Good news too late for Biden? – June’s Consumer Price Index fell to 3.0%, from a 3.4% rate the month before. Month-over-month prices actually fell by 0.1% on the heels of Chairman Jerome Powell’s hints the Federal Reserve may soon ease interest rates. Overall CPI less food and energy was up 3.3%, lowest since April 2021. [CHART: Bureau of Labor Statistics]
Biden His Time – President Biden holds a news conference in Washington Thursday afternoon to wrap up the NATO summit, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Meanwhile, the future of his re-election bid appear to be at the tipping point, as Peter Welch of Vermont became the first Democratic senator to call for him to withdraw.
Biden has held the fewest press conferences of any president since Ronald Reagan, according to NPR.
Did I say that out loud?... Actor George Clooney’s warning in his New York Times op-ed that Biden’s cognitive issues also will hand the House and Senate over to Republican control reportedly is shaking up Democratic congressmembers themselves, and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) “hasn’t tried to hide her disdain for the situation the party now finds itself in,” one anonymous lawmaker told Politico Playbook.
Meanwhile… Adding to pressure from the Democratic side, the Trump campaign is now looking at a landslide and hope Biden will not drop out, according to Tim Alberta in The Atlantic magazine’s The Decision newsletter. “Donald Trump was well on his way to a 320-electoral vote win before the debate,” campaign co-manager Chris LaCivita told Alberta.
Politico Playbook quotes “about a half-dozen” Democratic lawmakers who say Pelosi told them Biden will not win in November, and aside from her much-parsed statement on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that Biden should make the decision himself, has advised some Democrats in swing districts that they should “secure their own re-elections” even if it means they ask Biden to step aside.
About time… However, Pelosi’s advice above comes with the warning that they hold off from asking Biden to withdraw from the race until after this week’s NATO summit is finished.
It’s going to be a long weekend.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa
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AOC: Impeach Thomas, Alito/WEDNESDAY 7/10/24
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY, above) has filed articles of impeachment against Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito alleging a "pattern of refusal to recuse from consequential matters before the court in which they hold widely documented financial and personal entanglements" (The Hill).
"Justices Thomas and Alito's repeated failure over decades to disclose that they received millions of dollars in gifts from individuals with business before the court is explicitly against the law. And their refusal to recuse from the specific matters and cases before the court in which their benefactors and spouses are implicated represents nothing less than a constitutional crisis. These failures alone would amount to a deep transgression worthy of standard removal in any lower court, and would disqualify any nominee to the highest court from confirmation in the first place," she said in a press release.
BIDEN AND NATO'S 75TH
Zelenskyy Addresses NATO – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the meeting of NATO members gathered in Washington for the alliance’s 75th anniversary that American missiles and permission to fire them across the border into Russia helped his military hold off an attack on the city of Kharkiv, and for thus stopping a Russian offensive this spring, The New York Times reports. But he requested the lifting of other restrictions to allow Ukraine to fire at military bases hundreds of miles inside Russia to destroy aircraft and weapons being dropped on his country’s civilians and children.
‘Trump-proof’… At Washington’s convention center, policymakers moved control of major elements of aid to Ukraine to NATO’s “umbrella” from the US in order to “Trump-proof” the military alliance (The Washington Post). Whether Joe Biden or Donald J. Trump wins the November election, “Putin will hate him,” Zelenskyy said at the conference (NYT).
Meanwhile, on MSNBC… Appearing on Morning Joe with Belarusian political activist Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, with whom she penned a Washington Post op-ed, House Speaker emeritus Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was asked to comment on whether Biden should remain in the presidential race. Pelosi gave the non-answer answer; “It’s up to the president to decide if he’s going to run.” Of course, Biden has decided, and the primary delegates he won are his to give up.
Pelosi’s WaPo op-ed with Tikhanovskaya is titled, “NATO is a bulwark against tyranny,” subtitle, “Facing down dictators such as Vladimir Putin and (Belarus’) Alexander Lukashenko is what the alliance was built for.”
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Hollywood Dissent -- Actor George Clooney, who hosted a star-studded Los Angeles fundraiser for President Biden in June is now asking him to step down from the campaign in a New York Times op-ed.
"I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as a president," Clooney writes. "I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he's won many of the battles he's faced.
"But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. ... It's devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe "big F-ing deal" Biden of 2010. He wasn't even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate."
--TL
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TUESDAY 7/9/24
Biden Bites Back – President Biden has support of his continued re-election campaign by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Alex Padilla (D-CA), The Washington Post reports Tuesday morning. Democratic senators were to discuss Biden’s debate debacle and what to do about his defiance in remaining in the presidential race at their weekly luncheon Tuesday.
Meanwhile, NATO… Tuesday evening in Washington, Biden is to give a commemorative speech at the 75th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, with leaders from its member countries (WaPo).
Meanwhile, Ukraine… “Poorly trained” Russian forces are unlikely to make “significant” territorial gains in a Ukraine that finally has been reinforced with fresh Western munitions, The New York Times reports ahead of NATO’s 75th celebration, citing US officials.
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Neurologist’s Visits – White House visitor logs show Dr. Kevin Cannard, expert on Parkinson’s disease from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, visited the White House eight times in eight months up to this spring, The New York Timesreports. At least one of the meetings was with President Biden’s physician.
After Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre “dodged” and refused to reply to questions about the president’s health, White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor released a statement at 9:40 p.m. Monday that Biden had not seen a neurologist “outside his annual physical” and suggested most of those eight visits were to others working in the White House.
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MAGA in Milwaukee – The Republican National Committee released the 2024 Republican Party Platform Monday from Milwaukee, where the national convention that will formally nominate Donald J. Trump as its presidential candidate begins next week. The document reflecting “20 GOP Principles, Roadmap to Make America Great Again” calls for, number one, to “seal the border, and stop the migrant invasion,” and two, to “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.”
Number three; “End inflation, and make America affordable again.”
Number four is to “make America the dominant energy producer in the world, by far!”, answering the Democratic argument that the US already is the world’s largest oil exporter … but with OPEC still hanging on, not yet “by far.”
Five, “Stop outsourcing, and turn the United States into a manufacturing superpower.”
Six, “Large tax cuts for workers, no tax on tips!”
Seven, “Defend our Constitution, our bill of rights, and our fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms.”
Eight, “Prevent World War Three, restore peace in Europe and in the Middle East, and build a great iron dome missile defense shield over our entire country – all made in America.”
Number nine, almost the halfway point, is to “end the weaponization of government against the American people.”
Read all 20 planks of the platform here.
The platform’s press release concludes with “When America is united, confident, and committed to our principles, it will never fail,” and “Today and together, with Love for our Country, Faith in People, and Trust in God’s Good Grace, we will Make America Great Again!”
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Defund Justice? – The fiscal year 2025 Commerce-Justice-Science spending bill is up for markup Tuesday in the powerful House Appropriations Committee, where Republicans hope to “handcuff” the Department of Justice with riders preventing it from suing states over laws that limit abortion, curtail court challenges to state redistricting plans and block it from bringing lawsuits against local or state governments that limit “transgender medical procedures,” CQ Roll Call reports.
None of this will get far in the Democratic-controlled Senate or the Biden White House, of course, though it would give voters a clear roadmap of what a 2025 Trump White House and GOP-controlled Senate would look like.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa