FRIDAY 3/10/23
Strong Job Growth Persists – Though growth slowed in February from an unexpectedly strong January, and the unemployment rate ticked up from a 54-year low of 3.4% to 3.6%, the Labor Department counted 311,000 jobs added in February. Wall Street will be anxious about the Federal Reserve’s reaction to last month’s number, higher than the 225,000 new jobs economists expected though lower than January’s 517,000, which compounded concerns the Federal Reserve was losing its battle against high inflation.
The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its latest Consumer Price Index next Tuesday.
Usual Suspects: Notable job gains were in leisure and hospitality, retail trade, government and health care.
--TL
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THURSDAY 3/9/23
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to the Senate Banking Committee -- "Although inflation has been moderating in recent months, the process of getting inflation back down to 2% has a long way to go and is likely to be bumpy." Powell also warned; "Whatever else Congress does, we need to raise the debt ceiling. That's the only way out." Up next: The Labor Department's jobs report Friday, March 10 and the Consumer Price Index for February on Monday, March 13.
Biden Budget Bows– Reverse President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the rich with new taxes on billionaires earning more than $100 million per year and cut the deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade. Those are the headline features of President Biden’s fiscal year 2024 federal budget, which he introduces in Philadelphia Thursday, per NPR and AP.
White House budget proposals are typically “dead on arrival,” and this one will be no different, as far as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is concerned.
“You know the president’s budget is replete with what they would do if they could – thank goodness the House is Republican,” McConnell said earlier this week, perhaps somewhat ruefully – massive tax increases, more spending.”
Biden will use his event in Philadelphia to hit back and note that the Republican plan is to oppose without offering any alternative plan. The White House budget will propose $246 billion in savings by reversing a tax subsidy for cryptocurrency transactions. It is expected to include pay increases for federal workers and an $835 billion defense budget.
That last item is under pressure from MAGA House Republicans who want more scrutiny over military aid to Ukraine in its struggle against Russia.
McConnell Hospitalized – McConnell, 81, was hospitalized Wednesday night after suffering a fall at a private dinner at the Washington area hotel, Politico reports.
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Louisville PD Civil Rights Violations – The Justice Department says that after a “comprehensive investigation” the Louisville Metro Police Department and Louisville/Jefferson County metropolitan government “engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the U.S. Constitution and federal law.”
Read the full DOJ report here: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-finds-civil-rights-violations-louisville-metro-police-department-and
--TL
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WEDNESDAY 3/8/23
More Fox News Emails from Dominion: Dominion Voting Systems has released more emails and other internal communications procured in discovery over its $1.6-billion lawsuit against Fox News for defamation connected to Donald J. Trump’s Big Lie. Here are a few juicy excerpts, as reported by The Washington Post:
•”We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait. I hate him personally.”… and “We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for [Trump’s four years in office], because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There really isn’t an upside to Trump.” –Tucker Carlson
•”Totally insane” and “just mind blowingly nuts.” –Fox News Senior Vice President Raj Shah in a November 21, 2020, email to producers describing Trump attorney Sidney Powell’s conspiracy theories involving Fox News and Dominion Voting System’s voting machines.
•Fox News Channel’s Prime Time net favorability of Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham fell from 70% before the election to less than 30%. Several emails show Fox was more concerned about competition from Newsmax and other hard-right outlets than it was CNN and MSNBC.
•”Dominion was used in Ohio and Florida. Trump won them. Did they forget to rig these or all part of the plan?” –Tucker Carlson Tonight producer Alex Pfeiffer.
…meanwhile…
In part one of Tucker Carlson’s “documentary” from more than 40,000 hours of 1/6 video footage handed to him by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the Fox News host described the insurrection as “mostly peaceful chaos” and that the footage does not show an insurrection or riot in progress.
Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger responded Tuesday saying Carlson pushed an “outrageous and false” allegation that officers acted as “tour guides,” and said the Fox News program “cherry-picked from the calmer moments.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY): “It was a mistake, in my view, for Fox News to depict this in a way that’s completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement officer here at the Capitol thinks.”
--TL
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TUESDAY 3/7/23
Even Higher Interest Rates? -- Chairman Jerome Powell (above) is expected to caution that the Federal Reserve is likely to raise interest rates more than expected to fight stubborn high inflation when he testifies beginning 10 a.m. Tuesday before the Senate Banking Committee Tuesday and again Wednesday before the House Committee on Financial Services, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Fed will consider its next move on interest rates, currently at 4.75% in its next meeting scheduled for March 21-22. Its pre-meeting quiet period begins Saturday.
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FY24 Budget – The White House will propose raising taxes for those earning more than $400,000 a year and allow the federal government to negotiate drug prices, in order to extend the Medicare trust fund’s solvency by 25 years, as part of President Biden’s forthcoming Fiscal Year 2024 budget, Semafor reports. Bi-partisan support is not expected from Congress.
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Bots for Trump – Remember when Elon Musk conducted a search for bots counted by Twitter management who figured they had an iron-clad deal to sell to the Tesla and SpaceX chief for $44 billion? It appears he missed a few.
Thousands of them, or perhaps “hundreds of thousands” of bots the Associated Press reports were created in the past 11 months to offer “streams” of praise for Donald J. Trump. These Twitter bots also ridiculed Republican and Democratic critics of the former president alike and attacked Trump’s former UN ambassador and now challenger for the 2024 GOP nomination for president, Nikki Haley. Bots also said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis can’t beat Trump in the race, but would make a good running mate. (Haley may have thought that was her job.)
Double-irony alert: Last November with much fanfare Musk welcomed the ex-prez back on Twitter. But Trump declined and instead stuck with his own struggling social media network, Truth Social. Why tweet when hundreds of thousands of bots can do it for you?
--TL
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MONDAY 3/6/23
Biden in Selma -- On the anniversary Sunday of “Bloody Sunday,” when peaceful civil rights proponents met with a violent police response on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, President Biden made the following remarks (AP):
“Selma is a reckoning. The right to vote … to have your voted counted is the threshold of democracy and liberty. With it anything is possible.
“This fundamental right remains under assault. The conservative Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act over the years. Since the 2020 election, a wave of states and dozens and dozens of anti-voting laws and the election deniers are now elected to office.” …
President Lyndon Baines Johnson introduced the Voting Rights Act eight days after “Bloody Sunday.”
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This Week – Monday, the Senate is in session, but the House is out. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, both the House and Senate are in session, and on Friday, the House only is in session.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa