“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”

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Food Banks Can’t Keep up with Demand in Age of Bidenomics

Posted on December 16, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

One of the White House’s main talking points is that under President Joe Biden, the U.S. economy has dramatically improved, but the reality throughout the country is that his “Bidenomics” policies are not translating into visible results.

Prices are still much higher today than when he took office, and while jobs are plentiful, the inflationary pressures mean that worker salaries are not going nearly as far as they otherwise would.

One place where Bidenomics appears to be having a negative impact is food banks around the country, many of which are struggling to keep up with higher demand as the country heads into the final year of Biden’s first term.

According to Fox News, the nonprofit group Feeding America says that, according to its data, the amount of money Americans earn is not keeping up with the escalating prices of nearly everything they need. As such, the group says that about 1 in 7 people are struggling to feed themselves.

Jen Muzia with the Seattle Ballard Foodbank told the network that operating the food bank has become much more expensive during the Biden era.

“It’s not only our guests that come in to shop. We’re also seeing it on us as we go to buy food. It’s costing us way more to buy food,” she said, adding that her food bank had to buy a lot more this year to keep up with demand.

“For us, we are seeing more than double what we saw pre-pandemic. And then we’ve seen even a greater increase when snap benefits were rolled back in February or March,” she said.

Brian Greene, president of the Houston Food Bank, told Fox News that inflation — which reached double digits for months — has had a major impact in a number of ways.

“Food inflation is only running about 3% now, but rent inflation is over 7%. And for low-income or working families, rent can account for about 50% or more of their income. So, as those costs are continuing to go up, the money just isn’t going as far, and food tends to be a flexible expense”, Greene told Fox News.

The Department of Agriculture reported that between 2021 and 2022, 13.5 million more people became food insecure as inflation skyrocketed.

Feeding America’s Vince Hall said: “We estimate that almost 50 million people have visited food banks in the past year seeking help. The Federal and State governments have rolled back nearly all support that was provided for people during the pandemic at the very time that inflation was taking an extra large bite out of their income.”

The only fix, he noted further, is adding more volunteers and bringing in more donations.

Meanwhile, most Americans hold Biden responsible for the economic conditions. In key swing states crucial for the 2024 elections, Democrats have largely disassociated themselves from the term “Bidenomics” and are moving away from using it as the election cycle gains momentum.

Biden trotted out the phrase earlier this year after claiming it was first coined by members of the media. NBC News reported, “But early on, it became clear that the phrase wasn’t resonating with voters, and by the end of November, Biden had only used the phrase once since the start of the month.”

The network also noted that the phrase never caught on with most Democrats.

A poll earlier this fall found that only 39 percent of voters in four key swing states—Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina—have confidence in the president’s ability to handle the economy, RealClearPolitics reported.

Steve Cortes, the chairman and founder of the League of American Workers, said in a column posted to the site that the reason 77 percent of the voters surveyed said that the nation is on the wrong track is because of the economy.

Of the 39 percent that had a favorable opinion of the president’s handling of the economy, a mere 9 percent said they gave him “strong approval.”

“So, despite the propaganda of media apologists and cherry-picking of a small set of data points that appear temporarily uplifting, voters clearly understand their tough economic slog and place blame squarely upon Biden and his allies,” the author said.

The Republican Party

Freedom is Your Natural Oxygen, and Your Government is Destroying it

Posted on December 15, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

Freedom is your psychological oxygen. Like oxygen, freedom is not optional. Without freedom, you cannot think or act, not rationally or intelligently. You cannot practice survival. You have no shot at happiness. When you’re morally and psychologically asphyxiated, the emotional and intellectual results parallel the bodily consequences when you’re physically asphyxiated.

If someone tries to suffocate you, you don’t shrug it off. You don’t reply, “Let’s not go to extremes. It’s ok for you to cut off my air supply for 3 minutes, but not for 10 minutes.” If someone lays a hand on you, you treat it as an unpardonable, inexcusable offense. You don’t let it ride, and you don’t let it stand.

I wish that people took the relentless, now daily assaults on their basic liberties as they would take daily attempts to suffocate or strangle them. Which is to say: not take them at all. That spirit of “don’t you dare tread on me” gave birth to the freedom we Americans, generations later, now allow to slip from our grasp.

What the wokesters, politicians, perverts, racists and panderers are doing to us constitute unpardonable crimes for which they cannot be forgiven (they’re not sorry) and for which proportional retaliation is morally mandatory. Americans, who for generations have mostly been free, cannot grasp what it will be like when all our dwindling freedoms are gone, as they soon will be, with continued inaction on our parts. We are literally being suffocated, and continue to act like it isn’t happening.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Two Weeks that Changed America

Posted on December 14, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

I was recently asked if there was a defining moment that dramatically accelerated and perhaps made permanent the chaos this nation is presently facing. My answer: the two weeks between March 16 and March 30, 2020.

On March 16th, Donald Trump declared a National Emergency for COVID-19 and effectively shut down the nation for “15 days to slow the spread”. At a press conference announcing the temporary shutdown he said: “With several weeks of focused action, we can turn the corner, and turn it quickly.”

Regardless of the severity, never throughout the annals of mankind has a nation been shut down to combat a pandemic. However, the politically compromised and dishonest medical advisors to Trump (including Drs. Fauci and Birx) advised him to declare a National Emergency and agree to a shutdown and social distancing by pointing to the supposed success of China’s choreographed lockdowns.

Soon thereafter, Trump allied with Mitch McConnell and the Democrats to structure an unprecedented economic relief package which was passed by Congress on March 27, 2020. Trump signed the $2.2 Trillion Coronavirus relief bill or the CARES Act on the same day. This was the largest single spending bill in human history and equivalent to the annual Gross Domestic Product of Russia.

Within the voluminous CARES Act was $400 million to the states to legitimize, promote, and underwrite mass mail-in voting and by default, ballot harvesting. By including this spending in the relief package, both political parties and the White House gave their stamp of approval for mass mail-in voting and the inevitable attendant abuse and manipulation.

The announced initial 15 days to slow the spread of COVID-19 days became 45 days as Donald Trump, on March 30, 2020, reluctantly extended the de facto national shutdown for an additional 30 days after acquiescing to the so-called public health experts in the government.

Once that extension was announced, Trump lost control of events and it became impossible for him to reverse course. He was mercilessly mocked whenever he talked about ending the lockdowns toward the end of the 45-day period as the legacy media and the Democrats were incessantly fearmongering and the federal medical bureaucracy was deliberately inflating the infection and fatality numbers.

This cabal was secure in the knowledge that the measures outlined by Trump and the White House Covid Task Force would sink the economy and open the door to mass mail-in voting and voter fraud. Which would also be the catalyst to defeat Trump in the general election. Accordingly, the political opposition and legacy media unrelentingly wallowed in alarmism and championed draconian lockdowns, masking and social distancing while also promoting mass mail-in voting.

Thus, the extension issued on March 30th inevitably led to long-term lockdowns, massive economic dislocation, protracted school closures as the various state governors, pointing to Trump’s decisions as their justification, initiated their own lockdown regimens. Trump was confronted with the reality that a president has no legal basis to intervene in the shutdown policies of the individual states.

Instinctively, Trump knew he had made a mistake as he watched the economy implode. However, due to the upcoming election, he hesitated to remove those around him, such as the duplicitous Drs. Fauci and Birx, who were not only incompetent but in league with the Democrat/Legacy Media axis.

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Trump, in his speeches, did attempt to convince the governors and federal bureaucrats to alter course, but it was too late as the damage to his presidency, the nation, and the citizenry was a fait accompli. Further, with donor and federal government funding combined with insouciance on the part of the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, the Democrat war machine relentlessly, and in some cases unconstitutionally, succeeded in changing election laws in numerous states prior to November 3, 2020.

The decisions and actions between March 16th and March 30, 2020 were the primary factor in the election of Joe Biden and the Obama-led Marxist takeover of the presidency and the Executive Branch, which has eventuated in the following:

A de facto open border resulting in over 10 million illegal immigrants and an untold number of potential terrorists flooding the nation,
$10.3 Trillion in new national debt since March of 2020 (in 2008 the total national debt was $10.0 Trillion),
A potentially permanent stagnant economy and ongoing inflation resulting in one dollar in November of 2023 buying only 82% of what it did in March of 2020, while real disposable income is down 7.5%,
A politically weaponized justice system and federal police force (FBI) targeting Trump and other political adversaries as well as everyday Americans,
Permanent uncontrolled mail-in voting in 34 of the 50 states,
The massive expansion of the government-sponsored censorship and domestic spying industry,
An overwhelming erosion of confidence in the Federal health bureaucracy due to manipulating data, promoting lockdowns, and the haphazard approval and mandating of the COVID-19 vaccine,
The funding of a never-ending and unnecessary war in Ukraine, the enriching of Iran, and the greenlighting of Chinese expansion and belligerency.

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Donald Trump deserves to be recognized as an indispensable man who was the right president at the right time and prior to March of 2020 had one of the most successful presidencies in the modern era. However, when confronted by his adversaries and their manipulation of the Coronavirus Pandemic, Trump’s acquiescence and decision-making process was out of character as he was far too fixated on the upcoming election.

The decisions a president makes in times of national crises oftentimes have enormous implications for the future of the country. The decisions made in those fateful two weeks between March 16 and March 30, 2020 are the backdrop to the chaos this nation is presently experiencing.

Steve McCann

Image: OpenClipArt.com

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Put an End to Student-Loan Programs

Posted on December 11, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

During the fourth debate between candidates for the Republican nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suggested student loans should be “backed by the universities because they need to have an incentive to produce gainful employment for people.” While DeSantis has a valid point, his solution doesn’t get to the heart of the matter regarding student loans. The government should have nothing to say about student loans. Such loans, like all loans, should only be made by private individuals, businesses, and institutions. We should end all government-backed student loan programs.

DeSantis has repeatedly demonstrated his proclivity to act like a bully and force others to act as he thinks proper. His suggestion regarding student loans implies that he is willing to continue that tactic. Instead of forcing universities to back loans, he should simply end the government’s involvement. If that occurred, the universities could become lenders if they desired.

It is no secret that the value of a college education isn’t what it once was. Many companies, including Google, Bank of America, Apple, Walmart, and IBM, are eliminating a college degree as a requirement for many jobs. The hiring platform ZipRecruitor reports that the share of jobs requiring a degree dropped from 18 percent in 2022 to 14.5 percent in 2023.

The government’s role in backing student loans is a significant cause of the devaluation of a college degree. Government backed loans enable millions to attend college, and thereby increase the number of individuals with degrees. Just as an increase in the money supply decreases the value of each individual dollar, an increase in the number of college graduates decreases the value of each diploma.

Absent the government’s involvement, private lenders would be much more careful when extending student loans. When the government is backing loans, lenders have little incentive to ensure that borrowers can repay the loans. Indeed, this is precisely what caused the financial crisis of 2007-2008.

In the years leading up to the crisis, lenders were forced by the federal government to write mortgages for individuals who were previously unqualified. To do so, lenders had to drop their standards. These were high risk loans, and a high rate of default was easy to predict. But the lenders didn’t care because the government-sponsored enterprises known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were backing the loans.

The solution isn’t loan forgiveness as Joe Biden keeps attempting. Nor is the solution the coercive measures implied by Ron DeSantis. The solution is to end the government’s involvement in every aspect, and that includes putting an end to all government-backed student loans.

If you found value from this article please share it on social media.

Brian Phillips

Brian Phillips is the founder of the Texas Institute for Property Rights. Brian has been defending property rights for nearly thirty years. He played a key role in defeating zoning in Houston, Texas, and in Hobbs, New Mexico. He is the author of three books: Individual Rights and Government Wrongs, The Innovator Versus the Collective, and Principles and Property Rights. Visit his website at texasipr.com.

Donald Trump and the Loss of Credibility in the U.S. Government

Posted on December 11, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

“In individuals, insanity is rare. But in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“The timing of the Hunter Biden tax indictment is one more sign that the deep state is planning to sideline Biden & pick a new puppet for 2024, all the while using this indictment as a perfect fig leaf to claim that the Trump prosecutions aren’t politically motivated. Kills two birds with one stone,” Republican entrepreneur and presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy wrote in a post on X.

Sound theory. So we may be looking at President Michelle Obama or President Gavin Newsom in 2025. Puppet replacement a possibility.

When the government loses all credibility and moral stature in the eyes of a majority of the people, it’s no longer a sustainable government. It’s a tyranny. Control over reluctant or unwilling participants is all it has left.

Biden is a puppet, and a joke. He and his depraved ruling family are a mockery of not only the U.S. Constitution, but of civilization itself. 53 percent now view the FBI as a politicized Gestapo, which it is. The military openly helps the other side, as in the unspeakable Afghanistan withdrawal fiasco, and opts for the elevation of drag queens over military preparedness. The government is tens of trillions in exponentially increasing debt, electronically printing fiat currency like a banana republic.

The American republic is beyond repair and has lost credibility. Wherever it goes from here — it will not go on as it is.

Excellent summary of the Trump phenomenon from a reader comment at AmericanThinker.com:

If Trump spoke like any other milquetoast politician he would never have received as much attention. Inciting the Left made them reckless and the masks came off. They are now in a full blown mode of screeching madly at the sky. They have become unhinged. Everything about Trump triggers them, and the crazier they get, the more Trump appears to be the only sane one.

It seems like a dangerous game, since the Left’s desperation to Stop Trump will drive them to do something truly radical and horrific. I pray to God he has superior protection because they will stop at nothing. When they say “Our Democracy” is at stake, they mean Their Tyranny and stranglehold over the country.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

With Significant Loss, “Get Over It” Doesn’t Work

Posted on December 10, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

A Delaware Coast Press reader writes that her father died almost 20 years ago. She considers herself fully recovered, but when something reminds her of him, the feelings come rushing back. She asks me if she needs medication to keep her from falling back into mourning.

This is my answer to her: A major loss is not something you ever fully get over. You just get used to it. When your father died, you felt the loss every day. As time passed, you didn’t think about it as often, but when you do, you feel it just as strongly. No, you’re not fully over it – and why should you be? There’s nothing wrong with feeling loss. If you couldn’t function during your unhappiness, that would be one thing. But to feel it after all these years is normal.

In his online article “Getting Over a Loved One’s Death,” Rodney Grubbs writes, “Having a hard time getting over the loved one is completely natural …. As a general observation, the stronger the love, the longer it takes to get over them. And quite frankly, I’m not sure what ‘getting over them’ really means. If you truly loved them, you will never completely get over it. What you will do is learn to live with it from a different perspective. Then you’ll feel better about moving on with your life.”

You don’t need medication for these occasional feelings. Medication is for people who are unable to cope, i.e., unable to handle the basic activities of daily living without significant disruption. When it comes to medication, there are two schools of thought, and both are wrong. Some people feel it’s wrong to take medication because it’s a sign of weakness. Nonsense. If your functioning can actually be improved with medication, then what moral reason is there not to do so? We don’t refuse medication for high blood pressure or diabetes on the basis of moral weakness, so why this?

The other common mistake is that people see medication as a cure. It’s not, especially for something like depression over a personal loss. When anti-anxiety or anti-depressant medication does work, it treats only the symptoms. But so do a lot of medications. There are many problems for which there are no known causes, and people take medication to address the symptoms. With grief and loss, it’s OK to take medication if you find that you just can’t function. Why not try to relieve some of that suffering? At the same time, no pill can make you bypass the natural process of grief. To escape the grief of having lost a loved one, you’d have to escape the experience of ever having loved them. That doesn’t make any sense.

Look at grief as normal. Tell yourself, “This is healthy. It means I loved him and that he was, indeed, the wonderful person I perceived him to be. I’m crying not only because he’s not here, but also because he was a great person to have loved.” Talk the feelings out with someone who experienced the loss along with you, or maybe even a counselor or a therapist. Don’t bottle everything up in the name of “getting over it.” It doesn’t work.

There are different kinds of losses. Losing a parent can be difficult, but it’s expected. There’s usually not the feeling of “falling through space” that comes with the loss of a spouse or a child. But loss is loss, and you’ll still feel it years after the fact. The challenge is not to get over it; the challenge is to reintegrate yourself back into a new and different life without your loved one.

Try to get back to your daily activities. Take on new goals to fill the void. If your loss is a major one, you’ll most likely need six months to a year for the process to unfold naturally and comfortably.

You can’t replace your loved one, but little by little you can resume your activities and routines, adding new experiences and memories to the ones you both enjoyed before. Your new life is not required to be better or worse than the old one. It will just be different.

Michael J. Hurd, Life’s a Beach

What Entitles Some to Debt Forgiveness ?

Posted on December 8, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

“Before President Biden took office, it was virtually impossible for eligible borrowers to access the student debt relief they rightfully earned,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement.

How does one “rightfully earn” forgiveness of a debt into which one voluntarily entered?

What entitles one group of people to eradication of debt, and not another? I paid my student loans off in 2001. Why am I not getting a refund on tuition? Why am I NOT rightfully entitled while another is?

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Henry David Thoreau on the State

Posted on December 8, 2023 by theartfuldilettante

There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few went to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.

– Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” [1849]

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Category Archives: Politics

Tucker Carlson: ‘The Republican Party Really Do Hate Their Own Voters in a Way That’s Pathological’

Be a Perfectionist—Rationally

Food Banks Can’t Keep up with Demand in Age of Bidenomics

Freedom is Your Natural Oxygen, and Your Government is Destroying it

Two Weeks that Changed America

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Put an End to Student-Loan Programs

Donald Trump and the Loss of Credibility in the U.S. Government

With Significant Loss, “Get Over It” Doesn’t Work

What Entitles Some to Debt Forgiveness ?

Henry David Thoreau on the State