand weakness against historical seasonal strength is pressing retail prices lower,” MarketWatch reported analyst Brian Milne saying.
A report by ESAI Energy, an analytics firm, said on Wednesday that the firm expected a global surplus of four million barrels a day in the roughly 100-million-barrel-a-day market in the second quarter. “This is a significant drop in demand,” said Sarah Emerson, ESAI president.
In other words, the oil purchasing decisions are falling below what the oil industry expected. Four million less barrels a day are being utilized than industry experts had anticipated. The Times continues:
An Energy Department report released Wednesday showed that gasoline demand in recent weeks had dropped by 1.35 million barrels a day, or more than 10 percent. A recent survey from AAA seems to back this up, highlighting that two thirds of Americans have claimed to have changed their driving habits since the price increases.
So there’s our answer, right? Falling demand means lower prices.
There are several problems with this explanation, but the problems manifest in one particular issue. Neither of these articles gives a satisfactory answer for why demand would be falling.
In order to understand why demand is changing we first need to eliminate a fallacious reason. It might be tempting to say demand is falling because the price is high. In fact, the MarketWatch article seems to suggest this explanation. But this claim is wrong.
It’s true that when the price of gas (or any good or service for that matter) rises, people will purchase a smaller quantity of that good or service. Economists call this the first law of demand.
But the key part of that statement is when the price rises. Higher prices have existed for a while and cannot explain suddenly lower quantity demanded. Why didn’t the higher prices lead to a lower quantity demanded earlier?
In fact, committing to this explanation that higher price leads to lower demand is contradictory because it would be akin to saying “higher prices cause lower demand which causes lower prices.” This circular reasoning is confusing and incomplete at best.
Scarcity + Time = Substitution
MarketWatch and The New York Times missed it by that much.
I believe the outlets are right to pinpoint changing demand as the relevant factor for falling prices, and they’re right that higher prices are part of the story, but the explanation is missing the most important part.
To see what’s really going on, consider an example.
Imagine you’ve booked your vacation for the summer and you’ve decided to do a cross-country trip in an RV. The RV is rented, you’ve put in for vacation days at work, the insurance is covered, you’ve paid for tickets for sights and attractions, and your family is packed and ready.
You go to bed and gas prices are $2/gallon. The next morning you pull into a gas station with the RV and the price has skyrocketed to $4/gallon. The cost of your travel has doubled.
Do you cancel? In some cases the answer could be yes, but for many people the higher cost of gas is less than the cost of planning an entirely new vacation and executing the plan within a day. The cost of doing the logistics of canceling bookings and organizing something to do with your vacation days is high on short notice.
Now imagine a different scenario. You’re six months out from your trip and gas prices skyrocket to $4. You haven’t rented an RV or put in for vacation days. You assume gas prices will stay high until your vacation. Do you change your vacation plans? It seems likely.
The answer isn’t certain, but what we can say with certainty is that it’s more likely that someone will change vacation plans in the second scenario with six months notice relative to the first scenario with no notice.
Why? Simply put, it’s more costly to find substitutes in the short run than in the long run.
This illustrates a principle called the second law of demand which states that people are relatively more responsive to price changes in the long run than in the short run. Economists call this responsiveness “elasticity”.
With this insight in hand, we are now equipped to give a more robust explanation for falling gas prices.
To begin, gas prices increase substantially. It’s too costly for people to substitute their gas usage in the short run. You still need to drive to your vacation, work, or church the next day if gas prices go up. But, as more time passes, there is more ability to cheaply discover alternatives like bus routes, carpool situations, financing for electric cars, or telework options.
In the case of vacations you could substitute your RV trip with the “staycation” option, which is growing in popularity, given you have time to plan.
Then, as more people substitute these options for gas, gas stations face a new lower demand. Again, this doesn’t occur immediately because it’s costly to make these substitutions in the short run.
Admittedly, confirming this theory as the number-one cause of falling gas prices would require significant statistical work, but the theory is consistent with the basic facts of lower demand and the time that’s passed since gas prices have risen.
