#foreign national mortgage

[americamortgages]

Foreign National Mortgage Loan

Get approved for US mortgage loans as a foreigner with America Mortgages. Our expert team can help you secure financing for your dream home. For more information,visit the website: https://www.americamortgages.com/foreign-national-overseas/

[skyfinancing]

Foreign National Mortgage Lenders

Sky Financing Solutions has established itself as one of the premier Foreign National Mortgage Lenders in Philadelphia. With a commitment to providing tailored financial solutions for international clients, this company stands out in a competitive market. Below, we explore the key aspects that make Sky Financing Solutions a preferred choice for foreign nationals seeking mortgage services in Philadelphia.

[starrmortgage]

Foreign National Mortgage Loans

StarrMortgage specializes in providing foreign national mortgage loans, catering to individuals looking to invest in real estate in the United States. These loans are designed for non-U.S. citizens, offering tailored financing solutions that accommodate their unique financial situations. With a focus on simplifying the mortgage process for foreign nationals, StarrMortgage ensures competitive interest rates and flexible terms, enabling clients to navigate the complexities of obtaining a mortgage in a foreign country. Whether it's for a primary residence, vacation home, or investment property, StarrMortgage is committed to supporting foreign investors in achieving their American dream.

[globalmortgage]

6.8% Cap Rate In LA! + Hotel 101 + U.S. Mortgage Rates + Turning Home Equity Into Cash

GMG | Investor

[Super rare] Newly-constructed multi-family unit in Los Angeles with a 6.8% cap rate!

4 Units x 5 bedrooms + 5 bathrooms + attached garage (total 20 bedrooms!). Approximate Lot Size: 7,499 sq. ft. Year Built: 2024

The property will be delivered with a 5-year master lease with government-assisted transitional housing organization.

Located just 0.2 miles from the University of Southern California's Health Sciences Campus and offers easy commutes to Downtown Los Angeles, Mid-City, and the Westside.

The 2024 construction ensures no deferred maintenance and strong in-place income. The property will be delivered fully occupied through 2024-2029, providing investors with immediate stabilized cash flow greater than 6.8% cap rate on current income.

Projected Monthly Rent: Y1 $23,000; Y2 $23,690; Y3 $24,400; Y4 $25,132; Y5 $25,886

Contact me directly for detailed pricing and tailored financing options.

Hotel101

Last week, I hosted a webinar with Hotel101, a company offering the opportunity to invest in 'hotel' rooms  in the form of freehold condo titles and a share of the gross room revenues, with NO expenses or operational and maintenance responsibilities.

They are positioned as a 3-star hotel with 5-star amenities in super popular locations such as Niseko and Madrid. Owners also get free nights each year at the hotels! Watch the video to learn more, or contact us here!

U.S. Mortgage Rates

Last week saw the lowest mortgage rates in the past 15 months. The difference in year-on-year mortgage payments (Sep 2023 vs Sep 2024) is about $300 a month or $3,600 a year, all things equal.

The current CHIPS Act is creating many jobs in the U.S., and this gentrification is driving home prices in the Midwest, where chip manufacturers are building their facilities - each responsible for well over 10,000 new jobs. We just met a couple buying homes in a midwest town where Google has their data centres and Intel is building a semiconductor fab - in this popular midwest town, home prices have doubled in the last few years. 

Many of these skilled labourers will need to rent, and this theme is consistent throughout the U.S. It's never been a better time to be a landlord in the U.S. 

Our Foreign National mortgage rates are very low, and you qualify ONLY on rental income, not your personal income; super easy.

Bridging Loans

Using your home equity for cash has been a useful way to generate liquidity when you need it! Our clients use this for tuition, renovations, paying down high-interest debt, or personal investments! We offer these loans in Singapore, the U.S., the U.K., and Australia!

Happy Hunting!

www.gmg.asia

[lendai-foreign-investors]

Lendai | US Mortgage for Foreign Investors | Foreign National Investors

Are you a foreign investor that needs a loan? Lendai offers the best rates for US mortgages tailored to foreign investors!

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

They are trying to illegally fire tens of thousands of Federal workers at the worst possible time of year. These are middle class to lower middle class people in DC and probably about a third or so of them voted for Trump. Contrary to publican opinion nobody gets rich working for the Federal government, especially in a major city where the cost of living is very high as are mortgages and rents. A disproportionate number of them are African-American, women, and other marginalized people since government employment is a safe haven for them with the added safety of being largely Unionized. To be honest there aren’t a lot of jobs open in the DC area with the pay and benefits of a unionized government job.

Musk is trying to run the government as if it were a business and that model does not apply. Government is not supposed to make a profit or pay dividends to shareholders. The primary purpose of government is to SPEND money to improve the lives and safety of all Americans.

Mass firings will not only ruin the lives of those removed from employment but it will have a ripple effect throughout the greater DC, Virginia, and Maryland area. All retail outlets will suffer immediately from lost business. Community and social services will be strained to the breaking point by hordes of people becoming unemployed all at once. The housing and rental market will collapse. Banks and Credit Unions will be stressed by loss of revenue. Families will dissolve and suicides will increase and so on. For those of you who don’t have sympathy for Federal employees, wait until the inconvenience of having almost no government services available to you strikes home. Think of the benefits that will be cut off. Think of the aid you won’t be able to receive when something goes wrong in your. Wait until you try to call a government agency to correct something to find out it doesn’t exist or is run by a skeleton crew.

You can look up the salaries of the rank and file workers and see it’s not great especially for one of the priciest markets in the country. This is a cold and heartless move which will have a devastating impact on large numbers of real people. It won’t just be in DC because they plan on spreading to field offices around the country so the pain will begin to seep into every county in the nation.

Government is not as simplistic as a business and can’t be run like one or by business people, entrepreneurs, oligarchs, CEO’s etc. Republicans, and other thoughtless people, need to separate themselves from the notion that someone who runs a business can run a country, or even a government agency. Diplomacy for example is much more complicated than a simple business deal. Diplomats spend lifetimes working on treaties and international agreements that will be in effect for decades or even centuries. It takes detailed knowledge of the past, current demographics and their needs, and years of forethought to play out every possible outcome of a treaty. Each word and phrase is excruciatingly analyzed for months or even years to achieve the desired effect and avoid any misinterpretations, misunderstandings, or vagaries of translation.

Treaties and national policy can’t be rationally drawn up by amateurs over a drunken round of golf, or a drunken steak dinner, or an amateurish conference call with the complexities of foreign languages which required highly skilled diplomatic translators who know the particularities of not only the mother tongue but each regional accent and dialect to avoid any posssible faux pas.

