U.S. inflation accelerated to a 7.5% annual rate in January, rising to a new four-decade high, the Wall Street Journal reports.
CNBC: “That marked the biggest gain since February 1982 and was even higher than the Wall Street estimate.”
Threats Against Lawmakers Surge
New York Times: “The threats have come in almost every conceivable combination: Republicans threatening Democrats, Democrats threatening Republicans, Republicans threatening Republicans. Many of them, the review showed, were fueled by forces that have long dominated politics, including deep partisan divisions and a media landscape that stokes resentment.”
“But they surged during Mr. Trump’s time in office and in its aftermath, as the former president’s own violent language fueled a mainstreaming of menacing political speech and lawmakers used charged words and imagery to describe the stakes of the political moment.”
Ottawa Truckers’ Convoy Galvanizes Far-Right
“It’s not every day that Canada becomes the red-hot center of a global protest movement,” Politico reports.
“But what started as a rally of Canadian truckers angry at cross-border vaccine mandates has fast become a magnet for far-right grievances around the world.”
More from Politico: “Canada’s truckers have paralyzed Ottawa and unsettled the country’s politics over vaccine and mask mandates. Now Americans want in on the action.”
House Seeks Info on Trump’s Handling of Documents
“The chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee is moving quickly on her promise to investigate Donald Trump’s handling of White House records on the heels of revelations that 15 boxes of materials were recovered from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence,” the Washington Post reports.
Biden to Propose 4.6% Pay Hike for Federal Employees
“Federal employees and military service members would receive average raises of 4.6 percent next January under the budget President Biden will propose in March, marking what would be the workforce’s largest salary hike in two decades,” the Washington Post reports.
Confidence Man
A must-read coming this fall: Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America by Maggie Haberman.
One early scoop from the book via Axios: “While President Trump was in office, staff in the White House residence periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging a toilet — and believed the president had flushed pieces of paper.”
Also interesting: “This is the book Trump fears most… Several advisers were unhappy about his decision to talk to her as part of his marathon conversations with book authors at Mar-a-Lago. But they concluded he couldn’t help himself and couldn’t be stopped.”
Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Haberman, Maggie (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 607 Pages - 10/04/2022 (Publication Date) - Penguin Press (Publisher)
Build Back Never?
Politico: “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed in December that the chamber will ‘vote on a revised version of the House-passed Build Back Better Act — and we will keep voting on it until we get something done.’ That’s not the strategy at the moment.”
“Instead, the Senate is now in a long cooling-off period. Democrats are turning to fixing the Postal Service, sexual misconduct reform, spending bills, a Supreme Court vacancy, the Violence Against Women Act and possibly changing the Electoral Count Act and sanctioning Russia. Dealing with those items could take a couple of months or longer, pushing the Senate closer and closer to the midterms. Most Democrats concede they could not revive a tax and spending bill before April, and the final deadline is Sept. 30, when Democrats’ existing powers to push the defunct bill past a filibuster expire.”
Fed Nominees Pledge to Close Revolving Door
“Three of President Biden’s nominees to the Federal Reserve committed to lawmakers that, if confirmed to their posts, they would not work in financial services for four years after leaving the Fed,” the New York Times reports.
“The pledge comes amid growing concern about the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street.”
GOP Lawmaker Traded Vote to Stop Investigation
Kansas State Sen. Mark Steffen (R) “appears to have admitted he traded his vote on the Kansas congressional redistricting map in order to advance a bill that would end a health board investigation into the physician-politician,” the Topeka Capital Journal reports.
“Steffen was one of two Republican senators who switched their vote on the redistricting map veto after the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee fast-tracked the COVID measure in a ‘gut and go’ bill.”
When asked why he switched his vote, Steffen said: “Well, I did that to make some progress on some other fronts. Sometimes that’s the way politics works.”
Trump Endorses Challenger to Nancy Mace
Former President Donald Trump on endorsed former South Carolina lawmaker Katie Arrington (R) over first-term Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) in a GOP primary that tests his heft in the state, the AP reports.
Inside Schumer’s Frayed Relationship with Manchin
“The failed Build Back Better negotiations have left the relationship between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin severely strained,” Axios reports.
“Both senators — and their staffs — quietly question whether the other side can be trusted.”
“By the time the Senate was considering the Build Back Better agenda, the mutual suspicion had metastasized and the two senators felt they needed to commit their positions in writing. They both signed a July agreement that became public in September, capping Manchin’s spending at $1.5 trillion.”
“While the mere existence of such a unique document befuddled fellow senators, the implication was clear: doubt and distrust ran high in their relationship.”
Trump Took Classified Information from White House
The National Archives discovered what it believed was classified information in documents Donald Trump had taken with him from the White House as he left office, the New York Times reports.
Franken Says It Would Be ‘Tempting’ To Run Again
Former Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) told the Washington Post “it would be tempting” to run for office again.
Said Franken: “I certainly loved my time in the Senate. I loved the job. I got a lot done. I was able to accomplish things I couldn’t accomplish anywhere else, I don’t think. So, yeah, it would be tempting to try to do that again.”
Greene Confuses Hitler’s Secret Police with Spanish Soup
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was mocked after ranting about the “gazpacho police” patrolling the U.S. Capitol on a podcast, The Guardian reports.
Said Greene: “Not only do we have the DC jail which is the DC gulag, but now we have Nancy Pelosi’s gazpacho police spying on members of Congress, spying on the legislative work that we do, spying on our staff and spying on American citizens.”
Greene apparently confused cold Spanish soup with the Gestapo, the Nazi-era secret police in Germany.
Biden Warned of Possible Trucker Protests
“President Biden is facing the possibility of truck driver protests mirroring those in Canada over vaccine mandates that would come as the administration works to combat supply chain disruptions, vaccinate more Americans and strengthen the U.S. economy,” The Hill reports.
“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Wednesday warned police partners of protests similar to those in Canada that it said could even disrupt the Super Bowl or the State of the Union address.”
Biden Mocks Trump on Windmills Causing Cancer
While addressing a roundtable of energy executives, President Biden asked: “Are you getting less resistance when you start talking about wind and the windmills? I know they cause cancer.”
As the table broke out in laughter, Biden declared it a “bad joke” and that he “shouldn’t kid about that.”
Select Panel Subpoenas Peter Navarro
“The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday subpoenaed Trump White House official Peter Navarro for records and testimony,” ABC News reports.
Sarah Palin Takes the Witness Stand
“Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin took the witness stand on Wednesday in her defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, giving the jury a folksy overview of her family life in Alaska and ascent in Republican politics,” the AP reports.
“Palin testified for only about 20 minutes at the end of the day… She is to return to court Thursday for a chance to get into the crux of the case — her claim that the newspaper damaged her reputation with an editorial linking her campaign rhetoric to a mass shooting.”
