Eye on the economy: Biden’s Inflation Fantasy
Inflation rose “at an annual rate of 8.3% in April,” observes The Washington Examiner’s Byron York. And though Biden’s trying to “deflect blame” to the coronavirus pandemic, Putin, energy companies, even Sen. Rick Scott — “everyone except Joe Biden, president of the United States” — he “bears some blame.” The prez “has pushed astronomical spending measures that have overstimulated the economy and worsened inflation.” And “what was striking in Biden’s remarks was the degree to which he seemed intent on staying the course, on sticking with the policies that have made inflation worse. The nation needs more spending, he said — in fact, more spending will decrease inflation, in Biden’s view.” This is “certainly not the way to fight inflation,” but Biden and the Democrats are “sticking to it.”
Conservative: Joe’s Drug-Paraphernalia Funding
“Crack pipes are distributed in safe-smoking kits up and down the East Coast,” raising questions about Team Biden’s claims that its harm-reduction grant program won’t “funnel taxpayer dollars to drug paraphernalia,” warns The Washington Free Beacon’s Patrick Hauf, whose outlet visited and called groups in New York, Boston, Washington, Baltimore and Richmond. Press Secretary Jen Psaki denied kits containing pipes would be funded, yet “all of the organizations we visited made crack pipes as well as paraphernalia for the use of heroin, cocaine, and crystal methamphetamine readily available.” Though it’s unclear which groups will get funds, “all of the centers we visited” are run by “the types of groups eligible to receive funding, starting this month, from the Biden administration’s $30 million grant program.”
Policy wonk: Prez’s Destabilizing Contradictions
On numerous issues, slams Merrill Matthews at The Hill, President Biden “has so contradicted himself that he is angering — and confusing — both sides.” He insists the economy is great yet also claims it’s so bad we must cancel student debt. We’re “still in a pandemic,” since Biden wants masks for travelers, yet apparently “we can let anyone in the country,” despite the risk of virus-spread, which will happen when Biden lifts Title 42. “We must reduce our reliance on fossil fuel,” yet we must also “produce more.” The problem? “A stable economy needs stable policies.” Businesses, consumers and regulators all need to know what those policies are. Alas, “Biden’s policies keep shifting, depending on the latest crisis — and the latest polls.”
From the right: John Durham Has Already Won
When Special Counsel John Durham steps into court Monday, argues Kimberley A. Strassel at The Wall Street Journal, he’ll have “already won.” The first Russiagate trial, of Clinton World lawyer Michael Sussman, will “put every sleazy collusion player in the hot seat, with ramifications beyond the courtroom”: Marc Elias, Igor Danchenko, Christopher Steele, even Robby Mook. And though “many conservatives remain frustrated” about the lack of “conspiracy charges,” such cases are “hard to prove” and “a court loss would make it easier for the press to cast the entire effort as debunked.” So “the narrow prosecution of the little-known Mr. Sussmann has allowed for a focus on the bigger story . . . the continuing tale of one of the dirtiest tricks in modern U.S. history.”
Supremes watch: Abortion Protests Go Too Far
“I have felt a lot of anger towards politicians,” admits Brendan O’Neill at Spiked Online, “but it has never once crossed my mind to go . . . protest at their doorstep,” as did the protesters who showed up “outside the private homes of Supreme Court justices” likely to overturn Roe. “Home protests have become worryingly common in recent years,” which is the “unsettling conclusion to the idea that ‘the personal is political.’ ” One big reason: “the woke era’s relentless elevation of identity as the prime concern of political life.” To fight it, “we need to . . . untangle the political and the personal. Protest where policy is made, not where the people who make policy live and sleep and bring up their children.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