Is it possible that releases of supply from the government’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve have had some impact? It certainly should make some difference, but as the articles above indicate, the basic evidence seems to show demand changes are the driver here—not supply changes.
Even Biden’s own Treasury Department estimates the US strategic reserve release to have impacted prices from 13 cents to 33 cents with a little more potentially due to international releases. This upper estimate, based on very generous assumptions, still leaves about half of the price drop unexplained.
And even without statistical testing, the second law of demand is an economic law which means it certainly plays some role in the more responsive demand, everything else held constant.
It’s not clear that we’re out of the woods on inflation yet. However, I remain confident that consumer-side substitutions and supplier-side innovations will continue to work to make gas prices more affordable—so long as meddlesome regulators stay out of the way.
Peter Jacobsen teaches economics at Ottawa University where he holds the positions of Assistant Professor and Gwartney Professor of Economic Education and Research at the Gwartney Institute. He received his graduate education George Mason University and received his undergraduate education Southeast Missouri State University. His research interest is at the intersection of political economy, development economics, and population economics. His website can be found here.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2022-08-03 12:14:242022-08-03 12:14:57Why Are Gas Prices Falling?
Over the past several years America has discovered that China has been carrying out various forms of espionage and intellectual property theft across the US, particularly targeting American companies in the tech sector. Just this past week it was reported that components from the Chinese tech conglomerate Huawei installed in US telecommunications networks could disrupt communications at US nuclear bases. While these companies set up American subsidiaries who deny playing any role in espionage, the reality is that China’s intelligence law obligates Chinese-affiliated companies to serve the Communist party by any means at their disposal. Experts say it is virtually impossible to determine whether a particular Chinese company is operating as a private business or whether it is really an element of the regime.
These types of threats are unfortunately nothing new, yet for some reason companies like Huawei are still allowed to do business in America and with American companies, placing American security at risk and enriching our biggest potential adversary.
Not surprisingly, given the Biden family’s extensive business and financial dealings with Chinese entities, the Biden administration has been less than vigilant about the threat posed by Chinese infiltration, influence, and espionage. The Biden administration recently shut down a major FBI effort targeting Chinese corporate espionage alleging the program was somehow racist.
Fortunately, America is not dependent on the vigilance of corrupt oligarchs like Joe and Hunter Biden. There is much that can be done on the state level to safeguard critical infrastructure from Chinese hacking and set an example for the rest of America. One state has taken such action.
State Senator Barry Milligan of Louisiana recently successfully authored legislation this year to protect his state’s critical infrastructure from nefarious Chinese tech companies.
The first piece of legislation, signed into law as Act 695 of 2022, prohibits state agencies and universities from using telecommunications equipment produced by Huawei Technologies Company or ZTE Corporation and video surveillance equipment produced by Hytera Communications Corporation, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Company, Dahua Technology Company, or any subsidiary or affiliate of such entities. All of the companies listed are Chinese entities and as such all are majority-owned or controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
The Chinese companies that are involved in the video surveillance field not only pose a threat to US infrastructure; they also are involved in ghastly surveillance networks inside China characterized by human rights abuses.
The second piece of legislation signed into law as Act 766, prohibits the use by any agency of state government of telecommunications equipment or video surveillance equipment produced or provided by an entity found to be owned, controlled, or otherwise connected to the government of the People’s Republic of China, the Islamic Republic of Iran, North Korea or Russia. The effect of this legislation is targeted at China however, since the other nations either do not have capabilities in the telecommunications or video surveillance field (such as North Korea) or are already sanctioned by US government policies (such as Iran).
The Act also provides that if a vendor uses components from any such entities, the vendor must replace them at the vendor’s expense.
For the purposes of the legislation “critical infrastructure” means a communication infrastructure system, cybersecurity system, electric grid, hazardous waste treatment system, or water treatment facility.
By mandating that all state agencies, including colleges, universities, and hospitals, not include Chinese components in critical infrastructure, Louisiana is setting an example for the private sector and encouraging technology vendors to have alternatives for all their customers.
