(WED 5/11/22)
Very, very, very slight inflationary relief in April … The Consumer Price Index was up 0.3% in April, compared with 1.2% in March, to lower the annual inflation rate to 8.3% before seasonal adjustment, compared with 8.5% the previous month. Shelter, food, airline fares and new car and truck prices led the inflation numbers, though as you can see from the chart above, gasoline/diesel prices at the pump, which are determined by global oil prices, are the greatest factor in raising prices. [TIP: Click on "Meanwhile" headline to see larger copy of the CPI chart. Then click on The Hustings banner to return to three-column format.]
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Biden’s inflation jawbone … President Biden tried to pre-empt Wednesday’s inflation numbers with a Tuesday White House address, telling Americans; “I know you’ve got to be frustrated. I know. I can taste it.”
He compared his administration’s lowering of the federal deficit after four years of deficit increases under his predecessor (whom he did not directly name) and blasted “extreme MAGA” Republican proposals to “raise taxes” on 75 million Americans and of constant GOP threats to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, singling out Rick Scott of Florida, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Scott has suggested Biden resign over the inflation rate.
Biden promoted minimum tax rates on corporations and billionaires in his stalled Bring Back Better bill, saying the “last thing we should be thinking about is rewarding corporations” for windfall profits from inflation. “You want to bring down inflation? Let’s make sure corporations pay their fair share.”
Note: With fast-approaching midterms likely to dampen any remaining prospects of advancing his BBB, Biden continues to push for overturning 40 years of “trickle-down” Reaganomics as Republicans of all stripes accuse the president of giving in to progressive, “socialist” Democrats in Congress.
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Latest anti-Trump audio … after the January 6 Capitol insurrection comes from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has since become one of the more prominent “traditional” Republicans to express loyalty to ex-President Trump. According to the latest recording released by NYT reporters and co-authors of This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future, Alex Burns and Jonathan Martin, Graham, speaking from a secure location as Capitol police were still clearing MAGA rioters from the building said the “best person to have” in the White House was Joe Biden, not Donald J. Trump.
Retraction: Graham told CNN Tuesday “The Joe Biden we see as president is not the Joe Biden we saw in the Senate. He’s pursued a far-left agenda as president.”
Note: We’d guess the GOP that Biden sees from the White House is not the GOP he saw in the Senate.
Hearings date set: House Select Committee chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) has announced that after gathering lots of evidence and recordings of the January 6 Capitol insurrection, the panel will begin public hearings on June 9.
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Reed Can’t Wait … Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY) announced his resignation Tuesday, half a year ahead of the midterms, citing “extremism” in the House of Representatives. In March 2021 he was accused of sexual harassment of a lobbyist and said he would not seek re-election this November. A moderate, Reed also had resigned as chair of the bi-partisan Problem Solvers Caucus.
Reed has joined the Prime Policy Group as a lobbyist.
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Trump’s count is 1-1 in West Virginia, Nebraska primaries … Trump endorsee Alexander Mooney beat David McKinley, 51.9% to 37.9%, for the GOP nomination for West Virginia’s second Congressional district in Tuesday’s primaries according to Ballotpedia. Both candidates are incumbents, having been squeezed into the same district after West Virginia lost a seat from the 2020 U.S. Census, and McKinley was one of 19 House Republicans who supported President Biden’s $1.2-trillion infrastructure bill last year.
Mooney faces Democratic candidate Barry Wendell in November.
Elsewhere in WV: Republican Carol Miller faces Democrat Eugene Watson for the House District 1 seat.
In Nebraska: Ex-President Trump lost the Republican gubernatorial primary, where his choice, Charles Herbster, with 29.2% lost to Jim Pillen’s 33.9%. Pillen was endorsed by current Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts, who is term-limited, and Herbster faced allegations in a Nebraska Examiner story that he groped or sexually assaulted eight women since 2017. A third Republican, Brett Lindstrom, earned 26.7% of the primary vote.
Pullen faces Democratic candidate Carol Blood and Libertarian candidate Scott Zimmerman in November.
For Nebraska’s House District 1, Republican Mike Flood faces Democrat Patty Pansing; for District 2, it’s incumbent Republican Don Bacon versus Democrat Tony Vargas; and in District 3, it’s incumbent Republican Adrian Smith versus the Legalize Marijuana Now Party candidate Mark Elworth Jr.
According to Newsweek, Herbster’s loss to Pillen breaks Trump’s 55-0 winning streak in GOP primary endorsements to date.
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Charles Dervarics
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(TUE 5/10/22)
Tweet Trump's return? ... Tesla CEO Elon Musk says he will lift Twitter's ban of ex-President Donald J. Trump if his $44-billion deal to buy the social media platform happens, The Hill reports. "I think it was a morally bad decision to be clear and foolish in the extreme," Musk said at the Financial Times' "Future of the Car" event.
