1) Do These People Lie About Everything? Seriously
Annabelle Gordon
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) speaks at a press conference on WEE1 Tactical’s marketing of a ‘JR-15’ rifle towards children at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, January 26, 2023.
“At first you have to laugh at the ‘gas stove ban’ narrative being cooked up by the MAGA GOP,” Schumer said in a statement released Friday.
Our longtime friend Carl Schramm, professor of public health at Syracuse University, recently testified before the Senate Budget Committee, on public health and climate change. (Don’t ask us what climate change has to do with public health, but the Chairman of the Committee Sheldon Whitehouse thinks every malady in the world is connected to global warming.)
Carl reminded Congress that the purpose of the CDC is to combat disease, not to change the weather:
As most of us would agree, the CDC, the nation’s principal agency charged with protecting public health, failed to effectively control the COVID pandemic. I believe the principal reason is that both the CDC and the country’s larger public health establishment, reflecting in part initiatives of Congress and major philanthropies, have expanded the scope and definition of public health such that its boundaries are nearly meaningless.
Consider that the CDC currently deals with a wide range of problems that are not encompassed by the traditional definition of public health, which is “the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health.” Instead CDC deals with a long list of “epidemics” that cannot be corrected by traditional public health tools. Among these are gun deaths, traffic fatalities, obesity, domestic violence…Two of the newest CDC initiatives attempt to ameliorate the “social determinants” of health, and promote health equity.
Simply, the CDC is the archetype of an agency beset by “mission creep.”
Even if global warming presented a clear and present danger to the health of every American, there is little that the CDC can do to mitigate such a threat.
3) Fed Raises Interest Rate To 5.25% – Are They Done?
Necessitated by the Biden $6 trillion spending and borrowing spree with inflation soaring to as high as 9% and still running at 5%, the Fed has now raised interest rates 10 times in a little more than a year. These are the bitter fruits of Modern Monetary Theory – the concept that the U.S. government can borrow ad infinitum with little or no cost to the American economy. These higher rates will choke off growth for sure and we pray they don’t plunge America into recession... Can we now throw that theory into the dustbin of history?
For non-economists who don’t live and breathe this stuff, we thought this would be a good time for a little historical perspective. The short-term view shows that rates are now higher than at any time in a decade and nearly in two decades.
10 Years Of Fed Interest Rate Moves
But those of us over the age of 60 will recall that rates can go a LOT higher than that. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the Fed raised rates to nearly 20%! Those rate hikes under then-Fed chief Paul Volcker were a reaction to high gas prices driven by OPEC, sluggish real economic growth, an inflation rate that hit double digits, a weakling president in the Oval Office, huge expansions in the welfare state, and a sinking dollar. Does any of this sound familiar?
4) Mortgage Payments on Median Price Homes Have Almost Doubled Under Biden
Speaking of inflation, here's a jaw-dropping calculation from the House Ways and Means Committee:
The analysis is somewhat misleading because homes are an asset, so when they rise in price, homeowners benefit. But much of the increase here in buying a home does not benefit home sellers, because the higher prices are in part due to higher inflation and higher mortgage interest rates. No one benefits from that.
The first “Nation’s Report Card” from the Department of Education since the school lockdowns are out and the damage reminds us of what a 1983 commission convened by Ronald Reagan said about the then state of public schools:
“If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”
The “scores that shall live in infamy” that today’s Report Card reports are disastrous. All of the gains in history and civics made since the 1990s have been wiped out.
Only 13 percent of eighth-graders met proficiency standards for explaining U.S. history. Only a fifth of students scored at or above the proficient level in civics, or explaining our government and policy structures. Those are the lowest levels ever recorded.
This comes on top of test results released last fall that showed math scores falling faster than they ever have and a nationwide drop in reading that wiped out three decades of gains.
Given this epic collapse in our government schools, is it any wonder that school choice is catching on in almost half the states? Why not for every child in every state?
