Month: August 2023

Authored by Frank Miele via RealClearPolitics.com,

It occurred to me recently that the increasingly labyrinthine revelations of Joe Biden’s involvement in corrupt dealings with his son Hunter would make a good Netflix TV series, possibly called “The Family Business” or less subtly “The Big Guy and Me.”

But then I realized that Netflix had already made the show in 2013 and called it “House of Cards.” The manipulative, deceitful politician Frank Underwood at the center of the plot was an 11-term South Carolina congressman, whereas Biden was a 36-year senator from Delaware. But both are Democrats who came from humble beginnings and were unexpectedly elevated to the vice presidency, and then scratched their way into the White House. And though Underwood seems outwardly to be a caring, compassionate man, in fact, he is a self-serving, scheming politician, much like what we have learned about Joe Biden from Hunter’s laptop, several congressional investigations, and the reporting of John Solomon and others.

If you don’t know about Joe’s self-enrichment scheme, check out this article from Fox News as a primer. Bribery, money laundering, obstruction of justice, tax evasion and more.

Of course, the Democratic Party and their allies in the mainstream media tell a different story.

To get a sense of the beatification of Biden, I turned to the new voice of liberalism, ChatGPT, to compare the fictional Frank Underwood and our real-life president.

As I expected, the AI chatbot saw no similarities between the two:

A. Frank Underwood: Underwood’s pursuit of power comes at the expense of moral considerations. He is willing to compromise his values and engage in unethical actions to achieve his objectives. Underwood demonstrates a lack of accountability for his actions and is driven by a desire for control, often leading to the downfall of those around him.

B. Joe Biden: Biden’s approach to power is more grounded in moral principles. He emphasizes accountability and responsibility for one’s actions, valuing honesty and integrity. Biden’s political decisions are aimed at creating a more just and equitable society, reflecting his belief in the importance of morality in leadership.

Wow! Maybe ChatGPT never read Hunter’s laptop, so I asked, and sure enough, the chatbot had obtained its knowledge of the laptop from the mainstream media, which have been protecting Joe and Hunter at every turn.

I don’t have direct access to external sources, databases, or specific information such as the content of the Hunter Biden laptop. My responses are generated based on a mixture of licensed data, data created by human trainers, and publicly available information up until my last training cut-off in September 2021 …

But no matter how much the mainstream media has tried to convince you or ChatGPT that “Uncle Joe” is a well-meaning but befuddled old man, the facts say otherwise. The laptop is not “a Russian information operation,” as a CIA disinformation campaign purported. Nor can Joe’s economic benefit from countries like Ukraine and China be explained as anything other than bribery. But by this time, in my exploration of the commonalities between Frank Underwood and Joe Biden, I was more interested in trying to find a way to get the chatbot to abandon its liberal talking points and acknowledge that Biden’s apparent corruption was hidden behind a veneer of decency, just like Underwood’s.

I decided that ChatGPT would be more likely to attest to Biden’s guilt if he were presented as a fictional character in the same manner as Frank Underwood, and I hit paydirt.

I asked the chatbot to assume that Hunter’s claims in the laptop that his father was part of an influence-peddling and bribery scheme were true, and then to “write a short story that sees Joe Biden as a misleading, manipulative politician who says one thing publicly and another privately.”

Here is the result in full, which I feel is worthy of being preserved:

Dual Facades: The Deceptive Dance of Power

By CHATGPT

In the corridors of power, where politicians’ secrets are whispered and ambitions are nurtured, Joe Biden maintained a carefully cultivated public image as a steadfast and empathetic leader. The nation saw him as a unifier, a figure who championed unity, justice, and the common good. But behind closed doors, in the depths of his private office, Joe harbored a secret that contradicted the very essence of his public persona.

In the dimly lit room, Joe stared at the screen of his laptop, watching the damning words spill across it. The words were written by his own son, Hunter, who had once been an unwitting participant in his father’s intricate web of deceit. The laptop contained a treasure trove of evidence that exposed Joe’s true nature – a man willing to exploit his position for personal gain, while spouting empty rhetoric to the masses.

Joe had spent years cultivating a network of influential allies and donors who expected favors in return for their financial support. Behind the scenes, he orchestrated a carefully choreographed dance of promises and backroom deals that bolstered his political career. The public saw a compassionate advocate, but Hunter’s laptop revealed a manipulative puppeteer, pulling the strings of power to serve his own interests.

