And the Zooms Will Never Die
SUBSCRIBING/CONTRIBUTING
WHAT THAT IGNORANT LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Why pay for Wide World of News when I can read it for free??
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Become a voluntary paying subscriber or contributor today and help support the hard work that goes into each day’s hand-crafted edition of this newsletter.
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INSIGHTING
The key line from David Ignatius’ essential reading column on the president:
Biden makes mistakes when he acts like a senator rather than a disciplined chief executive.
WHAT THAT IGNORANT LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: I thought David Ignatius wrote about national security.
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: You can take the pol out of the Senate but you can’t take the Senate out of the pol – but you can try.
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LINKING/DELINKING
“The statements are irrelevant,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said Monday. “The currency in Washington is votes. Everyone knows that a bipartisan deal can't pass the House without a robust reconciliation [bill] tackling climate.” (Washington Post)
“The movement of the legislation needs to be linked in order for us to feel comfortable, which is what we communicated. That has to be the strategy,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn), who was among the House Democrats who met with White House officials Tuesday. “But the ways in which they want to talk about whatever bill at any given moment doesn’t need to be linked,” she said. (Wall Street Journal)
WHAT THAT IGNORANT LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Why should I care about a DC process story?
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Sometimes process *is* policy – so, in this case, you really do need to care about process.
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SELLING/POOLING/SCOOPING
From an epic Tuesday White House press pool report:
Biden entered the ice cream parlor and greeted the owners at 2:04 p.m.
Biden told Gov. Evers, Rep. Kind and Sen. Baldwin: “I’m buying.”
“Oh, you guys got everything,” Biden said as he examined the menu.
Kind got a single scoop cup with mint chocolate chip, while Baldwin got the same with chocolate and Evers with white chocolate raspberry.
Biden got two scoops on a sugar cone: cookies and cream and strawberry.
Pool was hustled out of the shop at around 2:09 p.m. and motorcade is rolling at 2:16 p.m.
WHAT THAT IGNORANT LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: My kind of guy – orders two scoops when everyone else is getting one!
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Make time to read the president’s full remarks on his legislative agenda from his Tuesday Wisconsin address – one of the best and most important speeches of his 2021 (with kudos to the speechwriters’ research team).
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(MIS)COUNTING
The New York City mayor’s race plunged into chaos on Tuesday night when the city Board of Elections released a new tally of votes in the Democratic mayoral primary, and then removed the tabulations from its website after citing a “discrepancy.”
The results released earlier in the day had suggested that the race between Eric Adams and his two closest rivals had tightened significantly.
But just a few hours after releasing the preliminary results, the elections board issued a cryptic tweet revealing a “discrepancy” in the report, saying that it was working with its “technical staff to identify where the discrepancy occurred.”
By Tuesday evening, the tabulations had been taken down, replaced by a new advisory that the ranked-choice results would be available “starting on June 30.”
Then, around 10:30 p.m., the board finally released a statement, explaining that it had failed to remove sample ballot images used to test its ranked-choice voting software. When the board ran the program, it counted “both test and election night results, producing approximately 135,000 additional records,” the statement said. The ranked-choice numbers, it said, would be tabulated again.
The extraordinary sequence of events seeded further confusion about the outcome, and threw the closely watched contest into a new period of uncertainty at a consequential moment for the city.
WHAT THAT IGNORANT LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Wait, Eric Adams is not necessarily the winner?!?
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Gotham City can do restaurants, live music, media, theater, parks, delis, and bike share; Gotham City cannot do pro basketball, public transportation, Thai food, airports, affordable housing, public schools, or (apparently) elections.
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REGULATING
The Wall Street Journal gasps:
The Biden administration is developing an executive order directing agencies to strengthen oversight of industries that they perceive to be dominated by a small number of companies, a wide-ranging attempt to rein in big business power across the economy, according to people familiar with the plans.
The executive order, which President Biden could sign as soon as next week, would direct regulators of industries from airlines to agriculture to rethink their rule-making process to inject more competition and to give consumers, workers and suppliers more rights to challenge large producers.
The goal is to broaden the way policy makers approach business concentration in the U.S., going beyond conventional antitrust enforcement focused on blocking big mergers. For example, companies in industries controlled by a small number of big firms might face new rules for disclosing fees to consumers or for their relationships with suppliers, the people familiar with the effort said.
WHAT THAT IGNORANT LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Blah, blah, blah.
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: This is potentially one of the most important policy initiatives of the Biden administration — or it could disappear without a trace.
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HOMESTEADING
The Wall Street Journal gasps yet again:
U.S. home prices surged at their fastest pace ever in April as buyers competing for a limited number of homes on the market pushed the booming housing market to new records.
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, which measures average home prices in major metropolitan areas across the nation, rose 14.6% in the year that ended in April, up from an 13.3% annual rate the prior month. April marked the highest annual rate of price growth since the index began in 1987.
