The Wall Street Journal has the Left anxious if not infuriated for stating the obvious. The president of the United States, long gone from the barely 30-year-old upstart elected to a Delaware seat in the U.S. Senate back in the stone age of 1972, is “slipping.” The Wall Street Journal piece that got things stirring is titled: Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping Participants in meetings said the 81-year-old president performed poorly at times. The White House said Biden is sharp and his critics are playing partisan politics. Among other things, the Wall Street Journal reports that in a recent meeting, Biden: • “[S]poke so softly at times that some participants struggled to hear him.” • “[S]ometimes closed his eyes for so long that some in the room wondered whether he had tuned out.” • Had Speaker Mike Johnson worried that the “president’s memory had slipped about the details of his own policy.” There’s more here of this. But the long and short is that those meeting with Biden in private are seeing nothing more than what the American people and the world at large have witnessed repeatedly as Biden goes about doing what presidents do — working in the glare of the televised public eye. There are plenty of Americans who have had to deal with a beloved older relative as they begin the irreversible slow slide into dementia. As it happens, I am one of those, watching my late mother move through the last couple of her 99 years ever so slowly fading away, confused, uncertain, unrecognizing friends and family members. There is nothing to be ashamed of. The problem here is glaringly obvious. Joe Biden is not just some grandfatherly old guy. He is the sitting president of the United States. The nuclear codes are always nearby. His ability to send U.S. troops into battle — or withdraw them as many feel he did in the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal that killed 13 Americans, is always at hand. Not to mention that if all of this mental deterioration is seen and observed by Americans whether they are congressional leaders or not, one can be certain that America’s adversaries in places like Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran are watching as well. Thus the very fact that Biden allies would go about trying to defend him by attacking those, like House Republicans, who observe the obvious about his mental acuity is troubling. Case in point is this view over there in Mediaite that refers to the Wall Street Journal piece as “a damning Wall Street Journal report that relies heavily on criticism from House Republicans.” Again, there is little or nothing in the Wall Street Journal report that hasn’t been observed in some form or another by the American public at large. The glaringly obvious point is that there is nothing political or partisan about dementia and old age. Some people make it to 100 and are clear as a bell. Some people have an energetic and youthful physical condition that goes with them to a very old age. Some are increasingly mentally or physically not with it in their 50s. There is nothing new or unusual about that. The problem is that Joe Biden is not anybody. He is Joe Biden, president of the United States. And quite clearly Joe Biden is not doing well either mentally or physically. And to say so is hardly some Republican conspiracy theory. The real question at this point in a presidential election year is what to do about it. And the obvious answer in the immediate situation to that is: have the Biden family get their Joe to do his country a service — and withdraw. The hard political reality is obvious in one poll after another: former President Trump is repeatedly in the lead and will, in fact, defeat him. But November is six months away. Back there in February of 2024, the New York Post got the answer exactly right in an editorial. The headline: Jill Biden and Dems committed elder abuse on Joe — now they must force him to step aside The Post, the Wall Street Journal’s sister publication, got it exactly right. READ MORE: The Ever-Continuous Villaining of Joe Biden and His Minions The post Biden Should Withdraw appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The Indian electorate of nearly 970 million registered voters has spoken. Turnout has been estimated at over 66 percent in a seven-phase election that started on April 19. Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi has been elected to a third five-year term. Not since Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister after independence in 1947 and Congress Party leader, has that country had such a popular and consequential political figure. Indeed, there was a time during that era of decolonization and socialism when the country was “Nehru’s India.” However, for the last 10 years, that appellation has belonged to Modi, who has been unchallenged — earning an absolute majority of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the lower house of Parliament, known as the Lok Sabha. The BJP, which is referred to as the “the saffron party” in the Indian press, has had no need to govern through awkward coalitions for which the Congress Party was well known. The BJP victory is far from the landslide predicted by pundits and exit polls. The Election Commission of India confirms that the BJP has won 240 of 543 parliamentary seats, with Congress Party in second place, showing an improved performance at 99, up from 52 in 2019, the last general election. (In 2019, the BJP polled 303 seats). This means that to achieve a majority of 272, the BJP must now govern with coalition partners from regional parties in states such as Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka. Historically, the BJP has led the Democratic National Alliance, although it did so in its own right without need of others. What is most surprising is the shockingly weak showing by the BJP in the 10 states that comprise the Hindi belt, the traditional BJP fortress in the north. In 2019, the BJP won nearly 80 percent of the 225 seats of this region — yet now the BJP has won only 56 percent of those. In particular, the BJP won only 40 percent of the 80 seats of Hindi-speaking Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state, with over 240 million people. Further, the Congress Party has made a strong showing in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Telangana — in 2019 it had barely any traction in those states. Also in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress has strengthened its position versus the BJP, winning 40 percent more seats than in 2019. Indian governance has now become more complicated, and the BJP no longer has absolute control. A linear approach with an absolute majority must now yield to a more lateral and collaborative one. Given the increased importance of regional parties that must align with the BJP, defection of roughly 20 seats could bring on a political crisis for the BJP-led coalition. So why did this setback for the BJP happen? The factors of inflation and unemployment have been cited. Inflation is running near 5 percent, and last month, the unemployment rate rose to 8.1 percent, up from 7.4 percent in March. Although GDP growth is running at an impressive rate of over 8 percent, food inflation rate above 8 percent during the last six months has hurt the poor and rural populations. Further, job creation has not met the expectations of the “Make in India” program announced in 2014: Manufacturing and IT now account for only 20 percent of the workforce. Other contributing factors are more nuanced. The Indian Constitution effective in 1950, declares the country to be secular — and its 200 million Muslims are the largest religious minority. Critics of the BJP say that the party’s rhetoric has been divisive with respect to Muslims and other minorities. Further, the enormous Ayodhya temple recently inaugurated by the BJP was a flashpoint. It is a dramatic edifice constructed on the site of what was a mosque and believed to the birthplace of Lord Ram (also written “Rama”). Rama is the archer and the seventh incarnation of Lord Vishnu of the Hindu trinity — he is celebrated in the ancient epic about chivalry, the Ramayana. Ironically, the BJP lost in the Ayodhya constituency. Further, the recent yatras (foot march and road trip) of Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Congress Party and great-grandson of Nehru, seem to have invigorated the Congress Party, whose fortunes had declined in recent years. Covering more than 6,000 miles across India on foot, Gandhi’s march was dedicated to social justice. Although the opposition forces have dealt the BJP an electoral setback, the accomplishments of Modi and his party since 2014 have been remarkable. India now ranks as the world’s fifth-largest economy (nominal GDP), having surpassed the United Kingdom and France. The U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley believes that India may be positioned to be the world’s third-largest economy within three years — with the third-largest stock exchange by 2030. As I have written in The American Spectator, examples of other major accomplishments include the lunar landing last August of spacecraft Chandrayaan-3; advancement of the “Aadhaar” national biometric identification program to direct subsidies and eliminate fraud, among other things; increased rural electrification in India’s over 650,000 villages, with over 28 million getting electricity between 2019 and 2021 alone; and a public sanitation program sponsored by Modi and cited by UNICEF as increasing sanitation access to 450 million people between 2015 and 2019. Going forward in domestic politics, Modi and BJP will have to pitch to some regional constituencies and try to limit the increasing influence of the Congress Party. Mandating ideas and programs will not be as easy, although Modi is well known for his execution skills. India should be expected to continue its balancing act among the West, Russia, and the Global South. Arms imports from Russia, now having decreased to 36 percent of India’s total of arms imports, will also be a key component of India’s military, also in part preventing full systems integration with the West. India’s sourcing of Russian oil at discounts should also be expected to continue, as Rahul Gandhi has endorsed maintaining good relations with Russia. (For most of fiscal 2023, such purchases saved the country nearly $8 billion). In Western capitals, there has been criticism of these purchases, which fuel the Russian war machine against Ukraine. However, in a remarkably preposterous statement, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Geoffrey Pyatt has stated that there is no conflict with India’s status as a U.S. partner and its reliance on Russian oil. Over the years, the U.S. relationship with India has been fundamentally transactional, and frustrating from time to time. Our foreign policy establishment has tended to romanticize shared values such as democracy, the English language, Western law, and free markets. While these are nonetheless common ties, India will pursue its national interest — wherever that leads. If the West could solve India’s energy requirements and need for weaponry, given its 4,000-mile borders with Pakistan and China, the U.S. relationship with India could morph into something more strategically satisfying. The U.S. and India both need each other — due to fear of China, vulnerability to Islamist jihad, and opportunities for trade and investment. We must wish Prime Minister Modi well, as he governs on a new political landscape. Frank Schell is a business strategy consultant and former senior vice president of the First National Bank of Chicago. He was a lecturer at the Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago, and is a contributor of opinion pieces to various journals. The post India’s Modi Wins a Third Term — But No Majority appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

