August 5, 2024
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Kamala Harris Is The Third Wave Of Fundamental Transformation
By Rick Manning
The fundamental transformation is entering its third and final stage through the nomination of Kamala Harris to be president of the United States.
Barack Obama’s presidency was phase one – the Overton Window phase.
The idea of “fundamental transformation” was never even uttered by a presidential nominee until candidate Barack Obama opened the door during his speech in Columbia, Missouri on October 30, 2008 when he declared, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
The country was in the midst of a financial meltdown and while President George W. Bush and his administration did much of the work to stabilize the situation, they left the country to the newly elected Obama to institute long-term measures to help ensure stability.
And Obama through the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation created an agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Board which was given far reaching power to regulate the financial industry free from congressional or presidential involvement. The net effect was a virtual regulatory take-over of what remained of a free-market capital distribution system.
Obama also assailed the one-sixth of our economy health care system, pushing through the Affordable Care Act, which has had the dual effect of transforming our health care system into a health insurance system, and creating a middle-class health care entitlement by raising eligibility for Medicaid up to 300 percent of the poverty level.
Today, just more than a decade later, after repeated half-hearted efforts by Senate Republicans to repeal it, even the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 doesn’t call for Obamacare’s repeal. The forces for a private, doctor/patient focused health care system have been totally routed to the detriment of those seeking quality health care, but just another massive expansion of government power and spending.
The election of President Donald Trump put a temporary halt to the ‘transformation’ with an emphasis on ending the foreign outsourcing of America’s industrial capacity and a massive, successful regulatory rollback re-energizing America’s oil and natural gas sectors to the point that our country dreamed beyond energy independence to energy dominance.
Upon the installation of Joe Biden as President Trump’s successor, phase two of the fundamental transformation began with the climate change used as the excuse. Building off of regulatory success in the Obama administration which effectively cut off capital for coal-fired power plants, the Biden administration successfully passed something ironically known as the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA had little to do with inflation reduction and everything to do with converting America from a land where electricity was inexpensive and abundant to one completely dependent upon electricity that by regulatory design was expensive with distribution managed.
Chevron Oil Company’s CEO came back from the globalist orgy at Davos, Switzerland in the Biden years declaring that no company would build another major petroleum refining facility in the U.S. ever again. Why? Because there was no capital available to finance it at a reasonable rate because the expectation was that the government would effectively put oil and natural gas out of business by ending demand through electric vehicle incentives, etc.
The Biden administration, following the suicidal state of California’s lead, put into place a timeline for requiring automakers to only sell electric vehicles, effectively forcing automakers to discontinue research and development for gasoline powered cars and expand factory and other expansions into building electric vehicles. It really doesn’t matter that there is little demand for these vehicles on a mass scale, the Biden regulations and expectations for capital investment are attempting to end gasoline powered vehicle production due to an expectation of their extinction.
The Biden administration has also sought to dictate to the utility grid, which produces the electricity that America depends upon, a conversion over to much less efficient and reliable wind and solar energy versus expanding dependent and resilient natural gas, coal and nuclear powered generators.
While it seems inconsistent to create a policy dynamic which creates total dependence upon electricity generation and then destroy dams that produce that electricity and pray that the sun shines and the wind blows for the heater and air conditioning to work, this policy makes complete sense if you are attempting to convert the American economy away from being market based and toward one which follows federal government dictates.
To a lesser degree, the Biden administration has also declared war on the domestic agriculture industry seeking to force cattlemen off the land, and warring against the farms which provide the food which makes the U.S. the envy of the world.
Culturally, the Biden administration took the Obama policy of forcing a single school district in Illinois to accommodate transgenders to the next level by embracing the war on normal through education regulations that dramatically expand indoctrination in the schools. This transformation is shown by a March 2024 Gallup Poll which found that, “the number of Americans who identify as LGBTQ+ has more than doubled” since 2012.