Every state needs to follow suit and pass legislation like Senator Milligan’s in Louisiana. In protecting infrastructure inside each respective state, they will also be protecting our nation as a whole. Just as state and local activism efforts played a significant role against apartheid in South Africa a generation ago, state activism can fill the gap left by the Biden administration recalcitrance when it comes to dealing with China today.
With the momentum built up by such restrictions on Chinese tech firms, the private sector will then start to feel the pressure to not do business with Chinese entities, and would demonstrate to a future administration in Washington that the American people recognize the Chinese threat for what it truly is and are demanding action.
Christopher Holton is a Senior Analyst and Director of State Outreach at the Center for Security Policy. Mr. Holton came to the Center after serving as president and marketing director of Blanchard & Co. and editor-in-chief of the Blanchard Economic Research Unit from 1990 to 2003
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Center For Security Policyhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngCenter For Security Policy2022-08-03 08:57:492022-08-03 08:58:01One Thing Every State Must Do To Protect America
Following in lockstep with the the other Failed Democrat state New York. The only thing deadly here is another stolen election.
Here we go. Democrat pre-election fear mongering and chaos in order to usurp, yet again, American elections.
People are not dying from Monkeypox, a predominantly gay sexually transmitted disease (the hysteria over this from everyone else is irrational and painful to watch).
California governor declares monkeypox state of emergency
FILE – A man holds a sign urging increased access to the monkeypox vaccine during a protest in San Francisco, July 18, 2022. California’s governor on Monday, Aug. 1, 2022, declared a state of emergency to speed efforts to combat the monkeypox outbreak, becoming the second state in three days to take the step.
California’s governor on Monday, Aug. 1, 2022, declared a state of emergency to speed efforts to combat the monkeypox outbreak, becoming the second state in three days to take the step. (AP Photo/Haven Daley, File)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s governor on Monday declared a state of emergency to speed efforts to combat the monkeypox outbreak, becoming the second state in three days to take the step.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said the declaration will help California coordinate a government-wide response, seek more vaccines and lead outreach and education efforts on where people can get treatment and vaccination.
“We’ll continue to work with the federal government to secure more vaccines, raise awareness about reducing risk, and stand with the LGBTQ community fighting stigmatization,” Newsom said in a statement announcing his declaration.
Nearly 800 cases of monkeypox have been reported in California, according to state public health officials.
The monkeypox virus spreads through prolonged and close skin-to-skin contact, which can include hugging, cuddling and kissing, as well as through the sharing of bedding, towels and clothing. People getting sick so far have mainly been men who have sex with men, though health officials note that the virus can infect anyone.
“Public health officials are clear: stigma is unacceptable and counterproductive in public health response,” Michelle Gibbons, executive director of the County Health Executives Association of California said in a statement. “The fact is that monkeypox is primarily spread by skin to skin contact and sharing objects like bedding or towels, without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The type of monkeypox virus identified in this outbreak is rarely fatal, and people usually recover within weeks. But the lesions and blisters caused by the virus are painful, and they can prevent swallowing or bowel movements if in the throat or anus.
The declaration in California came after a similar one in New York state on Saturday, and in San Francisco on Thursday. Newsom’s administration had said as recently as Friday that it was too soon for such a declaration.
After pressing for Newsom to make such a declaration, Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco hailed the governor’s decision.
“The monkeypox outbreak is an emergency, and we need to use every tool we have to control it,” Wiener said.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2022-08-03 08:46:292022-08-05 06:49:22IRRATIONAL: California joins New York Declares Monkeypox State of Emergency, Biden Forms Monkeypox Task Force
Out-of-stock rates for baby formula remain sky-high across America despite decreased media attention on the crisis in recent months, market data shows.
The national formula out-of-stock level for the week ending July 24 was 30%, according to data released July 29 and shared with the Daily Mail. That’s a slight increase from two weeks before when out-of-stock rates were 28.3%, according to market research firm IRI.
