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☆ Democrats have a Gen Z problem
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( Samuel Abrams | Jeremi Suri | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

November's midterms heralded a new force in American politics: Gen Z voters. Given the narrow margins and the Democrats' ability to retain the Senate despite historical precedent, commentators and analysts declared that Gen Z helped Democrats thwart a Republican wave. Gen Z isn't sold on the whole 'party' thingAmericans are increasingly unhappy with the two-party system. Given these circumstances, Democrats shouldn't take the political loyalty of Gen Z voters for granted. Despite assumptions about their left leanings, members of Gen Z are not firmly behind the Democratic Party, President Joe Biden, or many other well-known Democrats.

[1/18] U.S. President Joe Biden speaks with border patrol officers as he walks along the border fence during his visit to the U.S.-Mexico border to assess border enforcement operations, in El Paso, Texas, U.S., January 8, 2023. Biden on Thursday said his administration would tighten immigration enforcement by blocking Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants at the border, expanding the nationalities of those who can be expelled back to Mexico. But that has not impressed Republicans like Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who accused him of failing to enforce immigration laws. Biden told reporters he had not yet read the letter. On the ground in El Paso, migrants greeted the new policy with trepidation.

☆ Amid negotiation gridlock between Mount Sinai Hospital and the nurse's union, newborns in intensive care are caught in the middle
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-08 | by ( Celina Tebor | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

A NICU nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital told CNN that families of patients in the unit have been deeply concerned about moving their sick infants from one hospital to another. As of Saturday, negotiations across New York’s hospitals were continuing at Montefiore Bronx and the Mount Sinai Morningside and West campuses, according to the nurse’s union. But the president of the nurse’s union told reporters Saturday the main Mount Sinai Hospital complex left the bargaining table late Thursday and no further bargaining sessions have been scheduled since. A Mount Sinai Health System spokesperson told CNN that hospital management is “waiting for the union to come back to us” to resume negotiations. Tentative agreements have also been reached with union nurses at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn and Richmond University Medical Center in Staten Island.

☆ House resumes leader contest after McCarthy fails in 6th bid
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Reuters Editorial | ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

PoliticsHouse resumes leader contest after McCarthy fails in 6th bidPostedThree days into a standoff over who would lead the Republican-majority U.S. House of Representatives, there is no sign of an end to the gridlock. This report produced by Zachary Goelman.

☆ Giving away more power did nothing for Kevin McCarthy, who lost his 8th House speaker ballot after further bowing to dissidents' demands
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Warren Rojas | Brent D. Griffiths | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Kevin McCarthy kept flailing Thursday as 20 House conservatives torched another speaker vote. Republican Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who was once a thorn in House Democrats' side, said the GOP could be in for chaos if talks could on their current trajectory. Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas previously compared bringing back the procedural maneuver to governing "with a gun to your head." According to multiple reports, McCarthy has now agreed to let a single House Republican wield that power. This almost certainly means McCarthy would need to rely on House Democrats, a scenario that has doomed past GOP speakers.

☆ Analysis: Chaos in Congress sends an ominous signal to Wall Street
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Matt Egan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

New York CNN —Many on Wall Street cheered last fall when the midterm elections ushered in a return of divided government in Washington. But the historic dysfunction playing out in Congress this week is a reminder that you should be careful what you wish for. Buckle up for debt ceiling brinksmanshipBut lawmakers did not agree to tackle the debt ceiling, the borrowing limit that must be raised to avoid a calamitous US debt default. In the past, brinksmanship over the debt ceiling eventually gave way to a compromise, though often not until significant pressure was applied by business leaders, financial markets — or both. Andrew Frankel, co-president of Stuart Frankel, dismissed the House speaker race as a “big, fat nothing-burger” for the market and said it was “just noise.”“It’s all about the Fed,” Frankel said.

Democrats will wield an expanded 51-seat Senate majority and control the presidency. We need to be cutting spending,” McCarthy told reporters after a meeting with Senate Republicans on Dec. 21. There’s so much discombobulation and disunity on different sides of the Republican caucus,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters before the holiday recess. Conservative lawmakers say a GOP House should block a debt limit increase without major policy changes to rein in spending. Some House Republicans are already calling to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his department's handling of immigration policy.

WASHINGTON, Dec 23 (Reuters) - The Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a $1.66 trillion government funding bill that provides record military funding and sends emergency aid to Ukraine, hours before a midnight deadline. "The bipartisan funding bill advances key priorities for our country and caps off a year of historic bipartisan progress for the American people," Biden said. While some of the work was done in a bipartisan manner, that was not the case with Friday's $1.66 trillion funding bill, opposed by House Republican conservatives and some Senate conservatives. They have threatened to oppose any legislation introduced by any of the Senate Republicans who supported the bill. [1/4] The U.S. Capitol is seen as Congress continues work on passing a $1.66 trillion government funding bill in Washington, U.S., December 21, 2022.

