Tucker did. Even if someone in the US government were aware of Tucker's conversations being intercepted, they (properly) didn't make it public in an attempt to cast aspersions on him. Tucker is the only reason we've heard anything about this.
If Tucker had been "unmasked" for political motives, you'd think we'd have heard about Tucker's calls from someone who wanted to use it to damage him. But we didn't. We heard about it solely from Tucker.
If the US government overhears you talking to foreign agents, doesn't make it public, and maybe - I don't know if this happened or not - privately tells you you've been picked up and might want to be more careful who you talk to, that doesn't strike me as a political hit job.
That strikes me, instead, as similar to what happened to Rep. Eric Swalwell, with the Chinese agent who had entered his circle. Though that did come out later, after he had cut ties with that person, on FBI advice.
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If China invaded Taiwan, and President Biden sent US forces to defend it, what would the Fox News/Newsmax narrative be? I am genuinely curious.
I suspect it would be that Biden's weakness invited the invasion, and that he was screwing up the conduct of the war (perhaps on purpose). Unlike with Putin, they couldn't openly side with China.
But I wonder how far it would go. Would it simply be scoring points off Biden, or would they actively oppose the war effort itself?
The reality is that the US is not driving the push for decoupling and confrontation now. Beijing is.
Some are responding "for some time now". Not true, in my view. The 2008 crisis definitely altered Beijing's view of the US for the worse, but even during Trump's trade war, China was looking for ways to deescalate. This changed in 2019, and solidified in 2020.
You can say "deescalate on their own terms" and that's absolutely correct. But the shift towards China seeing decoupling as an objective is of much more recent vintage, the past two years or so. And I think it's a very alarming trend.
Preoccupied with the coming July 4 weekend last Friday, I didn't do a download of the June employment report. So I'll rectify that, before any more time goes by.
The US economy added +850,000 new jobs in June. That is still -6.8 million jobs below February 2020.
The unemployment rate rose slightly in June to 5.9%.
US personal income fell -2.0% m/m in May, up +2.8% from a year ago, which put it back down close to trend following another big stimulus-driven spike.
US consumer spending was flat in May, but still up +18.9% compared to the COVID shutdown a year ago. The absolute numbers (below) show it roughly recovered to pre-COVID trend.
The US personal savings rate declined to 12.4%, after an unprecedented spike during COVID, though it remains at levels not seen since the early 1980s.
I think most people understand the difference, they just don't want to.
If Dennis Rodman calls up his buddy Kim Jong-un, I'm pretty sure the NSA will be listening. That doesn't mean the NSA is spying on Dennis Rodman. It means they're spying on Kim - as they darn well should be.