Editor’s Note: When the great Stanford economist Thomas Sowell was still writing his syndicated column, he would occasionally compile a list of “Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene,” a collection of observations about news, policy, and opinion from the last week. Alexander’s new weekly feature, “The Week in Review,” was inspired by “Random Thoughts.”

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Biden’s DoJ v Trump…

On Joe Biden’s DoJ raid of Donald Trump’s home, what the warrant specified may be disclosed today, but that disclosure will not include the affidavits justifying the warrant. As I noted, “If this raid was based only on a warrant for National Archive material, then it will serve as another hit to the FBI’s widening credibility gap with the public.”

As George Washington University legal scholar Jonathan Turley noted: “It’s unprecedented on a number of levels. … They could have used a subpoena to achieve the same result.” He concluded that if the warrant was for one purpose and their objective was another purpose, “That’s exactly the type of dishonesty that the FBI was found to have engaged in during the Russian collusion investigation.”

If the warrant pertained to some obscure documents that were Top Secret SCI, then maybe Biden and AG Merrick Garland are trying to resurrect the Russia collusion charade. Indeed, according to Trump: “Nuclear weapons issue is a Hoax, just like Russia, Russia, Russia was a Hoax, two Impeachments were a Hoax, the Mueller investigation was a Hoax, and much more. Same sleazy people involved. Why wouldn’t the FBI allow the inspection of areas at Mar-a-Lago with our lawyers, or others, present? Made them wait outside in the heat, wouldn’t let them get even close — said ‘ABSOLUTELY NOT.’ Planting information anyone? Reminds me of a Christopher Steele Dossier!”

Clearly, the raid has fired up Trump supporters, but, as I have stated previously, this is part of the Demos’ “Br'er Rabbit” strategy — insisting they don’t want Trump to run when in fact they are baiting him to run, certain they can win on the hate and division they can foment against a Trump candidacy as they did in 2020.

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This Week’s BIG Lies…

According to Joe Biden: “Our economy had 0% inflation in the month of July. Zero percent.” Kamala Harris parroted that lie: “Last month our economy had 0% inflation.”

Fact: In July, inflation was 8.5% year over year, and that is in large measure the direct result of Biden’s so-called American Rescue Plan last year. The ARP is a major factor in surging inflation over the last eight months, which is now crushing family budgets.

Furthermore, the Producer Price Index — what suppliers and wholesalers are charging — is still 9.8%, and jobless claims have now risen to the highest level this year, adding more fuel to the threat of a full-blown recession.

The truth is that consumer inflation did not increase last month, but that certainly does not mean there was “0% inflation.” Biden and Harris made those false claims hoping their dullard Demo constituents would not notice, and they declared that was evidence Biden’s economic wrecking ball policies are working. Biden then insisted this was why it is critical to pass his so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which does nothing to reduce inflation and transfers more wealth to rich leftist constituencies.

Oh, and another big feature of Biden’s boondoggle is a dramatic increase in funding to add almost 87,000 IRS staff, almost doubling the current 93,654 government tax-enforcement personnel. But don’t worry, only Demo presidents weaponize the IRS! Perhaps they will just be used to count midterm votes!

A reader noted the irony in that the initials for the Inflation Reduction Act are “IRA,” and Biden is certainly deflating IRAs!

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What do you want, a cookie?

According to Kamala Harris: “Gas prices have now dropped 69 cents per gallon over the last six weeks. This drop in gas prices is the fastest in over a decade. We will continue to fight to lower costs for the American people.” To steal that famous line from a Dirty Harry’s bad guy, “Who is ‘we,’ sukkah?” I thought Vladimir Putin was responsible for gas prices! So was that huge spike in gas prices — from $2.39 a gallon when Trump left office to $5.02 six weeks ago — also a record?

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On the Inflation Reduction Act…

Note that it was not just Demos Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema who cast the deciding votes to send that Senate boondoggle bill to the House. Every Senate Democrat voted for that inflationary tax-and-spend obscenity.

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Just to be clear…

Hoping for a little diversion ahead of the anniversary of Biden’s surrender and retreat from Afghanistan, he was taking primetime victory laps last week after U.S. forces killed al-Qa'ida terrorist emir Ayman al-Zawahiri, who had been living large thanks to the Taliban terrorists now controlling Afghanistan.

