UPDATE
Several new paying WWoN subscribers were added yesterday, but, as best I can tell, the list of converts did not include any of the remaining millionaire and billionaire holdouts, who continue to read Wide World of News daily without taking out a voluntary paid subscription.
I might have to start writing to all y’all individually, asking you to consider joining many of your (less-well-off) fellow readers in paying for the privilege of reading this newsletter seven days a week.
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Mark
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GOOD NEWS FOR JOE BIDEN
1. NATO remains outwardly unified under American leadership against Putin’s threat, with Vice President Harris well-positioned for several days at the Munich Security Conference, building off the relationships she has meticulously and purposefully established with world leaders over the course of the last year.
2. The CDC is maneuvering (based on the science…) to loosen up enough restrictions to lay the foundations for a State of the Union address that can contain some well-founded “right track” rhetoric.
3. The Big 3 judges on the SCOTUS short list are all getting expert PR help now so they will be prepared to launch strong.
4. Hillary Clinton, addressing a Gotham City gathering of New York Democrats Thursday, is taking on some of the battle and lightning rod roles that the president would otherwise have to assume.
5. Republican-on-Republican action in 2022 could well make it easier for Democrats to win some November races, as GOPers spend down their campaign accounts to win primaries – and some MAGA-ish candidates could emerge who simply cannot win general election contests.
6. The investigative bandwidth of America’s major news organizations is always going to be trained more on the nation’s 45th president than on its 46th. Always.
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BAD NEWS FOR JOE BIDEN
1. Russian claims to the contrary, the buildup on the Ukrainian border is still built up.
2. A fresh Justice Department effort to the contrary, most of America (and 489 of 500 members of the Gang) finds the administration’s claims about what is causing supply chain problems to be misleading, false, disingenuous, etc. Essential reading: Steven Rattner’s unsparing New York Times op-ed piece in which he sounds like Mitch McConnell, laying blame at the Oval door.
3. Private Democratic polling for the midterms continues to show epically low approval numbers coast-to-coast for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, even worse than the public numbers contained in this new Blue California poll, which you will need to read to believe. (Team Veep better hope she is more popular in Munich than in Modesto….)
4. The Democrats quoted anonymously in this NBC News story sound like Karl Rove in rounding up their view of how the midterms are shaping up – and the apparent failure of Team Biden-Harris-Donilon-Pelosi-Schumer to (so far) do anything about it:
There’s a growing sense among Democrats that it’s time for a change of course at the White House — whether that means new strategy or new staffers.
On the political front, President Joe Biden’s numbers aren’t getting better, his message isn’t resonating, and his party’s midterm prospects are bleak. On policy, his Build Back Better plan is dead, Covid is alive, and inflation is rising.
If he doesn’t take a new tack soon, it may be impossible for him to deliver for the public, help his party in November or move an agenda in the final three years of his term, according to a dozen lawmakers, White House officials and veteran Democratic Party operatives who spoke to NBC News about their concerns.
And about the president:
“He has blind spots with staff,” said a second White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak on the record. “He should not have the second-worst approval rating of all time given the positive things that he’s done. If that were me, I would re-evaluate the advice that I’m getting and the people that I surround myself with. I don’t see that happening.”
The same official lamented a sense of strategic drift and said that “everyone’s resigned” to Democrats’ getting thwacked in the midterms.
“It feels like there is a wave coming and no one is doing anything to stop it,” the official said.
5. Some of the key 2022 races, including many of the Senate contests that will determine majority control in 2023, could well be decided by the abject collapse of Scranton Joe’s party in rural America, per the Associated Press:
SMETHPORT, Pa. (AP) — Some Democrats here in rural Pennsylvania are afraid to tell you they’re Democrats.
The party’s brand is so toxic in the small towns 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh that some liberals have removed bumper stickers and yard signs and refuse to acknowledge their party affiliation publicly. These Democrats are used to being outnumbered by the local Republican majority, but as their numbers continue to dwindle, the few that remain are feeling increasingly isolated and unwelcome in their own communities….
Barack Obama won 875 counties nationwide in his overwhelming 2008 victory. Twelve years later, Biden won only 527. The vast majority of those losses — 260 of the 348 counties — took place in rural counties, according to data compiled by The Associated Press.
6. The Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden is proceeding apace, with the Daily Mail reporting that the mother of one of Hunter’s children testified Tuesday before a Delaware grand jury.
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Let’s tally.
6 to 6!!!
It’s a tie.
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