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“The Jan. 6 select committee received materials this week from Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano — and with them, perhaps, a new dilemma,” Politico reports.
“Mastriano’s previously unreported cooperation with the Capitol attack probe came in the form of a submission that includes documents about his work to arrange buses that carried pro-Trump protesters to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.”
“The old nuclear order, rooted in the Cold War’s unthinkable outcomes, was fraying before Russia invaded Ukraine. Now, it is giving way to a looming era of disorder unlike any since the beginning of the atomic age,” the New York Times reports.
“Russia’s regular reminders over the past three months of its nuclear might, even if largely bluster, were the latest evidence of how the potential threat has resurfaced in more overt and dangerous ways. They were enough to draw a pointed warning to Moscow on Tuesday from President Biden in what amounted to a tacit acknowledgment that the world had entered a period of heightened nuclear risks.”
“President Joe Biden is leaning towards making a visit to Saudi Arabia — a trip that would likely bring him face-to-face with the Saudi crown prince he once shunned as a killer,” the AP reports.
“The White House is weighing a visit to Saudi Arabia that would also include a meeting of the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates) as well as Egypt, Iraq and Jordan.”
Playbook: “The White House’s thinking here is pretty straightforward. The president has a gargantuan domestic political liability — high gas prices — that Saudi Arabia is in a position to help with. Combine that with the international political realities — MBS is young and will likely lead the kingdom for decades, the West needs new sources of oil given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Saudi Arabia’s role as a regional power — and you have the makings of a rapprochement.”
“But even as the calculation is understandable, there are obvious moral costs to wooing MBS.”
The Washington Post fact check team gave President Biden “four Pinocchios” for claiming in a Wall Street Journal op-ed —presumably vetted by staff — that “my plan would reduce the average family’s annual utility bills by $500.”
Alan Blinder: “Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues would love to unclog supply chains, alleviate food shortages, and lower oil prices, but they can’t do any of those things. What they can do is raise short-term interest rates. That will help, but don’t expect miracles.”
“The nationwide shortage of baby formula is getting worse, with an increasing number of retailers and online sellers posting out-of-stock notices even as President Biden met on Wednesday with executives of five baby food companies, and announced new shipments of formula from Europe to help restock American shelves,” the New York Times reports.
“Last month, the president invoked the Defense Production Act to help other manufacturers, and promised to use the military to speed up imports of formula from around the world.”
“But despite those efforts, shortages have only gotten worse. And on Wednesday, Mr. Biden said he had not been aware of the shortage of formula until April, raising new questions about why the White House waited almost two months before taking aggressive actions to address it.”
“Some local officials in liberal enclaves within red states say they won’t help enforce bans on abortion if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade,” Axios reports.
“Speaker Nancy Pelosi said next week she will bring forward legislation to ban military-style assault weapons, as the chamber moves to address gun violence,” CNN reports.
Multiple people were shot and some were killed on Wednesday afternoon at a medical building in Tulsa, the New York Times reports.
The assailant, who was armed with a rifle, was dead.
“President Joe Biden said Wednesday there is little he can do to lower the cost of gasoline or food in the immediate term, an acknowledgment that prices for those goods will remain high as he works to bring down other costs incurred by families,” CNN reports.
Said Biden: “There’s a lot going on right now but the idea we’re going to be able to click a switch, bring down the cost of gasoline, is not likely in the near term. Nor is it with regard to food.”
“President Joe Biden’s first formal talks with Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro will cover a wide range of issues when they meet at the Summit of the Americas next week, including food insecurity, climate change and pandemic recovery,” Reuters report.
“President Joe Biden said Wednesday he wasn’t alerted that the nation faced a looming shortage of baby formula until April, even though executives of baby formula manufacturers said they sounded the alarm to retailers two months earlier,” USA Today reports.
South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg (R) will not run for re-election in 2022, regardless of the outcome of his Senate impeachment trial, KOTA reports.
Ravnsborg’s tenure as Attorney General has been marred by a September 2020 crash where he struck and killed pedestrian Joe Boever with his car.
John Hinckley, the would-be assassin who shot President Ronald Reagan two months after his inauguration in 1981, was deemed by a federal judge on Wednesday to no longer be a “danger to himself or others,” New York magazine reports.
As a result, he will be free of all remaining restrictions by June 15.
“House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) plans to unveil a strategy on Thursday outlining how Republicans would address climate change, energy and environmental issues if the party gains control of the House in the midterm elections,“ the Washington Post reports.
“The strategy calls for streamlining the permitting process for large infrastructure projects, increasing domestic fossil fuel production and boosting exports of U.S. liquefied natural gas, which proponents say is cleaner than gas produced in other countries.”
“The plan is expected to take a much more modest approach to slashing planet-warming emissions than proposals from President Biden and congressional Democrats, who have focused on accelerating the nation’s transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Leading scientists have said the world must rapidly phase out fossil fuels to stave off the consequences of unchecked climate change.”
Tom Nichols: “Americans have had a long respite from thinking about nuclear war. The Cold War ended more than 30 years ago, when the Soviet Union was dismantled and replaced by the Russian Federation and more than a dozen other countries. China at the time was not yet a significant nuclear power. A North Korean bomb was purely a notional threat. The fear of a large war in Europe escalating into a nuclear conflict faded from the public’s mind.”
“Today, the Chinese nuclear arsenal could destroy most of the United States. The North Koreans have a stockpile of bombs. And the Russian Federation, which inherited the Soviet nuclear arsenal, has launched a major war against Ukraine. As the war began, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his nation’s nuclear forces to go on heightened alert and warned the West that any interference with the invasion would have “consequences that you have never experienced in your history.” Suddenly, the unthinkable seems possible again.”
House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik and more than two dozen of her colleagues are supporting a resolution to “expunge” former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment – as pro-Trump Republicans push to rally voters ahead of the midterms, Fox News reports.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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