Instigating an insurrection is not a deal breaker for Republicans. Nor is Donald Trump accepting untold millions from foreign governments during his presidency. (The reported $7.8 million reported comes from a mere handful of Trump properties.) Nor are felony indictments too many (91) to itemize here. Nor is screwing porn stars and Playboy models or sexually assaulting a journalist. Nor are threats by Trump to use the government to prosecute political enemies. Etc., etc.
Jess Piper is Executive Director of Blue Missouri and host of the “Dirt Road Democrat” podcast. Also, she’s one of those straight talkers Republicans claim to admire.
Weather has thwarted President Biden’s plans for a major reelection campaign speech. Biden originally meant to mark the third anniverary of the Jan. 6 MAGA insurrection with a speech using Philadelphia as a backdrop, as he did when he called out MAGA Republicans as “a threat to this country” at Independence Hall in September 2022. Biden’s speech will be framed to contrast Biden’s vision of America with that of his expected 2024 Republican opponent, Donald Trump.
The White House has rescheduled the speech for Valley Forge today to get ahead of a winter storm. (I’m still trying to find a time for the speech. Update: It’s at 3 p.m. ET.)
Biden aides had long considered holding an event near Valley Forge, famed as the headquarters of Gen. George Washington’s Continental Army during the American Revolution. Advisers during the media call Thursday said that the site has historical resonance not just as a venue for a battle for liberty, but also for the decisions Washington then made.
Washington twice willingly gave up power: first, he resigned his commission as head of the Army, and then later walked away from the presidency after two terms. His example, Biden aides argue, provides a clear and effective contrast to Trump.
Biden, flagging in approval polls and tied with Trump in several, plans to make defense of democracy again a centerpiece of the fall campaign, as he did ahead of the 2022 midterms.
Leaning on a phrase used by America’s first president, George Washington, around the time he commanded troops at Valley Forge, Mr. Biden is expected to suggest that the 2024 election is a test of whether democracy is still a “sacred cause” in the nation, the aide said.
Mr. Biden is fond of using sites of historical significance to underscore speeches that he and his team see as important moments. He traveled to Independence Hall in Philadelphia before the midterm elections and to Gettysburg, Pa., during the 2020 presidential campaign.
His campaign views the events of Jan. 6 — when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in a violent culmination of his election denialism — as critical to understanding how the 2024 campaign will unfold. His team notes that Mr. Trump and Republicans have tried to rewrite the history of that day but argues that images of the Capitol riot remain seared in the minds of voters.
Biden campaign officials spoke on Tuesday with reporters on their strategy on Tuesday (New Yorker):
“The choice for voters,” Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Biden’s campaign manager, said on the call, “will not simply be between competing philosophies of government.” She continued, “The choice will be about protecting our democracy and every American’s fundamental freedom. . . . We are running our campaign like the fate of our democracy depends on it, because it does.” Quentin Fulks, the deputy campaign manager, added, “Donald Trump tells us point blank—if he wins a second term, he will do everything he can to dismantle American democracy, strip Americans of their hard-fought and fundamental freedoms. . . . We should take him at his word.”
“I’ve made the preservation of American democracy the central issue of my presidency,” Biden says in new ad contrasting footage of Americans voting with white supremacists marching in Charlottesville, Va. and Jan. 6 MAGA violence at the U.S. Capitol.
“There’s something dangerous happening in America,” Biden continues. “There’s an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy.”
Biden is betting scenes from the Jan. 6 insurrection have not faded from Americans’ short memories. Subtext: You can have a democracy of the people, by the people, for the people, or an autocracy of Trump, by Trump, for Trump.
You have to watch this retrograde con woman to fully appreciate the caliber of “lawyers” Trump still has around him even after Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell were flushed down the drain:
Habba says she was asked if she'd rather be smart or pretty, and she answered, "Pretty. I can fake being smart."