The subhead of the Gallup article “More than one in five GenZ adults identify as LGBTQ+” tells the story of the generational transformation that has occurred since Obama’s presidency. This change shows the direct impact of the Phase One and Two takeover of the public school systems and its effect of younger generations. Note that 9.8 percent of Millennials claim to be non-heterosexual compared to 4.5 percent of Gen X and 2.3 percent of Baby Boomers.
This is why Joe Biden has repeatedly called the 2024 presidential election, a battle for the soul of America. He is right.
A Kamala Harris presidency will lock in the fundamental transformation of the energy and electricity generation system strangling the capacity for America to grow economically and creating an economically forced urbanization of Americans who neither will be able to afford a personal vehicle nor the electricity to make it run.
And this is why President Trump’s clarion call to Make America Great Again continues to resonate voters who don’t live on the relatively densely populated east and west coasts.
The only way to reestablish our economic independence and end the capital strangulation of the essential abundant electricity generation and fossil fuels sector is to rip the Green New Deal incentives built into the tax code by the IRA out by the roots. And for Congress and a potential Donald Trump-led administration to aggressively utilize the lifeline handed by the Supreme Court decision to cut bureaucrats autocratic power over the legality of regulations by identifying and stripping out regulations that are only tangentially reflective of the law they are based upon.
Unfortunately, just as the building blocks for fundamental transformation were put in place in 2009, it will take decades to reestablish anything resembling a market based economic system. But, the job President Trump did in ending tens of thousands of regulations in his first term set that stage, and a second term can re-establish an electricity grid that produces and can deliver the amount of electricity needed for 2030 and beyond while taking the thumb off of the investment scale in favor of electricity generating fuels that are Obama/Biden/Harris’ plan to collapse the largest economy in the world into darkness, collapsed under the weight of demand which dramatically exceeds the supply.
No matter who wins in 2024, the 2030s are going to look different than the 2010s. The question is will we live in a world where we have to ask government permission to turn on the light switch in our home.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/08/kamala-harris-is-the-third-wave-of-fundamental-transformation/
Recession signal 10-year, 2-year spread briefly uninverts as stock markets capitulation weighs on Biden-Harris economy
By Robert Romano
The spread between 10-year treasuries and 2-year treasuries briefly uninverted above 0 this morning on Aug. 5 for the first time since July 2022, when it fully inverted in the wake of the sticky inflation which peaked at 9.1 percent in June 2022.
It quickly reinverted itself and stands at just -0.1 percent as of this writing. Fully inversions like that tend to predict a recession on the horizon. Now, with the unemployment rate up to 4.3 percent in July from its 3.4 percent low in April 2023 and the Federal Reserve signaling it is nearly ready to begin cutting interest rates—it usually does that when a recession is closing in—a slowdown or downturn appears imminent.
And stock markets appear to be agree, with major indices taking big hits in just the past two trading days.
As for the 10-year, 2-year spread, when it inverts, that means short-term interest rates were higher than long-term interest rates. This happens when traders buy more long-term bonds than short-term bonds, likely on the expectation that interest rates — and therefore growth — will be lower looking forward.
Now the situation is beginning to reverse as the lower interest rates are kicking in, anticipating the Fed cutting interest rates moving forward. That usually happens about 6 to 12 months before recessions are typically booked, just looking at the effective Federal Funds Rate over modern history.
So, what does this likely mean? As investors shift in treasuries purchases—an attempt to lock in the highest possible interest rate in the near term—demand for treasuries increases and so interest rates drop. As capital shifts out of equities—markets appear to be rapidly crashing on the unemployment news—this means firms will have less on hand to hire new people.
Additionally, unemployment continued claims are up a full 746,000 since their low in Oct. 2022 to 1.945 million as of July 6, according to Department of Labor statistics. But overall unemployment is up 1.47 million since its Dec. 2022 low of 5.7 million. That indicates half of the people who lost their jobs have already run out of unemployment benefits.
