From the left: Bye-Bye, ‘Allegedly’?
After Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” mentioned President Donald Trump’s “claim that he’s immune from criminal prosecution for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election,” observes Racket News’ Matt Taibbi, “colleagues went bananas” over her use of “allegedly,” virtually “pitchforking poor Welker for including the pro forma newsism.” One critic “protested that Trump didn’t ‘allegedly’ try to overturn the 2020 election,” but “ ‘really did it,’ ”; another accused her of “whitewashing Trump’s crimes.” But she was just doing “Journalism 101,” seethes Taibbi. “Every journalist is taught to be careful with accusations of crime” and “ ‘allegedly’ is always a) more accurate b) protects the institution from liability and c) pays respect to the presumption of innocence.” Plus, it’s “a protective mechanism, reminding journalists that no matter how certain things look from one angle, they might turn out different.”
Libertarian: ‘Emergency’ Spending Games
“Once spending gets earmarked as an emergency, it isn’t subjected to typical caps on discretionary spending, allowing Congress to rack up costs with little accountability,” which is why in “Congress’ new spending package, research equipment and facilities for the National Science Foundation is an emergency,” as are the 2024 Democratic and Republican conventions and “NASA space exploration,” scoffs Reason’s Emma Camp. “By classifying all these line items as emergencies, Congress can get hundreds of millions of taxpayer funding for them with reduced oversight.” Lawmakers have used this loophole to OK “over $12 trillion in spending for emergencies over the past three decades, making up around 1 in 10 federal budget dollars spent — more than both Medicaid and veterans programs combined.”
Elex watch: Blacks, Hispanics Shift to Trump
“Black and Hispanic voters have been an important part of the Democratic base for decades, but these coalitions aren’t everlasting,” warns The Wall Street Journal’s Jason L. Riley. A New York Times/Siena poll just “showed black support” for Donald Trump “ticking up to 23%,” from just 8% in the 2020 race, and turning a 38%-59% deficit into a 46%-40% lead among Hispanics. Why? “More than half of all black and Hispanic respondents rank current economic conditions as ‘poor,’ ” and sizable numbers of both groups say they’ll vote for Trump because his policies benefited them personally. This doesn’t mean Americans back Trump’s behavior, but it does offer clues about their priorities. To win re-election, Biden will “have to do more than call his opponent a threat to democracy.”
From the right: Sinema Exit Imperils Filibuster
After Sen. Kyrsten Sinema ended her independent run for re-election this week, National Review’s editors point out that the Arizonan “consistently fought off the Jacobins in her caucus who have pushed radical ideas such as packing the Supreme Court.” And her “steadfast refusal to blow up the filibuster” really “made her persona non grata within the Democratic Party.” The race now “is expected to be close and could determine control of the Senate.” Sinema’s exit, atop Joe Manchin’s, “means yet another defender of the filibuster is leaving the Senate.” That populists on the right and left want to kill the filibuster “should be worrisome for all those who still care about limiting the expansion of the federal government.”
Econ desk: No Mystery Behind Voter Gloom
The media constantly ask “How can the economy be so good, and yet Americans think it’s so bad?” notes Jeffrey H. Anderson at City Journal. The “straightforward explanation for the dour public mood: Americans really, really don’t like it when the prices of seemingly everything” are “noticeably higher than they were just a few years ago.” Inflation in Biden’s first three years is higher than that “of all but one other elected president in the past 100 years” — and it “can be traced in part to profligate federal spending.” While “those living in the D.C.–New York bubble don’t really notice the effects of the second-worst inflation under a newly elected president since 1924,” “everyday Americans surely do.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board