RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/09/the-wall-street-journal-gets-the-texas-abortion-law-wrong/

The Wall Street Journal’s editors have posted an uncharacteristically weak editorial on the Supreme Court’s refusal to block Texas’s fetal-heartbeat law from going into effect. The Journal’s editors concede that the five-justice majority correctly decided that the plaintiff abortion providers did not have a case for sundry procedural reasons. Nevertheless, they join the chorus of center-right strategists who maintain that, however well-meaning, the curb on abortions is a “blunder” that will ultimately lose on the merits while “hand[ing] Democrats a political grenade to hurt the anti-abortion cause.”

I’d respectfully suggest that the editors are overthinking it. Their analysis is wide of the mark.

To begin with, the Journal’s editors point out that the Texas law would render illegal pre-viability elective abortions that are permitted by Roe v. Wade (1973) and Casey v. Planned Parenthood (1992). As the editorial acknowledges, however, the High Court already has on its docket for the term that begins a month from now the Dobbs case, involving a Mississippi curb on pre-viability elective abortions after 15 weeks. Given that the justices will necessarily revisit Roe—as revised by Casey—in Dobbs, the fact that the Texas law forbids that which Roe/Casey permits does not necessarily mean the Texas law is infirm.

The Journal is correct that the Texas law does not expressly specify exemptions to terminate pregnancies attributable to rape and incest. It should be noted, however, that rape and incest are not relevant factors in at least 98 percent of abortions. (The Guttmacher Institute has estimated that rape accounts for about 1 percent of abortions, and incest about 0.5 percent.) The act does bar a male who impregnated the abortion patient through an act of rape or incest from bringing a lawsuit under the statute, but it is true that no one else is subject to this bar. The law also provides an exemption if a physician performs an abortion under the belief that a medical emergency exists, but, though it defines a number of pertinent terms, the statute fails to define “medical emergency.” As I understand it, this concept is broadly construed under Texas law, but it is unlikely to include non-life-threatening physical injuries or mental anguish attributable to a rape/incest pregnancy.

All that said, the Journal’s emphasis on the absence of a rape and incest exemption is indicative of the editors’ prioritization of the political implications of the law over its purpose to protect unborn life.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/09/biden-compounds-disgrace-with-willful-blindness-about-our-jihadist-enemies/

P resident Biden has disgracefully ceded Afghanistan to the Taliban, betraying our government’s first obligation to protect Americans. He left behind hundreds of American citizens, as well as who knows how many thousands of green-card holders and Afghans who assisted our government the past 20 years. Having committed too little of our $710 billion-per-annum military to carry out his evacuation order responsibly, Biden reneged on his vow to get them out.

The president has also abandoned the counterterrorism mission of denying anti-American jihadists sanctuary and operational partnership with the jihadist Taliban regime. Thus, he has imperiled the homeland and virtually guaranteed terrorist attacks against U.S. installations and interests overseas.

Not content with that, the president and his State Department now insist on further humiliating our nation with ignorant, post-surrender claptrap. For example, adumbrating the president’s pathetic speech later in the day, State’s spokesman Ned Price spent Tuesday morning piously spouting that the Taliban need to meet their basic “commitments and obligations in Afghanistan.” These duties, Price says, include “respecting basic rights of the people” and “upholding its commitments on counterterrorism.”

This is sheer idiocy.

Throughout the Obama-Biden administration, I complained incessantly about the government’s refusal to grapple with the ideology of our jihadist enemies. Democrats are aligned with Islamist organizations, many with Muslim Brotherhood ties. Ergo, at the insistence of these Muslim activists, the Obama-Biden administration admonished our law-enforcement, intelligence, and military agencies to avoid focusing on the ideology — sharia supremacism — that catalyzes violent jihad.

Further, the administration adopted a counterterrorism strategy known as “Countering Violent Extremism.” The label “violent extremism” was chosen deliberately.

Since the 1990s and particularly after 9/11, the word terrorism has connoted jihadism. That is not solely due to the spate of mass-murder attacks by Muslim terrorists. Islamic scripture undeniably commands Muslims to use “terror” in fighting their perceived enemies, and sharia supremacists are committed literalists on this point, eschewing interpretations of Islam that “contextualize” these exhortations to brutality as confined to their ancient time and place.

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Wisdom is defined by Random House Webster’s Dictionary: “The quality or state of being wise; sagacity, discernment, or insight.” If that definition leaves you confused as it did me, then read what Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) wrote in Literary Remains, Volume I, published posthumously in 1836: “Common sense, in an uncommon degree, is what the world calls wisdom.” Wisdom involves judgement and the ability to anticipate the consequences of one’s actions. It involves honesty about oneself and the admission of one’s mistakes and limitations. It is empirical not conjectural; it sees a world where reality – not optics – is the driving force.

Wisdom is often associated with age. I recall when I was learning to drive, and that while my father agreed my reactions might be faster than his, he said I lacked judgment. He was right. In The Admirable Crichton, J.M. Barrie wrote: “I’m not young enough to know everything.” But, as can be seen in President Biden’s decision to ignominiously leave Afghanistan, age does not necessarily bring wisdom.

It is, of course, presumptuous to write about wisdom, because the reader must assume the author considers himself wise. That is not my claim. I agree with Shakespeare’s court jester Touchstone who in As You like It says: “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” Wisdom is rare and illusive, especially in our Twitter-filled world.

The ego-driven ex-Presidencies of Clinton, Obama and Trump show none of the wisdom of former retiring Presidents, like Truman and Eisenhower. Is it wise to assume interest rates will always remain low? What will be the costs on thirty and more trillions of dollars of debt when interest rates do rise? Regarding the federal budget, has it been wise to let discretionary spending (about half of which is defense) decline from 67% of the budget in 1962 to 30% in 2019, while mandatory spending (mostly entitlements) increased from 25% in 1962 to 62% in 2019? In 1962, we were faced with a USSR that wanted to “bury” us. Today, we are faced with a combative China, a resurgent Russia and myriad Islamic terrorist groups who chant: “Death to America.” Yet defense spending, as a percent of GDP, has declined from 9.3% to 3.4%. Has that been wise? Was it wise to leave billions of dollars of military equipment in Afghanistan, thereby making the Taliban-led government – harborers of terrorism – one of the better armed nations in the world? Should social justice be the goal of our armed forces, or should they focus on strategy and winning wars?

https://asiatimes.com/2021/09/stagflation-rears-its-ugly-head-in-us-payroll-data/

Inflation in the US is turning into stagflation.US nonfarm payroll growth of 235,000 in August, the lowest in seven months, was constrained by rising wage costs.

Average hourly earnings rose by 0.6%, or 7.5% annualized. The most labor-intensive sectors turned in the worst monthly performance.

Retail employment dropped by 29,000 and leisure and hospitality employment was unchanged for the month.

Leisure and hospitality jobs had risen by more than 800,000 during the preceding two months.

The chart of the day shows a clear inverse relationship between the rate of employment growth and the rate of change of average hourly earnings.

As labor becomes scarcer and more expensive, employers stop hiring, either because they can’t find workers or because they can’t afford them. This is a classic symptom of an inflationary cycle.

The average rent on a newly-signed lease is up 12% year-on-year as of August, according to Apartmentlist.com.

Home prices are up 20% year on year, the biggest jump on record, according to the Case-Shiller Index.

Used car prices are up 25%, and new car prices are probably up 10% after dealer discounts have dwindled.

Manufacturing jobs rose by 37,000, driven mainly by a 24,000 jump in automotive jobs.

But the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ survey of establishments was conducted in the middle of August before major auto companies announced production shutdowns to the global chip shortage.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stacey-lennox/2021/09/03/joe-bidens-excuse-for-the-horrible-jobs-report-is-ridiculous-and-insulting-n1475789

The wisdom of putting Joe Biden behind a podium more frequently in the wake of the disaster in Afghanistan is questionable. Yet, following the disastrous August jobs report, he ambled out to explain why the projections were off by a factor of three. Today he was mumbling Joe rather than petulant Joe. A slew of recent polling indicates Americans are feeling less safe, less secure, and less prosperous.

Predictably, these sentiments have cause Biden’s approval ratings to crater. While his handling of COVID-19 propped him up above 50% overall approval for most of the summer, polling shows even his marks on the pandemic are sliding. In Rasmussen’s daily Presidential Tracking Poll, his Approval Index dipped to -21 on August 24 and has remained at least -20 heading into the Labor Day holiday. There is speculation that it could be a durable decline rather than a blip.

Incredibly, Biden opened his remarks by saying, “As we head into Labor Day weekend, we have more evidence of the progress of our economy from last year’s economic calamity.” Someone needs to tell him the baseline is February of 2020. No one gets credit for reopening an economy artificially shut down by the government. Employees returning to their jobs and closed businesses reopening is not economic growth. And frankly, even those two things are not happening fast enough.

The only reason the economy did not completely collapse is because the economic fundamentals were strong. By  continuing to blow out spending, the Biden administration is eroding the foundations of the U.S.’s economic strength going into the pandemic. Still, mumbly Joe wants us to celebrate 235,000 new jobs when over 700,000 were forecasted. Employers are not going to create many jobs when there are already more than 10 million open nationwide.