I look forward to reading the memoirs of the semi-serious lawyers who are defending Trump to hear more about the legal services Alina Habba provides him. I’d imagine they will be much like this:
A Florida-based federal judge has ordered nearly $1 million in sanctions against Donald Trump and his attorney Alina Habba, calling the former president a “mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process.”
In a blistering 46-page order, U.S. District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks said Trump’s sprawling lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and dozens of former Justice Department and FBI officials was an almost cartoonish abuse of the legal system.
“Here, we are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose,” Middlebrooks wrote. “Mr. Trump is a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries. He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process, and he cannot be seen as a litigant blindly following the advice of a lawyer.“
The judge ordered Trump and Habba to pay $938,000 to cover the legal costs for the 31 defendants Trump linked in his year-old lawsuit. It’s the second time Middlebrooks has sanctioned Habba in the Clinton lawsuit. The first time was a $50,000 order sought by a single defendant, Charles Dolan. The new round of sanctions was sought by the remaining defendants.
Trump goes everywhere with her. I guess that makes sense. He does need a lot of legal counselling.
Happy 2024. Since we're still pretzeling ourselves to explain why folks think the economy is bad despite all the data, here's the latest update of media coverage of inflation/recession vs unemployment/recovery, thru 12/31/23. The truly astounding imbalances persist even in Q423. pic.twitter.com/WPr4L04qkB
I guess this figures. We can only hope that he doesn’t manage to get on the ballots in the swing states or if he does that he’ll only appeal to the right wing anti-vaxxers:
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday unveiled his new campaign communications director: Del Bigtree, one of the country’s leading anti-vaxxers.
Bigtree, who serves as the executive director of the Informed Consent Action Network—one of the nation’s largest anti-vaccine organizations—announced his new role in a letter that blasted presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden for their roles in distributing the COVID-19 vaccine.
“In January 2020, we witnessed what the dark forces of medical tyranny are capable of when they launched the greatest psychological operation the world has ever experienced,” Bigtree wrote. “we watched in sick astonishment as both President Trump and President Biden put the fate of our nation into Dr. Anthony Fauci’s hands.”
This is so outrageous. And he’s nothing compared to this nutcase:
Florida’s top health official called for a halt to using mRNA coronavirus vaccines on Wednesday, contending that the shots could contaminate patients’ DNA — aclaim that has been roundly debunked by public health experts, federal officials and the vaccine companies.
Florida Surgeon General Joseph A. Ladapo’s announcement, released as a state bulletin, comes after months of back-and-forth with federal regulators who have repeatedly rebuked his rhetoric around vaccines.Public health experts warn of the dangers of casting doubt on proven lifesaving measures as respiratory viruses surge this winter.
“We’ve seen this pattern from Dr. Ladapo that every few months he raises some new concern and it quickly gets debunked,” said Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s public health school who led the White House’s national coronavirus response before stepping down last year.“This idea of DNA fragments — it’s scientific nonsense. People who understand how these vaccines are made and administered understand that there is no risk here.”
Ladapo issued the bulletin as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), his political patron, fights to stay alive in the Republican presidential primary, in which he trails former president Donald Trump by more than 40 percentage points in head-to-head polls. The Iowa caucuses, the first nominating contest, are slated to be held Jan. 15.
“Providers concerned about patient health risks associated with COVID-19 should prioritize patient access to non-mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and treatment,” Ladapo wrote.
Florida’s health department did not immediately respond to questions about whether Ladapo’s new stance would affect vaccine access for the state’s patients and health providers, or whether his decision to repeat debunked claims could create doubts about other routine vaccinations. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows that Florida lags far behind most states when it comes to the percentage of its population that has received an updated booster dose. Meanwhile, covid hospitalizations have been on the rise nationally, with almost 30,000 Americans newly hospitalized the week of Dec. 23.