Trump and his henchmen are arrogant, poorly educated, unqualified, and often inebriated bigots and racists trying to run the world’s largest and most complex governing body as if it were a chain restaurant franchise.

Have you noticed yet nobody is talking about cutting aid to big energy companies, airlines, big pharma, or virtually any big corporate enterprise. Felon Muskrat says he’s uncovered billions in corruption and waste at every federal agency, in only a week. Felon hasn’t offered one scrap of documentation or proof though and neither had Trump. The media reports their claims of billions in waste and the Republican voters accept it as true. After a few weeks of hearing it in the news many of you will accept the lie as truth simply because you’ve heard it so often.

They are deliberately trying to overwhelm you, distract you, and wear you out. Democratic lawmakers trying to enter the very Federal agencies they fund have been locked out and kept at bay by armed private security wearing no identification and unwilling to state their names. Unwilling to say anything except you can’t enter.

They are pushing back but most of you seem to have forgotten that they became the minority party in both houses of Congress and the minority doesn’t have the ability to win a vote and pass anything or do anything other than protest and try to delay. Fortunately majority labor unions are out protesting in front of all the major agencies being targeted so far. Protests are also happing in some big cities but you’d never know it because it is virtually ignored as always by tv news.

[reality-detective]

DJT's EXECUTIVE ORDERS

13818

● Confiscated private and corporate assets

● Seized the NYSE

● Blocking the property of those involved in serious human rights abuses or corruption, human trafficking.

13848

● 13848 imposes certain sanctions in the event of foreign interference in any of the United States choices.

13959

● Maintain American leadership in artificial intelligence

Khazarian assets confiscated

● Among the top 3 executive orders - many DS assets were confiscated and DS Agents reversed

○ 13818, 13848 and 13959

● The Space Force has EVERYTHING under control!

● DS money will be used up quickly

● All DS gold has already been confiscated (Vatican etc.)

● Wall Street, Washington DC, Vatican and City of London - all dead

● OPERATION: DEFEND EUROPE. This started March 17th 2020 and takes over the Vatican, it's the mafia and it's seizing all the Rothschilds central banks

● Brexit has severed the Vatican's ropes and stripped the Royals of all assets

● We're going to Tesla and metals instead of oil and gas

GESARA – Global Economic Security and Reform Act

● It should be implemented on 10/11/2001. Stopped by the Khazarian false flag event on 9/11

● Elimination of the national debt of all nations of the world

● No taxes. Only a fixed sales tax of around 15% on new goods

● Waiving of mortgages and other bank departments due to illegal government activities

● Back to constitutional law - get rid of the corrupt law of the sea

● Newly elected leaders - only 10% of current governments

● World peace for 1,000 years

● Eliminate all current and future nuclear weapons on planet earth

● Gold Standard!

● Introduction of new hidden technologies - 6,000 Tesla patents. free energy

● Build and rebuild in all countries at 1950s prices

● The power back to We The People. Global distribution of wealth

● Odin project = World EBS (Emergency Broadcast System)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

1937, World's Highest Standard of Living :: Margaret Bourke-White

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 28, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Oct 29, 2024

On Monday, October 28, 1929, New York’s Metropolitan Opera Company opened its forty-fifth season.

Four thousand attendees in their finest clothes strolled to the elegant building on foot or traveled in one of a thousand limousines to see Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, the melodramatic story of an innocent French girl seduced by wealth, whose reluctance to leave her riches for true love leads to her arrest and tragic death. Photographers captured images of the era’s social celebrities as they arrived at opening night, their flash bulbs blinding the crowd that had gathered to see the famous faces and expensive gowns.

No one toasting the beginning of the opera season that night knew they were marking the end of an era.

At ten o’clock the next morning, when the opening gong sounded in the great hall of the New York Stock Exchange, men began to unload their stocks. So fast did trading go that by the end of the day, the ticker recording transactions ran two and a half hours late. When the final tally could be read, it showed that an extraordinary 16,410,030 shares had traded hands, and the market had lost $14 billion. The market had been uneasy for weeks before the twenty-ninth, but Black Tuesday began a slide that seemingly would not end. By mid-November the industrial average was half of what it had been in September. The economic boom that had fueled the Roaring Twenties was over.

Once the bottom fell out of the stock market, the economy ground down. Manufacturing output dropped to levels lower than those of 1913. The production of pig iron fell to what it had been in the 1890s. Foreign trade dropped by $7 billion, down to just $3 billion. The price of wheat fell from $1.05 a bushel to 39 cents; corn dropped from 81 to 33 cents; cotton fell from 17 to 6 cents a pound. Prices dropped so low that selling crops meant taking a loss, so struggling farmers simply let them rot in the fields. 

By 1932, over one million people in New York City were unemployed. By 1933 the number of unemployed across the nation rose to 13 million people—one out of every four American workers. Unable to afford rent or pay mortgages, people lived in shelters made of packing boxes.

No one knew how to combat the Great Depression, but certain wealthy Americans were sure they knew what had caused it. The problem, they said, was that poor Americans refused to work hard enough and were draining the economy. They must be forced to take less. “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate,” Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon told President Herbert Hoover. “It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.” 

Slash government spending, agreed the Chicago Tribune: lay off teachers and government workers, and demand that those who remain accept lower wages. Richard Whitney, a former president of the Stock Exchange, told the Senate that the only way to restart the economy was to cut government salaries and veterans’ benefits (although he told them that his own salary—which at sixty thousand dollars was six times higher than theirs—was “very little” and couldn’t be reduced).

President Hoover knew little about finances, let alone how to fix an economic crisis of global proportions. He tried to reverse the economic slide by cutting taxes and reassuring Americans that “the fundamental business of the country, that is, production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis.” 

But taxes were already so low that most folks would see only a few extra dollars a year from the cuts, and the fundamental business of the country was not, in fact, sound. When suffering Americans begged for public works programs to provide jobs, Hoover insisted that such programs were a “soak the rich” program that would “enslave” taxpayers, and called instead for private charity.

By the time Hoover’s term ended, Americans were ready to try a new approach to economic recovery. They refused to reelect Hoover and turned instead to New York Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who promised to use the federal government to provide jobs and a safety net to enable Americans to weather hard times. He promised the American people a “New Deal”: a government that would work for everyone, not just for the wealthy and well connected.

As soon as Roosevelt was in office, Democrats began to pass laws protecting workers’ rights, providing government jobs, regulating business and banking, and beginning to chip away at the racial segregation of the American South. New Deal policies employed more than 8.5 million people, built more than 650,000 miles of highways, built or repaired more than 120,000 bridges, and put up more than 125,000 buildings. 