WASHINGTON — In 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci, then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, become the face of then President Donald Trump’s White House Coronavirus Task Force. Four years later, it feels as if America is split into two camps — pro-Fauci and anti-Fauci. On Monday, Fauci was called upon to testify before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic amid accusations that he was associated in a cover-up about the virus’s origins, which Fauci denies. Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, who chaired the panel, was aware of the odd tension that led to Fauci’s testimony. “The vaccine saved millions of lives, and I want to thank you for your support and engagement in that,” Wenstrup, who also is a doctor, told Fauci. Still, Fauci has had to address the criticism that also comes with the job. There were lockdowns that didn’t have to be as long or severe as they were in many parts of the country. School closures left countless children behind. The six-foot social distancing directives were not based on research. Ditto requirements that workers wear those ubiquitous paper blue masks. I understand why these quick-draw policies were hatched. It was a panic. When COVID-19 first appeared on U.S. shores, the public faced an unknown threat of dubious origin — and people were dying. Americans were desperate for information from authoritative sources. I do fault Fauci, now 83, for stifling debate. And that’s largely why he was called to testify. As has been reported extensively, then National Institutes of Health head Francis Collins sent Fauci an email in which he suggested “a quick and devastating published takedown of” the Great Barrington Declaration. The October 2020 document written by three highly credentialed epidemiologists — Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford, Martin Kulldorff of Harvard, and Sunetra Gupta of Oxford — advocated “focused protection” for the vulnerable but normal life for others to limit the negative consequences of COVID lockdowns. Like life today. Testifying Monday, Fauci maintained that under the Great Barrington approach, likely “another million people would have died.” The problem with this pro-lockdown math is that it ignores the suffering and loss that followed classroom lockdowns and business closures. As the National Institutes of Health reported last year, “Severe illness, grief, isolation, disrupted schooling, job loss, economic hardship, shortages of food and supplies, mental health problems, and limited access to health care” stressed out many Americans. So while Fauci and company speak of the lives saved, there are also lives squandered and cut short because “the science” failed to listen to the people. At the hearing, Fauci argued that the Great Barrington Declaration was “flawed.” But really, its authors showed a greater understanding of how lockdowns would harm families and institutions, as well as what the public would accept. If you were inside a COVID bubble, you wouldn’t have guessed that while many in the laptop class happily were working from home, others were going to work (because they had to) but also going out to eat (because they wanted to). At the hearing, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., pointedly asserted that Fauci “is not a comic book supervillain.” But really, that’s how many in big media and universities saw people who assessed their own risks and lived accordingly. I flew on full planes during COVID. So if you’re one of the thousands of workers who were fired because you refused to be vaccinated for personal or religious reasons, you might see Fauci and company as the faces of intolerance. Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM The post There Are 2 Americas: Pro-Fauci and Anti-Fauci appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

