Categories Uncategorized

Trump team resists special master's request to explain declassification of Mar-a-Lago documents

Former President Trump’s legal team on Monday night resisted a request to elaborate on his claims around declassifying the documents recovered last month from his Mar-a-Lago home. 

In a filing to the court-appointed special master that Trump requested, his attorneys said the “time and place” for making such a disclosure would come in a motion in a criminal trial as an effort to recover his property. 

“Otherwise, the Special Master process will have forced the Plaintiff to fully and specifically disclose a defense to the merits of any subsequent indictment without such a requirement being evident in the District Court’s order,” Trump’s legal team wrote. 

The resistance comes after Trump’s attorneys insinuated the former president declassified the more than 300 documents recovered from his Florida home but stopped short of fully making the claim in court filings.

“The government’s stance assumes that if a document has a classification marking, it remains classified irrespective of any actions taken during President Trump’s term in office,” Trump’s legal team wrote in a filing last week. 

“There is no legitimate contention that the chief executive’s declassification of documents requires approval of bureaucratic components of the executive branch,” they added. 

The Justice Department’s legal team seized on the hinting from Trump’s lawyer in their next filing. 

“Plaintiff principally seeks to raise questions about the classification status of the records and their categorization under the Presidential Records Act (‘PRA’). But plaintiff does not actually assert — much less provide any evidence — that any of the seized records bearing classification markings have been declassified,” the Department of Justice (DOJ) wrote.

“Such possibilities should not be given weight absent plaintiff’s putting forward competent evidence,” it added.

Though presidents have broad power to declassify records, doing so sets off a chain of events, as the intelligence agencies that manage such records must take additional steps.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts on Monday filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking the “standing” declassification order that Trump — outside of court filings — has pointed to in explaining the tranche of record in his home. 

As Trump has fought to stop DOJ from reviewing the classified records, the department has argued he could have no possible claim to the documents, saying their classification labels indicate they are government and not personal property and that Trump has no reason to stop the executive branch from reviewing them.

Source: TEST FEED1

Fauci says 'we are not where we need to be' after Biden declares 'pandemic is over'

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said Monday that the U.S. is not where it needs to be regarding the coronavirus pandemic, the day after an interview with President Biden was broadcast in which he said that the “pandemic is over.”

In a talk with the Center for Strategic & International Studies, Fauci, Biden’s top COVID-19 adviser who last month announced his pending retirement from the government, said that much depends on how the country handles future virus variants. 

“How we respond and how we’re prepared for the evolution of these variants is going to depend on us. And that gets to the other conflicting aspect of this — is the lack of a uniform acceptance of the interventions that are available to us in this country where even now, more than two years, close to three years, into the outbreak, we have only 67 percent of our population vaccinated and only one-half of those have received a single boost,” Fauci said. 

He noted that the country is still experiencing more than 400 daily deaths due to COVID-19, though that number is down from a year earlier.

“But we are not where we need to be if we’re going to be able to, quote, ‘live with the virus,’ because we know we’re not going to eradicate it. We only did that with one virus, which is smallpox, and that was very different because smallpox doesn’t change from year to year, or decade to decade, or even from century to century,” Fauci added.

“And we have vaccines and infection that imparts immunity that lasts for decades and possibly lifetime.” 

In a “60 Minutes” interview that ran Sunday, Biden, who recently recovered from a COVID diagnosis, told CBS News correspondent Scott Pelley that the country seems to be in “good shape” to move past the pandemic phase. 

“The pandemic is over,” Biden said. “We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lotta work on it. It’s — but the pandemic is over. if you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it’s changing. And I think this is a perfect example of it.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Texas sheriff opens probe into DeSantis's migrant flight to Martha's Vineyard

Bexar County, Texas, Sheriff Javier Salazar opened an investigation on Monday into Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) controversial transport of approximately 50 migrants from San Antonio, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

“We are opening up a case, an investigation, with regard to the suspected activities involving the 48 migrants from Venezuela,” Salazar said in a news briefing.

The sheriff said that the group of Venezuelan migrants were “lured” from a migrant resource center into traveling to Martha’s Vineyard “under false pretenses.”

According to Salazar, one Venezuelan migrant was paid to recruit the others, who were allegedly promised work and other benefits, before the group was flown first to Florida and then to Massachusetts.

“They were taken to Martha’s Vineyard for, from what we can gather, for little more than a photo op, video op and then they were unceremoniously stranded in Martha’s Vineyard,” he said.

DeSantis flew the group of migrants north on Wednesday in an effort to draw attention to his stance against liberal immigration policies.

Democrats and immigration advocates called for a probe into DeSantis’s actions, saying he may have broken laws against fraud or human trafficking.

The Hill has reached out to DeSantis’s office for comment.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) had previously sent busloads of migrants to Democratic-run cities, including Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago, claiming that Democratic leaders support immigration laws that hurt border states without experiencing their negative repercussions.

Two buses of migrants last week arrived in front of the Naval Observatory in, the D.C. residence of Vice President Harris, after being sent by Abbott.

“VP Harris claims our border is ‘secure’ & denies the crisis,” said Abbott in a statement about the transported migrants. “We’re sending migrants to her backyard to call on the Biden Administration to do its job & secure the border.”

Both Abbott and DeSantis are up for reelection this year, and are said to be eyeing potential 2024 White House bids.

Salazar said on Monday that the migrants from San Antonio were “exploited and hoodwinked into making this trip to Florida and then onward to Martha’s Vineyard for what I believe to be nothing more than political posturing to make a point.”

“What infuriates me the most about this case is that here we have 48 people that are already on hard times, they are here legally in our country at that point, they have every right to be where they are, and I believe that they were preyed upon,” he said.

The Hill has reached out to Salazar for further comment on the investigation.

Updated at 7:36 p.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

GOP’s bad blood threatens Manchin side deal

Senate Republicans are threatening to sink Sen. Joe Manchin’s side deal on permitting reform, partly because they are still angry over the West Virginia Democrat’s flip-flop on the sweeping climate, health and tax bill that Congress passed last month.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) promised in late July to add Manchin’s permitting reform legislation to a must-pass end-of-September government funding bill in order to secure Manchin’s vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which included hundreds of billions of dollars to fight climate change.

The initial plan was to pass the stopgap funding measure with permitting reform first in the Senate, putting pressure on House Democrats to go along with it to avoid a possible government shutdown in early October.

But now Republican senators say a continuing resolution combined with Manchin’s permitting reform proposal probably won’t get 10 GOP votes in the upper chamber.

They say there’s little appetite for giving Manchin a big political and policy victory after he shocked them over the summer by announcing a deal with Schumer on the Inflation Reduction Act.

“I don’t think you can count on any Republicans to commit to vote for something they haven’t seen,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who raised concerns about the fact that Manchin hasn’t yet circulated an updated draft of his permitting reform bill.

“Generally speaking, Republicans are for permitting reform. I think given what Sen. Manchin did on the reconciliation bill has engendered a lot of bad blood,” Cornyn added.

Many Republicans felt misled by Manchin after he announced his support for a sweeping tax reform and climate bill only hours after Republican senators voted for a $280 billion chips and science bill — something Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) threatened to block if Democrats were still actively considering a budget reconciliation bill with tax increases.

“Relationships are important around here, and I think people felt like he misled them,” Cornyn said. “There’s not a lot of sympathy on our side for providing Sen. Manchin a reward for his flip-flop on the reconciliation.”

Cornyn and many other Senate Republicans are pushing to replace Manchin’s proposal with permitting reform legislation crafted by his home-state colleague, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), that would do more to speed the approval of fossil-fuel extraction and other projects.

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) also raised serious doubts about the prospect of a short-term government funding measure getting 10 or 11 Republicans votes to overcome a filibuster if Manchin’s permitting reform bill is included.

“I think the more likely way to get an outcome is for them to try and produce 12 Democrats for Capito’s proposal,” Thune said.

Thune warned that passing a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown is “a much heavier lift” if the legislation is first considered in the Senate with Manchin’s proposal as a part of it.

He said Republican support would be much stronger for a stopgap funding measure that included Capito’s version of permitting reform. Republicans have doubts whether Manchin’s proposal goes far enough or whether it would be implemented by the Biden administration.

“We understand based on what we do know that it’s not very strong,” Thune said of Manchin’s language, adding, “there’s a ton of skepticism on our side.”

Until now, most of the attention in Washington on the government funding fight has focused on the strong opposition of House progressives to Manchin’s permitting reform bill.

More than 70 House Democrats signed a letter circulated by Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) stating strong opposition to attaching permitting reform to the continuing resolution.

Democratic leaders, however, are sticking with their plan to combine the two measures, betting that House progressives will go along with it at the final moment to avoid shutting down the federal government a month before the election.

While House progressives voiced their opposition to Manchin’s deal with Schumer to combine the government funding bill and permitting reform, they stopped short of pledging to vote against the package.

Schumer, meanwhile, is paving the way to round up as many Democratic votes as possible for his controversial side deal with Manchin.

He is handing environmentalists a modest victory this week by holding a vote to ratify the Kigali Amendment, a global agreement to limit climate-affecting hydrofluorocarbon emissions.

One Democratic senator said ratification of the Kigali Amendment “probably” helps secure the votes of pro-environment Democrats for Manchin’s permitting reform deal because they could then point to another legislative accomplishment aimed at fighting global warming.

Schumer is also giving Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a swing vote on Manchin’s permitting reform proposal, a vote on one of his top priorities this week — the Disclose Act — even though it doesn’t have a chance of passing the Senate.

The Democratic leader separately is upping the stakes of the looming vote on a short-term funding resolution by preparing to include emergency funding for Ukraine in the legislation.

Democratic senators say the plan is to pass the funding bill late next week and jam the House — assuming the measure goes through with the Manchin language.

Schumer is betting that House progressives would fold in such a scenario, they say. While House progressives have expressed opposition to permitting reforms, they haven’t explicitly pledged to defeat the funding stopgap if it’s included.

But it’s possible that scenario won’t come about if the GOP refuses to provide votes to any measure that includes a win for Manchin.

Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), the top-ranking Republican on the Appropriations Committee, who is negotiating the short-term funding bill, said that it would have an easier time passing without Manchin’s permitting reform attached.

“The cleaner, the better,” he said, acknowledging that many Republicans don’t want to vote for a side deal with Schumer that secured Manchin’s vote for the budget reconciliation bill in August.

Shelby said he personally supports permitting reform but called Manchin’s change of direction on the tax and climate bill “a pretty raw political deal.”

—Updated at 7:02 p.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump defends 'perfect' call with Raffensperger amid threat of prison sentences from Georgia probe

Former President Trump defended the controversial call he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger following the 2020 election, saying in a statement on Monday it was “an absolutely PERFECT phone call.”

The latest defense of the call, which has triggered an investigation in Georgia, follows remarks last week by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis to The Washington Post that people could face prison sentences as a result of her probe.

Willis also said her team had uncovered credible allegations of serious crimes. She did not specify who could face a prison term.

In a statement through his Save America PAC, Trump said that Willis “is spending almost all of her waking hours, which aren’t many, on attempting to prosecute a very popular president, Donald J. Trump” and that she “is basing her potential claims on trying to find a tiny word or phrase (that isn’t there) during an absolutely PERFECT phone call, concerning widespread Election Fraud in Georgia.”

He claimed that those on the call “had no problems with the call, and didn’t voice any objections or complaints about anything that I said on the call which could be construed as inappropriate.”

Willis launched a probe last year regarding whether the former president or those close to him were involved in attempting to change the outcome of the 2020 election.

Part of the probe includes a call he made to Raffensperger, asking him to find more than 11,000 votes, which would have overturned Joe Biden’s victory in the state.