They regulated banking and the stock market and gave workers the right to bargain collectively. They established minimum wages and maximum hours for work. They provided a basic social safety net and regulated food and drug safety. And when World War II broke out, the new system enabled the United States to defend democracy successfully against fascists both at home—where they had grown strong enough to turn out almost 20,000 people to a rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939—and abroad. 

The New Deal worked so well that common men and women across the country hailed FDR as their leader, electing him an unprecedented four times. Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower built on the New Deal when voters elected him in 1952. He bolstered the nation’s infrastructure with the Federal-Aid Highway Act, which provided $25 billion to build 41,000 miles of highway across the country; added the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to the government and called for a national healthcare system.

Eisenhower nominated former Republican governor of California Earl Warren as chief justice of the Supreme Court to protect civil rights, which he would begin to do with the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision months after joining the court. Eisenhower also insisted on the vital importance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to stop the Soviet Union from spreading communism throughout Europe.

Eisenhower called his vision “a middle way between untrammeled freedom of the individual and the demands of the welfare of the whole Nation.” 

The system worked: between 1945 and 1960 the nation’s gross national product (GNP) jumped by 250%, from $200 billion to $500 billion. The vast majority of Americans of both parties liked the new system that had helped the nation to recover from the Depression and to equip the Allies to win World War II. 

Politicians and commentators agreed that most Democrats and Republicans shared a “liberal consensus” that the government should regulate business, provide for basic social welfare, promote infrastructure, and protect civil rights. It seemed the country had finally created a government that best reflected democratic values. 

Indeed, that liberal consensus seemed so universal that the only place to find opposition was in entertainment. Popular radio comedian Fred Allen’s show included a caricature, Senator Beauregard Claghorn, a southern blowhard who pontificated, harrumphed, and took his reflexive hatred of the North to ridiculous extremes. A buffoon who represented the past, the Claghorn character was such a success that he starred in his own Hollywood film and later became the basis for the Looney Tunes cartoon rooster Foghorn Leghorn.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mariacallous]

“I am opposed to war, unless in self-defense.” This was the most-liked comment on Douyin—the Chinese counterpart to TikTok—in reaction to a speech delivered by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Jan. 9. In his address, Wang previewed China’s top diplomatic goals for 2024 and emphasized “the unwavering resolve of all 1.4 billion Chinese citizens to achieve reunification with Taiwan,” a statement made just days prior to the island’s general elections.

The broader reaction to Wang’s remarks likely wasn’t what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hoped for: Tens of thousands of Chinese social media users responded, many of them with grievances, sarcasm, and defiance, widely questioning the costs of a potential war.

One man from Shanghai complained, “Who is going to fight the war? If I die, who is going to pay my mortgage or my car loan?” Wang’s speech framed “national unification” as one of “China’s core interests,” but as one user from Hunan rebutted, “[China’s] core interests are that every Chinese can be treated equally and have access to elderly care and health care.” The pushback went beyond economic and social grievances. Some posters were even bolder, suggesting that Taiwan’s democracy may demonstrate a political alternative to mainland China: “The fact that Taiwanese choose their own way of life,” said one commentator from Shandong, “might show that Chinese people can take a different route.”

The mood among social media users is a sharp departure from past elections. After almost every Taiwanese general election since 2016, a wave of pro-war fever has swept the Chinese internet. After Taiwan’s 2020 elections, for example, upbeat war enthusiasts in China produced oil paintings that illustrated wild fantasies of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) capturing Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen alive after landing in Taiwan and forcing her to sign an official surrender document onboard a Chinese aircraft carrier—a scene reminiscent of the 1945 Japanese surrender that ended World War II.

In 2021, one of the most popular songs to go viral on Chinese social media was “Take A Bullet Train to Taiwan in 2035.” Its allusion to a high-speed rail line connecting Beijing and Taipei was a dog whistle to nationalist masses who hoped that unification was on the horizon—by force, if necessary.

Absent from these fantasies, however, was the blood and violence that accompanies real war. At the time, China’s star was rising on the international stage, and public confidence was riding high on China’s success in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic within its borders. As such, the sentiments surrounding unification and the use of military force were quite romantic; many people believed that victory over Taiwan would be easy, that the Taiwanese would surrender voluntarily if the PLA simply blockaded the island.

In 2024, however, things have changed. The most recent Taiwanese presidential election—in which the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won a repeat victory—served as an uncomfortable reminder to the Chinese public that neither Taiwanese politicians nor voters are interested in Beijing’s plans for political unification. Although the forceful unification narrative still exists, any push from nationalists to reignite war fever has now run into a wall of skepticism following the DPP victory.

“Wake up,” one Weibo user wrote in opposition to the broader online calls for forceful unification. “Stop dreaming,” another echoed. The defiant voices are becoming a common reaction to the suggested use of military force to an extent rarely seen, given the massive culture of censorship on Chinese social media.

A clear reason for this change is China’s economic slowdown. While Taiwan went to the polls in 2024, China was grappling with a youth unemployment rate above 20 percent, a housing market crisis with sales down by 45 percent, and a stock market in free fall that lost $6 trillion in just three years, the likes of which haven’t been seen in almost a decade. News about Taiwanese elections failed to arouse the same nationalistic reactions among the preoccupied Chinese public that had occurred in the previous two contests.

Instead, the 2024 elections triggered a flood of complaints: “Sort out our own economy, what a mess.” a Shanghai resident said angrily. “Look at our stock market,” an apparently frustrated investor from Hunan grieved, “It’d be better to keep the status quo, and leave Taiwanese alone.” The gloomy economy has made some commenters question the underlying justification for war: “With low-income people making less than 1,000 yuan a month ($140), and the national insurance tax going up, huge medical bills, and unaffordable apartments, why do you want forceful unification? I don’t get it.”

“It is the economy that really matters,” another person from Tianjin pointed out. “[Taiwan] being independent or not has nothing to do with ordinary people.”

The changing attitudes toward Taiwan’s elections reflect a broader shift in public sentiment in China’s online space. Discontent about the country’s poor economic reality has been growing louder, drowning out calls for a military takeover.

Ironically, the CCP’s own past propaganda efforts contributed to this cooling effect. Right before Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, visited Taiwan in August 2022, official and semiofficial rhetoric in mainland China was so belligerent that it led many Chinese to believe that the day of unification had finally arrived and that the military would shoot down her plane and launch its attack on Taiwan imminently.

This was the peak of forceful unification hysteria, but it only left its crusaders disappointed. In the end, there was not only no shootdown of Pelosi’s plane, but there also weren’t even military exercises conducted before she left Taiwan. Many Chinese, especially forceful unification advocates, felt betrayed and disillusioned by their government’s failure to follow through on its belligerent rhetoric, and the after-effects of this letdown are still being felt today.