Scott Rivkees, a DeSantis appointee who preceded Ladapo as Florida surgeon general before stepping down in September 2021, called Wednesday’s announcement “surprising and disappointing” and at odds with settled science about the safety of coronavirus vaccines. But current DeSantis officials praised the announcement.
“Grateful to live in a state where Big Pharma does not dictate health policy recommendations,” Christina Pushaw, a DeSantis campaign official, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, where she thanked Ladapo “for standing up for scientific integrity.” The DeSantis campaign did not respond to questions about whether the governor coordinated with Ladapo on the announcement or whether he would adopt a similar position if elected president.
All those seniors who live in Florida are having their health put at risk because Ron DeSantis wanted to out-Trump Trump on the vaccine issue so he appointed this quack as Surgeon General.
At least 200 million people worldwide have struggled with long COVID: a slew of symptoms that can persist for months or even years after an infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. But research suggests that that number would likely be much higher if not for vaccines.
A growing consensus is emerging that receiving multiple doses of the COVID vaccine before an initial infection can dramatically reduce the risk of long-term symptoms. Although the studies disagree on the exact amount of protection, they show a clear trend: the more shots in your arm before your first bout with COVID, the less likely you are to get long COVID. One meta-analysis of 24 studies published in October, for example, found that people who’d had three doses of the COVID vaccine were 68.7 percent less likely to develop long COVID compared with those who were unvaccinated. “This is really impressive,” says Alexandre Marra, a medical researcher at the Albert Einstein Israelite Hospital in Brazil and the lead author of the study. “Booster doses make a difference in long COVID.”
These anti-vaxxers and their enablers are making people very sick with this nonsense. DeSantis should be held responsible for what he’s done to the people of his state. I don’t eve know what to say about RFK Jr except that he’s a lunatic.
Such profiles in courage. There hasn’t even been one primary and they’re already crawling on their bellies to lick Donald Trump’s boots. It’s sickening.
Scalise is predictable. He’s the guy who said he was running as “David Duke without the baggage.” Of course he’s with Trump. Hard core Christian theocrat Mike Johnson is backing Trump despite the fact that Trump is a Jeffrey Epstein pal recently found liable for sexual assault (among dozens of other “ungodly” behaviors.) He’s quite the moral man of faith.
I listened to the Bulwark podcast last night while cooking dinner and Tim Miller reminded me about Emmer. This happened just 10 weeks ago:
Just hours after Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) won the Republican Conference’s nomination to be House speaker on Tuesday, former President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to deride the congressman as “totally out-of-touch with Republican Voters” and a “Globalist RINO.”
He then got on the phone with members to express his aversion for Emmer and his bid for speaker.
By Tuesday afternoon Trump called one person close to him with the message, “He’s done. It’s over. I killed him.”
Just minutes later, Emmer officially dropped out of the race.
Now, Emmer says “thank you sir, may I have another” and endorses him.
Republican cowards, cynics and opportunists are the only people in the world who bow down to Trump and it convinces his brain dead cult that he is the strongman they’ve been waiting for. What an incredible con this is.
Miller wondered why Emmer would bother because he really has no future in politics beyond what he already has. But that answers itself. He’s afraid that Trump will make them take it away and apparently there is no amount of personal pride or integrity that is worth more than that silly job.
Republican politicians, all of them, are eager to humiliate themselves before the Orange Julius Caesar. It makes them feel safe.
It makes me feel nauseous.
Update:
Former President Donald Trump has reportedly delighted in how even lawmakers that he’s crossed are backing his 2024 presidential bid.
According to a New York Times report, Trump has bragged about how Rep. Tom Emmer, the No. 3 House Republican, endorsed his presidential campaign even after Trump derailed Emmer’s effort to become speaker of the House in the wake of Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster.
“They always bend the knee,” Trump said privately of Emmer.
There’s a word for this but I’m too civilized to use it.
From the outset of his brief political career, Trump has viewed right-wing evangelical leaders as a kind of special-interest group to be schmoozed, conned, or bought off, former aides told me. Though he faced Republican primary opponents in 2016 with deeper religious roots—Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee—Trump was confident that his wealth and celebrity would attract high-profile Christian surrogates to vouch for him.
“His view was ‘I’ve been talking to these people for years; I’ve let them stay at my hotels—they’re gonna endorse me. I played the game,’” said a former campaign adviser to Trump, who, like others quoted in this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
It helped that Trump seemed to feel a kinship with prosperity preachers—often evincing a game-recognizes-game appreciation for their hustle. The former campaign adviser recalled showing his boss a YouTube video of the Israeli televangelist Benny Hinn performing “faith healings,” while Trump laughed at the spectacle and muttered, “Man, that’s some racket.” On another occasion, the adviser told me, Trump expressed awe at Joel Osteen’s media empire—particularly the viewership of his televised sermons.
In Cohen’s recent memoir, Disloyal, he recounts Trump returning from his 2011 meeting with the pastors who laid hands on him and sneering, “Can you believe that bullshit?” But if Trump found their rituals ridiculous, he followed their moneymaking ventures closely. “He was completely familiar with the business dealings of the leadership in many prosperity-gospel churches,” the adviser told me.
The conservative Christian elites Trump surrounds himself with have always been more clear-eyed about his lack of religiosity than they’ve publicly let on. In a September 2016 meeting with about a dozen influential figures on the religious right—including the talk-radio host Eric Metaxas, the Dallas megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, and the theologian Wayne Grudem—the then-candidate was blunt about his relationship to Christianity. In a recording of the meeting obtained by The Atlantic, the candidate can be heard shrugging off his scriptural ignorance (“I don’t know the Bible as well as some of the other people”) and joking about his inexperience with prayer (“The first time I met [Mike Pence], he said, ‘Will you bow your head and pray?’ and I said, ‘Excuse me?’ I’m not used to it.”) At one point in the meeting, Trump interrupted a discussion about religious freedom to complain about Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska and brag about the taunting nickname he’d devised for him. “I call him Little Ben Sasse,” Trump said. “I have to do it, I’m sorry. That’s when my religion always deserts me.”
And yet, by the end of the meeting—much of which was spent discussing the urgency of preventing trans women from using women’s restrooms—the candidate had the group eating out of his hand. “I’m not voting for Trump to be the teacher of my third grader’s Sunday-school class. That’s not what he’s running for,” Jeffress said in the meeting, adding, “I believe it is imperative … that we do everything we can to turn people out.”
Trump’s resemblance to a prosperity preacher is striking. They’re all scam artists and so is he. It’s not surprising, when you think about it, that the people who send them money would fall for a demagogic cult leader like Donald Trump. They’ve been conditioned to do so for years. What’s more disturbing is the fact that those same scam artists are in on Trump’s con. They want real power now, not just money.
As I’ve said a million times, the best part of all this is that the Christian Right has fully been exposed now. We don’t ever have to take their moral posturing seriously again.
Joe Biden will be giving a big speech on the anniversary of January 6th. Its themes could not be more important. And yet, we have every reason to anticipate the media covering it by discussion whether or not it actually helps Trump in the opinion polls for Biden to lay out the stakes in this campaign. It’s what they do. They’ll poll the speech and then spend hours and hours and spill buckets of pixels on whether or not “it works.”
When Joe Biden talks on Friday about US democracy on the brink, there’s no doubt that it will be a campaign speech. Maybe the most important one of his life.
But the speech will be more than that. It’s intended as a warning and a red alert, delivered on the anniversary of the violent January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
The date was chosen for good reason – to make the point that more mayhem and more flagrant disregard for the rule of law and fair elections, are just around the corner if Donald Trump is re-elected.
Can the political media in America get that reality across? Or will their addiction to “horserace” coverage prevail?
So far, the signs aren’t particularly promising.
