REPUBLICAN POUNCES! Trump seizes on FBI search to fuel backlash. “A day after the FBI search of his Florida resort, it was as if Trump had never been away, as he reapplied his grip on the national psyche by orchestrating a fierce backlash against the bureau, the Justice Department and the Biden White House, which has said it had no advance warning of the FBI activity.”
CNN’s Stephen Collinson is in truly turgid form today.
PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.
Kevin Downey Jr: Shouldn’t We Be Asking if Serial Election Loser Hillary Had a Role in All This Mar-a-Lago Nonsense? “Notice the airbrushing on her face. Clearly, her server wasn’t the only thing to get an acid bath.”
Matt Margolis: Never Forget: These 20 Republicans Voted to Confirm Merrick Garland. “Garland didn’t need any Republican support to get confirmed, yet 20 ignored the warning signs and gave him their seal of approval—including Chuck Grassley, who was shocked by Garland’s refusal to commit to protecting the Durham investigation.”
Yours Truly: Meet the 5 Lefties Condemning the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago Raid. “Maybe the most surprising was disgraced former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. He was last seen inappropriately touching underlings while conspiring with since-fired CNN host Chris Cuomo on how to avoid press scrutiny.”
THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT? HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’ Prequel Goes Woke, Will Explore ‘Internalized Misogyny’ and ‘Patriarchy.’
I thought Season 8 of Game of Thrones had killed the franchise, but I guess they aren’t done beating the corpse yet.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: ‘Dr. Doom’ Nouriel Roubini warns the era of stagflation is here and central banks are setting a trap in trying to normalize policy.
“The world economy is undergoing a radical regime shift,” he said in an op-ed for Project Syndicate on Tuesday, declaring the end of the Great Moderation, during which economies enjoyed low inflation, high growth, and mild recessions.
Those qualities have been the standard for the past few decades, but are reversing into what Roubini dubs as the Great Stagflation: an era of high inflation, low growth, high debt, and the potential for severe recessions.
Global economies carry larger debt ratios than before, setting up central banks for potential failure, Roubini said.
“Central banks are thus locked in a ‘debt trap’: any attempt to normalize monetary policy will cause debt-servicing burdens to spike, leading to massive insolvencies, cascading financial crises, and fallout in the real economy,” he said.
Glenn or I could do a whole series of I-Told-You-So articles going back 20 years, when big spending and big borrowing combined with ZIRP became the new normal, but it’s all too depressing.
CAN’T ANYBODY THERE PLAY THIS GAME? The White House Response to the Mar-a-Lago Raid Was a Disaster.
STICKER SHOCK: “Significant Material Cost Increases”: Ford Hikes Prices Of EV Truck By Up To $7,000. “F-150 Lightning’s new MSRP is now between $47,000 to $97,000, up from approximately $40,000 to $92,000 — prices exclude destination/delivery fee plus government fees and taxes, any finance charges, any dealer processing charge, any electronic filing charge, and any emission testing charge.”
Previously: Tow No! The Ford F-150 Lightning Struggled in Our Towing Test. “In MotorTrend testing, an F-150 Lightning Platinum saddled with a camper that nearly maxed out its 8,500-pound towing capacity couldn’t even cover 100 miles. Range improved when we hooked up a significantly lighter trailer, but not by as much as you might expect.”
A minimum of $47k (plus taxes and fees) for a truck with limited tow range.
That’s one severely uneconomical virtue signal.
KEVIN DOWNEY JR: If You’re STILL Voting Blue, You Get the Tyranny You Deserve. “Tyranny doesn’t just show up one day and say, ‘I’m here to take your liberties away.’ It comes in steps, and the raid on Trump’s home is a big, big step in a long line of them.”
The show follows Pratt’s character, Navy SEAL commander James Reece, who is determined to find out who killed his platoon and get revenge.
While critics were not pleased with the production, many fans immediately came to Pratt’s rescue, with the audience score on the review site coming in as 94% “fresh.”
In a brazen move, the “Wanted” star took to his Instagram story, sharing a report that suggested the actor defied “woke critics.”
In a follow-up post, Pratt shared a picture of the infamous Dr. Evil from the “Austin Powers” films, referencing the enormous amount of people who had streamed his show on Prime Video that had clearly disregarded any negative commentary.