☆ Democrats fret as Biden tries to bolster re-election case touting legislative wins
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Peter Nicholas | Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Carol-Lee-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

WASHINGTON — As 2022 draws to a close, President Joe Biden plans to give an upbeat national address Thursday afternoon with a unifying message. Biden would be traveling the country touting reduced insulin prices and new road projects, while House Republicans hold hearings into obscure conspiracy theories. The first is Biden runs and loses, perhaps to a younger Republican opponent who eclipses Trump as the new GOP favorite. His top aides have been meeting privately with left-leaning interest groups urging them to go out and showcase Biden’s record. “President Biden became the first president since FDR in 1934 to not lose a single incumbent United States Senate seat” in the midterms, Donilon wrote.

☆ Divided America will unite under economic duress
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Ben Winck | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

That will happen when a new term begins in 2023, making it difficult for American legislators to accomplish goals. But one thing needs to happen: Congress must raise the debt ceiling so the U.S. government can continue to chug along. The debt ceiling, currently at $31.4 trillion, needs to go higher for government employees to get paid and welfare checks to be delivered, among other things. If only because they are all vying for a win in the presidential election in 2024, Congress could unite under high inflation and economic duress. Republicans will take control of the House of Representatives in 2023, making a bipartisan solution necessary to lifting the limit.

The lawmakers are co-sponsors of the National Development Strategy and Coordination Act. That's why we've joined forces to jumpstart a national project to restore American manufacturing leadership. This committee would be charged with developing a National Development Strategy, recommending investments to improve national security, strengthen domestic manufacturing, create good-paying jobs and develop new technologies. Second, our proposal — the National Development Strategy and Coordination Act — would give this committee the authority to direct the Department of Treasury's Federal Financing Bank to achieve its goals. This would bring overdue strategic coordination to our federal loan system and inject much-needed long-term capital into critical industries.

☆ What the pro-business tax agenda is chasing in a changing Congress
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( Cheryl Winokur Munk | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Main Street could find itself stuck in gridlock next year in terms of advancing pro-business tax objectives. For House Republicans, legislative priorities are likely to include extending business-friendly provisions of The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed by the Trump Administration in 2017. Even so, a divided Congress means that major pro-business legislative changes will be difficult to enact. Rather, tax and policy professionals expect House Republicans to focus on a number of positioning moves next year — ones that will establish their pro-business agenda ahead of the 2024 presidential election. "There are a host of provisions in the tax code that businesses would like to see changed or revised," said Rochelle Hodes, a principal in Crowe's Washington National Tax office.

☆ Kyrsten Sinema was doing the GOP a favor by blocking Democrats' taxes on the wealthy. Now a Republican-controlled House will have to fight that battle.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-10 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema repeatedly threw cold water on Democrats' plans to raise taxes on the wealthy. Now that Sinema is officially becoming an independent, Democrats still likely won't be able to pass anything. However, the House — which has to pass any legislation that would include hikes — will soon be controlled by Republicans. Raphael Warnock's reelection in the Georgia runoff also gave Democrats an opening to work around Sinema. Republicans are very tax averse, already mounting opposition to a 15% minimum tax on big multinational corporations like Amazon and Facebook.

LONDON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - With world markets in thrall to the final big three central bank meetings of a tumultuous year next week, the parallel world of fiscal policy takes a back seat. The UK's disastrously botched giveaway budget in September set out for many the limits of what's possible in a world of double-digit inflation. Loosen the public purse strings any further and the commensurate level of interest rates needed to then get inflation back to 2% targets balloons, and risks melting the economy down in other ways. OECD chart on fiscal outlook'BRUTE FORCE'All of which begs the question of whether central banks will have to conduct the inflation fight on their own. And likely severe recessions from historically modest interest rates just force central banks to quickly return to so-called quantitative easing, undermining their own longer-term inflation battle.

☆ Manhattan renters face sticker shock with average rent at $5,200
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Robert Frank | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The median rent for a Manhattan apartment in November hit $4,033, up from $3,964 in October, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. The rise in New York rents also adds pressure to overall inflation, since rents are a large component of inflation indexes and New York is the nation's largest rental market. Brokers and real-estate experts say landlords over-reached when they started renewing the leases signed in 2020 and 2021, often demanding rent increases of 20% or more. The vacancy rate in November was 2.4% — still below the historical norm in Manhattan of about 3%, according to Miller Samuel. Real-estate experts say the big drop in new leases, if it continues, will eventually force landlords to meet renters at a lower price point.

The win ends a nearly two-year power sharing agreement, giving Democrats true majority rule. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona's viselike grip on their party's priorities has loosened a bit, thanks to Georgia. Republicans will no longer be able to bottle up Biden administration nominees in committee, and select Democratic committee chairs will again be able to issue subpoenas. "Joe Manchin is a good person; he really is," Biden said Friday at a reception for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York speaks at a press conference at the Capitol on August 5, 2022.

