The Consumer Price Index rose 4.9% in April, on a seasonally adjusted annual basis, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. That’s slightly better than March’s 5.0% CPI.
Santos Arrested – Controversial freshman Rep. George Santos (R-NY) pleaded not guilty to federal fraud charges Wednesday, NPR’s All Things Considered reports. Federal prosecutors allege he “devised and executed a scheme” to defraud donors to his 2022 campaign.
A federal judge ordered $500,000 bail and had his passport confiscated. Santos is prohibited from traveling much beyond journeys between New York and Washington, D.C., for his job. He will continue to serve Congress and says he expects to cast votes later this week. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said he will not ask Santos to step down, though House rules will prohibit him from committee assignments.
Familiar offensive defense: Santos, who is running for re-election next year, called the case against him a “witch hunt.”
--TL
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WEDNESDAY 5/10/23
Federal Debt Still on Edge – Tuesday’s White House meeting on the impending federal debt cliff between President Biden and the four GOP and Democratic leaders ended with no apparent budges. But Biden has agreed to meet again on Friday with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Politico reports.
“The progress made is: We were actually able to meet,” McCarthy told reporters afterward.
“I’m hoping that the next two weeks are different. You can’t be so extreme in your view that you’re not going to negotiate.”
This goes to XIV: Meanwhile, Biden says he is "considering" invoking the 14th Amendment to circumvent the debt-ceiling abyss, but admitted it "would have to be litigated and in the meantime without an extension it would still end up in the same place." He said he would look at the possibility months down the road (Politico).
McCarthy's comments are a shot at Biden’s repeated refusal to negotiate over holding hostage the bill payments of a budget already approved. In any case, those coming two weeks are just about all the time the federal government has left to raise the debt ceiling and prevent certain economic catastrophe.
Meanwhile, Santos: Rep. George Santos (R-NY), one of the 217 votes McCarthy needed last week to pass a debt ceiling bill with severe cuts to Biden’s budget agenda, has been charged by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York following a months-long investigation into the many lies he told during and after his 2022 campaign, CNN reports. Specific charges are unclear, but Santos, 34, could have a court appearance scheduled as early as Wednesday.
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Tucker to Twitter – If there was any question about what Elon Musk considered “news” after he purchased Twitter about a year ago, look no further than Twitter’s new host, Tucker Carlson. You’ll remember that just last month Carlson was fired from Fox News after – though hard to say whether it was because of – “highly offensive” texts about the January 6 Capitol attacks.
Rupert Murdoch was shocked – shocked! – to find a Putin apologist in his building, and after all, Fox News had just lost a judgment in favor of Dominion Voting Systems to the tune of $787.5 million.
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Speaking of Civil Suits – A New York jury awarded former magazine writer and columnist E. Jean Carroll $5 million in damages for sexual abuse and defamation Tuesday in her civil case against former President Trump. Carroll had alleged that Trump raped her in a dressing room of upscale retailer Bergdorf Goodman, then defamed her with his denials (per The New York Times and many others).
The jury of six men and three women did not find that Trump raped Carroll.
More than a dozen women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct over the years – he even casually mentioned it himself in the infamous Access Hollywood tape aired just before the 2016 presidential election, but Carroll’s is the only one to come to trial.
Trump conjured up his favorite adjective, calling the verdict “disgusting.” His attorney, Joseph Tacopina, called the court “highly prejudicial” and promised an appeal.
Tune in for more: This should make Trump’s scheduled appearance Wednesday, 8 p.m. Eastern, on a CNN Town Hall even more interesting. Trump has been missing from the cable news outlet for quite some time, but now he has to attract independent voters ahead of his 2024 presidential campaign.
Ought to get (relatively) good ratings, especially against Carlson-less Fox News.
--TL
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TUESDAY 5/9/23
It’s Debt-Ceiling Day … at the White House, where House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) meets with President Biden as we approach June 1, when the federal government could breach its debt limit. There seems to be little confidence among the punditocracy that the two sides will reach a deal in-time – at least it won’t happen without plenty of 11th Hour drama.
Biden can’t count on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who says he will support McCarthy’s efforts in extracting spending cuts before paying last year’s bills. Last week, 43 Republican senators sent a letter to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) saying they won’t support raising the ceiling without “substantive” spending cuts. And 43 is enough to torpedo it. As The Hill has noted (see “This Week, Meanwhile” below) Biden is more than a little reluctant to override the crisis with the 14th Amendment.
This won’t help the White House: Biden’s approval rating slipped to 36%, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll Monday, lowest-ever for a first-term president one-and-a-half years away from his next election.
Meanwhile, McConnell is short on confidence: McConnell told CNN’s Manu Raju he doesn’t think the GOP can retake the Senate in the November 2024 elections.
“No, no – I’m not confident,” even though 24 Democratic seats and just 11 Republican seats are up in the coming cycle. Is he sandbagging?
As for Sen. Krysten Sinema (I-AZ), who left the Democratic Party at the beginning of the year, McConnell said he “would love to have her.” … “I think that decision was made when she ended up continuing to caucus with the Democrats.”
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Britain ‘Prepares’ to Send Long-Range Missiles to Ukraine – Great Britain has taken the lead in preparing to send long-range missiles to Ukraine in order to push the United States to do the same, according to The Washington Post. This, even though the UK’s defense minister has made no official decision yet. The missiles would be capable of a strike up to 180 miles into Russia, WaPo says.
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DOJ Seeks 25 Years for Rhodes – The Justice Department seeks a 25-year sentence for Oath Keeper leader Stewart Rhodes, USA Today reports, recently convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6th Capitol attack.
--TL
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This Week, Meanwhile
MONDAY 5/8/23
Will the XIV Amendment Save Us? – President Biden told MSNBC on Friday that he has not taken evoking the 14thAmendment off the table if the House refuses to raise the debt ceiling. The amendment “chiefly extended the Bill of Rights liberties to formerly enslaved people,” The Hill notes.
But Section 4 says this: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing the insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss of emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.”
Where’s Yellen now?: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen tried to tamp down this potential White House Hail Mary Sunday, a week after she warned the federal government could default as early as June 1. As of Monday, there are eight days left before that early default date estimate in which the full House and Senate are scheduled to be in session.
“There is no way to protect our financial system in the economy, other than Congress doing its job and raising the debt ceiling and enabling us to pay our bills and we should not get to the point where the president can go on issuing debt. This would be a constitutional crisis,” Yellen told ABC News This Week.
Senate GOP backs House GOP: Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) visits the White House Tuesday to negotiate with Biden over the debt ceiling. Meanwhile, 43 GOP senators sent a letter to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) Saturday saying they won’t back a debt limit increase without “substantive spending and budget cuts.”
One of those Republican senators, James Lankford of Oklahoma, told George Stephanopoulos on This Week Sunday; “We have $31 trillion in debt. That is happening as a nation. It’s continuing to accelerate. We are continuing to see high inflation. We have all the risks of a recession that’s out there based on what’s happening on government spending and such.”
What could go wrong?: Conventional Wisdom has it that even if Republicans take a hit for allowing a default, it’s Biden’s economy. It has huge implications for Biden’s re-election prospects next year. When the nation was on the brink of a “fiscal cliff” during the Obama-Biden administration in 2011, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the United States’ A+ credit rating. A default could, at least, give the Federal Reserve the inflation cut it has wanted after 10 interest rate hikes.
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Up on the Hill this week – The full Senate is in session Tuesday through Friday. The full House of Representatives is in session Tuesday through Thursday.
--Edited and compiled by Todd Lassa