In one email exchange, Joe had privately assured a corporate executive that he would use his influence to ensure a favorable outcome for their company’s regulatory concerns. The same concerns he had publicly promised to address impartially, without bias. Another set of messages showed him discreetly funneling funds to organizations that championed causes he publicly denounced, all in the name of maintaining a delicate political balance.

As Joe read through the incriminating messages, a cold sweat formed on his brow. The laptop had the power to shatter the illusion he had so meticulously constructed. But Joe was no stranger to crisis management; he had faced challenges before and emerged unscathed. He knew that if he played his cards right, he could spin the situation in his favor once again.

In a calculated move, Joe convened a meeting with his closest advisers, presenting the laptop’s contents as a potential threat from foreign agents seeking to undermine his credibility. He painted himself as a victim, a noble leader who had been targeted by nefarious actors aiming to tarnish his legacy. The media ate up his narrative, focusing on the alleged hacking rather than the content of the messages themselves.

Behind the scenes, Joe worked tirelessly to silence dissenting voices within his own ranks. Those who questioned his actions were discreetly reassigned or found themselves facing sudden political isolation. He was determined to control the narrative, even if it meant crushing the very ideals he had once publicly espoused.

As time passed, the storm surrounding the laptop began to subside. Joe’s masterful manipulation of the situation allowed him to maintain his grip on power and continue his carefully constructed double life. The public remained largely oblivious to the truth, still captivated by the façade he had woven.

In the end, the laptop’s contents remained a closely guarded secret, known only to a select few who dared to defy the official narrative. And so, Joe Biden continued to walk the fine line between public savior and private manipulator, forever torn between the image he projected and the reality he lived.

Note: This short story is a work of fiction and is not based on real events or individuals. It is meant for creative and illustrative purposes only.

So there you have it. As the noose tightens around Joe Biden’s presidency, and the possibilities of resignation, impeachment, and disgraceful defeat loom larger each day, it took the imagination of an artificial intelligence to say out loud what so many Americans are afraid to conceive and what so many others know with absolute certainty.

No doubt, defenders of President Biden will question the value of a short story as evidence of wrong-doing by their standard bearer, but they should not gloat too confidently.

Yes, there are individual elements of the tale that may be fanciful, but as French author Albert Camus profoundly reminded us: “Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”

The Biden Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has refused to release monthly totals on how many illegal immigrants are allowed into the United States following encounters by US authorities at the border, according to Just the News, citing a former US immigration judge.

Retired judge Andrew Arthur, who served for eight years at the now-closed immigration court in York, Pennsylvania, told JTN that Homeland Security does keep track of the total number of migrants released following encounters, however making that data available to the public would be ‘problematic’ for the Biden administration.

“The only reason why ICE and OFO [Office of Field Operations] would refuse to disclose that information is to hide the fact that it is releasing more than 100,000 aliens per month into the United States, and to conceal the effects of those migrant releases on communities across the United States,” said Arthur.

Arthur also said that DHS should be required to release the information the same way that the monthly data on encounters of illegal immigrants is posted online. 

Arthur also said the “monthly court-ordered disclosures in Texas v. Biden,” the lawsuit over the Remain in Mexico policy, demonstrated DHS “can provide the American people with statistics on the tens of thousands of illegal entrants that CBP encounters at the southwest border whom DHS releases” into the U.S. The agency has “refused to do so since those orders were vacated in August 2022,” Arthur explained. -Just the News

Arthur also explained that OFO “publishes statistics on the number of aliens its officers encounter at the ports monthly who are placed into removal proceedings with the filing of a ‘Notice to Appear’ (NTA), but separate monthly disclosure lines on the number of those aliens who are released or alternatively are detained are blank—reading ‘0’ across the months. That is a legal and factual impossibility, because those aliens are either released or detained—there is no third option.”

As JTN further educates us, US immigration judges – formerly known as “special inquiry officers,” aren’t actually part of the federal judiciary at all. Instead, they’re DOJ employees who report to the Attorney General.

According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Biden administration isn’t being transparent with the public, and should be “required to release all pertinent information to the public,” a spokesman told Just the News. “It should be done as a matter of course because the public has a right to know. But if it requires an act of Congress, then so be it.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) told JTN that the number of released migrants should be reported to Congress on a daily basis, and “obvious why the Biden Admin does everything it can to minimize transparency.”

ICE publishes monthly statistics on the number of migrants CBP transfers to its custody as well as the number of aliens ICE itself releases monthly, “but it fails to disclose how many of the aliens it releases monthly” were originally encountered at the southwest border and “transferred to ICE are released monthly,” Arthur also said.  

“When ICE was under a court order in Texas, it did release that information, so it plainly keeps the statistics,” he added. -Just the News

According to a “conservative” estimate by FAIR, at least 2.3 million illegal immigrants had entered the US “either because they were released by CBP, or they eluded apprehension.”

“This is a conservative estimate on FAIR’s part based on verifiable data. The report does not speculate about numbers that cannot be verified,” the spokesperson told JTN.

On Sunday three members of the US Congress showed up in Syria’s anti-government stronghold of Idlib, in the northwest of the war-torn country. 

Their brief trip marked the first such visit of US lawmakers to the same “rebel”-held territory since the late Senator John McCain’s infamous 2013 trip, wherein he came under fire for posing with fighters linked to al-Qaeda who had previously kidnapped Lebanese civilians.

This new Congressional delegation to Idlib included reps Ben Cline of Virginia, French Hill of Arkansas and Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin—all of them Republicans. They reportedly crossed into Syria from Turkey via the Bab al-Salama crossing in northern Aleppo province for the one-hour trip.

During their brief journey across the border, the US lawmakers met with Raed Saleh, head of the White Helmets, which has long been accused of being Syrian al-Qaeda’s own ‘rescue force’.

Ironically, the whole endeavor was organized and sponsored by Syrian Emergency Task Force—the very same US-based lobby group responsible for McCain’s 2013 PR disaster where he shook hands with jihadist kidnappers.

McCain’s office later conceded it was “regrettable” that there had been war criminals among the Syrian oppositionists he had posed with.

Sen. Rand Paul had in the midst of the controversy accused McCain of having met with ISIS. So-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters had during 2012-2013 often joined operations with ISIS and al-Qaeda militants, to the point that the various jihadist factions were overlapping and indistinguishable.

While the particular group McCain was “palling around with” wasn’t ISIS per se, it was later proven by independent analysts that the group he met with, called “Northern Storm Brigade”, had indeed fought alongside and cooperated with ISIS terrorists.

The Syrian Emergency Task Force has long been an advocate for overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and was instrumental for years in swaying Congress in favor of sending hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weaponry to anti-Assad insurgents.

This weapons pipeline throughout the decade-long proxy war in many cases resulted in the NATO-Gulf coalition arming ISIS and other terrorists, as has long been well-documented.

Even The Associated Press and NPR are currently acknowledging that Idlib is under the control of US-designated terrorist groups: 

“Control of northwest Syria is largely split between the Turkish-backed opposition groups and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a group that was originally founded as an offshoot of al-Qaida and is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States,” according to a fresh AP/NPR article.

Already years ago, top US counter-ISIS officials such as Brett McGurk were on record as stating Idlib province is controlled by al-Qaeda…

Idlib is “the largest al-Qaeda safe haven” since #September11 “The approach by some of our partners to send in 10,000s of tons of weapons..may not have been the best approach” – Brett McGurk, Joe Biden’s current National Security Council coordinator for MENA [2017] #Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/nN804kZExH

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) September 10, 2021

So reading between the lines, the Associated Press is itself acknowledging that three sitting Congress members just conducted an advocacy trip to Al-Qaeda held territory in Syria. This is indeed a return to the days of regime change warmonger John McCain. 

McCain, it should be remembered, was years ago blasted by his own constituency for supporting a “rebel” movement that was beheading Syrian Christians and others…

Currently, at a moment much of the Syrian population is struggling under the strangling effects of US-led sanctions as well as the American occupation of the country’s oil and gas-rich provinces in the northeast, limited anti-government protests are popping up in some pockets of Syria, especially in the south. 

Western officials, and groups like the Syrian Emergency Task Force, are encouraging these economic-driven protests amid runaway inflation and lack of resources like electricity (in Damascus for example, most residences and businesses have electricity for only two out of every six hours). These anti-Assad activist groups still see ‘regime change’ as on the table, but are angered by Syria’s recent readmission into the Arab League and rapprochement with Gulf states like Saudi Arabia. 

