RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.openthebooks.com

In the final month of the fiscal year, federal agencies scramble to spend what’s left in their annual budget.

Agencies fear that leaving excess funds might prompt Congress to appropriate less money the next year.To avoid this, agencies spend like crazy every September. We call it the “use-it-or-lose-it” phenomenon, and it’s all on the taxpayer dime. 

Our latest oversight report, which broke this morning on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, quantified the $97 billion federal agencies spent in the final month of fiscal year 2018. That’s a 39-percent increase from fiscal year 2015.These last-minute transactions purchased a range of services and products including fidget spinners, guns and ammunition, alcohol and lobster tail, CrossFit equipment, musical instruments, and more. For the next six days, we are making this report available to you for free. Download your free copy of our breaking report today.

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/03/article/contrary-to-claims-us-jobs-bust-not-a-fluke/

US payroll employment grew by just 20,000 in February, against a market consensus forecast of 170,000 growth. Administration officials pointed to the 3.4% growth in average hourly earnings as a sign of economic health, but low employment growth and higher wages are twin images of the same picture. US employment growth has been concentrated in labor-intensive, low wage sectors, and that is where hourly earnings have risen the fastest.

Higher wages are NOT leading to inflation, as the Phillips curve predicts, but to lower growth. Household budgets are tight and consumers balk at price increases. The unexpected slump in hiring in labor-intensive sectors is consistent with the unexpected slump in retail sales and personal spending in December.

I expect not a US recession but a slowdown in growth to the 1%-1.5% range, down from last year’s 3%. The US consumer, as I wrote yesterday, remains the world’s biggest macro risk.

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/03/25/mark-janus-the-man-who-ended-compulsory-union-dues/

He asked the Supreme Court to acknowledge his First Amendment rights, and it did

An average guy, provoked enough, can accomplish things that are above average.

Mark Janus is such a guy. Provoked by what he believed was a bald violation of his First Amendment rights, he took action to see them protected. And he prevailed. Big time, as an average guy might say.

His name, italicized, will live on now in legal textbooks and amicus curiae footnotes, will be cited at length in law-school seminars and oral arguments, will be uttered with contempt in union headquarters, with respect in conservative gatherings. And it will be classified under “landmark.” Maybe even give birth to a phrase, “Janus rights.”

Last June, in Mark Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, commonly known as Janus v. AFSCME, the United States Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that public-sector unions may not automatically enroll workers as members and collect fees from them. Janus was a loss for labor. A big loss. And it was a major — even surprising, and far-reaching — victory for conservatives and First Amendment champions.

Mark Janus describes himself as “just an average guy, a middle-class person who goes to work every day.” And work is where this saga of jurisprudence, of constitutional rights, of modern-day politics and union power, all begins. A lifelong resident of Springfield, Ill., Janus, a down-to-earth civic-minded citizen (he is an Eagle Scout), graduated in 1975 from Illinois College, a business-administration major whose career path meandered. He worked for his dad’s beauty-supply company and then at the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs, where his duties centered on economic-development small-business loans.

Janus soon returned to the private sector, as an accountant for a printing company and then in his own spiral-binding business, which he eventually sold. Then followed an encore as a government employee.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/03/the-tireless-ron-desantis/

He has led a burst of pro-market, limited-government reforms that are making Florida even greater.

The last time most Americans heard of Ron DeSantis, the former GOP congressman had edged past Mayor Andrew Gillum (D., Tallahassee) in their rough-and-tumble wrestling match for Florida’s governorship. After contested recounts in Broward and Palm Beach Counties, DeSantis, 40, prevailed over Gillum, 39, by a margin more svelte than Palm Beach — 49.6 percent to 49.2 percent. Among 8.1 million ballots cast, just 32,463 votes divided victor from vanquished.

Since his January 8 inauguration, DeSantis has done far more than rearrange the gubernatorial furniture. Indeed, he has led a burst of pro-market, limited-government reforms that are making Florida even greater.

• Most significantly, DeSantis replaced three Florida supreme court justices who were required to retire at age 75. His appointees — Barbara Lagoa, Robert J. Luck, and Carlos Muñiz — have shifted the court’s composition from four liberals and three conservatives to one liberal and six conservatives. This jump to the right should keep the Sunshine State’s top tribunal safe for constitutionalism.

• DeSantis pioneered Florida Deregathon — a one-day summit in which agency heads targeted red tape, especially in occupational licensing. While eye surgeons and airline pilots should certify their competence, why do nail polishers and boxing timekeepers need Tallahassee’s permission to work? Florida’s 1,200-hour training requirement for new barbers, for instance, stymies competition by boosting costs and headaches for new entrants.

http://thefederalist.com/2019/03/08/35-key-people-involved-russia-hoax-need-investigated/

As their desperate search for collusion continues, Democrats want to interview 81 people. Try this list instead.

Funny how things change. The Washington Post couldn’t say a nice thing about congressional Republican efforts to investigate the Obama administration and FBI shenanigans that occurred before and after the 2016 election. That’s if they even covered these efforts at all.

But with Democrats controlling the House, and that legislative body’s subpoena power, the establishment media’s line has changed. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have just sent letters to 81 people, all associated with President Trump or the Russia probe, demanding answers on Russian election interference.