During Taiwan’s 2024 elections, war enthusiasts were continuously reminded of Beijing’s military inaction following Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan. “Have you guys forgotten Pelosi?” one said. One commonly repeated joke, observing the lack of military action, scoffed that the only thing that was fired up when Pelosi visited was the stove in her hotel. The kinds of threats that once resonated with nationalists now drew widespread ridicule online: “delusion,” “talking a big game,” “an unrealistic fantasy,” and “all hat, no cattle.”

Meanwhile, at the other end of the Chinese political spectrum, the 2024 election prompted the resurgence of the view among many liberals that Taiwan’s democracy represents a desirable political model. In the early 2010s, many Chinese saw Taiwan as a beacon of hope for Chinese society—a liberal, civic, and democratic alternative to the one-party state. The liberal Chinese writer Han Han coined a popular phrase—“The most beautiful scenery of Taiwan is its people.”—that encapsulated the view of how trustworthy and free a people can become under democracy.

But after the crackdown on liberal intellectuals and online speech under Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the honeymoon did not last long and was gradually replaced by a climate of xenophobia, jingoism, war euphoria, and a longing for unification by force. Making matters worse, a growing nationalist mood in Taiwan led many to believe that Taiwanese looked down on mainlanders.

The 2024 elections, however, prompted a renewed interest from the Chinese public about their neighbor, home to the world’s only Chinese-speaking democracy. News about Taiwanese elections aroused great curiosity on Weibo about the nuts and bolts of the electoral process—what a ballot looks like, how many ballots one can cast, how votes are counted, and how candidates are selected. When a few Taiwanese Weibo users answered these questions, they were liked and retweeted by thousands of Chinese accounts, drawing genuine admiration and blessings from many.

“Are we going to see one day like this?” one user from Gansu wondered with a crying emoji. “Maybe this is accumulating experience for our own future: giving speeches, holding debates, and counting votes,” commented another, from Tianjin.

China’s shifting public sentiment is bound to have repercussions for cross-strait relations, but it would probably be a bridge too far to infer that the Chinese public will fiercely oppose a war in the Taiwan Strait. Ultimately, the nationalist base remains. At present, the euphoria about forceful unification is quieting down, mainly because the party’s over-the-top propaganda failed to meet the expectations of its most ardent supporters. But if aggressive rhetoric were followed by military action in the future, war fever could be easily fanned again.

Despite the prevalence of extreme nationalism, Chinese public opinion is more divided on Taiwan than it seems, and these divisions are only likely to increase. What concerns most ordinary Chinese are decent jobs, good income, accumulating savings for retirement, and getting affordable access to health care and housing.

So long as the economy is struggling and people’s livelihoods are threatened, there is no guarantee that the CCP’s attempts to exploit nationalism will work; quite the opposite, it could be faced with plenty of pushback.

[todaysdocument]

"A Chicken in Every Pot" political ad and rebuttal article in New York Times

Collection HH-HOOVH: Herbert Hoover PapersSeries: Herbert Hoover Papers: Clippings File

This is the advertisement that caused Herbert Hoover's opponents to state that he had promised voters a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage during the campaign of 1928. During the campaign of 1932, Democrats sought to embarrass the President by recalling his alleged statement. According to an article in the New York Times (10/30/32), Hoover did not make such a statement. The report was based on this ad placed by a local committee -- which only mentions one car!

A Chicken for Every Pot [handwritten] World[?] 30 October 1928 [/handwritten] The Republican Party isn't a [italics] "Poor Man's Party:" [/italics] Republican prosperity has erased that degrading phrase from our political vocabulary. The Republican Party is [italics] equality's [/italics] party -- [italics] opportunity's [/italics] party -- [italics] democracy's [/italics] party, the party of [italics] national [/italics] development, not [italics] sectional [/italics] interests-- the [italics] impartial [/italics] servant of every State and condition in the Union. Under higher tariff and lower taxation, America has stabilized output, employment and dividend rates. Republican efficiency has filled the workingman's dinner pail -- and his gasoline tank [italics] besides [/italics] -- made telephone, radio and sanitary plumbing [italics] standard [/italics] household equipment. And placed the whole nation in the [italics] silk stocking class. [/italics] During eight years of Republican management, we have built more and better homes, erected more skyscrapers, passed more benefactory laws, and more laws to regulate and purify immigration, inaugurated more conservation measures, more measures to standardize and increase production, expand export markets, and reduce industrial and human junk piles, than in any previous quarter century. Republican prosperity is written on [italics] fuller [/italics] wage envelops, written in factory chimney smoke, written on the walls of new construction, written in savings bank books, written in mercantile balances, and written in the peak value of stocks and bonds. Republican prosperity has [italics] reduced [/italics] hours and [italics] increased [/italics] earning capacity, silenced [italics] discontent, [/italics] put the proverbial "chicken in every pot." And a car in every backyard, to boot. It has[italics] raised [/italics] living standards and [italics] lowered [/italics] living costs. It has restored financial confidence and enthusiasm, changed [italics] credit [/italics] from a [italics] rich [/italics] man's privilege to a [italics] common [/italics] utility, [italics] generalized[/italics] the use of time-saving devices and released women from the thrall of [italics] domestic drudgery. [/italics] It has provided every county in the country with its concrete road and knitted the highways of the nation into a [italics] unified [/italics] traffic system. Thanks to Republican administration, farmer, dairyman and merchant can make deliveries in [italics] less [/italics] time and at [italics] less [/italics] expense, can borrow [italics] cheap [/italics] money to refund exorbitant mortgages, and stock their pastures, ranges and shelves. Democratic management [italics] impoverished [/italics] and [italics] demoralized [/italics] the [italics] railroads,[/italics] led packing plants and tire factories into [italics] receivership, [/italics] squandered billions on [italics] impractical [/italics] programs. Democratic maladministration issued [italics] further [/italics] billions of mere "scraps of paper," then encouraged foreign debtors to believe that their loans would never be called, and bequeathed to the Republican Party the job of [italics] mopping up the mess. [/italics] Republican administration has [italics] restored [/italics] to the railroads solvency, efficiency and par securities. It has brought rubber trades through panic and chaos, brought down the prices of crude rubber by smashing [italics] monopolistic rings,[/italics] put the tanner's books in the [italics] black [/italics] and secured from the European powers formal acknowledgment of their obligations. The Republican Party rests its case on a record of stewardship and performance. [full transcription at link]

[eaglesnick]

“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

Malcolm X

I’m no fan of Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves but the deliberate lies and distortions concerning her budget both before and after the event are derisible. For a society to flourish successfully the media must adhere to a certain degree of honesty. Different opinions, backed up by evidence and logical argument, are fine, indeed, welcomed, but the continual peddling of untruths and half-truths by the media is an existential threat to the very democracy many of these media outlets pretend they are defending.