Raffensperger spurned Trump’s entreaties, refusing to go along with the effort to fine enough votes to overturn the eleciton.

That drew Trump’s ire, leading the former president to endorse a challenger to Raffensperger last year. Raffensperger ultimately prevailed in his Republican primary earlier this year. 

The Georgia prosecutor has subpoenaed a number of people including Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and others involved in a scheme to provide an alternative set or electors for Georgia that might have changed the results of the election.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden draws heat for saying pandemic is over

President Biden is drawing criticism from lawmakers and public health experts who warn his assertion that the COVID-19 pandemic is over could undermine the administration’s rollout of new booster shots, as well as efforts to secure more funding from Congress.

“The pandemic is over,” Biden told “60 Minutes” in an interview that ran Sunday.

“We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lotta work on it. It’s — but the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it’s changing. And I think this [the Detroit Auto Show resuming] is a perfect example of it,” Biden said during a trip to Detroit last week in an interview with Scott Pelley.

Biden’s comments reflect the administration’s efforts to signal a return to normalcy and show progress in efforts to control the pandemic. The administration has focused its recent messaging on the importance of getting vaccinated and receiving booster shots to increase immunity, as well as the wide availability of antiviral pills and other forms of treatment for those who contract the virus.

But the remarks also contradict some of the White House’s top advisers.

“The pandemic isn’t over. And we will remain vigilant, and of course, we continue to look for and prepare for unforeseen twists and turns,” Ashish Jha, the White House’s COVID-19 response coordinator, told reporters on Sept. 6.

The virus is still killing about 400 people per day, a number that is “far too high for a vaccine-preventable disease,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said recently.

The White House declined to comment.

Biden’s remarks are also likely to complicate efforts to convince lawmakers to include in a must-pass government spending bill a $22.4 billion request for additional vaccines and treatments.

“One can imagine that by saying the pandemic is over now, you know, the small window of opportunity or the possibility that there might be additional COVID funding becomes almost impossible at this point,” said Josh Michaud, associate director for global health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Federal health officials said the funding is crucial to help meet immediate short-term domestic needs, like testing and research and development of next-generation vaccines and therapeutics. It also would help to prepare for future variants.

Republicans have been unwilling to provide the administration with billions of dollars in new money, and some immediately seized on Biden’s remarks.

“Now that the President has finally acknowledged the pandemic is over, he should immediately begin to unwind the public health emergency (PHE) so our country can get back to normal,” Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said in a statement Monday.

“Instead of clinging to his emergency powers and asking for $22 billion in more COVID-19 spending, President Biden should get to work and take seriously the need to rebuild trust and confidence in America’s public health agencies,” she added.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the public health emergency is not being lifted.

“The COVID Public Health Emergency remains in effect & HHS will provide a 60-day notice to states before any possible termination or expiration. As we’ve done previously, we’ll continue to lean on the science to determine the length of the PHE,” tweeted Sarah Lovenheim, spokeswoman for HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.

Health experts warn prematurely declaring the pandemic over could also undermine the administration’s rollout of an updated booster shot.

Administration officials say the new vaccines will be key to controlling a potential fall surge, and 100 million Americans could be infected without additional funding. “The overall framing of the pandemic being over doesn’t add to the urgent messaging coming from other parts of the administration saying that it’s absolutely critical for people to get their booster shot,” Michaud said.

Source: TEST FEED1

California Dems follow Texas GOP into online speech battle

Californian Democrats appear headed for a similar legal battle facing Texas Republicans as the fight over content moderation plays out through state laws.

California’s transparency law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) last week, has the opposite intent as that of a law backed by Texas Republicans that is set to go into effect after an appellate court ruled Friday in favor of the state. 

But the industry groups opposing Texas’s law are tying the two together, arguing that both content moderation laws are unconstitutional and could set dangerous precedents that lead to more hate speech online. 

“Regardless of whether it’s a Democratic or Republican intent, the First Amendment applies equally. And this is exactly where these bills fail in protecting the First Amendment, and this is essentially government compelled speech,” said Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel of the tech industry group NetChoice.