WASHINGTON — If it’s Monday ... It’s the last day of campaigning before tomorrow’s Georgia Senate runoff. ... NBC’s Vaughn Hillyard covers the closing messages by Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker. And just looking at the campaigns, which get the biggest bang per advertising buck, it’s Warnock at $25.2 million, versus Walker at $10.1 million. But now it’s $11.8 million — behind Warnock’s $25 million and the $20.3 million from Georgia Honor, a Democratic Super PAC. Runoff watch: Walker accuser speaks to NBC NewsDays after she first revealed an allegation of domestic abuse against Georgia Republican Senate hopeful Herschel Walker, a former girlfriend of his sat down with NBC News to detail those allegations.

☆ America's failure to fix its legal immigration system is hurting worker retention
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailAmerica's failure to fix its legal immigration system is hurting worker retentionCNBC's Steve Liesman joins 'The Exchange' to discuss the U.S. gridlock on immigration reform, the need for more immigrant workers in healthcare, and how America's problems with illegal immigration conflict with legal immigrants.

Pelosi said the House would vote separately on Wednesday on a proposal to give seven days of paid sick leave to railroad employees. There are no paid sick days under the tentative deal after unions asked for 15 and railroads settled on one personal day. "Guaranteeing 7 paid sick days to rail workers would cost the rail industry a grand total of $321 million a year – less than 2% of its profits," Sanders said. The railroads oppose giving their workers paid sick time because they would have to hire more staff. "I can’t in good conscience vote for a bill that doesn’t give rail workers the paid leave they deserve," Representative Jamaal Bowman, a Democrat, said on Twitter.

This year, hospitals are being overwhelmed with a combination of Covid, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and the flu. This “tripledemic” of flu, Covid and RSV is a reminder that even as the pandemic ends, the threat of seasonal respiratory viruses remains. When and where respiratory viruses are surging, mask mandates should be reinstated. A recent study found that Boston school districts that had lifted mandates averaged 45 more Covid cases per 1,000 students and staff than those with mandates. This means that RSV — for which a vaccine is still being developed — can be mitigated through both mask-wearing and hand-washing.

☆ Kevin McCarthy could face a floor fight for speaker. That hasn’t happened in a century.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-26 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Kyle-Stewart-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Kyle Stewart | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is struggling to secure the 218 votes he needs to be elected speaker of the House in January. In this game of chicken, if the conservatives don’t blink and McCarthy refuses to back down, it could result in a chaotic floor fight with House members taking multiple votes for speaker — something that has not happened in a century. The House was called to order at noon and the chamber moved to the first order of business: electing the speaker. The House held three more unsuccessful votes for speaker that day before adjourning just after 2 p.m. The date was Feb. 2, 1856, two months after the first speaker vote.

☆ Malaysia cannot progress without political stability: Professor
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailMalaysia cannot progress without political stability: ProfessorJames Chin of University of Tasmania says he believes that a confidence and supply agreement (CSA) will not be implemented despite the current political gridlock, and that the coalition that will be formed eventually will have the required numbers to stay in power.

As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said herself, quoting scripture on the House floor Thursday: “For everything there is a season — a time for every purpose under heaven.”For Pelosi, the season to be leader of House Democrats has passed. She’ll continue to represent San Francisco while serving as an invaluable source of guidance and resolve for the next generation of House Democratic leaders. At 82, Pelosi is a historic figure, of course: the first female House speaker and one of the strongest speakers, if not the strongest, that America has ever seen. Yet as a minority in a GOP-run House, Democrats won’t be able to rack up accomplishments like they did in the last two years. There were calls for Pelosi to step aside in 2010 when Democrats lost 60 House seats — a true wipeout.

☆ Trump or Biden? How About Neither?
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Mark Penn | Andrew Stein | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Joe Biden and Donald Trump: Please do the country a service and don’t run for president in 2024. America is in gridlock over the both of you, and it’s time to let the country progress and find a unifying force that can lead it into the next decade. According to a Nov. 10-14 Morning Consult poll, 65% of Americans don’t want Mr. Biden to run again, and 65% say the same of Mr. Trump. Both of you have served this country, yet both of you have flaws and problems that stand in the way of a successful second term.

☆ Analysis: Political gridlock may help U.S. stocks but inflation still in driver's seat
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Saqib Iqbal Ahmed | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

A split government "makes major policy changes unlikely, and that stability in policy tends to be reassuring for investors." Still, macroeconomic concerns and monetary policy have driven markets all year, and investors believe that trend is unlikely to change anytime soon. "Inflation matters more than anything else right now," said Michael Antonelli, managing director and market strategist at Baird. In the last five instances when the November-December period occurred in a bear market, the S&P 500 logged an average two-month decline of 2.2%. If you look at bear markets there is no evidence of seasonality at the end of the year," Antonelli said.

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