Don't Look Now, But the Economy Is Jumpin'

A Democratic president is about to ride off into the sunset. And, as with most of his Democratic predecessors of the last half-century (sorry, Jimmy Carter), it looks like he'll leave office with an economy that is hot, hot, hot.

Let's start with inflation. For the first year of the Biden presidency, smack dab in the middle of the pandemic, the annual rate of inflation was 7%. The next year, 2022, was not much better, at 6.5%. But as the pandemic receded, and various kinks in the economy got straightened out, inflation dropped to 3.4% for 2023. And for 2024, according to the latest numbers from the Department of Labor, it's down to 2.5%.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate is holding steady at a shade above 4%. Economists consider anything below 5% to be, effectively, "full employment"—that the economy is keeping as many people employed as is practicable. On top of that, average earnings increased 0.4% in the last month, and are up 3.8% over the last year. That, of course, is higher than 2.5%, so people's purchasing power, on average, is up over the past year.

How about specific commodities? Well, at the height of the pandemic-era inflation, eggs cost an average of $4.82/dozen across the United States. They are now down to an average of $3.20/dozen. Milk was up to $4.20/gallon, on average, now it's down to $4.04. Chicken breast was selling for $4.76 a pound 2 years ago, now it's down to $3.95 a pound. Note that different commodities play by different rules, such that there's never a time when they are ALL way down in price. Bread, for example, is down, but only by a few cents per pound, while beef is actually up by about 30 cents a pound (to $5.57) compared to 2 years ago. Still, on the whole, it's cheaper to fill a grocery cart than it was in late 2022 or early 2023.

Of course, the mother of all commodities—since most people buy a fair amount each week, and so tend to be pretty sensitive to price changes—is gasoline. One year ago, the average price of a gallon nationwide was $3.87. A little over 2 years ago (on June 14, 2022, to be precise), the U.S. set a record for the highest average price per gallon, at $5.02. Yesterday (the AAA maintains a daily average), gas was down to just $3.20 a gallon nationwide. The only state where gas prices are not dropping, in fact, is California. Guess those pinkos get what they deserve. At least, the ones not wise enough to drive electric vehicles.

So, inflation is currently well controlled, wages are growing, and prices are falling. These are exactly the things the Federal Reserve Bank likes to hear, and so when they meet tomorrow, they are expected to cut interest rates. This will be the first time the Fed has done so in a bit over 4 years (since March 2020). The only question is how big the cut will be; some analysts are arguing that they should keep it small so as to avoid rocking the boat too much, others say it's time to swing for the fences. What this basically means is: Should Jerome Powell & Co. cut the prime rate by 0.25% or by 0.5%?

Of course, the people who drive the stock market love, love, love interest rate cuts. Yesterday, investors pushed the Dow to an all-time high (41,622.08) and drove the S&P 500 to a near-all-time high (5,633.09; the all-time number is 5,667.20). Once the Fed makes an announcement tomorrow, there's a good chance both will set records. (The NASDAQ is down a little right now, but most analysts think it will bounce back, too.)

And finally, a lower prime rate also means lower mortgage rates. This week, in anticipation of the Fed's maneuvering, mortgage rates fell to 6.2% (for a standard, 30-year fixed mortgage). That's the lowest number since February 2023, and is down considerably from the two-decade high of 7.79% in October 2023.

Needless to say, all of these numbers are averages, and not everyone is benefiting equally (or even at all) from the improved economic outlook. It is also the case that circumstances in a particular city or state may vary widely from what is going on nationally. For example, in Nevada, unemployment right now is double the national rate. Still, if you believe that, even in 2024, it's still "the economy, stupid," and that a solid economy in election season makes many voters say "I'll have more of that, please," then things are lining up nicely for the Democrats (i.e., the party in power right now). (Z)

Team Trump Tries to Squeeze Assassination Attempt for All It's Worth

Ronald Reagan's Eleventh Commandment of Politics was: "Thou shalt not attack fellow Republicans." The Gipper never got around to a Twelfth Commandment, but if he had, it might well have been "Thou shalt not let a perfectly good assassination attempt go to waste."

St. Ronnie, of course, really and truly had his life threatened by an assassin's bullet(s) in 1981. If things had been a little different, he might not have survived. Still, he handled the whole thing extremely well, up to and including making jokes with the surgeons as he was wheeled into the OR. The bravery he showed certainly did not hurt his public image.

During and after the first assassination attempt, Donald Trump was never in anything close to the danger that Reagan was. Some danger, of course, in that a bullet did hit him, and if that bullet had been an inch to the right, things would have been different. But nothing close to what #40 experienced. This did not stop Trump from trying mightily to capitalize on what happened, naturally, from the fist-up photo, to the bandaged ear at the Republican Convention, to the commemorative shoes sold for a mere $299 a pair.

This weekend's assassination attempt was considerably less a threat to Trump than the first one. It's now been confirmed that the shooter did not fire any shots, and that he didn't come anywhere near Trump before being forced to flee. So, no cool photo and no ear bandage. Presumably no commemorative shoes, though you never know. Maybe some they'll-keep-you-safe-from-assassins golf cleats?

In any event, Trump is not going to let the fact that he was not injured and was not in danger stop him from trying to cash in on what happened. Within hours of the news breaking, the Trump campaign had posted a fundraising pitch on its website:

This was supplemented by at least three fundraising e-mails, sent out in rapid succession.

Beyond that, Trump really wants to find an enemy/scapegoat that he can use to get people into a lather. The shooter was all over the place, politically, having supported Trump in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020 and Vivek Ramaswamy in 2024. He was also kinda whackadoodle; for example, he promised to lead a private army of thousands of volunteers to fight in Ukraine (didn't happen, of course). In any case, it's not quite gonna fly to paint him as a Democrat-gone-wild.

What IS possible, or at least the Republicans think so, is to blame the actions of shooter #2 on "extreme" Democratic rhetoric. Speaking to one of the many sycophants on Fox yesterday, Trump decreed: "Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country—both from the inside and out." Trump running mate/lap dog J.D. Vance immediately picked up on the claim du jour, agreeing: "The big difference between conservatives and liberals is that... no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months. I'd say that's pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric and needs to cut this crap out." Quite a few other Republicans (basically, the usual suspects) adopted this line of attack, as well.

The careful reader will notice that, in attacking the Democrats for their inflammatory rhetoric, Trump & Co. used plenty of... inflammatory rhetoric. This is when Trump wasn't busy posting "I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT" to "Truth" social, or when Trump and Vance weren't busy doubling and tripling down on their claims that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating cats and dogs.

We are passing this along because keeping track of the latest developments in the presidential campaign is what we do. However, we find it very difficult to believe that anyone is going to buy this nonsense, outside of the MAGA faithful. We suspect that anyone and everyone else, perhaps even including some of the MAGA faithful, is going to notice that: (1) this is a painfully obvious case of "Do as I say, not as I do," and/or that (2) Trump, Vance, etc. are basically telling the Democrats they can't campaign against Trump and Vance.

That said, the assassination attempt might indeed have an impact, just not the one that Trump '24 is trying to manufacture. The members of Congress are now squabbling about whether to increase the budget for the Secret Service (perhaps temporarily, for the campaign season, and perhaps permanently). And in the topsy-turvy world of modern politics, it is Democrats who want to increase funding, while Republicans—in many cases, the same Republicans crying crocodile tears about the threats to Trump's life—are pooh-poohing the possibility. In case the budget fight wasn't already messy enough, there's now another dimension. As a reminder, the government will shut down in 13 days if there is not, at very least, a stopgap bill. (Z)

Jill Stein, Useful Idiot?

Many readers will have seen this picture from a Vladimir Putin-hosted banquet celebrating the 10th anniversary of Russia Today:

There's Vladdy right there, front and center, with everyone's favorite "loyal" American, Mike Flynn, seated next to him. And a few seats to Putin's left, basically right across from him, is then- and current-Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.

What, exactly, was Stein doing there? You could ask her, but... she's not going to tell you. Certainly, Russia Today did much to promote her 2016 campaign, and is now doing much to promote her 2024 campaign. But exactly why she would rub elbows with, perhaps, the most dangerous and anti-American man in the world? Stein does not feel that people are entitled to that information. When reporters have tried to get some clarity, she huffily replies that it's a shame that it takes a Russian TV outlet "to actually be open to independent candidates in this country."

That's not the only way Stein has toted Putin's water, either. To give a second example, she gave a speech last weekend defending the "Uhuru 3" as advocates for free speech and for an anti-war platform. She did not see fit to mention that they were indicted as Russian collaborators (in fairness, a jury found them not guilty of collaborating with the Russians a few days later).

To give a third example, Stein landed an interview this weekend with Mehdi Hasan, on a platform called Zeteo (no, we've never heard of it, either). Taking a different tack on the now-infamous 2015 RT dinner, Hasan observed that since Stein broke bread with Putin: (1) Putin has invaded Ukraine, and (2) Stein has called Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal. Following from this, Hasan asked if Putin also qualifies as a war criminal. And Stein—you can read the full exchange in the linked article—bent over backwards to avoid saying "yes."

We have no idea what is going on with Stein. Is she desperate for the publicity she gets from Putin/Russia Today (even if Putin's goals are ratfu**ing-oriented)? Is she somehow on Putin's payroll, or otherwise deriving some sort of financial or other benefit from the Russian government? Something else? Only she really knows.

However, the Democrats have taken note of the fact that, in 2016, they ignored Stein, and then saw her pile up numbers of votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan that were greater than Hillary Clinton's margin of defeat. If you imagine a world where most or all of those Stein votes become Clinton votes, then Clinton wins 273 EVs and the presidency.

In view of this—and presumably also backed by polling that shows Stein pulling meaningful numbers of votes from Kamala Harris—the Democrats have decided that maybe they can't ignore Stein, and maybe they need to try to take her down a few pegs. So, they are working now to put out the word that she is—that's right—a useful idiot who is unwittingly doing Vladimir Putin's bidding.

Republicans have attacked some Democrats, most obviously Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), for being a little too comfortable with Russian ideology (translation: Sanders is a commie). Attacking Stein in this way would probably not work too well, since most or all of her voters presumably don't mind being thought of as far-lefty. On the other hand, hitting her as a Putin stooge implies that she (and thus her voters) are enabling a power-hungry warmonger. Now THAT is something that might actually stick in the craw of Green Partiers. Certainly, it can't hurt to try.

Incidentally, the Democrats apparently aren't too worried about Cornel West, at least not yet. But if they change their minds on that, they could theoretically hit him with the "useful idiot" label, as well. West has blamed the war on Ukraine on... NATO. Most people are laboring under the "delusion" that blame for the war belongs with Putin since he, you know, started it. But no, says West, it was NATO that goaded the Russians into invading Ukraine. It's a novel take, and one that could be used against West, if the Democrats decide that's worth pursuing. (Z)

Democratic People's Republic of Texas Still Hard at Work Building a Police State

Maybe we should call them the Democratic People's Republic of West Korea, given the apparent inspiration that AG Ken Paxton (R), in particular, seems to draw from Kim Jong-Un. Anyhow, the AG has been as busy as a bee for the last several weeks, trying to subvert the rights of his fellow West Koreans... er, Texans. Is he trying to get his shenanigans in before the election? Or maybe before winter strikes, and the third-world Texas electrical grid crashes again? Your guess is as good as ours.

A couple of weeks ago, we had an item about all the things that Paxton is doing to try to reduce Democratic turnout in November, either by removing a disproportionate number of Democrats from the voting rolls, or by good-old-fashioned, Bull-Connor-style intimidation of minority voters. What Paxton is up to this week is a lawsuit seeking to overturn a federal law that bans authorities in one state from subpoenaing medical records from another state.

Truth be told, we thought that HIPAA already made it impossible for government officials to get a non-approved look at people's medical records. Apparently we were wrong, however, as the Biden administration put in place a directive giving special protections to people who cross state lines for medical procedures. It is this directive that Paxton (and several of his fellow Texas officials) will be fighting in court.

The purpose here is plain; Paxton wants to be able to enforce Texas' draconian anti-abortion laws. Texas law still does not punish a woman who seeks an abortion, but it does allow for people who aid a woman (say, by giving her a car ride) to be civilly sued. State law also allows for criminal charges to be filed against medical professionals who perform abortions. So, what Paxton is clearly trying to do is to further intimidate both facilitators and performers of abortion procedures. The message is "if you help someone get an abortion, you might well be punished once you get back to Texas" and/or "we might well try to indict you across state lines if you perform an abortion." None of this is constitutional, but with the current Supreme Court, that may not be a concern.

Incidentally, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) isn't going to be president this year (or, presumably, ever), but he doesn't want to fall too far behind on the police-state sweepstakes, either. So, in the past few weeks, he's been dispatching his "election police" to grill Floridians who signed petitions in favor of the pro-choice ballot proposition that will appear in November. The message here is just as clear as in Texas: "If you sign an abortion petition, maybe the police come looking for you, and maybe you end up in prison." Nice work, Kim Jong-Ron. (Z)

The Pennsylvania Election-Night Train Wreck Is Coming

Having the trifecta, as in Florida and Texas, helps a lot if you want to try to derail democracy. However, you don't HAVE to have the trifecta. Just controlling one chamber of the state legislature can be enough, as that is enough to stop legislation from being passed. Such is the case in Pennsylvania, where the GOP has a 28-22 majority in the state Senate.

There are two pretty obvious problems with Pennsylvania's approach to voting, and in both cases, the state's Democrats would like to fix them, and the state's Republicans say "no thank you." We had a brief mention of one of those yesterday. In short, the Keystone State has a dumb law that says that absentee ballot envelopes have to be correctly dated on the outside. As we pointed out yesterday, this information is irrelevant, since if a ballot arrives on time, it doesn't matter what's written on the outside (you could date it August 12, 2161, for all it matters). And if a ballot does not arrive on time, it still doesn't matter, since it won't be counted.

In our item, we wrote that the state Supreme Court decided that the date has to be there; end of story. As reader R.E.M. in Brooklyn, NY, wrote in to point out, that is not entirely accurate. The state Supremes dismissed the case on procedural grounds, because it somewhat sneakily named only two Pennsylvania counties (the two bluest ones, naturally). The Court said it has to be all or none, and so the plaintiffs could re-file.

Whether or not they will choose to do so is currently unknown. Obviously, this problem could be mooted if the legislature would just repeal the dumb law, but state Senate Republicans are not interested in doing so, because they believe the rule will kill more Democratic votes than Republican ones. At the very least, state Secretary of State Al Schmidt—who is a Republican, by the way, but was appointed by Democratic governor Josh Shapiro because he (Schmidt) has no tolerance for anti-democratic ballot shenanigans—has ordered that the year be printed on all envelopes. So, all people have to do is get the month and date right (or somewhat right). There should be considerably fewer ballots disqualified, as a result.

The other problem has to do with the processing of mail-in ballots. By state law, no pre-processing of ballots can be done in Pennsylvania until 7:00 a.m. on Election Day. It is one of the few states that is restrictive in this way, and the others—Alabama, Mississippi and North Dakota—have nowhere near as many people, and thus nowhere near as many ballots to process.

The downside to waiting like this is that it means Pennsylvania's vote tallies will not be completed until late on Election Day at best, and more likely until sometime after Election Day. This, in turn, creates the conditions for claims of chicanery and for lawsuits, since it is probable that Republicans will have the lead in the state early on, but that it will shrink and shrink and shrink once the mail-in (and Democratic-skewing) ballots are processed.

Again, the legislature could fix this by allowing mail-in ballots to be pre-processed before Election Day. But state Senate Republicans don't want to fix it, because they see the problem in the previous paragraph as a feature, not a bug. And so it is that everyone can see a train wreck looming, and yet there's nothing that anyone (outside of 28 people in the Pennsylvania state Senate) can do about it. (Z)

Joe Manchin Is Full of Surprises...

Last week, Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) showed off his inner Republican, endorsing former governor Larry Hogan (R) in Maryland's U.S. Senate race. This week, he's back to being a Democrat, in a way that will gladden the hearts of the blue team. He's dropped his personal "rule" that he would no longer vote to confirm judges unless those judges got at least one Republican vote.

You never know what's going on in the head of the inscrutable West Virginian, but the catalyst here appears to be the nomination of Kevin Ritz for the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Ritz got no Republican votes, and was going to go down to defeat. However, Manchin discovered—surprise!—that his Republican colleagues were not acting in good faith, and their opposition had nothing to do with Ritz's qualifications. So, the Senator voted in favor of the nomination, and apparently will no longer be guided by what the Republicans do.

