Also on today’s menu:
Time Runs Out For Cable ‘Personalities’
Supreme Court Turns Aside Fossil Fuel Companies
Banks Do Well Under Fed Rate Hikes
Posing the decision of the 2024 presidential election as being between more freedom and less freedom, President Joe Biden Jr. formally announced his reelection campaign, imploring voters to let him “finish this job” and put aside any concerns about his age. Biden already is the oldest person ever elected U.S. president, and he would be 86 at the end of a second term.
Biden made the announcement on the fourth anniversary of the launch of his 2019 presidential campaign, when he promised to restore the “soul of America.” Biden chose Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a senior White House official and veteran of the 2020 campaign, to manage his 2024 campaign. Quentin Fulks, who managed Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock’s 2022 reelection campaign, will be her deputy.
During his term of office, Biden has focused on investments in infrastructure and manufacturing to help working- and middle-class Americans, in contrast to the Republicans’ efforts to reduce taxes for the wealthy at the expense of programs that help the poor. While Biden has released a budget proposal for the future, Republicans in Washington, D.C., are refusing to offer a budget or raise the debt ceiling to pay the government’s existing obligations without a promise from Democrats to cut back on the programs that have allowed the country to prosper.
Time Runs Out For Cable ‘Personalities’
Cable news changed dramatically on Monday when Fox News announced that it had “parted ways” with Tucker Carlson, and CNN host Don Lemon announced that he would be leaving that network.
Last week, shortly before Carlson was expected to be called to testify in Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox News, Fox agreed to pay more than $787 million to settle the case concerning false claims after the 2020 presidential election. Carlson had promoted racism, sexism, xenophobia, conspiracies, religious intolerance, and hatred of the LGBTQ community; but during the court filings in the lawsuit, internal communications showed that Carlson had made disparaging comments against both Donald Trump and the network’s own higher-ups and acknowledged that the “facts” he was promoting were fabricated to maintain viewership.
In Lemon’s case, the CNN This Morning co-anchor had come under fire in February for saying 51-year-old Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley “isn’t in her prime, sorry,” adding that a woman is considered to be in her prime “in her 20s, 30s, and maybe her 40s.” Variety characterized Lemon’s behavior as “a picture of a journalist who flouted rules and cozied up to power all while displaying open hostility to many female co-workers.” Also contributing to the decision were financial concerns by CNN, which has seen a 34 percent decrease in year-over-year viewership.
Supreme Court Turns Aside Fossil Fuel Companies
Fossil fuel companies seeking help from the U.S. Supreme Court in deflecting lawsuits from cities, states, and counties pursuing claims for climate-related damages were rebuffed on April 24 when the high court declined to hear five appeals.
Baltimore and other localities began filing climate lawsuits in state courts six years ago after experiencing extreme weather that included flooding and changes in sea level. They cited statutes concerning product liability, deceptive advertising, and nuisance to press their case that the fossil fuel industry is responsible for damages caused by climate change. The industry has known for decades that burning fossil fuels produces greenhouse gases that warm the planet. The lawsuits say that has harmed local infrastructure and citizens.
Oil and gas companies believed that, by moving those cases to federal courts, the focus would be less on local damages and more on energy needs. ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Shell Oil Products argued that problems related to greenhouse gas emissions are “inherently federal.”
Banks Do Well Under Fed Rate Hikes
Noah Smith, in his column, Noahpinion, points out that the Federal Reserve’s rate increases did not actually make banks insolvent. While runs on Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse led to expectations of a banking crisis, with the government stepping in to guarantee deposits, the banks actually became more profitable for the same reasons they lost liquidity.
Higher interest rates decreased the banks’ assets because the banks had invested in a lot of bonds. When interest rates go up, bond prices go down, making it easier for the banks to collapse if a large number of depositors suddenly ask for their money back all at once.
However, when those rates are high, banks can charge higher interest rates on loans and investments, while keeping the rates they pay on checking and savings accounts low. The result is “this increase in banks’ future profitability was worth almost exactly as much as the decrease in the value of the assets on their books,” Smith writes. “Imagine if the value of your 401(k) went down, but your salary went up; that’s basically what happened to the banks.”
Café Chatter
On Trans Debate: Her having surgery at 16 is completely unusual. From 2019 to 2021 “top surgery” a total of 776 were performed to age 13 to 17 in the US. Do some people regret their surgery, sure, I expect that they do. Obviously I don’t know her story, but, having two transgender nieces under age 18, their physicians and mental health professionals do not recommend it before age 18. I am sorry that she has regrets, but, she can have surgery to have breast implants. I do think that most teens under 18 should not have unless their gender dysphoria is so severe, for example, that suicidal ideation is present. However, I do not believe that the laws being passed by some states are completely wrong. They are not experts in gender dysphoria. It should be a medical decision between the teen, their parents and medical professionals.
— Candace Skurnik
On Real Cops: Know Your Suspect: We are very fortunate to live here in our usually very quiet small N.H. towns.
— Barb Greenwood
Support Our Efforts
Do you have a story to tell?
The News Café is a virtual meeting place where, each weekday, we discuss the news of the day: local, statewide, national, and international. Mondays are reserved for more personal observations which only paid subscribers will receive, while Tuesday through Friday will draw from news stories published by various sources.
The News Café relies on subscriptions, rather than on advertising and grants, for its support. That frees us to provide an independent focus on events and cultural issues without having to weigh whether it would upset advertisers or fit into grant guidelines. Our only obligation is to provide information we believe is useful to our readers.
Subscriptions to this newsletter are available for as little as $5 per month. Subscribers can share their knowledge, thoughts, and questions about any topic, and we may select some of those subjects for more in-depth analysis.
If you’re unable to pay but still want to receive all of the free public posts in your in-box, click the Subscribe button and select a free subscription.
Visit us at www.libertymedianh.org