Friday, March 14, 2025
Senator Schumer's surrender to Republicans inflames rank and file Democrats even in their homes
The anger mirrors less visible Republican discontent with its supine leadership for failing to assert Congress' control over the power of the purse and letting Elon Musk run their show.
... "I know I speak for so many in our caucus when I say Schumer is misreading this moment. The Senate Dems must show strength and grit by voting no," said Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.).
... Some House members, in turn, have gotten an earful from constituents. "I have also never had so many people from home personally texting me—ANGRY," said another House Democrat. "I don't think they knew who Chuck Schumer was before today," the lawmaker said. "But they know now and they hate him." ...
Trump lets Putin select America's negotiating team, removes Keith Kellogg from Ukraine-Russia negotiations after objections from Putin, objections which may have been transmitted by Steve Witkoff
Kremlin told U.S. it didn't want Trump's Ukraine-Russia envoy at peace talks
President Donald Trump’s
special envoy for Ukraine and Russia was excluded from high-level talks
on ending the war after the Kremlin said it didn't want him there, a
U.S. administration official and a Russian official told NBC News.
Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg was
conspicuously absent from two recent summits in Saudi Arabia — one with
Russian officials and the other with Ukrainians — even though the talks
come under his remit.
“Together,” Trump said in announcing Kellogg’s nomination in November, “we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.”
But Kellogg did not attend U.S.-Russia talks in
Riyadh, the Saudi capital, on Feb. 18. Russian President Vladimir Putin
thought he was too pro-Ukraine, a senior Russian official with direct
knowledge of the Kremlin’s thinking told NBC News. ...
Thursday, March 13, 2025
Monmouth University calls it quits on Monmouth University Poll after 20 year run
Monmouth University closing Polling Institute
... “While the Polling Institute has done excellent work, it’s public polling mission is no longer aligned with our current strategic goals,” said Leahy. “I realize this is a significant change given the decades of outstanding work led by Patrick Murray, the founding director of the Institute since its inception in 2005.
“Patrick’s skilled analysis and media aplomb established the Monmouth University Poll as one of the top polls in the country for both accuracy and transparency, including a top-five ranking from the poll analysis website FiveThirtyEight.” ...
Blogger Kevin Drum has passed away of bone marrow cancer at 66
... Kevin’s success was also a kind of victory of democracy over snobbery. It proved that you can write incisively about national affairs without being in Washington, New York, or San Francisco. You can be an ordinary person living an everyday middle-class suburban life where you don’t rub elbows with influential journalists, academics, or financiers, yet write journalism that those sophisticates—and plenty of other ordinary Americans—read and respect. ...
US House Democrats suddenly find themselves temporarily down two votes due to the deaths of Representatives Turner and Grijalva just days apart
Grijalva had been battling cancer since last year. Turner died suddenly and unexpectedly.
Republican Senator Mike Crapo is full of Orwellian crap, says extending the Trump tax cuts which increased deficits by $1.7 trillion won't keep increasing deficits
If you're not changing the tax code, you're simply extending current policy—you are not increasing the deficit. The bottom line here is that it's a $4.3 trillion tax increase, not a $4.3 trillion deficit increase.
-- Mike Crapo
Most of the tax cuts passed by Republicans during President Donald Trump’s first term, in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), which raised deficits by $1.7tn, are set to expire at the end of 2025. ... Without new legislation, current law requires tax rates to return to their pre-TCJA levels. Maintaining the current policy would cost nearly $5tn in lost revenue over the next 10 years.
-- Oren Cass
Passing economic legislation through the US Senate can by-pass the 60-vote rule if the legislation does not increase deficits beyond 10 years.
The total public debt has ballooned by over $16 trillion under the Trump tax cuts.
Federal Judge William Alsup orders tens of thousands of federal employees fired by Mad King Ludwig rehired
Thousands of fired federal workers must be rehired immediately, judge rules
... Alsup, a San Francisco-based appointee of President Bill Clinton, ordered the Defense, Treasury, Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs departments to “immediately” offer all fired probationary employees their jobs back. The Office of Personnel Management, the judge said, had made an “unlawful” decision to terminate them. ... Alsup is the first federal judge to order the administration to broadly unwind the firing spree that has roiled the federal workforce during Trump’s first two months in office. ...
Gold makes 12th record high in 2025 at $2,977.36
Spot gold climbed 1.6% to $2,977.36 an ounce, its twelfth record peak to date in 2025.
Prices are up nearly 14% so far this year after a solid 27% gain in 2024. U.S. gold futures rose 1.4% to $2,989.
More.
Hey look! Root causes are back in the news again after a brief hiatus
The root cause of the Ukraine war is Vladimir Putin and the root cause of the illegal immigration problem was Joe Biden.
The inflation figures in this story, as usual, are based on seasonally adjusted measures
... no gain for the month after jumping an upwardly revised 0.6% in January, seasonally adjusted figures showed. ...
It's the same story with core wholesale prices for January 2025, not seasonally adjusted, also revised upward today one month later
The monthly rise in core wholesale prices in January 2025 of 0.5% was revised up to 0.7% today, and the year over year increase was revised up to 3.8% from 3.6%.
Inflation in January 2025 was worse than previously reported, and probably was in February too as reported today, but we'll have to see, as long, anyway, as Ludwig doesn't manage to blow us all up in the meantime.
Wholesale prices not seasonally adjusted rose 3.7% year over year in January 2025, not the 3.5% reported last month
The month over month change in wholesale prices was also revised up today, from 0.7% for January to 0.9%.
Marco Rubio and his fellow barbarians are shredding and burning USAID classified documents and personnel records
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees and outside groups are fighting an order from the agency’s leadership to shred and burn its classified documents as well as personnel records.
An email obtained by The Hill sent by USAID’s acting executive secretary instructs remaining employees at the dismantled agencies to “shred as many documents as possible first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break.” ...
More.
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
In February 2025 the average cost of electricity is 31.6% higher than it was 2016-2020
The average price per kWhr was $0.136 for the five years 2016-2020.
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