And with the yield curve finally beginning to normalize itself, that usually predicts more unemployment on the horizon as the air comes out of the economy.
Politically, that is all undoubtedly terrible news for Vice President Kamala Harris who is now squaring off against former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election after President Joe Biden stood aside for the Democratic Party’s nomination this year.
Usually, when there’s high inflation followed by rising unemployment, the incumbent party, in this case the Democrats, pays the price at the polls, with the most recent political victims being Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. Donald Trump also lost his job in 2020, when although there was not high inflation, there was the Covid recession and 25 million jobs temporarily being lost.
There are exceptions, for example, Ronald Reagan experienced high inflation followed by a bad recession in 1981 and 1982 and rise in unemployment that peaked at 10.8 percent Dec. 1982. But by the time he was running for reelection, unemployment was already down to 7.4 percent and millions of jobs were being created. Reagan went on to win in a landslide.
Whereas in the Biden-Harris economy, unemployment is still rising during the election year. In 1960 and 1980, when recessions struck during election years, the incumbent party definitely paid the price. Whether and how that impacts Harris in her own election bid remains to be seen, but it probably doesn’t help. Stay tuned.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
J. Christian Adams: Here’s Why Poll Workers Create Fair Elections
By J. Christian Adams
Poll workers are essential to free and fair elections. They help run the voting locations and check voters in.
In the 2020 election, there was a shortage of poll workers. Wisconsin even had to activate the National Guard to help assist as poll workers. The shortage of poll workers also led to long lines for people who showed up to vote in person on Election Day.
Today marks the nonpartisan civic holiday, National Poll Worker Recruitment Day, aiming to address the need for poll workers to sign up and monitor the general election in November.
Working on election law for two decades, the question I hear most is: “What can I do to help?”
Easy. The answer is to sign up to be a poll worker or poll watcher. These are both critical roles that help Americans vote and ensure that we have a transparent election process.
Nearly every county in the nation needs help on election day. Polls are run by Americans just like you.
A poll worker helps check voters in, explains voting procedures and makes sure voters understand how to use voting equipment.
If you live in a state with voter ID, the poll worker will check your driver’s license or whatever form of ID you provide with the poll book to prove you are who you say you are and that you are registered to vote.
A poll worker will give instructions for casting a ballot and show how to use the voting machine. These are crucial instructions that need to be followed, so a ballot will be counted.
Another important role in ensuring the integrity of our elections is poll watchers. Poll watchers observe and monitor elections to confirm that rules are being followed. In some states, poll watchers may even challenge the eligibility of voters or the validity of ballots.
I can personally attest to how important poll workers are to stopping cheating and other funny business. In my time at the Department of Justice, I served as an election observer. I have also witnessed election workers counting paper ballots and tallying votes for the opposite of what the voter marked.
Unfortunately, some state laws make it extremely difficult to find poll watchers.
In Pennsylvania, a poll watcher must reside in the county where the polling place is located. In one-party dominated areas – such as the city of Philadelphia – this acts as a barrier to clean elections. Party registration in Philadelphia is overwhelmingly Democrat, and it becomes very hard to find Republicans with the courage to spend all day at the polls.
Additionally, poll watchers can become witnesses. They can serve as the eyes on the process and can report wrongdoing to litigators like the Public Interest Legal Foundation who can bring lawsuits to enforce the law.
If you care about confidence in elections, sign up today to be a poll worker or watcher.
We are lucky that in America the people run our elections. In many countries, like Russia and Belarus, their elections are shams run by political elites with supporters of the opposition facing the possibility of jail or even death.
In America, the regime does not run our decentralized election process. While our election process needs improvements in many areas, we are still the best functioning Republic in the world.
It is time to get involved and restore confidence in the process.
To view online: https://dailycaller.com/2024/08/01/j-christian-adams-heres-why-poll-workers-create-fair-elections/