This is part of Democrats’ effort to continue their hunt for proof of Russia collusion—although they are already sure that Trump is guilty—as Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation appears to be winding down. To cover these events, the Post’s Philip Bump wrote an article titled: “The 81 people and organizations just looped into the Trump probe—and why they were included.” Of course, the article is totally unquestioning of the House Democrats’ desired narrative and motivations.
Investigated, But Not for the Reasons Dems Give

It isn’t worth it to go through Bump’s whole article, but even the commentary about the first name on the list—Rinat Akhmetshin—omits glaring and important facts. Bump says Akhmetshin “joined his colleague Natalia Veselnitskaya, a lawyer linked to the Kremlin, at the June 9, 2016, meeting in Trump Tower predicated on providing information that would undermine Hillary Clinton’s campaign.” But, Bump says, “the focus of the meeting instead reportedly focused on the Magnitsky Act—a law that resulted in sanctions on numerous prominent Russians.”

https://amgreatness.com/2019/03/07/the-

When the American Conservative Union asked if I wanted to address CPAC this year, of course I said yes. Then came several weeks of discussion as to what the subject of my speech should be. This is the biggest event of its kind in the nation, with more than 200 speakers and this year in excess of 10,000 attendees, more than half under the age of 25, so I am not envious of the job Matt Schlapp and Dan Schneider have to do to pull off such a feat. (Especially when your speakers include the president and the vice president and all the security that entails).

The topic we eventually settled on was the threat Russia poses to America, a subject I am always happy to address given my family history. With parents who suffered under a Stalinist dictatorship and a father who escaped from a Communist political prison, providing a reality-check on the menace posed by a Russia still run by a KGB colonel comes easy.

However, on the day, eight minutes into my speech I decided I needed to change tack. Russia is a threat, but it is not the Soviet Union. Instead I felt compelled to talk about the real threat we face as the free-est nation on God’s Earth: the rise of socialism within our borders.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/barack-obama-is-still-trying-to-rewrite-his-presidential-legacy/

He continues to lie about what happened during his two terms.

Have you been following Obama’s post-presidency career as a comedian? Well, I have. His most commonly used bit was the claim that he didn’t have any scandals during his presidency. Though his usual audience tends not to laugh but to cheer at this claim, it is easily debunked by anyone who paid attention during that time.

It appears that Obama is now testing out some new material. In addition to his “I didn’t have any scandals” bit, he’s now working in a couple new ones:

Former President Barack Obama says he tried to build a culture centered around problem-solving and not personal gain while in the White House.

He said on Wednesday it was an effective strategy for any organization that also prevents “big scandals and indictments.”

Obama’s comments drew applause from a crowd of about 9,000 people at a business conference in Salt Lake City.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273044/maajid-nawaz-pulls-race-card-defense-isis-bride-joshua-winston

An airsoft shooting range in England is using a picture of ISIS bride from London Shamima Begum for people to hone their shooting skills on, and Maajid Nawaz isn’t happy about it. “We must be better than our enemies,” Pope Maajid tells us, whilst railing against using a jihadist’s face for target practice, calling it “disgusting and inhumanly degrading behaviour.” Old habits die hard with Maajid, in my opinion — here he is defending a terrorist. Maajid quickly goes on to tell us, “It won’t be long before this face is replaced by just any brown or black face,” as if people at that shooting range are firing at Shamima Begum not because she is a jihadist, but because she is brown. “The Shamima Begum 2-tier citizenship debacle *is* connected to race,” Maajid insists. He is trying to get us to believe that race wars in the UK are already unfolding before his eyes.

The real war occurring in the UK today is against non-Muslim men and non-Muslim girls. These two groups of people are the biggest victims, if Maajid wants to start talking about war. Non-Muslim boys are being neglected in favour of Muslims. They are dropping out of school earlier, more are living in poverty, and they have the highest levels of illiteracy in the UK today (not to mention suicide rates), thanks to all of the enforced Cultural Marxism that is taking place, which sees non-Muslim men being excluded from certain jobs and a lot of apprenticeships and college and university places, generally on the basis of race. If Maajid wants to continue going down the race war route, then he should take a look at the white non-Muslim underage girls who are victims of brown (since Maajid is talking about skin tone, as if it had something to do with resentment against Shamima Begum) Pakistani Muslim men. There’s your race war right there, Maajid. Or perhaps he can cast an eye over Twitter this past week alone: multiple videos have surfaced of lone non-Muslim boys being battered unconscious by packs of Pakistani Muslim youths. And, as always, when a non-Muslim is battered or killed or robbed by a Pakistani Muslim, there’s rarely a “hate crime” label attached to it, as there is whenever anything, no matter how random, happens to a Muslim.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/andrew-c-mccarthy-would-mueller-indict-trump-for-attempting-to-fire-mueller

With indications that special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report is imminent, talk of “no collusion” is dominating chatter by the president, his fans, and his critics. That is, a finding of no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia is widely anticipated. Yet, my sense is that, more than on collusion, Mueller may focus on the obstruction aspect of his investigation.

I want to examine an element of that, involving the status of Mueller himself.

New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt have highlighted Trump’s purported “attempts” to fire Mueller, which mainly involved “trying to get” then-White House counsel Donald McGahn to fire him. What does this reporting tell us? Well, we know prosecutors are investigating whether the president obstructed the Russia investigation. How could bombast about firing Mueller bear on that issue when, of course, Trump never actually fired him?

The answer may be found in that word: attempt.

The Times reporting presages that Mueller has homed in on the parts of federal obstruction laws that address not only interference with a proceeding but also “attempts” to do so. Could the special counsel be poised to argue that Trump committed obstruction by attempting to fire the special counsel?

If that is the theory, it is meritless. In the context of the chief executive’s dismissal of subordinates, the concept of attempt is inapposite. A president either fires someone or he doesn’t.

Actually, there are at least three problems with trying to inflate Trump’s spasms of anger over Mueller into an obstruction felony.