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

President Trump issued an ultimatum to Congressional Republicans Sunday,  to either impeach Joe Biden or “fade into oblivion.”

In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote that “well meaning” Republicans in Congress “keep talking about an Impeachment ‘Inquiry’ on Crooked Joe Biden,” but they don’t seem tone doing anything about it.

“Look, the guy got bribed, he paid people off, and he wouldn’t give One Billion Dollars to Ukraine unless they ‘got rid of the Prosecutor,” Trump continued.

He added, “Biden is a Stone Cold Crook-You don’t need a long INQUIRY to prove it, it’s already proven.”

“These lowlifes Impeached me TWICE (I WON!), and Indicted me FOUR TIMES – For NOTHING!” Trump urged, before demanding “Either IMPEACH the BUM, or fade into OBLIVION. THEY DID IT TO US.”

Trump’s comments came after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agains suggested that an impeachment inquiry of Biden could happen soon.

In an interview with Fox News, the House Speaker said, “If you look at all the information we have been able to gather so far, it is a natural step forward that you would have to go to an impeachment inquiry.”

McCarthy said the same thing a month ago, but nothing has come of it yet:

🚨 BREAKING: Speaker McCarthy on Joe Biden: “This is rising to level of impeachment inquiry…something we haven’t seen since Richard Nixon, used the weaponization of government to benefit his family and deny Congressional oversight.”

pic.twitter.com/1Y1oD5bhTd

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 25, 2023

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Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

President Biden does not want student loan payments to start. The easiest way is to make it an understaffed, complicated mess…

Purposeful Student Loan Mess

Interest on student loans restarts on September 1 with payments starting in October. Few are prepared. If you are a student with questions, good luck getting answers.

And who is the servicer one needs to call?

Transferred to a New Servicer

About four-in-10 borrowers’ loans transferred to a new servicer during the pause that began in March 2020, according to government data.

Why was anyone transferred to a new servicer when literally nothing was getting serviced?

Borrowers Confused by Complicated Process

The Wall Street Journal reports Student Loans Are Emerging From Deep Freeze, and Borrowers Are Confused

‘Most complicated process I’ve ever been involved in’

Geri Critchley, a 75-year-old former nonprofit employee, is among those attempting to navigate the system. She paid graduate-school loans for more than 20 years. She has $14,000 left, but no clarification as to what she will owe each month and how to pay.

After three years of no payments, she called her loan servicer and the Education Department to ask about forgiveness options, payment deadlines and amounts. But getting through to a human at each place took some work. Critchley encountered what many borrowers fear: long hold times, constant redirections and dropped calls. When she finally got through to her loan servicer, the voice on the other end of the line suggested she call back in January when call volume would be lower—three months after repayment is set to start.

“The Department of Education person said to me, ‘I’ve been working in this field for many years, and I admit it’s the most complicated process I’ve ever been involved in,’ ” Critchley said.

Beyond answering questions about the payment restart, servicers also advise borrowers about complex financial decisions such as whether to consolidate loans or enroll in the income-driven program, called Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE.

A complication for the administration is that some features of the plan, such as cutting monthly payments from 10% to 5% of discretionary income, won’t be available until next summer, after the regulatory process concludes.

“A lot of folks just have no idea where to start,” said Meagan McGuire, a consultant at Student Loan Planner, a financial-advisory firm. “With the website and servicers not being super helpful right now, that’s leading to more confusion—newer borrowers are just throwing their hands up.”

Call Back in January

“Call back in January” but payments start in October. What a hoot.

Why any of this is complicated would normally be a mystery. But 1) we are talking about the government and 2) the last thing Biden wants is for a smooth restart.

If it’s complicated, it’s complicated on purpose. Who picked the start date for SAVE?

Biden does not want payments to start at all. And the bigger the mess, the more he is likely to extend forgiveness for as long as he can, by decree of course.

Urging Biden to Ignore the Supreme Court

The Journal notes “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, wrote to Biden last week about their repayment concerns and urged him to try again on mass cancellation using other legal authorities.”

There are no other legal authorities and even Nancy Pelosi understood that.

Who’s Impacted?

More than 16 million borrowers who thought their loans would be forgiven have to repay.