Tech groups haven’t filed a suit against the California law yet, but signaled one may be approaching. 

“I think there are lots of people talking to lots of attorneys about the clear constitutional failures of this legislation,” Szabo said. 

Adam Kovacevich, CEO and founder of the tech group Chamber of Progress, said the group is “certainly looking at potential legal action against” California’s transparency law. 

“I think one of the things worth noting is that both Texas and the Florida Republican laws had transparency requirements similar to that of the California bill. And those were written by MAGA state legislators, whereas the California bill was written by progressive Democrats. Our view is that they’re all unconstitutional,” he said. 

NetChoice and the Communications Industry Association (CCIA) sued Texas and Florida over bills that would restrict companies’ ability to remove users or violative content. 

California’s law, though, aims to crack down on hate speech by establishing regulation to promote transparency by compelling tech platforms to publicly post their policies about hate speech and disinformation. It also requires companies to send a report to the state attorney general about current terms of service and data on violations.

“California will not stand by as social media is weaponized to spread hate and disinformation that threaten our communities and foundational values as a country,” Newsom said in a statement last week. “Californians deserve to know how these platforms are impacting our public discourse, and this action brings much-needed transparency and accountability to the policies that shape the social media content we consume every day.”

Democrats have long been pushing for social media companies to take more aggressive action on hate speech and disinformation, but California’s new law is the strongest legislative action taken so far in the U.S.

Szabo argued that despite the law’s intent, it will in effect lay the groundwork to let bad actors evade platforms’ rules. 

“Anyone who’s ever watched a heist movie knows that the bad actors look at the schematics of the building, they look at the security and they figure out exactly how to work around it. 

What this bill does is essentially give the bad actors all the information they need to avoid detection and avoid the protection mechanisms social media platforms use every single day,” Szabo said. 

In fighting the Texas law, industry groups found an ally among civil society groups, forming a rare joint front in a push to get the Supreme Court to temporarily block the law in May. 

The Florida and Texas laws were crafted based on Republican accusations that tech companies are censoring content with an anti-conservative bias, and aim to forbid social media companies from banning users based on political views. In doing so, critics say tech companies’ hands would be tied to remove hateful and extremist content that violates their policies. 

But some advocacy groups that supported the tech industry-led effort on the Texas bill, like the Anti-Defamation League, support California’s new law.

“We have seen several state bills and some state laws that seek to infringe on a platform’s right to moderate content,” ADL technology policy and advocacy counsel Lauren Krapf said, referencing the laws in Texas and Florida. 

“We enthusiastically welcome California’s alternative approach to holding platforms accountable for their role in the proliferation of violence and extremism. [The law] approaches the issue by seeking accountability through transparency,” she added. 

According to the ADL, concerns that industry groups are raising about the law giving bad actors a peek into a playbook to avoid rules are not valid because the disclosure is based on the platforms’ policies, not specifics about terms or words that would trigger enforcement. 

The ADL also dismissed the concern by noting that bad actors already do take advantage of the platforms’ policies in a way that proliferates hate online. 

As California’s new law heads toward a likely legal battle, the fight is expected to heat up over the Texas law, even after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the state. 

The case is expected to head to the Supreme Court again, this time based on its merit.

“The law is essentially unimplementable, there’s no way that the services can actually comply with this request,” said Kovacevich of the Chamber of Progress. 

“But I think that if it’s allowed to stay on the books, it’s going to make the Texas internet and potentially the broader internet kind of a cesspool.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Strong US dollar boomerangs on Europe 

The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates another three quarters of a point this week in its effort to bring down inflation, further increasing the strength of a rapidly rising dollar in the process. 

That’s increasingly being seen as a problem in Europe, where concerns about a recession are growing as currencies lose power to the U.S. dollar.  

Europe is also dealing with economic pressures from Russia’s war on Ukraine, with mounting fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin could use energy as a potent weapon this winter. Many European countries depend on supplies from Russia to heat homes over the winter. 

