The Consumer Price Index settled in at 3.3% for May, a notch down from April's 3.4% and a notch up from March's 3.2%, the Labor Department reported Wednesday, while the Federal Reserve maintained a 5.25%-5.5% benchmark interest rate. Scroll down this column for details. [CHART: Bureau of Labor Statistics]
FRIDAY 6/14/24
Find the Pope at the G7 – After meeting with Whoopi Goldberg, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert at the Vatican Friday, Pope Francis travels to the G7 summit in Puglia, Italy, where he will meet with President Biden and address potential dangers of artificial intelligence, NPR reports. On Thursday, the G7 countries (the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US) committed $50 billion to Ukraine.
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As Crow Flies Thomas – Harlan Crow, son of real estate mogul Trammel Crow, provided Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with at least three more formerly undisclosed private jet trips, including one to Glacier National Park in Montana, the billionaire’s attorney told the Senate Judiciary Committee. Another of the flights took Thomas to his Georgia hometown, reports ProPublica, the non-profit newsroom whose earlier reporting on Crow’s largess toward the justice launched the investigation by Judiciary Committee Democrats.
The latest disclosures make it “crystal clear that the highest court needs an enforceable code of conduct,” committee chair Sen. Dick Durban (D-IL) said. Full findings of the committee’s investigation will be revealed later this summer, he said.
Crow’s office said in a statement that Crow gave senators information covering the past seven years with the committee’s agreement to end its investigation “with respect to Mr. Crow.”
“Despite his serious and continued concerns about the legality and necessity of the inquiry, Mr. Crow engaged in good faith with the committee,” reads the statement.
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IVF Down – A Senate vote to forward a bill protecting access to, and expanding coverage of, commonly used fertility treatments failed 48-47 Thursday, CQ Roll Call reports. Sixty votes were required, but just two of 50 Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined Democrats in the vote, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) changed from “yes” to “no” so he could raise legislation later under Senate rules.
The bill combined language from smaller bills to protect in vitro fertilization by Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Patty Murray (D-WA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) in response to the Alabama Supreme Court’s February ruling recognizing frozen embryos as unborn children.
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Charges Against Gershkovich – Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been in a Moscow jail since last year, faces up to 20 years in prison after Russia accused him (thus convicting him) of spying for the CIA (per The Washington Post). He has been moved from a Moscow jail to Yekaterinburg for his trial.
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THURSDAY 6/13/24
Mifepristone Saved -- The Supreme Court unanimously threw out the lawsuit Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which sought to restrict access to mifepristone, one of two drugs used for medicated abortions, according to SCOTUSblog. The court ruled Thursday that doctors and medical groups associated with the anti-abortion movement that had challenged the FDA's 2016 and 2021 expansion of access to the drug lacked standing in the case. They did not rule on whether the FDA acted properly in expanding access to mifepristone.
Writing for the court, Justice Brett Kavenaugh acknowledged the challengers "sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections" to elevate abortions "by others."
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US, Ukraine at G7 in Italy – President Biden is in Puglia, Italy Thursday for the G7 Summit (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US) where world leaders are working out a deal to squeeze some money out of $300 billion in seized Russian assets, held mostly in European banks, to fund Ukraine. There is a good deal of urgency, especially among the European nations, to getting this deal done as future funding for Ukraine faces the uncertainty of the U.S. presidential election (and political movement to the populist right in Europe as well), according to NPR’s Morning Edition.
PRI’s Marketplace explains that the interest from those Russian assets would serve as collateral for a $50-billion loan to Ukraine.
Speaking of urgency, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also is in Puglia to join the G7 group and sign a 10-year deal with Biden for US support to Ukraine, which a second Trump administration could unravel, according to The Washington Post.
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Trump Returns to Capitol Hill – With President Biden out of town for the G7 summit, ex-President Donald J. Trump returns to Washington, D.C. Thursday to meet with Congressional Republicans. A headline in Politico reads something like a National Enquirer headline, or perhaps one from the New York Daily News: “Trump’s private demand to Johnson: Help overturn my conviction.”
According to Politico, Trump’s first return to Washington since he left for Mar-a-Lago on January 20, 2021, is “billed as a resolutely forward-looking session focused on a potential 2025 legislative agenda…” but more importantly he has been “obsessed” with harnessing Congress’ powers in reversing what he considers Democratic “weaponization” of the justice system against him.
That effort begins with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who was one of the first members of Congress to appear with Trump at his Manhattan trial for falsifying business records.
The Biden tapes… Meanwhile, the House voted 216-207 along party lines Wednesday to hold Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress over a subpoena dispute regarding recorded interviews with Biden over his confidential documents investigation by special counsel Robert K. Hur. That tight floor vote “is unlikely to lead to any official consequences for Garland,” according to CQ Roll Call.
Congress long has had access to a transcript of Hur’s interview of the president. Biden is claiming executive privilege in refusing to turn over the recordings, which Trump would like to have for campaign commercials.
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WEDNESDAY 6/12/24
One Cut -- Calling the May Consumer Price Index a "mild inflation report," The Wall Street Journal says the Federal Reserve plans one interest-rate cut for this year. The Fed held its benchmark rate in the 5.25% to 5.5% rate Wednesday, a two-decade high, at its policy meeting.
On a month-over-month basis, prices were unchanged in May, though that's a balancing of a 3.6% drop in gasoline prices against an 0.4% increase for shelter. Food prices rose 0.1% for the month, with food away from home up 0.4% and food at home unchanged. Energy overall was down 2%. There has been some talk of the Federal Reserve easing interest rates in the next few months even as inflation remains stubbornly above the central bank's 2% inflation target.
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Ball of Confusion – Ceasefire or no ceasefire? After some optimism that Hamas and the Israeli government would agree to the ceasefire plan proposed by President Biden last month after Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Tel Aviv earlier this week, there appear to be at least a couple of wrenches caught in the mechanism.
Blinken earlier said the proposed ceasefire would take the “pressure” out of the growing conflict at Lebanon’s southern border between Israel and Hezbollah. He now says Hamas has proposed “unworkable” changes to the ceasefire plan, The Guardian reported early Wednesday. At the same time, the United Nations Human Rights Council has released a report charging both Israel and Hamas with war crimes committed since the Hamas attack October 7. The report was chaired by former UN Human Rights chief Navi Pillay.
Is Netanyahu Aboard? … Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is for the ceasefire proposal and against it, depending apparently whether he’s speaking with the U.S. or with Israel’s war cabinet. Newsweek quotes an Israeli official saying that the U.S. proposal “aligns with” Netanyahu’s goal of “inflicting a lasting, decisive defeat” against the Palestinian movement. The BBC’s Newshour says that Netanyahu has not publicly endorsed the ceasefire.
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TUESDAY 6/11/24
Hunter Biden Guilty -- President Biden's surviving son, Hunter, was found guilty on two counts of making false statements in a gun license application and one count of illegal possession of a firearm by a drug user or addict Tuesday (per NPR's All Things Considered. His attorney, Abbe Lowell, said Biden will "vigorously continue to pursue" all legal options. The sentencing date has not been set.
Biden's statement on the verdict: "I am more grateful today for the love and support I experienced this last week from Melissa, my family, my friends, and my community than I am disappointed by the outcome."
Hunter Biden faces a second trial in California this September on tax evasion charges.
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Hamas Accepts – Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who concludes his visit to Israel Tuesday after the United Nations Security Council voted for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, says a Hamas statement that it accepts the ceasefire resolution is a “hopeful sign,” The Guardian reports. Blinken is ready to work out the details, senior Hamas official Abu Zuhri told Reuters. Meanwhile, the fighting between the Israeli Defense Forces and Hezbollah is intensifying along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, according to NPR’s Morning Edition.
The proposal drafted after President Biden on May 31 announced that Israel had put forth a ceasefire deal consists of three phases (per The New York Times):
•Immediate ceasefire.
•Release of all hostages in exchange for Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons, return of displaced Gazans to their homes and full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
•A multi-year reconstruction plan for Gaza and return of remains of dead hostages.
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Primaries Tuesday – Maine, South Carolina, Nevada and North Dakota hold primaries Tuesday. Ohio holds a special election to replace Rep. Bill Johnson, a Republican who retired in January. The race for Ohio’s 6th congressional district is between state Sen. Michael Rulli (R) and Michael L. Kripchak (D). In South Carolina, Rep. Nancy Mace, who is on the longer end of the short list to become Donald J. Trump’s running mate is being challenged for the Republican primary by Catherine Templeton, who is backed by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Mace voted with the House’s MAGA wing to remove McCarthy from the speakership in 2023.
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Biden Verdict? – The jury in first son Hunter Biden’s trial for charges he lied on a gun registration form that he was not a drug addict began Monday in Wilmington, Delaware.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa