Politics

9.1 percent No one was expecting this morning’s inflation numbers to paint an especially rosy picture. A survey of economists predicted an 8.8 percent year-on-year rise in prices and the White House had been working overtime managing expectations. But the news was worse than expected, with a headline price rise of 9.1 percent in June over the same month last year, yet another forty-year-record. It’ll be hard for the White House to put a positive spin on these numbers, but Brian Deese, director of Biden’s National Economic Council, tried his best. “While today’s report shows unacceptably high inflation, energy made up 1/2 of the monthly increase & the report is backward looking,” he tweeted.

I regret to inform you that America’s decrepit media commentators are once again attempting to play a game of rope-a-dope with Republican voters. This time around, their choice is Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, who has experienced increased media attention of late as a potentially less divisive alternative for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, compared to the supposedly more controversial potential of Florida governor Ron DeSantis. The Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty writes: There are plenty of Democrats who believe the man who campaigned as a sunny suburban dad in a zippered vest is really a Trump in fleece clothing. But Virginia — which was trending blue until his victory — is clearly warming up to Youngkin.

Biden is stranded Why is Joe Biden’s presidency failing? According to an emerging view on the left, it’s because Biden isn’t going far enough, fast enough. In recent weeks, the focus has been abortion, with the president being criticized for failing to rise to the moment after Dobbs. But the dynamic is basically the same whatever the issue. From climate change and voting rights to healthcare and college tuition, the complaint is by now a familiar one. Whenever the whingefest starts, I find myself asking: are we talking about the same president?

There's a historic bill before Congress right now that would allow Puerto Rico to vote on whether to stay a US territory, become a state, or become independent. What’s holding up such a momentous occasion? A source closely tracking the bill confirms that New York City Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been a significant source of delay. The Democrat has remained cagey about her stance on Puerto Rican statehood, choosing to instead complain about American colonialism and imperialism. “I think one thing that’s important to highlight is just the injustice of that we are in now,” she recently told El Nuevo Dia, a bilingual Puerto Rico-based newspaper. Ocasio-Cortez also skirted whether she'd previously supported statehood.

Americans are voting with their feet and the results are in: red states are winning. An incredible 46 million people moved to a new ZIP code over the year to February 2022, the highest annual total since Equifax, a credit agency, began tracking moves in 2010. Republican-leaning red states gained the most residents — led by Florida, Texas, and North Carolina — while the blue states of California, New York, and Illinois were the biggest migratory losers. The most popular pandemic-era moves were from New York to Florida and California to Texas — so much so that U-Haul ran out of moving trucks leaving California last year. Given the chance to flee high-cost cities, Millennials did so in droves.

There’s a saying in Florida: “the further south you go, the more north you get.” Those familiar with the state’s geography know this reflects the reality that most of the southern regions of the state — Palm Beach, Miami, Naples, Fort Myers — have large cohorts of migrants from up north. There is even a logic to who moves where. Northerners from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and the other New England states come down Interstate 95 and end up in southeast Florida while Midwesterners from Illinois, Ohio and Michigan travel down I-75 and settle in the southwest part of the state. This migration is not a new phenomenon. Over the past twenty-five years, Florida’s population has boomed unlike anywhere else in the country.

You must have seen the horrific story reported out of Ohio. A 10-year-old child became pregnant through sexual abuse. Under the new post-Roe abortion laws in Ohio, she is ineligible for a termination because she was found to be six weeks and three days pregnant. Her unnamed doctor called a named abortionist in next-door Indiana where terminations can currently be performed past six weeks and began the process of arranging the out-of-state procedure. Someone took the story to the press, where it quickly became a Handmaid's Tale-level news item, the near-perfect example of everything wrong with overturning Roe v. Wade. It was almost too good (or too evil?) to be true. The victim was very young, below the average age of menses.

Biden stuck in no-man’s land on Ukraine How long should Americans expect to pay sky-high prices at the gas station, Joe Biden was asked at the NATO summit in Madrid last week. “As long as it takes so Russia cannot, in fact, defeat Ukraine,” the president replied. With the economic situation deteriorating, even if gas prices have eased somewhat, Americans are not likely to find that answer especially encouraging. By Saturday, the scapegoat had changed, with Big Oil in the president’s crosshairs. “Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product. And do it now,” Biden demanded on Twitter, prompting a sharp rebuke from Jeff Bezos.