Before the budget the Financial Times, one of the most respected mainstream economic newspapers in the UK had this headline:

“Bankers fear Rachel Reeves is preparing UK Budget tax raid on sector” (11/09/24)

 On the day after the budget we have this headline:

“Reeves spares banks from tax raid after lobbying”  (City AM: 30/10/24)

This glaring headline from the Express is another example of our dishonest media:

“Labour blasted as 'anti-motorist' as Rachel Reeves ‘set to raise fuel duty in budget." (18/10/24)

After the budget we get the true story.

“Rachel Reeves announces fuel duty freeze as motorists spared from Budget tax rises."  (Independent: 30/10/24)

The Financial Times spoke of the “fear” our honest bankers felt concerning Reeves pending budget. Quite why bankers were “afraid” is unclear, especially as Reeves had already promised:

“Banker’ bonuses: No cap under Labour. Says Reeves." (BBC: 31/01/24)

After the budget, when it was clear there would be no tax raid on bankers, it was because she had “spared" them. Spared them from what? She had already promised there was to be no cap on their bonuses. Despite record profits at the six largest British banks (£48bn) Reeves decided not to increase the bank levy introduced by the Coalition government in 2011, or the corporation tax surcharge imposed by a Conservative government in 2016. In short, the banking sector has been left untouched by Reeves budget and this whole notion of “fear" and bankers being “spared" is a non-story.

The same non-story concerning her "anti-motorist" policies was also described as the motorist being "spared" when the prediction she would raise fuel duty just didn’t materialise.

Since the budget Reeves has come under repeated attack for raising taxes. Her budget will result in less wage growth, fewer jobs, an exodus of businesses abroad, the closure of care homes and doctors surgeries, higher mortgages and rents, the collapse of British farming, etc, etc.

The sad fact is we all know our public services are on their knees, homelessness is endemic, child poverty is rising, the NHS is on the brink of collapse, and our children’s schools and some of our hospitals are quite literally falling down around us. UK absolute poverty has hit an all-time high, life-expectancy is actually falling and the nation is suffering a mental health crisis.

While her British critics continue to rant against Reeves budget it is  worthwhile, even enlightening, to see how other countries view her plans for the Britain.

“Britain targets the wealthy as it hikes taxes by $52 billion.” (CNN Business: 30/10/24)

And

“Britain’s Reeves targets wealthy and foreign income with big tax rises” Reuters: 31/10/24)

The question British media outlets have to answer is what do they think should happen to our failing public services and the continuing economic plight of so many working people?  Should we continue as we were under the Tories and just let a huge sector of our society  go to the wall as happens in America? Or should we, as a nation, try and repair the damage done to our public services thereby improving the lives of many ordinary citizens?

If the latter answer is the way forward then who is going to pay for the repairs that are so desperately needed to mend our broken society?  The fair and moral answer is, of course, those who can afford to pay a little extra in tax – the already wealthy.

This is what Reeves is attempting to do and this is what is recognised by foreign observers. We can argue who among the already wealthy should be paying the most in additional taxes but it is the rich who have to pay. After all, Statistica inform us “the UK’s rich are getting richer” (23/05/22) so it is only morally right they should pay a little extra towards the welfare of those less well off than themselves.

The blind loathing that the vast majority of the British media display towards the Labour party is truly worrying. Their genuine fear when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader is understandable as his policies were truly transformative in nature. But social democrat Reeves budget is a far cry from the socialist plans of the Labour left. Yet the British media has this negative knee jerk reaction to all things Labour. The danger is that the day-after-day invention of “problems” that don’t exist will , over time, have a drip, drip affect on our perceptions, whereby we all buy into the lies being peddled.

[americamortgages]

The Requirements and Process for Getting a U.S. Mortgage Loan

The process and procedure for obtaining a mortgage loan as a U.S. expat or a foreign national in the United States can vary depending on the loan program. However, there are a few general steps that are typically followed when applying for a mortgage loan with America Mortgages:

Determine your budget and the type of mortgage that you are interested in

This will help you narrow down your options and provide an understanding of monthly payments and the down payment required.

Compare rates, terms, and benefits of each loan program

America Mortgages’ loan officers are all experts working with foreign national and overseas expat clients – that is all we do! Once you let us know of your requirements, we will suggest a program that best suits your needs, based on our database of 150 U.S lender programs. However, there are a lot of options, such as tenure of the loan, down payment, qualifying standards, etc., that need to be discussed and understood. As the leading experts in this range of mortgage financing, our team can guide you through what can be a confusing array of options.

Get Pre-qualified for a mortgage

The most important step in getting a U.S. mortgage loan is getting a pre-approval letter from America Mortgages. This letter states that you have been pre-approved for a mortgage. It is a straightforward process and is easier than applying for a mortgage in most other countries. It’s a straightforward and easy process and likely easier than applying for a mortgage in most other countries. This involves completing the U.S. loan application, credit report from your home country, and financials showing you have the down payment available. Pre-qualification is vital when you put an offer in on a property. It will be required in every transaction, so it’s better to get it done before you start “shopping.”

Documents needed to apply for a U.S. mortgage

Loan application completed

Passport

Bank statements or financials showing down payment (purchase only)

Credit report from your home country or country of residence (U.S. credit not required)

If you are choosing to provide personal income, you will need to provide either an income letter or tax returns (no income loans are available)

 Loan programs available

U.S. Expat Mortgage & Foreign National – Second home. This is a property you will personally use and not rent out.

U.S. Expat & Foreign National – Investment property. This pure investment property that will be rented either long-term or short-term.

Complete a mortgage application

The loan program you choose will depend on how the mortgage application will be completed and what supporting documents will be provided. With America Mortgages, foreign nationals and U.S. expats do not need U.S. credit to qualify for a U.S. mortgage. If you have credit in your home country or the country you are currently living in, that will be sufficient. In the event you don’t have any credit history, we have loan options for this as well.

Receive and review your loan approval

America Mortgages will review your application and supporting information and submit it to the pre-determined lender. If you are approved, America Mortgages will provide you with a mortgage commitment, which outlines the terms and conditions of the loan for you to make a decision. Currently, our approval rate is 97%!

Order the appraisal report for the property

America Mortgages will assist in ordering an official appraisal for the property. This is done by a third-party appraisal management company approved by the lender. The normal cost is $600-$1,000, depending on the property size, location, and complexity.