A line high up in the New York Times’ advance coverage of what Biden plans to say is typical of the mainstream media’s tone and focus: “The two speeches are part of an effort to redirect attention from Mr. Biden’s low approval numbers and remind Democrats and independent voters of the alternative to his reelection.” (Biden is speaking on Saturday at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and Monday at the South Carolina church where a young white supremacist murdered nine black parishioners in late 2016.)
CNN offered an advance headline that emphasized the presidential race, not the message: “Biden opens campaign push …”
USA Today did better, putting the emphasis where it belongs: “Biden will mark Jan 6 anniversary with speech warning Trump is a threat to democracy.”
We all know there’s a campaign happening. And remember, many readers don’t get beyond the headlines or news alerts. Those bulletins have to be short, true, but they also have to get the larger job done.
I’m not suggesting that Biden’s speech be covered as something separate from his presidential campaign. It’s obvious that November’s election and the fragility of American democracy are intertwined.
Even Biden campaign officials are making that point. “We are running a campaign like the fate of our democracy depends upon it. Because it does,” campaign manager Julia Chavez Rodriguez has said.
But there is another element that is more subtle.
“The choice for voters,” Rodriguez said, “will not simply be between competing philosophies of government. The choice will be about protecting our democracy and every American’s fundamental freedom.”
That’s where the media gets tripped up. In a constant show of performative neutrality, journalists tend to equalize the unequal, taking coverage down the middle even though that’s not where true fairness lies.
She goes on to discuss how the media is always afraid of being accused of liberal bias etc. etc. But she ends the piece with a quote from a media figure that actually tells it like it is:
In an NPR interview, former Washington Post executive editor Martin Baron laid out the facts clearly:
“He’s the only politician I’ve heard actually talk about suspending the constitution. He’s talked about using the military to suppress entirely legitimate protests using the Insurrection Act. He’s talked about bringing treason charges against the then-outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. He’s talked about bringing treason charges against Comcast, the owner of NBC and MSNBC. He’s talked explicitly about weaponizing the government against his political enemies. And, of course, he continues to talk about crushing an independent press.”
And, as Baron concluded, no editorializing is necessary because “all of those [threats], by nature, by definition, are authoritarian”.
That’s what’s going on here. It’s not a “both sides issue.” As she says:
Reporters and their bosses – both in newsrooms and in glossy corporate offices – should remember that being in favor of democracy isn’t a journalistic crime. In fact, it’s a journalistic obligation.
I know that there are some who are trying very hard to do this. But it has to be consistent and it has to be relentless. This message won’t break through the noise unless they make a commitment to doing that.
If you live in a blue county, you probably think independents lean your way. And maybe they do. Inside city limits. But outside? Nationwide, independent voters lean red, and did in November 2022 even if the split looked closer in December 2023.
Plus, the segment of the electorate that identifies as independent is growing steadily (below). There are more of them than there are Democrats or Republicans.
Democrats cannot win without earning the votes of a sufficient number of independents and that could be a challenge, especially for candidates running statewide.
The good news is that even if independents have a significantly unfavorable view of both major parties, voters 49 and younger have a significantly more favorable view of Democrats than Republicans (below).
The bad news is that those younger independents who most lean Democrat actually vote far less than those who bleed red. See Nonvoters under “AGE” below. In 2022, nearly 2/3 of nonvoters were 49 and younger, per Pew. See Millennials and Gen Z, above.
Regular readers already know the next chart. Where’s the most potential for Democrats to increase voter turnout?
Millennial and Gen Z independents are exactly the Democrat-leaners Democrats need voting more. But they don’t, not enough. Why not? (This gets technical, but I’ll try to simplify.)