'THEY FORGOT ABOUT US': Mom slams Biden admin over persistent baby formula shortage https://t.co/yxNdMFu5fS
Wyoming and Arizona are being hit hardest at the moment. The out-of-stock rates in those states are 42% and 44%, respectively, the Daily Mail reported.
Media coverage of the crisis has waned since the spring and early summer when the shortage dominated headlines, but the situation is just as bad now as it was at points in May and June. The out-of-stock rate for the week ending May 22 was 23.7%.
News reports have focused instead on other challenges facing the Biden administration, including record-high inflation, lofty gas prices and the war in Ukraine.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the supply chain chaos it caused, typical out-of-stock rates were in the 5% to 7% range, according to the New York Post.
President Joe Biden has taken steps to alleviate the shortage, but they seemingly haven’t been enough. He made use of the Defense Production Act to try and increase supply, and the administration says it has flown in more than 60 million 8 o.z. bottles of formula from Europe this year, according to the Daily Mail.
EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2022-08-03 08:26:052022-08-03 08:26:05No Media Coverage: Biden’s Baby Formula Shortage Worsens, Wreaking Havoc On American Families
It has been demonstrably proven the vaccine can be harmful. The risk far outweighs the reward. Once again the law of unintended consequence will serve the right and the righteous. Parents will flee these toxic government schools.
The District outlined an urgent plan this week to vaccinate nearly 30,000 students — more than 25 percent of the public and private school population — who are behind on their routine shots over the summer so that they can legally attend school in August.
Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has vowed to enforce for the upcoming academic year a long-standing but historically ignored law that says students need to be up to date on their vaccines against diseases including measles, polio and whooping cough to enroll in schools. But the promise to enforce the mandate has underscored just how many students in the District are behind on their vaccinations, and how far compliance rates plummeted in the pandemic when many families skipped doctors’ appointments.
According to city data, around 75 percent of public school students are current with their routine vaccines, with students in the wealthiest wards having the highest compliance rates. If the city outreach efforts to vaccinate students are ineffective, scores of students — likely a disproportionate number of low-income students of color — would be kept at home during a school year where students are already expected to still be recovering from the academic fallouts from the pandemic.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2022-08-03 07:53:372022-08-03 07:53:37D.C. Plans to EXPEL CHILDREN From School If They Don’t Get The Covid Vaccine
Leaked document is labelled as “Unclassified/Law Enforcement Sensitive” that is for “FBI Internal Use Only.”
Under the “Symbols” category of the document, “2A” is listed with the following explanation: “MVEs justify their existence with the Second Amendment, due to the mention of a ‘well regulated Militia,’ as well as the right to bear arms.”
“Revolutionary War imagery” such as the “Gadsden Flag” and the “Betsy Ross Flag” are cited in the document under “Commonly Referenced Historical Imagery or Quotes.”
Project Veritas released a newly leaked document today provided by an FBI whistleblower, which shows how the Bureau classifies American citizens it deems to be potential “Militia Violent Extremists” [MVEs].
In the document, the FBI cites symbols, images, phrases, events, and individuals that agents should look out for when identifying alleged domestic terrorists.
The “Unclassified/Law Enforcement Sensitive” document says it is for “FBI Internal Use Only.”
Of note, under the “Symbols” section, is a prominent citation of the Second Amendment, where it explains that “MVEs justify their existence with the Second Amendment, due to the mention of a ‘well regulated Militia,’ as well as the right to bear arms.”
Right below that, under the “Commonly Referenced Historical Imagery and Quotes” section, Revolutionary War images such as the Gadsden Flag and the Betsy Ross Flag are listed. Each flag displayed in the document comes with a brief description of what it means.
Under the “Common Phrases and References” section of the leaked document, Ashli Babbitt is cited as a person that MVEs consider to be a Martyr.
The same document also refers to Ruby Ridge, Waco, and even Timothy McVeigh, tying in traditional American ideas and symbols with radical and/or violent events in the past.
