Welcome to another edition of The Mueller Report!
It’s beautiful and sunny here in the Colorado mountains! The Mueller clan tried their hand at fishing earlier this week. I’m sorry to report we did not catch any fish on that particular expedition. Maybe in a few months (or years), I’ll have some advice about fishing to share…
On the docket this week:
-Political violence & double standards
-Inflation & the economy (briefly)
-Thoughts about transitions
Political Violence
Most of you have probably heard about the man apprehended near judge Kavanaugh’s residence with a gun and a knife. He came from California to kill the supreme court judge, but ultimately turned himself. This would likely never have happened if the opinion suggesting the overturning of Roe v. Wade had not been leaked prematurely. It wouldn’t have happened if “pro-choice” organizations hadn’t posted the home addresses of supreme court justices on the internet.
Although this intended assassination is the most shocking and terrible development, it is hardly the main story of harassment faced by conservative supreme court judges. There have also been attacks on pro-life organizations, including a fire bombing.
What’s striking in the face of all this is the double standard coming from the White House, the DOJ, and some members of Congress. Public hearings on the January 6th riot also took place this week. Hearings might be too generous a word. But while the riot and breaking into the Capitol represent a “grave threat” to our democracy, harassment and threats against supreme court justices somehow don’t…
The hypocrisy is heightened even further by the fact that harassment and protesting outside judges’ homes is clearly and explicitly illegal. Impartial justice requires that judges, jurors, witnesses, etc. be free from personal intimidation and threats. Yet, the justice department is choosing not to enforce this critical law to prevent political violence and corruption, even as they are actively calling the Jan. 6 riots a grave crisis because they entailed political violence and corruption….
And of course, we are also being asked by the media to put to the side the fact that many people wringing their hands over the Jan. 6 riot regularly and explicitly defended “mostly peaceful” BLM protests in the summer of 2020 that destroyed a huge amount of property, including through theft, and left many people injured and some dead.
This hypocrisy is loathsome. It really isn’t that hard to say: “people who break the law should be punished, regardless of their political affiliation or how upset they are.” Yes, there is a lot of discretion in how aggressively to investigate, prosecute, and sentence people, but just letting them off scot-free, and pretending like certain kinds of violence and lawlessness are not violence and lawlessness is simply beyond the pale. And it is one major reason Democrats are in for potentially record-setting political losses in November.
Two other major reasons involve economics.
Inflation & The Economy
I wrote at length about the economy in last week’s newsletter, but since then new inflation numbers for May came out; and they weren’t good. The inflation rate continues to tick upwards to 8.6 % year over year (compared to 8.3% in April, year over year). And core inflation also continues to climb with sectors like gasoline, shelter, and food seeing large price increases.
Part of why that core CPI number matters is because people have a hard time avoiding those cost increases. A vacation to Florida? That can be put on hold. A new bike or set of clothes, that is easy to push off. Milk, eggs, bread, and monthly rent/mortgage payments? Those are much harder to avoid or defer.
As Kevin Williamson at National Review put it, people spending more than $100 to fill up their gas tanks bodes very, very badly for Democrats in November. Inflation is high enough that it’s hard to ignore. No more losing 2 or 3 percent of one’s purchasing power every year. It’s now triple that and people are noticing.
If that weren’t bad enough, I have a growing sense of dread that the economy is sliding into an inflationary recession (stagflation). It’s like when you are driving on an icy road. Even if you are taking precautions and not driving too quickly, you can still hit an icy patch and slide towards another car or other object in slow motion. If you’ve experience this, you know how surreal the experience can be – you’re not moving quickly, but you’re not slowing or stopping either, and you have several painful seconds to anticipate collision before it happens.
That’s what I feel like is happening with the U. S. economy.
But I’m also worried that instead of watching a slow-motion fender bender, we’ll see a multicar pile-up. Asset markets are already getting shaken up a lot as I mentioned last week. We’ve been living with supply-chain issues for years now. The price of everything keeps going up. And the final shoe to drop will be an uptick in unemployment. Hiring freezes and layoffs are beginning at large corporations. It won’t take too long before smaller organizations and businesses find themselves in a similar boat.
And the prolonged labor shortage of the past couple years will draw swiftly to an end. Except for the skills and qualification mismatch that has resulted from decades of misguided subsidies for higher education and belittling of many of the trades.
On Transitions
Establishing new routines with five children is difficult. Even going to a place we have a lot of familiarity with has been challenging. Sleeping through the night, figuring out school and play routines, finding new family activities, learning new patterns of grocery shopping, all of these things can take a frustrating amount of time to figure out!
On top of that, since The Abbey is a business and a place we own, there are other responsibilities we have to take care of. One of the hardest is deciding what improvements and changes to make.
Since we’ve been here we’ve already cleaned out the storage room and thrown some junk away, painted several walls, built shelves, built a sandbox, planted garden boxes, rearranged a fair amount of furniture, etc.
What I find challenging about transitions is how intangible much of the process is and how difficult it can be to judge progress. How do I know if we are “more settled” in? How do I work towards that state? Especially when life with small children involves being unsettled to some extent all the time!
Still, it’s like people say, “That’s just the cost of doing business.” This is just the cost of living and moving.
Talk to you next week!
I appreciate your thoughts and comments shared in this edition. The following comments are for your consideration.
1. Political violence & double standards.
Concur. My experience is most people expect law and order to be meted out equally. People also tend to easily see through double standards. In addition, the American culture will tolerate a certain amount of “mild” violence if it is justified. Unfortunately, the widespread violence in the summer of 2020, etc. was excessive to say the least. Plus, the reasons provided for the continued widespread violence including the condoning of it by the political class is taking it’s toll on the voters. In fact, it is those voters who are motivated to show up in the next election. You may or may not have heard it here first, but I am placing my bet the Democratic record-setting political losses in November will be close to or exceed a 100 seat swing in the House of Representatives. (As always, time will tell.)
2. Inflation & the economy.
Concur. I stand by the comments I shared a year ago in my response to your post, Inflation: Tiger by the Tail.
3. Transitions.
I can relate in most ways, but not in all ways. Enjoy the journey and do your best to maintain your sanity. It gets better, but not always easier.
Shalom.
— Duane