Home prices have surged this year due to low mortgage-interest rates, which have spurred strong demand, and a continued shortage of homes for sale. Many homes are getting multiple offers and selling above asking price. The home-price surge is widespread around the U.S., affecting buyers and sellers in big cities, suburbs and small towns.
WHAT THAT IGNORANT LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Bubble, bubble toil and trouble.
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: That loudmouth’s “bubble bubble” line is actually pretty clever.
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INFLATING
Federal Reserve officials spoke with one voice throughout the pandemic downturn, promising that monetary policy would be set to full-stimulus mode until the crisis was well and truly behind America. Suddenly, they are less in sync.
Central bankers are increasingly divided over how to think about and respond to emerging risks after months of rising asset values and faster-than-expected price increases. While their political counterparts in the White House have been more unified in maintaining that the recent jump in price gains will fade as the economy gets past a reopening burst, Washington as a whole is wrestling with how to approach policy at a moment of intense uncertainty….
Unwanted and persistent inflation seemed like a fringe possibility earlier this year, but it is becoming a central feature of economic policy debates as prices rise for used cars, airline tickets and restaurant meals. For the Fed, the risk that some of the current jump could last is helping to drive the discussion about how soon and how quickly officials should slow down their enormous government-backed bond-buying program — the first step in the central bank’s plan to reduce its emergency support for the economy.
WHAT THAT IGNORANT LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Grocers, gas, and lumber are way too expensive.
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: If somebody in the White House is in charge of figuring out inflation and staffing the Fed, they should raise their hands now.
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EXITING
The commander of the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan warned on Tuesday that the country could be on a path to chaotic civil war as American and other international troops prepare to leave in the coming weeks.
His assessment, in a rare news conference at the headquarters of U.S. and NATO command in Kabul, will likely be one of the last publicly delivered by an American four-star general in Afghanistan, where recent events have included a Taliban offensive that has seized around 100 district centers, left dozens of civilians wounded and killed, and displaced thousands more.
“Civil war is certainly a path that can be visualized if it continues on the trajectory it’s on,” the commander, Gen. Austin S. Miller, told reporters during the news conference. “That should be a concern for the world.”
With some intelligence estimates saying that the Afghan government could fall in six months to two years after a final American withdrawal, General Miller’s comments were a window into recent tension between the White House and the Pentagon. (New York Times)
WHAT THAT IGNORANT LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Get out now and/but don’t let American prestige and credibility suffer.
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Capitol Hill and Foggy Bottom are quietly buzzing about the prospects of U.S. forces having to rush back in before Halloween.
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RUNNING
Former California Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican, predicted a “spirited contest” in 2024, but declined to identify a favorite among the emerging candidates.
As for Trump?
“It is, after all ... his decision. It’s a decision he shares with his family,” Wilson said. “He is much admired. It’s obvious from what has occurred he is much feared and demonized by this (Biden) administration.”
WHAT THAT IGNORANT LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Anybody know why the AP would quote this Pete Wilson fellow?
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: The most likely people to win the 2024 presidential election (all things considered) in order of likelihood are
1. Joe Biden.
2. Kamala Harris.
3. Donald Trump.
4. Ron DeSantis.
5. Huge, huge dropoff after that – tell me who you think is 5th.
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VOGUING
Biden is only the third occupant of the East Wing to appear on the cover of Vogue, which despite all its recent struggles and missteps in a world more demanding of inclusivity and less tolerant of hierarchies, remains a cultural touchstone. Hillary Clinton was the first presidential spouse on the cover in 1998 and the occasion celebrated her dignity in the face of her husband’s impeachment. At the time of publication, Editor in Chief Anna Wintour told The Washington Post that the goal of the story, for which Clinton posed in a velvet Oscar de la Renta gown, was to “give her her due.” Michelle Obama was the second. She appeared on the cover three times. According to one Vogue headline, Obama was: “The first lady the world’s been waiting for.”
WHAT THAT IGNORANT LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Do magazine covers really matter anymore?
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Hey, Blue America – you should know that this still rankles bigly in Red America.
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RETIRING
Keith Kelly, the widely read and much-feared media reporter and columnist for the New York Post, is planning to retire on July 23 after more than two decades at the tabloid, according to an individual with knowledge of his plans.
WHAT THAT IGNORANT LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: So typically insider – one reporter writing about the retirement of another reporter.
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: As a great woman once told me – all news starts in the New York Post.
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BUSTERING
WHAT THAT IGNORANT LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Isn’t he that guy from “Arrested Development”?
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Red Skelton + Red Buttons = Tony Hale.
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CHASING
WHAT THAT IGNORANT LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: You’re on mute.
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: If it is 1/5th as good as “The Sopranos,” it will be incredible.
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NEWSING
WHAT THAT IGNORANT LOUDMOUTH WILL SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: Why is it called Walking Duck?
WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY ON YOUR MORNING ZOOM: If it looks like a news site you want to read and walks like a news site you want to read, you should read it.
For all the latest news all the time, check out the Walking Duck.