The worries are leading to new complaints from those who see the Fed’s actions as potentially causing more problems than they will fix if Europe takes a serious hit.

“This is my real frustration with what the Fed is doing now. Frankly, the global geopolitical economic conditions don’t justify 75 basis points,” Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve economist and founder of Sahm Consulting, said in an interview with The Hill.  

“Our monetary policy is crushing Europe and emerging markets. The Fed is almost certainly making the hardship in Europe worse,” she added. 

Rising interest rates make it more expensive to borrow money and effectively make the U.S. dollar more valuable compared to other currencies.  

The euro is down about 12 percent on the year compared to the dollar, reaching a one-to-one ratio, the weakest level in about 20 years. The British pound is down more than 15 percent on the year to its lowest level since the mid-1980s. 

The Japanese yen is down 20 percent compared to the dollar, the Chinese renminbi is down about 9 percent, the Indian rupee about 7 percent and the Swiss franc about 5 percent. 

The changing values of the currencies have a number of real-world effects.

The dollar goes farther for U.S. travelers abroad, but it makes it more expensive for U.S. manufacturers to export goods. It reduces costs for U.S. importers at a time when supply-chain problems related to the coronavirus and high demand emerging from the pandemic have helped fuel inflation.

The international knock-on effects of a strong dollar are not likely to be at the top of Fed’s current list of priorities. Getting a handle on 40-year-high inflation, which was initially mischaracterized by Fed economists and Treasury officials as “transitory” and not a serious cause for concern, is more pressing.

The Fed may even view an artificially strong dollar as a good thing in the short term because it’s favorable to U.S. consumers despite forcing global economies to recalibrate their import and export dynamics.

But a major recession in Europe, where central banks are also raising interest rates to fight inflation, is not in the interest of the U.S., which is one of Europe’s biggest trading partners.  

Domestic producers have also been hit hard by the strong dollar and are keen to see exchange rates level off in the interest of selling more goods overseas. More interest rate hikes by the Fed will continue to undercut bottom lines in the U.S. manufacturing sector.

But the Fed is conscious that inflation is sensitive to higher import costs. Recent research from the New York Fed showed that high import prices due to backed-up supply chains were a major reason behind the rising prices felt by U.S. consumers in the pandemic’s aftermath.

Price increases passed on to domestic producers from higher import prices “more than doubled during the Covid period,” according to a study published in August by the New York Fed’s Liberty Street Economics blog.

Europe is in a particularly difficult spot because of the Russia-Ukraine war, which shows little sign of slowing down despite advances in recent weeks by Ukraine. 

Faced with a barrage of Western sanctions that now include a price cap on Russian energy exports, Russia halted its natural gas supplies to Europe at different times over the summer, citing maintenance issues with a major pipeline. 

European authorities reacted by implementing new energy regulations to bring down “astronomic” electricity prices while moving their economies away from formerly cheap and abundant Russian natural gas. 

In the United Kingdom, the government increased its price cap on household energy expenditures by 80 percent for October as the country deals with soaring energy prices. 

“We are supporting this country through this winter and next, and tackling the root cause of high prices, so we are never in this position again,” British Prime Minister Liz Truss said in a statement on the energy crisis earlier this month. 

Elsewhere in Europe, countries cut their economic growth forecasts, with Finland bringing down its gross domestic product estimate for 2023 to 0.5 percent from a previous estimate of 1.1 percent. 

“Rising prices are hampering Finland’s economic growth,” the country’s finance ministry said in a Monday statement. 

“Finland’s GDP will increase 1.7 percent in 2022, though growth will slow considerably towards the end of the year. The increase in consumer prices has accelerated to nearly 8 percent and will increase an average of 6.5 percent this year. Rising prices will weaken household purchasing power and keep the growth of consumption weak in the latter part of the year. Despite employment gains, real household incomes are decreasing with little left over for savings,” the Ministry said. 

Analysts are expecting the Fed to continue apace with its rate hikes in the face of inflation, which stands now at 8.3 percent annually, with a 0.6 percent uptick in core inflation from July to August. 

“After this week’s upside beat on the U.S. [consumer price index], investors will be focused on the Fed’s decision next Thursday, with markets now solidly pricing at least a 75 [basis point] hike,” analysts for Deutsche Bank wrote in a note last week. 

“Much attention will be paid to policymakers’ expectations about the path and the magnitude of future hikes. Our U.S. economists expect a 75 [basis point] move next week and have recently published … on why the terminal rate should reach 5 percent,” they wrote.

Source: TEST FEED1

Why Biden is seeing a rise in the polls

President Biden is enjoying what looks like an enduring bump in approval polls, a shift that is linked to a number of factors that could help Democrats in the midterm elections. 

Here’s what’s behind it: 

Legislative wins

Biden and his party’s ultra-narrow congressional majorities have notched a series of legislative successes over the past year-and-a-half. First, there was the American Rescue Plan that pumped nearly $2 trillion into the economy to fight the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, there was the massive infrastructure bill last fall. 

But it was the Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed last month that has appeared to do the most for the president’s recent political comeback. 

The law includes some of Biden and his party’s biggest policy priorities. It marks the United States’ largest-ever investment in the fight against climate change and raises taxes on corporations and wealthy investors. It also takes steps to reduce health care costs by extending federal health-insurance subsidies and allowing the government to negotiate prescription drug prices for seniors on Medicare.

Of course, the law has been targeted relentlessly by Republicans, who claim that it will raise taxes on Americans and worsen already-high inflation. Still, Democrats see the law as a lifeline heading into the midterms — one that shows the party’s voters that Democrats can deliver on their campaign promises.

“Things are a lot different today,” said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist and senior adviser to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). “You need to look at the fact that, not only is the president’s legislative agenda very popular, but much of it has been delivered.”

Gas prices

Gas prices rose dramatically throughout 2021 and the first half of 2022, putting a strain on Americans’ pocketbooks and, consequently, on Biden’s approval numbers. The cost of fuel peaked in mid-June at more than $5 per gallon, according to AAA. 

But drivers are breathing a little easier nowadays. As of Monday, the national average for a gallon of gasoline sits at just shy of $3.68 — down from about $3.72 a week ago and nearly $3.92 a month ago. 

That’s still higher than it was at this time last year — about $0.48 cents higher. Still, it’s trending in the right direction, helping Biden’s approval rating claw its way back from the depths it reached over the summer. 

Gas prices usually rise and fall with the cost of oil, meaning the president can only do so much to influence those prices. At the same time, U.S. oil production hasn’t fully hit pre-pandemic levels. 

In March, Biden announced a plan to release 1 million barrels per day over six months from the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to bring down rising gas prices. And while there may be longer-term questions about what will happen when those releases end, the easing fuel prices have taken some political pressure off of Biden for now.

Trump

Former President Donald Trump never really disappeared from the public eye; since leaving the White House last year, he’s issued endorsement after endorsement in GOP primary contests, held rallies for his preferred candidates and continued to publicly push his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

But he’s reemerged as a headline-grabbing figure in recent months, especially as investigations into a wide range of alleged wrongdoing have ramped up. 

The most high-profile probe of the former president’s conduct broke out into the open last month when the FBI searched his private Palm Beach, Fla., residence as part of an investigation into his handling of classified documents. But he’s also facing legal jeopardy in Georgia, where a special grand jury is investigating whether Trump and his allies sought to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the state.

Biden, meanwhile, has stepped up his criticism of Trump once again, casting him and his political movement as a threat to American democracy. An NBC News poll released on Sunday found Trump’s favorability rating sinking to one of the lowest points of his post-presidency.

While midterm elections tend to focus more on the current president and his party, Trump has proven to be an effective foil for Democrats in the past, and his recent tendency to grab headlines has helped reignite the energy that juiced support for Biden in 2020.

“Forget that he’s not the president anymore,” one Republican strategist said. “I think a lot of people are being reminded of Trump now, and it makes Biden look better in comparison.”

Abortion rights

Biden and his party have also seen a boost in the polls amid an effort to rally Americans against Republican efforts to curb abortion rights following the Supreme Court’s decision in June to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

The political impact of the decision has already been made clear: Kansas voters quashed a proposed amendment that would have stripped abortion protections from the state constitution, Democrats overperformed in a handful of hotly contested special elections and polling shows the issue of reproductive rights taking on heightened importance in the midterm elections.

Poll after poll has made clear the support for abortion rights. A New York Times/Siena College poll survey last week found that 62 percent of registered voters believe that abortion should remain legal, at least in most circumstances. 

And it’s not just Democratic voters. Sixty-five percent of independents said that abortion should remain legal in most cases.

Consequently, Biden has ridden the same wave as other Democrats in the post-Roe political environment. In July, he signed an executive order that seeks to protect access to abortion medication and emergency contraception. He has also vowed to veto any legislative attempt to ban abortions nationwide.

Source: TEST FEED1

Kinzinger on GOP-majority House: They're going to demand a Biden impeachment vote every week

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) in a new interview predicts that GOP lawmakers will demand a vote to impeach President Biden “every week” if Republicans take control of the House in the midterms.

Kinzinger, a frequent critic of former President Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill, compared previous efforts by congressional Republicans to what he predicts “crazies” will attempt to do under a GOP majority.

“Back before we had all the crazies here — just some crazies — you know, every vote we took, we had to somehow defund ObamaCare. … You’ll remember, right when we took over it was we need to do the omnibus bill, but we’re not going to vote for it because it doesn’t defund ObamaCare,” Kinzinger said on CNN’s “The Axe Files with David Axelrod,” released Monday.

“That’s going to look like child’s play in terms of what [Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Greene [R-Ga.] is going to demand of [House GOP Leader] Kevin McCarthy [Calif.]. They’re going to demand an impeachment vote on President Biden every week,” he added.

Republicans are widely expected to take control of the House in November, though Democrats are battling to limit the size of a potential GOP majority. According to FiveThirtyEight, Republicans are favored to win control of the lower chamber over Democrats, 71 percent to 29 percent.

If they do secure the majority, a number of Republican lawmakers are preparing plans to impeach Biden over various matters. Some conservative House members have already introduced impeachment articles against the president over his administration’s efforts on border enforcement, the COVID-19 pandemic and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan last year, to name a few. 

Kinzinger said a GOP House majority may also try to “make abortion illegal in all circumstances on this omnibus bill.”

The Illinois Republican, who is not running for reelection in November, predicted that McCarthy — the current House minority leader who is expected to become Speaker if Republicans win the lower chamber — will have a difficult time governing because of “crazies” in the GOP conference.

“I think it’ll be a very difficult majority for him to govern unless he just chooses to go absolutely crazy with them. In which case you may see the rise of the silent, non-existent moderate Republican that may still exist out there, but I don’t know,” he said.

Kinzinger predicted that McCarthy is “not going to be able to do much” and also raised the possibility that the GOP leader would not receive the Speaker’s gavel at all, suggesting Trump and members of the conservative Freedom Caucus could push for a more right-leaning leader.

McCarthy was close to the Speakership in 2015 but ultimately dropped out of contention after making a controversial comment about the taxpayer-funded Benghazi Committee.

“I think it’s quite possible,” Kinzinger told Axelrod when asked if McCarthy will not be Speaker come January.

“I think if there’s, particularly if there’s a narrow Republican majority, let’s say there’s five, a five-seat Republican majority, it only takes five Republicans or six Republicans to come together, deny Kevin the Speakership because they weren’t, let’s say, [Rep.] Jim Jordan [R-Ohio], where they have this idea that Donald Trump can sit as Speaker. Any of them can do that. And I know these Freedom Caucus members fairly well, and I know that they have no problem turning their back on [McCarthy] and they will,” he added.

He said he would “absolutely love to see” McCarthy not become Speaker in January.

Source: TEST FEED1