Good morning from Timothy Noah!
News came this morning that unemployment claims shot up to 286,000 last week, a 55,000 rise over the previous week. Itâs another sign that omicron is creating volatility in the job market. Unemployment is at a very low 3.9 percent, and the âquits rateâ is at a historic high, but âthere is some evidence that the surge in omicron cases has slowed growth in job postings by employers,â reports The Wall Street Journalâs Gabriel T. Rubin, citing the jobs site Indeed.
Joe Biden blurted out at yesterdayâs press conference that Vladimir Putin is about to invade Ukraine. âDo I think heâll test the West, test the United States and NATO, as significantly as he can?â Biden asked. âYes, I think he will.â This was a classic âKinsley gaffeâ; that is, it met former New Republic editor Michael Kinsleyâs definition of a gaffe as an instance when a politician inadvertently speaks the truth. Republican Representative Michael McCaul of Texas called Bidenâs remarks ânothing short of a disaster,â even though McCaul surely agrees that Putin is about to invade.
McCaul was especially exercised that Biden suggested (somewhat clumsily, itâs true) that this might not be a full-scale invasion. That, McCaul said, âclearly gave Vladimir Putin the green light to launch a âminor incursion.ââ But press spokesperson Jennifer Psaki clarified afterward, âIf any Russian military forces move across the Ukrainian border, thatâs a renewed invasion, and it will be met with a swift, severe, and united response from the United States and our allies.â That didnât impress Ukraine Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who kind of agreed with McCaul. Kuleba told The Wall Street Journal, âSpeaking of minor and full incursions or full invasion, you cannot be half-aggressive. Youâre either aggressive or youâre not aggressive. We should not give Putin the slightest chance to play with quasi-aggression or small incursion operations.â
The Senate, as expected, failed to overcome a Republican filibuster against the Democratsâ voting rights bill, then failed to alter Senate rules to pass the bill by a simple majority. The rule change required only 50 votes plus a tie-breaker by Vice President Kamala Harris, but Democratic Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin refused to support it. But Politicoâs Marianne LeVine and Burgess Everett report that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer made progress of a sort in persuading Senators Mark Kelly, Dianne Feinstein, and Chris Coons to suspend or eliminate the filibuster. The filibuster clearly is going the way of the dodo. But its extinction wonât likely come soon enough to help Biden.
The Supreme Court rejected former President Donald Trumpâs ridiculous request to block release of White House records about the January 6 Capitol insurrection. The only dissenter was Justice Clarence Thomas, who said he would have granted Trumpâs request but didnât explain why. This is your periodic reminder that âexecutive privilegeâ was a legal concept invented by the nonlawyer Dwight Eisenhower when he was president, probably while he was practicing his golf swing. The phrase itself wasnât coined until a few years after that, by Eisenhowerâs assistant attorney general for the civil division, George Cochran Doub, whose contribution to constitutional jurisprudence didnât rate a mention in his 1981 obituary.
At NewRepublic.com, Walter Shapiro assesses Bidenâs performance at yesterdayâs press conference: âshrewd observations, occasional regrets, apologies for âtalking too much,â and more candor than is normal from a sitting president.â Jan Dutkiewicz ponders, after the first successful transplant of a pigâs heart into a human patient, the ethics of âa standing reserve of genetically modified animals bred as repositories of organs for human use.â And Matt Ford writes that Donald Trumpâs false valuations of his properties to banks, tax collectors, and business partners uncovered by New York Attorney General Letitia Jamesâs investigation arenât exactly surprising. âThe only question,â he notes, âis whether Trump will face any consequences.â
 Auf wiedersehen,
 âTimothy Noah, staff writer |
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