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More aid for Ukraine … The House of Representatives and Senate could vote as early as Tuesday to approve a $39.7 billion package of additional aid to help defend Ukraine against Russia’s attack, Reuters reports. President Biden had requested $33 billion, but congressional Democrats added in $3.4 billion in additional military aid and $3.4 billion in additional humanitarian aid.
The additional funds come after Russian President Vladmir Putin held a subdued Victory Day Monday, which some Kremlinologists take as a sign the country will continue to withdraw from most of its neighbor, including Kyiv, even as it intensifies battles in the separatist eastern region of Donbas.
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Gas prices hit ‘record’ high … Gasoline prices in the U.S. have hit another record high, $4.374/gallon, Tuesday according to AAA. That’s up from $4.204/gallon a week ago, and $2.967/gallon a year ago. The “record high” is qualified – adjusted for inflation, gas prices were higher during The Great Recession.
President Biden is scheduled to present his plan to fight inflation and “lower costs to working families” from the White House Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
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Democracy loses the Philippines … Not that it was thriving under Rodrigo Duterte, but Ferdinand “BongBong” Marcos Jr., offspring of the country’s 1970s/80s dictator and an infamous shoe collector, won Monday’s presidential race with a much wider margin than expected. Marcos was supposed to narrowly beat his closest challenger, but according to the unofficial vote count (to be confirmed Tuesday) he garnered more than 30.5 million to the “champion of human rights and reforms” Vice President Leni Robredo’s 14.5 million votes, Politico reports. Third-place Manny Pacquiao, a boxing legend in The Philippines, earned just 3.5 million votes.
Sara Duterte, daughter of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, leads a separate vice- presidential vote. Her father is being investigated by the International Criminal Court for allegedly killing thousands during his anti-drug crackdown.
Facebook strikes again: Marcos Jr.’s father, Ferdinand Marcos Sr., declared martial law as president, from 1972 to 1981. The family allegedly stole more than $10 billion before the Marcoses fled the Philippines in 1986 and have never been held accountable, according to The Recount. Marcos Jr. and his family have been “restoring” Ferdinand Sr. and wife Imelda’s reputation with false history, especially on social media site Facebook in the months and years leading up to Monday’s elections, according to several news reports.
Can’t happen here, right?: Whatever happens to the MAGA movement in November 2024 – and keeping in mind ex-President Trump still owns the GOP – Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric are still allowed on Facebook and Twitter.
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Nic Woods
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What's Up... MON 5/9/22
Today … Russian President Vladimir Putin held forth over his country’s Victory Day celebrating its win over Nazi Germany in World War II, NPR reports, and we won’t bother here to repeat his lies from his speech. NPR does note, however, that Putin did not announce plans to intensify his war on Ukraine. His troops have retreated for now from Kyiv and are concentrating on Eastern Ukraine.
Tuesday … Nebraska and West Virginia hold primaries for the November midterm elections (per Ballotpedia).
Wednesday … Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) introduces the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, a federal abortion rights bill that would supercede the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. The bill will fail along party lines with Democrats lacking the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster, but the vote will give Democratic senators up for re-election and challengers to Republicans in November’s midterms campaign advertising fodder. A similar bill passed by the House of Representatives last September failed in the Senate last February, The Guardian notes.
Meanwhile, Mississippi’s Republican Gov. Tate Reeves refused to rule out banning emergency contraceptive pills and IUDs in his state speaking on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday.
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Never mind Trump’s presidential library … A presidential library could be built specializing in post-Trump presidency books, from loyalist Mark Meadows’ The Chief’s Chief to never-Trumper-again John Bolton’s The Room Where it Happened: A Memoir. Latest, and easily one of the most explosive is Mark Esper’s A Sacred Oath: A Defense Secretary in Extraordinary Times.
One of the first questions CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell asked Esper on a 60 Minutes feature interview Sunday was; Why wait until you can sell books to tell us this?
Fair question, and Esper’s response seems like a fair answer: Warning the world about such anti-democratic insanity as then-President Trump suggesting the late-May/early-June 2020 George Floyd protests in Washington, D.C., be declared an insurrection and the National Guard be called in to shoot protesters in the kneecaps, and that Trump wanted to use the military to conduct a “secret” military strike against drug cartels south of the Mexican border, would have resulted in the former host of The Apprentice telling him “you’re fired.” Esper told O’Donnell he couldn’t count on his replacement being as diligent in pushing back against Trump’s MAGA thinking.
Esper said that he and Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had to “swat down” such Trumpian suggestions on a weekly basis. Milley, who continues as Joint Chiefs chairman under the Biden administration and Esper were both embarrassed to be conned into a political photo op with Trump when he held up a bible at St. John’s Church near the White House, an account backed up by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in their book, Peril.
Note: Thus Esper’s excuse for withholding stories of Trump’s anti-democratic propensity get a pass, and his memoir serves as yet another warning of what could still come from a GOP filled with pro-Trump midterm election candidates.
--Todd Lassa