by Brandon Smith, Alt Market: If we accept the fundamental truth that Ukraine is nothing more than a proxy battleground between Russia and the west, then you might say WWIII has already begun. The powers-that-be have been content to keep the situation contained primarily to Ukraine so far, but a recent event suggests things are […]

by Michael Snyder, End Of The American Dream: We just learned that a person in Mexico has dropped dead after catching H5N2, and people are already totally freaking out about this all over the Internet.  In recent weeks, there was already enough concern about the potential for a major H5N1 outbreak among humans.  Dairy cows […]

from The Jimmy Dore Show: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Claudio Grass, Claudio Grass: Our special interview on Swiss Wealth Advisor with CLAUDIO GRASS, CEO and Independent Precious Metals Consultant, explores the manner in which astute investors may preserve wealth against the backdrop of debilitating central economic planning and monetary inflation.  Executive Global sit down to discuss macroeconomic trends, precious metals, monetary policy and philosophy with […]

from The Alex Jones Show: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Mac Slavo, SHTF Plan: The Kremlin has referred the United States as “an enemy”, using more harsh language than it had in the past. Previously, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov referred to the ruling class in Washington and its allies as “unfriendly states” or “opponents.” The use of the term “enemy” is definitely a step […]

by Awr Hawkins, Breitbart: The NYPD is preparing to revoke Donald Trump’s concealed carry permit following the numerous felony convictions handed down by the jury last week. CNN reported the permit was actually suspended on April 1, 2023, following Trump’s indictment on various charges. The NYPD will now move beyond mere suspension, revoking the permit altogether. […]