Please consider Who’s Impacted by the Supreme Court’s Student-Loan Forgiveness Ruling

Once payments resume, the typical student-loan payment will be between $210 and $314 a month, according to a new report from Wells Fargo. Overall, more than 40 million borrowers would have qualified for loan forgiveness through a required application. Before legal challenges halted the plan, borrowers in every state were approved for loan cancellation. Big states such as California, Texas, Florida and New York had the most approvals overall. The District of Columbia had the most approvals in proportion to its adult population, followed by Georgia and Ohio.

That’s a free link courtesy of the WSJ. It contains lots of charts on the 43 million people who collectively owe $1.6 trillion in federal student-loan debt as of March 31.

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In a surprisingly blunt admission for a major mainstream outlet which tends to be cozy with US national security insiders, The Economist has admitted that Ukraine’s ramped-up drone strikes on Russian territory has really been all about terrorizing civilians… well, it’s an implicit admission at least.

A new report published Sunday and entitled “Inside Ukraine’s drone war against Putin” – spells out that a chief reason for the increased drone attacks has been to intensify the “psychological impact” of the war for “ordinary Russians”. 

After listing a series of recent significant drone operations in Crimea and Russia proper, which has frequently reached cities like Moscow, The Economist writes, “The drone campaign is being stepped up now for a number of reasons.”

Top among the reasons? The publication asserts…

The headline-making strikes on Moscow are intended to have a psychological impact, bringing ordinary Russians closer to the reality of war. 

Interestingly, there’s also an admission later in the report that Ukraine’s military is receiving targeting help from the West, which includes the United States:

They gather intelligence (often from Western partners) about radars, electronic warfare and air-defense assets. Russia cannot lock down the entirety of its vast territory. “If you can scuttle past 60km of jamming stations on the border, you are in the Russian hinterlands and it’s game on,” says the Morok source. About 35-40% of drones make it through to the general vicinity of the target. Feedback about a strike’s success is compiled from satellites, tracking devices, social-media reports and local agents.

Unusually, Ukraine’s drone programme has no single command or procurement structure. Several state organisations, including all the intelligence agencies, have their own drone programmes. Freelance developers are also in the mix.

The past weeks have seen several instances of drones slamming into downtown Moscow buildings, and in some instances causing damage to residences in apartment blocks, especially in the border Belgorod region (the latter which has experienced casualties due to the Ukrainian strikes).

Drone attacks on Moscow have been happening since early May…

Lots of talk about how the drone attacks on Moscow apartment blocks and raids into Belgorod region villages will discombobulate Russians, prick Putin’s aura of invincibility, show border defences to be weak, etc. Little on the fact they’re deliberately targeting civilians…1/2 pic.twitter.com/yoT24gTfqW

— Collingwood 🇬🇧 (@admcollingwood) June 1, 2023

Moscow’s two major airports have also been forced to temporarily halt all flight traffic on several occasions of late. Last week, there were inbound Ukrainian drones in or around the Russian capital of six days straight, but most were said to be brought down by Russian anti-air defenses and countermeasures.

90 minutes after the day’s first coupon auction in what is a truncated week, the US Treasury sold another coupon bond, this time  $46 billion in 5 Year paper, in what was another solid auction.

The bond priced at a high yield of 4.400%, tailing the When Issued 4.399% by 0.1bps, the third consecutive tailing auction in a row. The yield was also well above last month’s 4.170%, and like the 2Y auction earlier, was the highest since July 2007.

The bid to cover of 2.54 was below last month’s 2.60 but just above the recent average of 2.533.

Similar to the 2Y auction earlier today, the internals were solid if not stellar, with Indirects awarded 67.9%, above last month’s 64.4%, but below the six-auction average of 68.8%. And with Directs taking down 18.3%, Dealers were left holding 13.8%, or just above the recent average of 12.2%.

Overall, this was a solid auction, and together with the strong 2Y auction earlier, has helped keep the 10Y yield down on the day, last trading at 4.21%, below the key resistance (or support) level of 4.25%.

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Joe Biden spent his Friday trying to convince Americans that the economy is doing just wonderful because of him by standing in front of a whiteboard and talking down to them.

Here’s the cringe in full:

I came to office determined to change the economic direction of this country and to move from trickle-down economics to my middle out, bottom up vision:

Bidenomics. pic.twitter.com/kvOz81iGSO

— President Biden (@POTUS) August 25, 2023

Firstly, who on earth is going to trust someone who has to tell you the economy is doing well by ticking boxes on a white board?