It’d be nicer just to let the work — and its success – speak for itself, but the Left murdered niceties.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Glorious Inflation News, Comrades! You’re Getting Poorer Slightly Less Quickly. “I haven’t seen this big a celebration since our most recent battlefield victory over Eastasia, with whom Oceania has always been at war. Unless we’ve always been at war with Eurasia.”
Update: Biden, reading from a script, claimed 0% inflation last month. Gaslit video at the link.
HMM: Russian Airbase In Crimea Goes Boom. “Russian military assets blowing up in Ukraine isn’t news, especially now that they’ve fielded HIMARS. What is news is these strikes are a good 200 kilometers from the front line.”
THAT’S BECAUSE HIS WINS ARE AMERICA’S LOSSES: As Democrats Celebrate Biden ‘Wins,’ More Blue House Seats Become Competitive.
HMM: China graft probes stem from anger over failed chip plans.
The investigations have sent shockwaves through a semiconductor industry long accustomed to top-level support. Xi Jinping’s government had allocated more than $100 billion to build up a domestic semiconductor sector so the country could break its dependence on the West. A key area of scrutiny is the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund — known within the industry as Big Fund — which had become Beijing’s primary vehicle for doling out capital to the country’s chipmakers.
The nation’s top anti-graft agency announced investigations into three more executives who helped manage the Big Fund’s assets on Tuesday, adding it was dispatching a team to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The same regulator was already investigating the minister, Xiao Yaqing — making him the most senior sitting cabinet member to face a disciplinary probe in almost four years.
“If you’re going to be putting tens of billions of dollars in an industry, regardless of whether it’s a high technology one or just like building trains and airports, you’re going to have illicit dealings going on,” said Jordan Schneider, a senior analyst at Rhodium Group and host of the China Talk podcast.
Previously: ‘Japan Inc.’ and Other Tales of Industrial Policy Apocalypse. “Perhaps most notable in this regard was the Japanese government’s own admission that the MITI model had not worked as well as planned. A 2000 report by the Policy Research Institute within Japan’s Ministry of Finance concluded that ‘the Japanese model was not the source of Japanese competitiveness but the cause of our failure.’ MITI was renamed the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry at about the same time, and its mission shifted more toward market-oriented reforms.”
Yesterday: Biden Signs CHIPS Act Into Law, Sending $53B to US Chipmakers.
But this time it’ll work for sure.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Dear Dems—Trump 2024 Is Gonna Be Super LIT. “All of this is being driven by the Democrats’ obsession with using the J6 fauxsurrection to keep Trump off of the ballot in 2024. They know that they could resurrect FDR and Trump is still going to waltz back into the White House. He’s the monster under all of their beds. As I’ve written before, he’s not only living rent-free in their heads, he’s building condos and inviting his friends.”
IT’S A TRANSITORY, HIGH-CLASS PROBLEM: Inflation a ‘concern’ for California food bank as price hikes ‘put a lot of pressure’ on household budgets.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: U.S. Labor Productivity Suffers Biggest Crash Ever Recorded, Labor Costs Soar Most Since 1982.
1982 was the big year of the early ’80s recession engineered by Paul Volcker and Ronald Reagan to squeeze inflation out of the economy — and set the stage for the ’80s boom times.
Joe Biden, on the other hand, is just getting started taxing and regulating productivity gains out of existence.
BETTER SEND IN MORE FBI GUYS: Wait — Those ‘Classified’ Docs FBI Sought in Trump Raid Were Already Declassified.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN COSPLAY: Colorado Dem Obtains 24-Hour Fishing License To Shoot Campaign Ad. “Bennet, who has seen his net worth increase by the millions during his time in the Senate, is running for reelection against former carpenter and construction CEO Joe O’Dea. Republicans are optimistic that Biden’s historically low approval rating has made Bennet’s seat competitive. According to FiveThirtyEight, Bennet votes with Biden 98 percent of the time.”
DEMOCRATS UNDER BIDEN KEEP BEHAVING AS THOUGH THEY’LL NEVER BE OUT OF POWER — DO THEY KNOW SOMETHING WE DON’T? Republicans Slam Biden Admin Over Raid of Trump Home, Vow Investigation.
InstaPundit is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.