Clearing underwriter conditions

In general, the loan programs we feature are very straightforward and require minimal documentation from the borrower. However, the underwriter might request for further documentation or explanation for one or two items.

Clear to close “almost home”

Once your loan officer provides you with a “clear to close”, it means all items have been signed off by the underwriter, and the loan is being moved to loan documents/funding status.

Sign the mortgage documents and complete the closing process

Once all the necessary steps have been completed, you will be able to close on the mortgage loan and purchase the home. We have a variety of ways to sign your mortgage closing documents;

Sign at a U.S. Embassy or U.S. consulate near you

It may be possible to sign at a local notary and receive an Apostille if the country you’re in is a part of The Hague Convention

It may be possible to sign over a video call with the escrow agency

Limited Power of Attorney – Specific only for this transaction, it may be possible to appoint a trusted advisor in the U.S. to sign the closing documents on your behalf

Fly to the U.S. You are not required to sign in the state or city where the escrow is located. We can arrange a mobile notary to meet you almost anywhere in the U.S. to sign

Our team of mortgage professionals are located around the world with one focus – providing exceptional service and the best loan programs to our clients globally. Some of the ways that America Mortgages can help foreign nationals and U.S. expats include:

Offering a variety of mortgage loan options, including conventional, non-QM investor, and jumbo loans

Assisting you with the mortgage application process, including gathering and reviewing the necessary documentation

Providing personalised guidance and support to help you find the best mortgage loan for your situation

Working with you to understand your financial goals and help you achieve homeownership

Providing ongoing support and assistance throughout the mortgage process, from application to closing

What’s the unique thing that America Mortgages does that bank can’t? You can actually qualify for a U.S. mortgage with the following:

No U.S. credit needed

No personal income required

No W2 required (U.S. Expat)

Qualifying based on rental income

High-Net-Worth Loan programs that do not require any AUM

Self-employed loan programs

By working with America Mortgages, you can access a range of mortgage loan options that are suited to you and receive expert guidance and support throughout the mortgage process. Foreign nationals can get up to 75% financing, and U.S. expats can get up to 80% financing in all 50 states. This can help you make informed decisions about your mortgage options, increase your chances of obtaining a loan that meets your needs, and enables you to achieve your real estate investment goals.

For more details about Home Loan in America, visit us at www.americamortgages.com

Reference:https://www.americamortgages.com/the-requirements-and-process-for-getting-a-u-s-mortgage-loan/

[starrmortgage]

Foreign National Mortgage Loans

StarrMortgage Company specializes in providing mortgage solutions for foreign nationals looking to invest in real estate in the United States. Our Foreign National Mortgage Loans are tailored to meet the unique needs of non-U.S. residents, offering flexible terms and competitive interest rates. Whether you’re purchasing a vacation home or an investment property, StarrMortgage can help you navigate the complexities of the U.S. mortgage process with ease.

[beardedmrbean]

Conservative calls to deport Representative Ilhan Omar over comments she purportedly made about Somalia have no legal merit, experts tell Newsweek.

The progressive Democrat, a Somali American and Muslim, has been under fire for remarks she allegedly made to Somali American constituents that have been viewed over 7 million times on X. Omar, a Somali American and Muslim, seemed to address a deal struck by Somalia's breakaway region of Somaliland with landlocked Ethiopia to give it access to the sea.

Republicans, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, have openly called for Omar to be deported, with the latter saying: "She flaunts using her position as congresswoman to protect Somalia's border while our border is invaded by MILLIONS of illegals who are a danger to America."

Immigration lawyer Rosanna Berardi told Newsweek that since Omar is a naturalized U.S. citizen, calls for deportation lack legal ground unless the individual in question gained citizenship through nefarious means such as fraud, misrepresentation or membership in certain organizations—or being dishonorably discharged from the U.S. military if citizenship was based on military service.

The Minnesota representative's statements, whether accurate or taken out of context, are also protected under the First Amendment, which extends not just to U.S. citizens but also to public officials who routinely express opinions on foreign and domestic matters and do so without fear of legal repercussions—especially deportation.

"The Immigration and Nationality Act allows for deportation/removal of individuals due to criminal activities, violations of status or violation of immigration law," Berardi said. "Deportation for expressing political views, particularly those covered by the First Amendment, is not legally supported. Political speech does not constitute a valid basis for deportation.

"In essence, we have a series of sound bites here that are legally baseless. Typical political banter."

Stephen Schnably, a law professor at the University of Miami, told Newsweek that calls for the deportation of a sitting member of Congress for expressing personal views—whether accurate or spun by political adversaries—is "far beyond the realm of any reasonable response to her remarks."

"It's just not in the cards, deportation as punishment for a U.S. citizen," he said. "That is something that just cannot be done."

He said that even if Omar's statements, as attributed by some conservatives, are taken at face value, favoring foreign country interests over U.S. interests "is not a First Amendment violation to do that." Members of Congress can say what they want, and ultimately, voters have their say in elections.

The situation would potentially be different if Omar did not hypothetically register as an agent of a foreign government, comparing Omar's casual remarks to criminal charges against Democratic Senator Bob Menendez. The New Jersey legislator and his wife are accused of accepting bribes, including gold, cash, a luxury vehicle and payments toward a home mortgage, allegedly in exchange for advancing their interests, as well as those of the Egyptian government, in his role as the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

But in Omar's case, there is no indication that anything of that sort—of "committing a well-defined crime where conduct or actions are not in accordance with a statute that is not constitutional."

Politicians make similar remarks all the time, Schnably added, saying there is nothing unusual about foreign policy positions that favor one country over another in a dispute.

Omar's alleged statements, backlash

According to one translation of Omar's remarks first shared on X by Ambassador Rhoda J. Elmi, Somaliland's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Omar purportedly said that she was "Somalian first, Muslim second" and "here to protect the interests of Somalia from inside the U.S. system."

Omar is also alleged to have said that "as Somalis, one day we will go after our missing territories."

But Omar has refuted the retelling of her statements, calling the viral clip "not only slanted but completely off," adding that she "wouldn't expect more from these propagandists."

Another translation posted online by Abdirashid Hashi, a researcher and Somalia analyst, states that Omar said that Somalis "are sisters and brothers, supporting each other, people who know they are Somalis and Muslims, coming to each other's aid."

Per that translation, she also said: "While I am in Congress, no one will take Somalia's sea. The United States will not back others to rob us. So, do not lose sleep over that, O Minnesotans. The lady you sent to Congress is on this, and she is as cognizant of this interest as you are."