Secondly, the guy can barely speak.

“I came to office determined to change the economic direction of this country and to move from trickle-down economics to my middle out, bottom up vision: Bidenomics,” Biden slurred.

This entire thing is just constructed from made up meaningless BS terms:

“Trickle down economics” is a term progressives invented in the 80s to describe an economic philosophy progressives also invented. They were lying then & Biden’s still lying today. https://t.co/G2oI2BE6V6

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) August 26, 2023

Here’s the reality of ‘Bidenomics’:

BIDENOMICS:

Gas prices are 68 cents per gallon higher than two years ago and $1.43/gallon higher than when Biden took office.

The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is at its highest in 22 years.

Most Americans say their personal financial situation is only fair or poor. pic.twitter.com/CANq4pjHJK

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 27, 2023

Include this on your presentation:

Just 37% of Americans approve of the way Biden is handling the economy.

“If people are saying that in polls, they’re not happy — so how do you keep getting that message out?”

Biden campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond: “We have to keep telling them about what we’re doing!” pic.twitter.com/VLSczgB1T5

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 27, 2023

Before long, the whiteboard session was memed into oblivion:

pic.twitter.com/YBDHlGnL7u

— B.Y. 🇺🇸 (@BYLuvJedi) August 26, 2023

pic.twitter.com/FXi2MWSdbh

— Magills (@magills_) August 25, 2023

pic.twitter.com/FF2Wu9L86G

— ♠️Audsauce♠️ (@Audjuice9989) August 26, 2023

pic.twitter.com/0BDVs0oG37

— e-beth (@ebeth360) August 26, 2023

😬 pic.twitter.com/f75RY3Bohq

— Mask Of Duality (@Maskofduality) August 26, 2023

Yep. Thought so. pic.twitter.com/GmQQAmPNJD

— People’s Art of War (@pplsartofwar) August 26, 2023

pic.twitter.com/4KAK1yGJ1T

— _NamrokNamrok_ (@_NamrokNamrok_) August 25, 2023

#Bidenomics pic.twitter.com/w0XtBeAzij

— Anarcho Agorist (@anarcho_agorist) August 25, 2023

#Bidenomics #BidenomicsWorks #vote3rdparty @LPNational @LPMisesCaucus
Or#voteagainstincumbents pic.twitter.com/w7c740LYcN

— Rich Ellefritz, PhD (@RichEllefritz) August 26, 2023

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Texas factory activity contracted again in August, according to The Dallas Fed’s Manufacturing Survey, with the production index tumbling 6pts to -11.2. That is the lowest (ex-COVID lockdowns) since May 2016…

Source: Bloomberg

Under the hood, the picture is just as ugly with new orders contracting (for more than a year), capacity utilization down, shipments tumbling, and capex down a 3 year low.

There were two line items that surged higher – Prices Paid for Raw Materials and Wage Growth – but labor market measures suggest slower growth in employment and shorter workweeks in August; and

Source: Bloomberg

Respondents comments say a lot about ‘Bidenomics‘:

Chemical manufacturing

• The chemical industry remains slow.

Computer and electronic product manufacturing

• High interest rates are affecting industrial production like never before. In addition to reshoring heavy activity, supply-chain issues, lack of qualified labor and interest rates have placed an inverted incentive to grow due to a major slowdown in capital equipment expenditures. This is the time to stop raising interest rates and give confidence to the industrial segments to plan growth. Rehiring after major layoffs in this industry is not like in the consumer industry. It is costly, laborious and a long-term expedition. And with the lack of reforms in immigration and education, we are encountering major difficulties in running industrial operations. Never mind the demographics issue the U.S. is about to encounter in the short run. I think it is time for the Federal Reserve to take a creative approach when it comes to interest rate management.

• For the first time in a long time, we are seeing customers reduce or cancel orders due to softening end-use demand. We expect this trend to continue over the next few months. We continue to make capital investments, focusing on buying high-quality used manufacturing equipment at a discount when other people are pulling back because of uncertainty.

• Customer orders came to a sudden halt. The overall volume dropped 51 percent year over year.

Food manufacturing

• We have seen a contraction in government contracts. Customer discretionary spending capability has decreased.

Machinery manufacturing

• The phone is not ringing. Our sales team is working harder with less results. Projects are being postponed and, perhaps even more telling, payments are increasingly protracted.

• Business is slowing down, but we are adding new products to produce. This should be positive for our business long term.

Primary metal manufacturing

• Our industry is in a technical recession. In addition to that, foreign imports are at a very high percentage if not the highest in our history.

Finally, given all those comments, it is not surprising that the future general business activity index returned to negative territory after pushing positive last month, coming in at -3.3.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Below is an expanded version of my Hill column on the Georgia call at the center of the recent indictment and the attack in the Washington Post by columnist Philip Bump, someone I have repeatedly criticized in the past for false and misleading stories. The column attacked me for suggesting that the Georgia call was not strong evidence of a crime and that Trump was seeking another recount or investigation.

While I disagreed with Trump’s claims and supported the decisions of the Georgia officials (and still do), many campaigns have sought such investigations or launched challenges based on flimsy evidence. I have covered such challenges for years as a legal analyst for CBS, NBC, BBC, and Fox. Unsupported legal claims may be sanctionable in court, but they have not been treated as crimes.

Here is the column:

The processing of former President Donald Trump in the Fulton County jail followed a familiar pattern. First came the mugshot, then the merchandise. Both the left and the right immediately started selling mugs and t-shirts featuring the scowling image of Inmate P01135809.

Snap, scowl, sell and spin. Our legal and political dialogue has now been reduced to the substance of a Benetton catalogue.

Politicians and pundits continue to assure the public that this indictment is not just the criminalization of political speech or election challenges. Much of that spin returns to a familiar point of reference: Trump’s call to Georgia officials. Indeed, I have been criticized for even suggesting that “the call” is not evidence of a crime, even though I continue to support the actions of the Georgia officials who resisted Trump’s requests, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

I previously wrote that the strength of any Georgia indictment could be measured on the weight given to “the call,” a highly debatable claim that Trump expressly called for fraud. But my doubts about this call (which Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis cited as the impetus of her investigation) do not stem from any refusal to accept that Trump could be charged or convicted.

When the Mar-a-Lago indictment came down, I was one of the first to say that I considered it a strong case. I have since noted that the case seems to be strengthening with time. But that is not the case in Georgia.

Although there are strong criminal allegations against some of the defendants on individual acts in the Georgia indictment, the effort to prosecute Trump is based on loose alleged conspiracies and little new evidence involving his own actions.

For that reason, it is telling that pundits have again made “the call” the focus of this sprawling racketeering theory.

First, a brief reminder of what “the call” is.

This was not some back-room, smoke-filled political wheel-and-deal call. It  was similar to a settlement discussion between largely antagonistic figures and their opposing teams. State officials and the Trump team were seeing if they could resolve their differences without further litigation. The Trump team wanted a new statewide recount. Trump had lost the state by less than 12,000 votes and was making the case that he could still show that he had won the state. He stated, “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.”

If you are going to argue for another recount or continued investigation, the obvious argument is that it would not take statistically many votes to make a difference.

I have long disagreed with Trump over his claim of systemic voting fraud. I criticized Trump’s Jan. 6 speech while he was giving it. I supported Vice President Mike Pence and his certification of the election of Joe Biden. I have also regularly criticized Trump when I felt that such criticism was warranted. This does not change my view of whether the call is compelling evidence of a crime.

When the Washington Post first reported this call, I posted a critical tweet based on its initial, erroneous account that Trump had ordered Georgia officials to just “find” the needed votes.

I noted that such a demand would be breathtaking and further noted that, even if they did so, it would not stop Biden from winning the presidency.

But a few hours later, the actual transcript of the call was released, showing a strikingly different context for the “find” comment than the Post had reported. Trump was clearly referring to his objective in finding votes and the threshold he needed to meet. That is a predictable argument for a candidate in pushing for a continued investigation.

The Post also ran a misleading story on a separate, related call that left the same false impression. By the initial account, Trump had supposedly told investigator Frances Watson to “find the fraud” and promised that she would be “a national hero.” In fact, Trump had stated that, if the officials did a neutral investigation, “you’re going to find things” including “dishonesty.” The Post had to issue a correction at the top of this second story after the Wall Street Journal found a recording of the call. “The recording revealed that The Post misquoted Trump’s comments on the call, based on information provided by a source,” the paper acknowledged.