To target prospective voters for get-out-the-vote efforts, Democrats rely on their national voter database, VoteBuilder, a product of NGP VAN. The tool’s premise is microtargeting: each voter gets assigned a Democratic Support score based on a variety of factors. For example: 1) Are they registered Democrats? 2) If unaffiliated, have they ever voted a Democratic ballot in a primary (as in Arizona and North Carolina)? 3) How often do they vote? Included are minor weighting factors for income, education, consumer preferences, etc. Based on those scores, campaigns decide which voters look like low-hanging fruit for voter outreach. Many campaigns start contacting voters with scores of 70 and higher. Independents less-prone to vote start with three or more strikes against them, and there are more of them than there are of us (Democrats).
Lower down the scale, warns the Michigan Dems help desk, “while only 50% of voters with a score of 50 are expected to support Democrats, that group could be 50% left wing activists, 50% Tea Party Republicans.” Few campaigns in this political environment want to dispatch door-knockers to homes with scores that low. Too risky.
Now you know why. Democrats are policy liberals and campaign conservatives.
Multiple precinct chairs and field organizers balked when asked about outreach below their accustomed arbitrary Democratic Support score. If canvassers knock doors where VoteBuilder does not indicate firm Democratic support and volunteers get their heads bitten off a couple of times, they said, they’ll go home and organizers lose their volunteer base. That’s a reasonable concern. But it’s hardly a campaign-winning strategy.
The problem Democrats face in North Carolina, for example, is that, statewide independents vote 58% against Democrats. What helps keep statewide margins narrow here is that while independents outnumber Democrats by 3%, they turn out at 6.5% less than Democrats. But in hundreds of urban precincts in the largest, bluest counties where independents (in the aggregate) vote 60, 70, 80-90% for Democrats, they vote at roughly 12% less.*
Chicken or egg? Are these lower-propensity voters not turning out like their independent neighbors because they are simply less-engaged? Or because Democrats are not engaging them?
Buckle up. Let’s win this thing.
This is microtargeting’s Achilles’ heel. In neighborhoods where independents who do vote choose Democrats by 60, 70, 80-90%, campaigns bait individual hooks for high-scorers instead of casting nets. Many of these voters reside in neighborhoods campaigns deprioritize for outreach because they consistently vote blue and heavily. Just not the independents in them.
Pie-in-the-sky? If turnout for independents in these canvassable neighborhoods matched Democrats’ turnout there, I estimate in ten counties an additional 56,000 votes for the Democrat at the top of the ticket. That’s unrealistic. But even if campaigns could boost independent turnout there up to the state average (6.5% below Democrats), that’s still over 25,000 extra votes.
Democrats and allied 501s can mitigate risks of canvassers and phone bankers encountering hostile (read: MAGA) independents by expanding outreach in specific precincts where independents vote Democrat by 60, 70, 80-90%. (Talk about low-hanging fruit.) As Billy Beane said in Moneyball, “We are card counters at the blackjack table. And we’re gonna turn the odds on the casino.”
But not using a partisan message. Volunteers’ pitch to these untapped, young independents is not to evangelize for Democrats. Independents don’t like them. They don’t pay close attention to party politics. Independents “view themselves as proudly unmoored from any candidate or party.” Voting in 2024 has to be about them, about local/state issues to be decided in the election that may impact them or people they love. The ask is: Vote this fall for them.
Are there issues about which they care strongly? Do they know they’ll need a photo ID in 2024 because THOSE GUYS don’t want them voting? Offer nonpartisan information on the where, when, and how of casting their fall ballot. Will you exercise your freedom this fall? Save democracy? Make history?
In these precincts, we don’t care what indys’ support scores are. If they vote, Democrats score. Those are the odds.
Of course, if I were former N.C. Chief Justice Cheri Beasley who lost her seat by 401 votes in 2020, I’d settle for any fraction of 25,000 extra votes.
* My own estimates from 2022 precinct results across almost 50 N.C. counties. Hello, Arizona? There are over 900 precincts in blue Maricopa alone. What I’ve estimated here, activists could estimate there.
