Also on today’s menu:
Trump Would Preserve Primary, End Ukraine War
Another Failure To Intervene
‘Soft Landing’ Still Possible
The Republican Party has become known for demanding that its members toe the line — adhere to party dictates, regardless of what their own consciences dictate — or be labeled RINOs (Republicans In Name Only). Now Democrats are expressing their own demands for loyalty, implying that anyone who disagrees is a DINO.
This week, Democratic National Committee members from around the country will meet in Philadelphia to decide whether to formally accept a plan that would push New Hampshire’s first-in-the nation primary back to second-place, with Nevada. Responding to Granite State Democrats’ opposition to the proposed change, Lee Saunders, a Rules and Bylaws Committee member, commented, “It doesn’t help organizing and mobilizing our communities across the country to have this divisiveness shared in public. We should never talk like that within the DNC.”
Joanne Dowdell, New Hampshire’s party delegate, said, “It is safe to say that … this is not how any of us would like to kick off a reelection campaign, and given everything that is at stake, it is in everyone’s interest to find a mutually agreeable solution that meets the president’s and the DNC’s goals without punishing New Hampshire because of our state law.”
New Hampshire would be required to change its constitutional requirement that its primary take place before other states, and its voting laws to expand absentee voting, if it is not to be pushed behind South Carolina in the lineup. New Hampshire’s political leaders, from Republican Governor Chris Sununu and House Majority Leader Jason Osborne (R-Auburn), to Senate Democratic Leader Donna Soucy sent letters indicating that the DNC’s demands would not be met. Even former Democratic Governor John Lynch wrote a letter to President Joe Biden Jr., urging him to reconsider the calendar and warning that it could affect his reelection campaign. Former New Hampshire House Speaker Steve Shurtleff told WMUR that he would vote for another candidate for president if New Hampshire lost its primary spot. “I’ll look for another candidate before I support Joe Biden if he should go so far as to take away the first-in-the-nation primary from the Granite State,” Shurtleff said.
Trump Would Preserve Primary, End Ukraine War
Former president Donald Trump, speaking at the New Hampshire Republican Party’s annual meeting on January 28, pledged, “I will make sure New Hampshire remains the home of the first-in-the-nation for many, many years to come, and I think, more than anything else, I have proven that I keep my promises.”
Trump said voters should expect him to take a hard-edged approach in his campaign to reclaim the White House in 2024, and that he could immediately end the war in Ukraine. “Putin would have never ever gone in,” Trump said, if he were in the Oval Office, “and even now, I could solve that in 24 hours. It’s so horrible what happened. Those cities are demolished now.”
Chris Wood, a Republican activist who was manning a “Draft DeSantis” table outside the auditorium where Trump spoke, called the former president’s speech “pretty standard fare,” and pointed out the age difference between 76-year-old Trump and 44-year-old Ron DeSantis.
Meanwhile, Governor Chris Sununu, who skipped the state GOP meeting to attend the annual Alfalfa Club dinner in Washington, D.C., and has not ruled out his own presidential run in 2024, called Trump’s speech mundane, saying, “He’s not really bringing that fire, that energy, I think, that a lot of folks saw in ’16.”
Another Failure To Intervene
Memphis police have relieved two other officers of duty as the investigation into what happened as the five officers now charged in the murder of Tyre Nichols used their feet, fists, and a baton to beat the 29-year-old while he cried out in pain. The Memphis Fire Department also fired three emergency response workers at the scene for failing to assess Nichols’ condition.
The Memphis police department has a “duty-to-intervene” policy that states, “Any member who directly observes another member engaged in dangerous or criminal conduct or abuse of a subject shall take reasonable action to intervene.”
Previous high-profile police killings of black citizens have focused on the officers being white, but in Memphis, all five officers also were black. That has broadened the focus of criticism to policing in general. “Policing, as we all know by now, if we are the sort of people who are willing to observe observable things, is a system that exists to deliver harm and violence and control, and does so, in every state and every city in our country,” states A.R. Moxon in a well-written post at The Refrain. While we do not agree that all police are brutal thugs or that “defunding the police” is the answer, it is well worth the read to see why Moxon and others have come to that conclusion, and why they see the riots that follow such cases as inevitable outcomes of a police force out of control.
‘Soft Landing’ Still Possible
The International Monetary Fund predicts that, of all the advanced and emerging economies, only the United Kingdom’s will shrink over the next year. It predicts that even Russia, amidst war and sanctions, will grow.
The IMF upgraded its forecast for world growth to 2.9% from a previous prediction of 2.7% in October. It predicts that the expansion will accelerate to 3.1% in 2024, compared to 3.4% growth in 2022.
The Washington Post points out that, in the United States, the Federal Reserve’s fastest interest rate increases in 40 years have not pushed the economy into recession, as some feared, and employers such as Boeing and Chipotle plan to hire thousands of new workers. “[P]olicymakers may be able to steer the overheated economy to a ‘soft landing’ — bringing inflation under control without plunging the country into a downturn,” the IMF said.
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