She put on quite a performance at the podium yesterday, in advance of the White House's surreal celebratory event on "inflation reduction" held...literally a few hours after the latest data on inflation painted a grim and painful picture that surprised experts and sent the markets into a nosedive. The spin started early, and boy was Karine Jean-Pierre spinning. Not even the soothing tones of James Taylor -- crooning about, er, suicide -- could brighten the picture. But you put on a happy face, KJP. Someone has to:
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: "Prices have been essentially flat in our country these last two months." pic.twitter.com/R1t3DfmtqC
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 13, 2022
REPORTER: "Is there any concern about a dissonance between the current economic moment and the kind of celebration you'll have...about the 'Inflation Reduction Act?'"
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 13, 2022
KJP: "We have to remember, the 'Inflation Reduction Act' is historic." pic.twitter.com/IKd5U5t7r9
Oh, 'history' is being made, alright:
Gas prices are down, but here's why Americans are still feeling the sting of inflation:
— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) September 13, 2022
Food at home up 13.5% in past year - largest since 1979
Rent is up 6.7% in past year - largest since 1986
Electricity up 15.8% - largest since 1981
Health insurance 24.3% - largest ever inc
Inflation dominated the day yesterday, and rightfully so. It's the top issue for voters, and the new data caught even left-leaning economists off guard. But I couldn't just let this one slide. My goodness:
Jean-Pierre: "We are doing a lot more [than the Trump administration] to secure the border and could be doing even more if Republicans would stop their obstruction." pic.twitter.com/smSidn9VDi
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 13, 2022
This comes on the heels of the Vice President (and border czar, don't forget) dutifully repeating the insulting line that the border is secure in an interview on Sunday -- though in fairness, she could barely even pretend that she believed what she was saying. Jean Pierre was any more convincing. There have been nearly one million known got-aways on Biden's watch. There have also been millions more encounters, many of which have resulted in illegal immigrants being simply processed and released into the country. The border is quite conspicuously not secure. And if she wants to invite a game of comparisons, that would be very unwise. Click through and look at these statistics. Let's toss out the summer of 2020 as a COVID anomaly. Let's compare apprehensions under the Trump administration in 2019, versus under Biden in 2022. In April of 2019, there were about 109,000 encounters at the border. This past April, the number swelled to nearly 236,000. In July 2019 -- slow season due to heat -- there were 82,000 encounters. July 2022 saw 200,000. Team Biden is shattering records on this front.
There have been millions of illegal crossings under this administration, and we're less than halfway through a single presidential term. This crew compares favorably to no one; especially not to the administration that actually got its arms around the problem with a suite of empirically successful policies that Biden came in and reflexively dumped in the garbage, for purely political reasons. I discussed the situation at the border with my Fox colleague Bill Melugin yesterday. During the interview, he invited KJP down to see the border for herself, suggesting that her false statements are evidence of either deceit or ignorance:
This, incidentally, is the viral video he references in our conversation:
EXCLUSIVE: In just a 45 minute span in Naco, AZ, our team saw over a dozen illegal immigrants dressed in camouflage use a rope to scale the border wall, then run into AZ. None were caught, making them “gotaways”. There have been over 500,000 gotaways so far this year. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/kV29qahnEY
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) September 13, 2022
Just a super secure border, as you can see. If only the Republicans would stop "obstructing" -- what, exactly? A mass amnesty that will make the incentives even worse? -- things would be even better. Ludicrous stuff. I'll come full circle, back to inflation, and leave you with this:
CNN cuts away from Biden to highlight the "Dow taking a total beating."
— Scott Sloofman (@ScottSloofman) September 13, 2022
"Feels like it's hard to be celebratory" pic.twitter.com/FcbqGSGVZv
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