Philip Bump’s recent Washington Post column continues to cite the paper’s original, skewed account of that call in order to criticize my commentary on it. Yet even in doing so, Bump inadvertently demonstrates the danger of using this call to prosecute Trump.

As a threshold matter, Bump suggests (and many have repeated) that Trump was not seeking another recount because the recount had already occurred and Trump never uses the word “recount” in the first call. The argument shows the lack of good faith in the criticism. Obviously, Trump was seeking another recount or investigation. We all know that Georgia completed the recount. I wrote about it at the time and considered that recount to end reasonable doubts over the election. Trump, however, was making the case for another investigation or recount. That was the subject of the call. He wanted the state to take another look. That is further born out in the second call when he again asks them to take another look.

Trump’s demand is as simple and obvious as it was wrong. He wanted to maintain a challenge to the election in the courts and in Congress. Just a couple days after the election, I wrote a column predicting this strategy based on what the Democrats had done in prior years. I called it the Death Star strategy. To make it work, Trump needed to find evidence of fraud and delay or undermine state certifications.  A new recount or continued investigation would achieve that purpose.

So, yes, Trump was seeking a recounting or continued investigation. Bump and others continue to push the original flawed account that Trump was ordering them to simply declare the existence of the votes as the only possible interpretation despite the fact that these were antagonistic parties and Trump was pushing them to look at various areas for possible votes.  The call can clearly be read different ways by different people. The question is whether it is a crime.

Bump maintains that the call was criminal because Trump had already been assured that another recount would not produce the votes and that there was no evidence of widespread fraud. “Trump’s entreaties” are deemed criminal because he had refused to accept “the truth” over the arguments of his advisers. Bump argues further that it does not matter if Trump actually intended to engage in fraud in the call, because the meeting was part of a general pattern of spreading “false statements and writings.”

There is no self-awareness at all in Bump’s argument.

Bump has repeatedly spread false stories and then refused to accept the falsity of his own earlier claims, even after most of the media have admitted the errors.

But more importantly, the standard that Bump sets forth for prosecution — imputing criminality to a politician’s refusal to accept inconvenient facts — could just as easily be used to prosecute any number of others.

Such as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who baselessly sought to block certification of Trump’s 2016 victory by disenfranchising the voters of Florida.

Was Hillary Clinton guilty of criminal “false statements” when she claimed that her defeat was the result of a “stolen” election and called Trump an “illegitimate president”?

How about Stacey Abrams in Georgia, who refused to accept her own defeat for governor in 2018?

Then there are Democratic lawyers such as Marc Elias, who filed challenges to overturn a New York election of a Republican on the basis of machines changing the outcome. Elias has been sanctioned in other litigation on different grounds and was behind the hiding of the funding of the Steele Dossier by the Clinton campaign, but no one suggested that he or others challenging elections were criminal actors. Despite my long criticism of Elias’ record and practices, I would be the first to oppose similar charges for the same reason.

Mediaite (a site founded by ABC legal analyst Dan Abrams) has called it “crazy” to make any comparison between what Trump did and Democrats challenging prior certifications. This convenient dismissal is based on the fact that, “by the time Trump unsuccessfully leaned on” Raffensperger, recounts had already been carried out. He must have known that it was false, the argument goes, and as I (and many others) stated at the time, a further investigation was unlikely to produce enough votes. However, there was never any credible evidence to support Democratic challenges such as those brought by Raskin and others in 2016. Nor was there ever any evidence that the election was “stolen” as Clinton claimed, nor that Abrams was robbed.

Critics have long denounced Trump as a megalomaniac who could not accept that he lost. Ironically, their criticism could now prove a defense for Trump. There is a vast difference between making unfounded election claims and committing a crime. This call, in my view, cannot be viewed as a crime beyond a reasonable doubt any more than the Democratic challenge to machines in New York or the 2016 certification challenge were criminal acts due to the lack of supporting evidence.

What is clear is that this is a dangerous path for the country to take in criminalizing election challenges. 

For many, this looks like a Democratic prosecutor seeking prison sentences for those who challenged a Democratic victory. It could just as easily be replicated by Republican prosecutors.

Just as Trump was blind to the realities of the election, these prosecutors and pundits are blind to the implications of this indictment.