The EPC market (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) tends to be counter-cyclical. Spending there leads to jobs and increased manufacturing later. When engineers (moi) and construction workers (later) start looking for work, others are getting jobs in factories we’d just completed designing and building. As new factories come online, our work might slow down. Know the difference. So here are two stories about that.
Why it matters: The Biden administration’s signature legislation — particularly the CHIPs Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — has spurred a surge in construction spending that’s buoyed the economy, as Axios’ Neil Irwin reported.
By the numbers: Manufacturing-related construction hit a $210 billion annual rate in November, more than triple the average rate in the 2010s, according to Census data out this week.
All that spending is driving an increase in construction hiring. Job openings in construction increased by 43,000 last month, according to BLS data out yesterday — and are up by 111,000 from last year.
Contractors are even facing labor shortages in areas with industrial mega projects, Anirban Basu, the chief economist of the Associated Builders and Contractors, said in a release Wednesday.
Bidenomics naysayers will focus on tales of a manufacturing “contraction” (Bloomberg):
The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing gauge edged up 0.7 point to 47.4 last month, helped by a pickup in production, according to data released Wednesday. Readings below 50 indicate contraction, and the figure was near economists’ expectations.
The December result extends the longest stretch of shrinking activity since 2000-2001, when the dot-com bubble burst and sparked a recession.
To many investors and observers, the Dec. 13 signal from the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate setting Federal Open Market Committee that it might cut three times this year was a reason to move to a more optimistic stance about continued growth in the U.S. economy.
It looks like many corporate executives were already there.
A handful of recently published surveys, reports and forecasts have shown that leaders in manufacturing and beyond are pretty upbeat about what lies ahead in 2024. The “vibecession” that writer and financial educator Kyla Scanlon coined to sum up persistent negativity in the face of improving economic data looks to be leaving C-suites.
Affirmation
The report continues with half a dozen bullet points making that case then turns to Joey Politano of Apricitas Economics (who generated the chart at the top):
“American businesses’ economic uncertainty has also dropped to the lowest levels since early 2020,” he wrote. “Firms have more confidence in their year-ahead employment and revenue forecasts than at the start of either 2021 or 2022.”
By no means do these data points suggest an attitude among business leaders that it’s green lights all the way for 2024. It appears to be more an affirmation that things are generally in solid shape and that important macro factors are, as suggested by our most recent Tales From the Transcript analysis of publicly traded manufacturers, finding a level of balance many businesses have been yearning for since 2019.
Meanwhile, at a federal courthouse near you (Washington Post):
Prosecutors have repeatedly described Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud in 2020 as effectively manufacturing a pretense for illegally overturning the election. Special counsel Jack Smith said in his indictment of the former president that fake electors were meant to “create a fake controversy” that could be used on Jan. 6, 2021.
In a new filing, Trump’s legal team appears bent on helping prosecutors make that case.
Everything but the spaghetti
And the Trump report is a “doozy” says the headline on Aaron Blake’s report, a real “mess”: false claims, debunked claims, irrelevant claims, and “multiple accounts of alleged fraud that don’t appear to be publicly available.” Without links or named sources, as we’ve come to expect.
Trump’s legal team throws everything against the wall except the spaghetti and their licenses to practice law.
But it’s one thing to say these things in public; it’s quite another to include them in a legal filing. Trump’s attorneys have been careful not to actually vouch for his wildest claims, because doing so involves trying to substantiate them, and legal scrutiny has been unkind — to put it mildly.
Trump’s lawyers do not say that the claims in the report are true, instead using the document in an effort to substantiate the idea that there remain “vigorous disputes” and “questions” about the results. The aim is to apparently cite the smoke without actually claiming there’s fire.
But what it demonstrates is how much this entire effort was about manufacturing smoke. And in that way, the Trump lawyers in effect just proved the prosecutors’ point.
The Biden economy is building factories for manufacturing consumer goods. Donald Trump has cornered the market in manufacturing smoke with which to cover his considerable ass.