Greene bashed Omar and her comments in an X post, saying: " Patriots, you must show up big in 2024. We have a country to save and people to deport."

"Expel from Congress, denaturalize and deport!" DeSantis wrote on X.

In the past, DeSantis has singled out Omar as allegedly propagating antisemitic movements within Congress. In January 2022, after a group of people wearing Nazi symbols made national headlines for yelling antisemitic slurs on streets and highway overpasses in the Orlando area, DeSantis said he would not let others shame him for his support of Jews.

"I'm not going to have people try to smear me that belong to a political party that has elevated antisemites to the halls of Congress, like (US Rep.) Ilhan Omar, that have played footsie with the (boycott Israel) movement," DeSantis said at the time.

[ecologyalike]

Debt at the heart of the growth paradigm

Before industrialization, much of the world’s population lived in a society with very low per capita economic growth rates. In the 1930’s with the invention of econometrics, economic growth became a symbol of a modern state, and an aspirational goal of the nation to demonstrate progress in comparison to other nations.

However, sustained economic growth comes with an immense social and ecological cost. There is little doubt that increasing pollution and waste generated by the growth economies threaten the well-being of future generations. Likewise, the overuse of the world’s natural resources is eliminating the possibility of people in the majority world achieving the same levels of income as people in high-income countries.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash  

If the problems of the hegemony of growth are obvious, what is creating a “growth trap” so hard to escape?

In today’s economy money is primarily created through the issuance of loans by the private banking sector. Most of the money circulating in the economy is created by private banks. When a person gets a mortgage to buy a new home, the bank creates a deposit account with an equivalent amount of money in the ledger (no new money is printed).  However, this deposit is equivalent to other types of money, in fact over 99% of total transactions by value in the UK are bank deposits! Only a fraction of the money is physical cash created by the state.

The problem with this type of money production is that we need to maintain a high level of loans to have money circulating in the economy. Understanding how money is created in the modern economy, and the role of debt in the process of money creation, helps to understand one of the key obstacles to escaping the hegemony of growth.

At the individual level, dept economy means that people must constantly work more than they consume, to be able to pay back their loans. Having a shorter working week, and earning less, is not an option if one needs to pay back a home mortgage or student loan. It is difficult to reduce private debt in the absence of growth.

Likewise, in the non-growing economy, the country governments struggle to pay down their public debt and may need to cut spending on education, health care or other social services. Particularly low and middle-income countries, with large debts issued in foreign currency, are often unable to invest in public infrastructure without taking more loans. 

In the worst case to manage their loan payments to international creditors, they must resort to privatising the state assets such as electricity production or drinking water, exposing these “public goods” under speculation of private markets, and making them too expensive to most of the people in the country.

If all loans would be paid back, there would not be money in the economy.

Dept drives growth, which in turn is necessary to avoid financial crises. High levels of public debt mean that growth is the only option to manage the loan without hurting the people living in the country. Likewise, high levels of private debt mean that people have no option other than to continue to contribute their labour to the growth economy.

However, in the current financial system, private banks continue to issue new loans for profit, without any consideration of whether these loans contribute to the economy operating within planetary boundaries or advance equality and social justice.

And while banks and asset mangers cash in profits, the circle of more debt and demands for more  growth goes on and on and on….

References

Escaping Growth Dependency – Why reforming money will reduce the need to pursue economic growth at any cost to the environment by PositiveMoney

https://positivemoney.org/publications/escaping-growth-dependency/

Sovereign Money - An Introduction by Ben Dyson, Graham Hodgson and Frank van Lerven

https://www.insearchofsteadystate.org/downloads/Sovereign-Money,-An-Introduction-Dyson-Positive-Money-2016.pdf

[mightyflamethrower]

In 2021, Joe Biden was elected after a bitterly fought campaign that deposed the incumbent Donald Trump. Democrats eventually captured, for a time, both the House and Senate, ensuring the most left-wing government in modern American history.

Americans were then set to witness a great experiment. For the first time in their lives, a truly radical socialist program would supposedly fundamentally transform the way America dealt with the border, immigration, the economy, race relations, foreign policy, energy, law enforcement, crime, education, and social questions such as religion, gender, abortion, and schooling.

In a sense, we were all to be lab rats of sorts, to be experimented on by the radical left and their various critical theories. Now in the last year of the Biden term, we can see the results of that experiment—and the unfortunate disasters that followed.

But first, how was such a radical move to the left even possible in a center-right America?

The Democratic nominee, Biden, had earlier united the left, but only through a Faustian deal. The handlers of a nearly non compos mentis Biden had ushered all his 2020 primary rivals out of the primary races in unison.

But in exchange for their exits that ensured Biden the nomination, the left took over his general campaign—in which Biden was virtually relegated to his basement—and then set his agenda.

Who was running things?

The mysterious architects of White House ideology included, inter alia, the omnipresent, now-Washington-DC-dwelling Obamas, the old socialist gadfly Bernie Sanders, the fossilized tribunes of the black and Latino congressional caucuses, the DEI firebrand Squad, and the neo-socialist scold Elizabeth Warren.

As a result, for one of the few times in American history, the hard left now had undreamt of power. And it was enhanced by a chorus in our compliant media, academia, corporations, the administrative state, foundations, entertainment, and popular culture.

So we were all to embark on a great adventure led by the foot soldiers of DEI, the Chicken-Little green extremists, the critical race and critical legal theory crowd, the modern monetary theorists, the woke commissars, the transgendered zealots, Antifa, BLM, the hate-Israel lobby, and the Trump Derangement Syndrome media sorts.

Ostensibly, America was to be reset financially, economically, socially, culturally, militarily, and politically. The nation would be arbitrarily divided into oppressors and oppressed—with one caveat: hyper-rich, left-wing white architects had to be exempt from the damage inflicted on those they targeted. Thus, like Orwellian pigs who walked on their two hind legs, they were free to fly their private jets, get their kids into racially quota-bound Ivy League schools, burn lots of fossil fuels to heat and cool their massive homes, and be protected by their walls, security details, and zip codes from the crime wave they would soon unleash on others.

Now, as we enter the fourth year of the great experiment, America is $35 trillion in debt, borrowing $1 trillion every 100 days. Home mortgages are at 7 percent. Key prices for food, insurance, rent, and fuels are 30-40 percent higher than when Biden entered office.

The nation has been humiliated and emasculated abroad. Racial relations are the worst in a half-century. The military is in virtual receivership. Biden is polling about 40 percent approval and is behind in key swing states in most of the 2024 polls.

As a result, the Biden administration is furiously trying to find a way to release more of its hated oil and natural gas on the world market. It stopped refilling the strategic petroleum reserve that it had earlier drained to lower gas prices before the 2022 midterms.

