The challenges ahead (Biden's America)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The Supreme Court has stayed the order barring the Biden administration from having contact with social media companies, pending the court's hearing and ruling on the case. Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch dissented.

[N.E. Brigand]

The House Oversight Committee led by Rep. James Comer is breathlessly claiming that a $200,000 check paid to Joe Biden by his brother James in 2018 is proof of corruption: "how Joe Biden personally benefited from his family's shady influence peddling of his last name and their access to him." The check is notated "loan repayment". The Committee's argument is that the James Biden had just received $200,000 from a health care company that hoped his name could open doors for them in overseas markets. But as far as I can see, no crime is alleged here, and what's more, Joe Biden hadn't been vice president for nearly two years and wouldn't announce his 2020 presidential candidacy for another year.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The House Oversight Committee led by Rep. James Comer is breathlessly claiming that a $200,000 check paid to Joe Biden by his brother James in 2018 is proof of corruption: "how Joe Biden personally benefited from his family's shady influence peddling of his last name and their access to him." The check is notated "loan repayment". The Committee's argument is that the James Biden had just received $200,000 from a health care company that hoped his name could open doors for them in overseas markets. But as far as I can see, no crime is alleged here, and what's more, Joe Biden hadn't been vice president for nearly two years and wouldn't announce his 2020 presidential candidacy for another year.

[N.E. Brigand]

Good for the U.S.:

[N.E. Brigand]

Bad for the U.S.:

[N.E. Brigand]

There were 759,000 new home sales in the U.S. in September, which beats the estimate for the month (680,000) by 12%.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

But Biden sucks at managing the economy compared to Mr. Trump. Just ask the polls.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Case in point, everyone hates Biden, even Democrats.

Democrats' Rating of Biden Slips; Overall Approval at 37%

[N.E. Brigand]

One year ago yesterday, Bloomberg published an article with this headline:

"Forecast for US Recession Within Year Hits 100% in Blow to Biden."

And they were still promoting it a week later, because one year ago today, on Oct. 26, 2022, this was on the Bloomberg twitter feed:

"A U.S. recession is effectively certain in the next 12 months."

Today, Oct. 26, 2023, would be the same day that it was announced, as V also noted, the "US economy is growing at the fastest pace in 2 years."

[N.E. Brigand]

Several times recently, I have seen attempts to explain that the reason Americans say the economy is in bad shape despite all the evidence to the contrary is that they're responding according to their "lived experiences."

But that's not true. In poll after poll, most Americans say that their personal economic circumstances are good.

They just feel that the national economy is doing poorly.

And the only reason I can see for that is that the media is telling them that.

[RoseMorninStar]

The cost of food has gone (way) up and I think people react to that. The cost of food disproportionately affects those who have less disposable income.

[Frelga]

Rose, that's true about the food prices.

This is a parody account, even if it's sometimes hard to tell.

Screenshot_20231026-211858.png (129.21 KiB) Viewed 3478 times

[RoseMorninStar]

Thanks Obama

[N.E. Brigand]

The House Oversight Committee led by Rep. James Comer is breathlessly claiming that a $200,000 check paid to Joe Biden by his brother James in 2018 is proof of corruption: "how Joe Biden personally benefited from his family's shady influence peddling of his last name and their access to him." The check is notated "loan repayment". The Committee's argument is that the James Biden had just received $200,000 from a health care company that hoped his name could open doors for them in overseas markets. But as far as I can see, no crime is alleged here, and what's more, Joe Biden hadn't been vice president for nearly two years and wouldn't announce his 2020 presidential candidacy for another year.

Although Rep. James Comer last week said, "I don’t know that I want to hold any more hearings, to be honest with you," the Washington Post reports that the new House Speaker, Mike Johnson, thinks they should continue.

[River]

To be fair, it would be suicidal for the new Speaker of the House to make any move that looked like he was interfering with Comer et al's passion project.

[N.E. Brigand]

There's a new article in Fortune about how, thanks to Joe Biden, Medicare is negotiating drug prices rather than just paying whatever pharmaceutical companies demand. Notably, these savings will more immediately help the federal government (saving probably $100 million) than directly help seniors:

One reason most beneficiaries won’t see their drug costs drop anytime soon due to price negotiations is that only 10 medications are on the initial list. They are the ones Medicare spends the most on, that have no generic or biosimilar equivalents, and have been on the market at least seven years.

The first drugs subject to price negotiation are the blood thinners Eliquis and Xarelto; the diabetes drugs Januvia, Jardiance, Farxiga, Fiasp/NovoLog; and five other popular or expensive medications: Enbrel (for rheumatoid arthritis), Imbruvica (for blood cancers), Entresto (for heart failure), and Stelara (for psoriasis and Crohn’s disease).

All of this will be moot if the pharmaceutical companies suing to stop Medicare from negotiating succeed.

[N.E. Brigand]

The cost of food has gone (way) up and I think people react to that. The cost of food disproportionately affects those who have less disposable income.

I don't think that's it, because in survey after survey, people say their own circumstances are fine, i.e., they don't think they're paying too much for food.

But they apparently think that people in general are paying too much for food.

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As far as people specifically on the left responding negatively about the economy, David Roberts has a theory. I'm not sure he's right, though.

[N.E. Brigand]

The average credit score for U.S. residents just reached an all-time high of 718.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

There has been a lot of talk about Hunter Biden. It is worth hearing what he has to say.

Hunter Biden: I fought to get sober. Political weaponization of my addiction hurts more than me.

[N.E. Brigand]

Last night a group of Senate Republicans gave Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville a pretty hard time about all the military promotions he's been blocking, forcing him to publicly object 61 times to the nominations and promotions of various officers, and publicly saying that his efforts were helping China. Earlier today the Senate, by a vote of 95-1, finally approved Admiral Lisa Franchetti to be chief of naval operations (making her the first woman on the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and General David Allvin as Air Force chief of staff. (The no votes came from Senator Roger Marshall, a Republican of Kansas. Tuberville didn't vote.)

The Senate also approved, by a vote of 86-0, the nomination of Lieutenant General Christopher Mahoney for the second highest position in the Marine Corps. This was pretty urgent because the Marine Corps Commandant suffered a heart attack over the weekend; he'd been effectively doing both jobs. Tuberville said about 15 minutes ago that it's no big deal that the Commandant had been working very long hours: "The guy's gonna work 18-20 hours a day no matter what. That's what we do. I did that for years, because you got to get the job done."

And it's been reported that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer would start the process of getting all of the hundreds of blocked nominations approved as a bloc next week. Republicans were said to be on the fence about changing the rules to allow this, but then about a half-hour ago, the "Senate Cloackroom" Twitter account, which appears to be an official account of Senate Republicans, tweeted "Military Promotions Confirmed by Unanimous Consent: All nominations on the Secretary’s Desk in the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Space Force," suggesting that the process had moved faster than expected. However, I've seen no other reports confirming this, so I think it's a mistake.