Team Biden, Scored

An oddly slow news cycle.

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Get all the news, all the time on the 24/7 website the Walking Duck.

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I’m not really in the mood to write about the weather, the Olympics, the RNC’s lack of The Presumption of Grace, Meta stock, Prime pricing, the Queen, BoJo, CNN, Palin v NYT, or mask mandates.

Where does that leave us on this Friday?

🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FRIDAY SCORECARD

War on Terror 🚁🚁🚁

War on inflation 😟

War on COVID 👨🏻‍⚕️🙀

Peace on Putin ✋🏼

China-Russia ties 🇨🇳🪆

Political health of Fed nominees 🙁😦😀

Employment situation ⚠️

Legislative agenda 🙈

Anti-crime credentials 🚔

Redistricting edge 📈

Midterm prospects 🔮

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ESSENTIAL READING

* The Associated Press on the Putin-Xi summit.

Emily Rauhala @emilyrauhala

Russia and China publish (what reads like) the longest ever joint statement, touting solidarity on everything from their status as "world powers," their opposition to "colour revolutions," the search of the origins of the coronavirus, Taiwan, you name it

en.kremlin.ruJoint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Glob…

Ryan Hass @ryanl_hass

1/ As Xi and Putin prepare to meet in Beijing in the coming hours, I expect there will be a new wave of commentary about how Beijing might see benefits from a Russia-Ukraine conflict. I would advise interrogating those arguments a bit. Here's why:

* The New York Times on Jim Clyburn’s SCOTUS lobbying.

* Larry Summers op-edding on inflation.

Don’t feel cheated — there really is no new news for you to know about, or for me to analyze.

See you tomorrow.