Assuming Manchin sticks with that—and you never know with him—it's a huge relief to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). The Democrats' tiebreaking vote is largely not available right now, since President of the Senate Kamala Harris is busy, you know, running to be President Kamala Harris. So, Schumer was going to try to perform a delicate ballet wherein he brought up judges for a vote while one or more Republicans were absent from the Senate. Now, the Majority Leader is lining up a whole bunch of judges for approval on a party-line vote, before Manchin can change his mind. If Schumer can get every judge who has already been nominated through the process, then there will be a total of 241 Biden judges, as compared to the 234 Trump judges. (Z)

...And So Is... Louis DeJoy?

We had a brief item last week about Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, and how there might once again be problems with the delivery of vote-by-mail absentee ballots this year. Then we got many questions, one of which we selected for Saturday, about how DeJoy is still on the job, and hasn't been canned by the Democrats. We answered, in brief, that the USPS is a quasi-private company, and so the Democrats don't exactly have the power to can DeJoy at will. We also speculated that maybe the USPS Board of Governors believes DeJoy is not the problem. That prompted reader M.B. in Granby, MA, to send us this piece from Time, which gives a fuller story.

According to Time, the fact that DeJoy is a Trump supporter and a target of, in particular, progressive ire, gives him a certain credibility with many Republican members of Congress. At the same time, he's actually more interested in the task at hand than he is in advancing his own personal agenda. And so, in something that will come as a surprise to many readers, he's become close working partners with... Chuck Schumer.

There are three accomplishments that the article highlights. First, DeJoy lobbied aggressively for the Postal Service Reform Act, which got the votes of all Democrats, as well as 120 Republicans in the House and 29 in the Senate. The Democratic-written legislation does much to transform the USPS, including fund the construction of new, more central processing centers; convert 100,000 part-time workers to full time; establish six-day mail service and stable health coverage for the 650,000 employees of the USPS; and facilitate partnerships with local merchants so they can compete with Amazon.

Second, even though it drove many conservatives nuts, DeJoy personally oversaw the logistics of delivering 500 million government-supplied COVID tests during the pandemic. And third, he worked with Schumer and Senate Democrats to implement a plan by which the USPS' entire fleet will be converted to electric in 4 years.

The article also has a lengthy discussion of what happened in 2020, arguing that it was the result of inexperience, not partisanship. In short, mail was often late because USPS delivery staff would wait for their trucks to be full, rather than departing on time. Coming from private industry, DeJoy ordered that all trucks stick with the proper schedule, full or not. This meant that mail that was loaded in time was delivered in time, but that much mail went undelivered until the next day, creating a backlog. Eventually, he acknowledged his error, rolled back the policy and, according to Time, "embraced a union idea to expedite mail ballot delivery and set up a panel to oversee election mail." As a result, election mail did ultimately get delivered in a timely manner.

Yes, the piece is very friendly to DeJoy. But the reporter, Eric Cortellessa, is no partisan hack, and he's got the evidence to back his assertions. Assuming that Cortellessa has the right of it, well, it's not so hard to understand why the Democrats are not at all eager to show DeJoy the door. They certainly aren't going to find someone else who is willing to work with the blue team, but still has the ears of much of the red team. (Z)

Today's Presidential Polls

Kamala Harris has a lead of 3 points in the mother of all swing states, but in the next poll it could vanish. It is that close. (V)

State	Kamala Harris	Donald Trump	Start	End	Pollster
Pennsylvania	49%	46%	Sep 11	Sep 15	Suffolk U.

Click on a state name for a graph of its polling history.

Today's Senate Polls

Emerson has had a Republican lean this cycle, so this isn't a good poll for Hogan. As to the Pennsylvania poll, about half of them have the race with McCormick in shouting distance, while the other half have Casey winning in a walk. Hard to know which is more correct, but since they all have Casey winning (over 60 polls this year, and counting), you still have to assume he's going to be reelected. (Z)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Maryland	Angela Alsobrooks	49%	Larry Hogan	42%	Sep 12	Sep 13	Emerson Coll.
Pennsylvania	Bob Casey*	47%	David McCormick	43%	Sep 11	Sep 15	Suffolk U.

* Denotes incumbent

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