So it will quietly pump more oil and gas, appease Iran in fear of a war in the oil-producing Middle East, plead with the once “pariah” Saudis, and order the Ukrainians not to hit Russian oil installations—all to get more oil produced to lower November 2024 gas prices.

It will head nod to eliminating fossil fuels, mandating EVs, banning natural gas stoves, and subsidizing more inefficient wind and solar farms. But it now realizes that its green agenda on its watch will wreck the United States economy and throw the left out of power. So it pivots to an old-fashioned “Drill, World, Drill” mantra—at least until the election is over.

Biden fulfilled his agenda of getting 10 million illegal aliens into the United States by destroying the southern border. The point was to swarm America with poor, unaudited migrants, all in need of massive federal and state assistance, all supposedly now loyal to their entitlement benefactors. Who could stop them from voting as repayment to their enablers in the new age of 70 percent mail-in ballots, same-day registration, inadequate authentication and audit of ballots, third-party vote harvesting, ballot curing, and Zuckbucks pouring into key precincts to absorb the work of the registrars?

Most of the illegals went to Texas and Florida, key swing states that the left still thinks it can flip to blue status. Long term, the 10 million will recalibrate congressional districts to favor neo-socialist agendas. Short-term, millions of new arrivals unlawfully may still try to vote in 2024.

Any who object to or publicize this agenda will be dammed with boilerplate smears of “election deniers,” “voter suppressions,” “racists,” and “xenophobes,” Yet all that said, the administration is now desperately trying to distance itself from its greatest “new Democratic Majority” border success, given that public opinion abhors what Biden had done at the border to the country at large.

So it floated a phony “bipartisan border security” bill in hopes of luring naïve Republicans to support a stealth de facto amnesty agenda that would have still allowed 5,000 illegals in a day rather than the now customary 10-15,000. The hope was that when it failed (and the left knew it would), to blame Republicans for what the left had wrought.

Biden knows destroying the border will ruin America for generations to come, costing billions of dollars in subsidies and legal and policing costs to integrate the massive influx. So until the election, it is thrashing about, claiming that it never did such a thing at all. Its duplicity is again proof that the open borders agenda was hated by the public, a human catastrophe, and not sustainable before an impending election.

Biden’s foreign policy is also in ruins. Biden destroyed deterrence in an effort to beg, appease, and buy off America’s enemies to behave and not cause an election-losing war. But the more it fled from Afghanistan in humiliation, the more it appeased Russia as it massed on Ukraine’s border, the more it snored as a Chinese spy balloon traversed the United States, the more it put early holds on aid to Ukraine, the more it assured Putin a “minor” offensive into Ukraine would not elicit a US response, so all the more it convinced Putin that he could take Ukraine without an American pushback, the Chinese to threaten Taiwan, and Hamas to prepare for massacring Jews.

So here we are in Ukraine with nearly 800,000 dead, wounded, and missing Ukrainians and Russians. The administration has no clue how to stop the Verdun that its appeasement birthed. The entire therapeutic approach to foreign policy lies in ruins.

Ditto the Middle East. National security advisor Jack Sullivan’s “quiet” portfolio that he inherited from the Trump administration simply blew up. Biden is now scrambling to stop the Israeli response to the encircled Hamas remnants, trapped in their last redoubt in Rafah.

Biden is now replaying the 1950s CIA-stereotype of the “Ugly American,” as he does his best to overthrow the Netanyahu government, and to allow the trapped Hamas remnants to escape and claim they defeated the Zionist entity, despite butchering more Jews in a single day than any time since the Holocaust. No matter: the Biden administration is stealthily communicating with the Israeli opposition concerning the best joint strategies to force Netanyahu out. Mass protests in the streets of Tel Aviv attest to the success of destabilizing the current Israeli government.

Team Biden whispers to the media about slow-walking or stopping key arms shipments, abdicating America’s once protective role in the UN, or encouraging the “international community” to go after Netanyahu for “war crimes” for accidentally hitting a civilian team in Gaza. (By such logic, are Biden and Gen. Mark (“righteous strike”) Milley equally culpable for being in charge when a US strike in Kabul blew up 10 innocent civilians by similarly mistaken targeting?). Meanwhile, Biden keeps courting Muslim-American Michigan voters, who repay his appeasement with cries of “Death to Israel! Death to America!”.

The release of violent criminals and an uptick in property crimes, murders and assault follow a similar script. The Biden administration outsourced criminal justice to defund the police/critical legal theorists at the federal, state, and local levels. No bail arrests led to violent offenders released the next day. Thousands were let go from jails and prisons.

The word spread in the criminal community that in the new Biden years, there were no real consequences, no serious punishments for violent assault or major felonies.

So in 2021-2023, crime exploded. When it reached the point of making life unlivable in the major cities and began to max out, the administration declared “crime is declining”—in the same way that hyper-inflation supposedly did so on the economic front.

After spiking the prices of key food staples, insurance, fuel, and interest rates, such hikes could not go too much higher without destroying outright the American way of life. So as the rate of inflation slowed, Biden bragged about “lowering inflation”—but not the 30-40 percent higher food prices since his own inauguration.

The common denominator for these disasters is the embrace of left-wing “theory.”

Critical legal theory mandates that jurisprudence is a construct. Laws have no morality since they favor the powerful. The latter use “white privilege” arbitrarily to invent crimes and punishments to protect their own power hierarchies. All that nonsense has now led to a pre-civilizational free-for-all in our dirty, dangerous, and dysfunctional cities.

Modern monetary theory—printing lots of money to spread around to those who have none while diminishing the value of money of those who have it—only led to hyperinflation and high interest rates.

When DEI theories were unleashed on the military, potential recruits hesitated, and thousands quit. After Pentagon grandees virtue signaled their fear of “white rage” and “white privilege,” after DEI made promotions and assessments often contingent on race, gender, and sexual orientation, and after the new military was humiliated in Afghanistan, it found it could no longer deter the enemy, recruit sufficient soldiers, or win back the confidence of the American people.

In all these cases, the woke genie left the bottle—and won’t go back in. So it will be hard for the administration to assure a long-suffering public that things are just wonderful, much less to reverse these policies, if indeed they are reversible, before November.

Expect instead nonstop distraction as the left beats the January 6 horse to death, calls for abortion on demand, and waits for its underling judges, prosecutors, and juries to jail or bankrupt Trump and therefore do what balloting cannot.

In other words, the long-awaited Great Fundamental Transformation finally got its moment, crashed, and now has torched the nation—middle-class Americans most of all.