SHOW NOTES: Inflation Mixed; Habemus Praeses; DeSantis Was Right Again;

To begin: I’m on radio right now and also you’ll understand why I didn’t have a morning piece as you wade through this. I’m going subscriber-only today for this. I put in the work. If you want the whole of this, $7 for a month isn’t too much.

Welcome! The markets are excited about the inflation news. I’m not sure they should be. Inflation is at 3.3% annually now. Overall prices are up 20%+ since Biden took office, with gas prices up 55.3%, electricity up 29%, rent up 21.2%, and grocery prices up 21.2%.

SINCE BIDEN TOOK OFFICE: Gas: +55.3% Groceries: +21.2% Eating out: +22.2% Baby food: +28.4% K-12 food: +65.1% Pet food: +23% Rent: +21.2% Electricity: +29% Natural gas: +22.2% Used cars: +20.9% Airfare: +39.9% Public transportation: +27.2%

Real average weekly earnings: -3.9% (Source)

Five short takeways on the economic news from Bloomberg.

New. Why is the rollout of federally funded EV charging stations taking so long? Turns out, internally, even the White House realizes equity requirements are holding things up.

Habemus praeses. Clint Pressley has been elected the new President of the Southern Baptist Convention. He’s been a notable conservative voice who has also notably shied away from the in-your-face woke culture war partisanship sweeping through churches. No one can doubt his credibility on the issues, but he makes Jesus his message, not the left. Also, he and his church have been a model in how to handle sexual abuse situations, having publicly taken swift action to protect a student and inform his congregation of the situation. This is a good pick for the SBC.

🚨🚨🚨Ron DeSantis was right again. In 2023, the New York Times fact-checked Ron DeSantis’s claim that terrorists have most likely come across the unsecured federal border. They rated it as false.

Now:

Six Russian nationals suspected to have terror ties to ISIS have been arrested in a coordinated sting operation spanning Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia, The Post can exclusively reveal.

Two ICE sources confirmed to The Post they arrested the six people, who hail from Tajikistan, over the last week after the FBI contacted the agency to warn it.

Two others who were part of the same group were also arrested after being under surveillance for “several months” by a multi-agency Joint Terrorism Task Force, according to NBC. 

Part of the investigation featured a wiretap which revealed one of the now-arrested individuals was talking about bombs, the sources said.

At least one of the arrested suspects was released into the United States from the Southern Border.

Will someone please fact-check the fact-checkers at the New York Times?

Meanwhile. Despite the supposed “crackdown,” the Biden Administration has released at least 72% of the illegal immigrants who have crossed into the San Diego sector.

Notable. The rent really is too damn high and the rental increase, up 21.6% since January of 2021, makes it hard to save to buy a house. This is part of the inflationary problem that complicates matters for the Fed.

The Show Notes email really is an outline of what I talk about on radio with all the links for you to see. It is show prep for your mind and there’s so much more below the fold for the low low price of just $7.00 a month or $70.00 for the whole year.

Before We Go Below the Fold, it’s time to tune in. I’m live again from Louisiana, and you can call in to the show by dialing 877-973-7425. But be nice to Charlie if you call.

In Brief: Acolyte on Disney+ is terrible. Forget the woke intersection co-opting of classic stories from the Star Wars universe and turning the Jedi into colonizers, etc. The dialogue is stiffer than Mick Jaggar on Viagra, and the acting is terrible. Disney has a real problem on its hands but is still too wrapped up in DEI nonsense to notice. It decided to hand beloved franchises over to an intersectional cast of ax grinders who cannot tell original stories and are catering to a single-digit percentage of Americans intent on revising everything from strong male friendships, which now must be secretly gay, to basic shared mythologies. It’s just bad television, but what’s amazing is the badness is there even without the woke stuff. The acting and dialogue and smallness of it all is just bad.

Now, on to the deeper topics.