The location of Zawahiri has likely been known for months, but the kill order was held until closer proximity to the anniversary of Biden’s deadly and disastrous AFG exfil anniversary.

Recall that the last “high-value ISK terrorist” target against whom Biden issued a kill order was the week after 13 American military Patriots were murdered in Kabul — the first deaths in 18 months. Unfortunately, as it turned out, Biden actually killed Zemari Ahmadi, a longtime U.S. aid worker, and nine other civilians, seven of whom were children. Ahmadi, who was among the Afghan people hoping to immigrate to safety, was bringing water to his family and neighbors.

By the way, when Barack Obama authorized the kill order on Osama bin Laden, his then vice president, Biden, strenuously objected.

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Jonah Goldberg wrote what?

Our longtime readers will recall that a few years ago, we fired Jonah Goldberg, who, prior to Trump, was one of my favorite columnists. Goldberg, who lives among other wealthy elitists in a fashionable section of Washington, DC, fell victim to chronic Trump Derangement Syndrome and never recovered. We can thank him and leftist fans for giving the nation Joe Biden.

That being said, reading some of his copy Tuesday morning after the Trump raid, I was shocked by this assessment: “GOP voter confidence in the [FBI] has plummeted in recent years as the former president and his allies railed against its investigation into alleged links between Russia and the Trump campaign. Special Counsel John Durham’s probe into the origins of that investigation has uncovered serious issues with the FBI’s handling of the FISA warrant application process, and Republicans have long complained that federal law enforcement agencies haven’t chased down allegations of wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton or Hunter Biden with similar vigor.”

“Alleged links”?

That is the closest Goldberg has come to fully acknowledging the corrupt deep state cabal within the FBI and CIA under former Directors James Comey and John Brennan, who, in collaboration with Hillary Clinton, were responsible for the fake “Russia collusion” conspiracy, a political setup to take Trump down.

If Goldberg would stop taking cocktails with the Obamas around the corner at their DC mansion in Kalorama when they drop in from their Martha’s Vineyard estate, he might eventually regain some connection with grassroots Americans, the bedrock of our nation.

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“Small Boobs”?

A nitpick with some otherwise good conservative publications. Last month, on Independence Day, in my morning news reviews I was confronted with the most disgraceful “Happy Independence Day!” image I have ever seen in a conservative publication. The Washington Free Beacon had, front and center, an animated gif of some celebrity model pulling down the lower half of her “patriotic” bikini while sucking a lollypop.

I wrote the editors, protesting, “You think this is appropriate given all the bloodshed defending Liberty over the last 246 years?” Astoundingly, their completely tone-deaf Beltway editor responded to my and other complaints by publishing an editorial defending the image, insisting it was “satire.” I also copied my objection to the Free Beacon’s outstanding flagship political analyst, Matthew Continetti, a regular Patriot Post columnist, who was a Free Beacon principal. He now tops his bio as a Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, rarely mentioning the Free Beacon.

Not to be outdone by the Free Beacon in its effort to offend whatever female readers it has left, for the last six weeks a few other conservative sites — The Washington Times, Townhall, RedState, and PJ Media — have been running ads at the top of their editions every day promoting “The Best Bra for Small Boobs,” often with an accompanying model photo. I suspect this ad is being posted by a third party that pays those publications for advertising — yet another reason The Patriot Post is certified “Ad Free.”

For the record, I am taking considerable abuse from some of our male editors who are (totally tongue-in-cheek) accusing me of being “gay” for objecting to these ads. For some reason, our female staff colleagues have been silent, but if glares could kill… (Oops. I guess NewsGuard will penalize us for identifying staff by their actual gender.)

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Finally, in case you missed it…

If you are interested in the greatest obstacle to free and fair election, I provided an exposition in great detail of how “fact-checkers” and “news site raters” operate to suppress conservative views, particularly on social media platforms, thus preventing critical political perspective from reaching millions of voters. See “The ‘Arbiters of Truth’ Hack The Patriot Post Rating, Again.”

(Updated)

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776