[ Posted Friday, June 16th, 2023 – 17:35 UTC ]
President Joe Biden got some good economic news this week, as the official inflation rate fell to only 4.0 percent. This is down from last year's high of 9.1 percent, and is a significant achievement. Most economists will tell you that's still a bit too high and that 2.0 percent is the goal they're shooting for, but 4.0 percent is getting pretty close to that goal, you have to admit.
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[ Posted Monday, June 5th, 2023 – 16:02 UTC ]
Mike Pence made it official today by filing his paperwork to launch his 2024 presidential bid. He will hold a public announcement event on Wednesday, in Des Moines, Iowa. Pence has close to a zero percent chance of winning the Republican nomination, with his chances for possibly reprising his role as vice president hovering at somewhat less than zero. There doesn't seem to be any viable path forward for Pence, which seemingly everyone but Pence can clearly see.
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[ Posted Friday, June 2nd, 2023 – 16:57 UTC ]
And so it all ended with a whimper and not a bang. President Joe Biden will sign the bill passed by both houses of Congress to increase the debt ceiling until after the 2024 elections. The bill is a clear victory for Biden, since it contains very little (virtually any) of the initial Republican budget-slashing demands. But Biden couldn't come out and say how good a deal he got from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy until now, because if he had done so it would have fed into the resistance by the farthest-right members of Congress, but now that the bill has safely been passed Biden has scheduled an Oval Office address for later today (7:00 PM, Eastern Time). We should note this is too late for anything he says to be addressed or included here in this column, but we will definitely be watching Biden speak later on today. [Editorial Note: we did listen to Biden's address, and we know it may be hard to believe, but we had picked out our "Crisis Averted" headline before Biden used the phrase tonight.]
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[ Posted Monday, May 22nd, 2023 – 15:42 UTC ]
Senator Tim Scott announced today that he is running to be Donald Trump's running mate. The veepstakes has begun!
[Perhaps I am being a bit too snarky. Allow me start over....]
Senator Tim Scott today announced his longshot bid for the Republican presidential nomination. The political media is paying more attention to Scott than some of the other GOP candidates, mostly because he has already raised over $20 million and will be able to run ads right up to the New Hampshire primary date. This means he'll have to at least be taken semi-seriously, but the reality of the situation is that the best Scott will likely be able to do is to get Trump to name him to the vice presidential spot on his ticket.
Scott is not alone in this endeavor, I should point out. Nikki Haley also seems to be in the running for Trump's veep slot. Others may join this effort, whether they run for president or not (South Dakota's Kristi Noem for one, and Kari Lake in Arizona certainly seems to be angling for it as well).
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[ Posted Friday, May 19th, 2023 – 17:45 UTC ]
With twelve more days left in the month of May, the debt ceiling follies continue unabated. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy just "paused" the negotiations with President Joe Biden, which was a rather pessimistic note to close out what had otherwise been a rather optimistic week. There is speculation that both sides are using this "pause" merely as a political signal to their respective bases -- to show that they are negotiating hard and not giving away the store. If this is true, negotiations will likely resume at some point this weekend. But it's anyone's guess whether they'll agree even on a framework (much less actual legislative text) any time soon.
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[ Posted Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023 – 15:42 UTC ]
Since I know next to nothing about macroeconomics, I don't feel qualified to comment on today's news that the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates another 0.25 percent. They indicated that this will be the last one for a while, and inflation has already come down dramatically without crumbling the rest of the economy, but the future (as always) is uncertain. That's about the most intelligent commentary I can offer up on the matter.
Instead, let's take a look at how the Republican field of candidates for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination is shaping up. Because it seems certain that the number of candidates actually in the race is going to soon expand.
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[ Posted Tuesday, May 2nd, 2023 – 16:23 UTC ]
It is a rare day when Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nikki Haley agree on anything, but both of them are now on the same page on one particular subject -- that Senator Dianne Feinstein needs to resign her Senate seat if she can no longer do the required duties. I share this view, personally, and my opinion is perhaps more relevant than either of theirs, since I am an actual constituent of Feinstein's. California deserves to have two senators that are able to show up and cast votes and represent the most-populous state in the United States Senate. Feinstein hasn't been able to make it to Washington since February, and every week that goes by is another week of delay for many of President Biden's judicial nominees. If Feinstein weren't a crucial vote on the committee responsible for vetting such nominees, perhaps I wouldn't feel as strongly about it, but she is -- and the Republicans have blocked Chuck Schumer from replacing her on that committee. Feinstein has already announced she will not be running for re-election next year, so asking her to step down now isn't as contentious (or as insulting) as it might seem.
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[ Posted Friday, April 28th, 2023 – 18:37 UTC ]
This is the big White House Correspondents Dinner weekend, but somehow our invitation was either lost in the mail or otherwise overlooked. So we'll have to watch the clips later, like everyone else.
This was a pretty momentous week in politics, as President Joe Biden announced his re-election bid, Donald Trump's rape court case got underway, and Kevin McCarthy was actually able to corral his various factions to vote for a bill that Democrats will use as fodder in the upcoming congressional campaigns. So let's get right to it all, shall we?
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[ Posted Wednesday, April 26th, 2023 – 15:08 UTC ]
Unless things change in a major way, America seems headed for a repeat election in 2024. President Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee, while Donald Trump will carry the banner for the Republicans. There are plenty of interesting things about such a rematch (such as the fact that Trump will be the first ex-president to run again in a very long time), but the most interesting thing currently is that most of the public simply does not want to see this rematch. They would prefer a different matchup, for various reasons. But they may get Biden-versus-Trump anyway.
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[ Posted Tuesday, April 25th, 2023 – 17:13 UTC ]
President Joe Biden announced his bid for re-election today, releasing a three-minute video in which he explains why he's running. As the ad makes clear, Biden will be running on one basic concept: freedom. He's in favor of it, and in favor of Americans having more of it. The Republican Party countered with a 30-second ad of their own, in which they present an apocalyptic vision of what a second Biden term would be like. No, that is not hyperbole or an exaggeration. The only other possible word to use is "dystopian." They have outdone themselves in the fearmongering department (where they regularly excel). Since the GOP doesn't have a nominee yet, they are restricted only to offering up criticism of Biden (whether real or, in this case, entirely imagined), perhaps hoping that their eventual nominee will offer up some sort of positive vision of their own (which doesn't exactly seem likely, but hey, it could happen, I suppose). Since Biden is almost certainly going to skate to the Democratic nomination unopposed (or "unopposed by any Democrat the voters would actually nominate," to be technically accurate), this means that for at least the rest of this calendar year, it may stay a contest between: "Freedom," and: "Be afraid, be very afraid!"
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