Good morning from Timothy Noah!
The big news in my house is itâs my sixty-fourth birthday. Itâs also the sixty-fourth birthday of my dear first wife, the late Marjorie Williams, who in the previous century wrote charmingly about how she didnât like sharing her birthday with me. Itâs also the ninety-eighth birthday of the late New Republic writer Henry Fairlie, whose posthumous anthology, Bite the Hand That Feeds You, is worth a look. (Henry lived by that principle.)
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy refused the January 6 panelâs request for an interview about his conversations on that day with President Donald Trump. The panel would like to talk to McCarthy about what has been described as his âscreaming matchâ with Trump as McCarthy tried to get Trump to tell the Capitol mob to go home, and also about what Politico reported as Trumpâs admission to McCarthy in that same conversation that he bore âsome degree of responsibilityâ for the insurrection. The principled stand McCarthy took that day appears now to cause McCarthy deep regret, and he wishes never to discuss it again. âThis committee is not conducting a legitimate investigation,â McCarthy said, by which he meant itâs trying too hard to find out what Trump was up to that day.
Inflation is going a little nuts, rising 7 percent last month in comparison to 12 months earlier. Thatâs the highest hike since 1982. âWhile inflation is likely to peak in the next few months,â Sarah House, director and senior economist at Wells Fargo, told The Wall Street Journal, âthe overall pace is going to remain a challenge for consumers, businesses, and policy.â Iâve pointed out that corporate concentration is not causing this inflation spurt, as some people in the Biden administration claim; supply chain problems are. But in the Washington Monthly, Paul Glastris argues that corporate concentration has made the supply chains more vulnerable.
Inflation is becoming a serious political problem for Biden, The Washington Postâs Matt Viser and Jeff Stein report. Itâs no great surprise that Republican pollster Frank Luntz says there will be âhuge consequences in the fall,â and a Quinnipiac poll released yesterday showed a 54 percent majority of Americans think the economy is getting worse.
Another notable finding in that Quinnipiac poll is that a bipartisan majority of Americans say political instability from within represents a greater danger to the United States than our foreign adversaries (one of whom may be on the verge of invading Ukraine). Democrats are most spooked by internal threats, with 83 percent of them naming them as the greatest threat, compared to 66 percent of Republicans. Interestingly, though, more Republicans (62 percent) than Democrats (56 percent) think democracy is in danger of collapse. As the cartoonist Walt Kelly, creator of the cartoon strip Pogo, said, half a century ago: We have met the enemy and he is us.
Today at NewRepublic.com, Thomas Geoghegan argues that the filibuster disenfranchises Vice President Kamala Harris, president of the Senate, by depriving her of a tie-breaking vote, and proposes that she fight back by issuing from the chair a ruling that itâs unconstitutional. Trita Parsi and Annelle Sheline ask why the hell Biden is selling Saudi Arabia $650 million worth of advanced weapons while the Saudis wage war against Yemen. And Dean Obeidallah says itâs time to start worrying that Bidenâs losing support among the Democratic base.
Arrivederci,
âTimothy Noah, staff writer |
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