“The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed the Trump administration to bar many Central American migrants from seeking asylum in the United States. The court said the administration may enforce new rules that generally forbid asylum applications from people who had traveled through another country on their way to the United States without being denied asylum in that country,” the New York Times reports.
“A federal appeals court had largely blocked the new policy, but the justices, in a brief, unsigned order, allowed it to go into effect while legal challenges move forward. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.”
“President Trump urged the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates below zero, suggesting a last-ditch monetary policy tactic tested abroad but never in America,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump’s request is extraordinary for several reasons. The United States economy is still growing solidly and consumers are spending strongly, making this an unusual time to push for monetary accommodation, particularly negative rates, a policy that the Fed debated but passed up even in the depths of the Great Recession.”
“Negative rates, which have been used in economies including Japan, Switzerland and the Eurozone, mean that savers are penalized and borrowers rewarded: Their goal is to reduce borrowing costs for households and companies to encourage spending. But they come at a cost, curbing bank profitability.”
“In a surprise move Wednesday morning, the N.C. House of Representatives voted to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the state budget with just over half of the 120 members present to vote,” the Raleigh News & Observer reports.
“Democrats in the chamber objected to the bill being brought up, saying they were told there would be no votes during the 8:30 a.m. session and that it was just a formality so work could begin. Rep. Jason Saine (R) made the motion to reconsider the state budget and chaos in the chamber quickly ensued.”
Slate reports Democrats were at a 9/11 ceremony and had been promised no votes would be scheduled.
ProPublica: “Since Trump’s election in 2016, critical ‘voter scores’ — sophisticated polling-based analytics that the RNC provides to party committees and candidates — have conspicuously omitted an essential detail for any down-ballot race: how voters in specific states and congressional districts feel about Trump. Republican insiders believe these analytics are being withheld to try and prevent GOP candidates from publicly distancing themselves from the president or leaking unfavorable results that embarrass Trump.”
“The White House was directly involved in pressing a federal scientific agency to repudiate the weather forecasters who contradicted President Trump’s claim that Hurricane Dorian would probably strike Alabama,” the New York Times reports.
“Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, told Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, to have the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publicly disavow the forecasters’ position that Alabama was not at risk. NOAA, which is part of the Commerce Department, issued an unsigned statement last Friday in response, saying that the Birmingham, Ala., office was wrong to dispute the president’s warning.”
Washington Post: “White House aides briefed Republican senators on potential legislative options at their private weekly luncheon Tuesday — including expanding the federal background-check system for gun buyers and encouraging states to create systems to temporarily seize guns from individuals judged to be dangerous — but they gave no indication of what Trump himself is willing to sign into law, exasperating some of those present.”
“Speaking to reporters afterward, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) confirmed Trump has yet to weigh in on the subject. Guns were among the topics discussed at a White House meeting between Trump and Republican congressional leaders Tuesday afternoon, but attendees said there were no decisions on how to move forward on the issue.”
Jonathan Swan: “The last time National Security Adviser John Bolton spoke with President Donald Trump was Monday afternoon around 2 p.m. in the Oval Office — offering to resign — about 22 hours before the president’s Tuesday tweet suggesting that he had fired Bolton.”
“The timeline contradicts the president’s account and speaks volumes about how Trump runs his administration. It underscores Trump’s pattern of adjusting facts to fit his narrative, a week after the ‘Sharpie’ controversy involving the path of Hurricane Dorian.”
“It also serves to warn Bolton’s successor — whom Trump says he’ll name next week — what they’re signing up for.”
Politico: “Ultimately, it was hearing media accounts about how Bolton had advised the president to scuttle a meeting with Taliban leaders at Camp David that proved a breaking point for Trump … In the president’s telling, he had taken his own counsel in arriving at the decision to call off the meeting and end the negotiations, and he was infuriated to hear Bolton credited with influencing his decision.”
Washington Post: “Among accumulated grievances that had been building for months, the president was annoyed that Bolton would regularly call on members of Congress to try to get them to push Bolton-preferred policies on Trump … Many on Bolton’s handpicked staff were seen as unnecessarily confrontational with other parts of the national security bureaucracy.”
Bloomberg: “Pompeo is now without peer on Trump’s national security team. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is weeks into his job, there’s no confirmed director of national intelligence and United Nations Ambassador Kelly Craft was confirmed on Tuesday. Among the president’s advisers, Pompeo will have the biggest sway on decisions about brokering a deal with Iran, restarting talks with North Korea and finding a way to draw down forces in Afghanistan.”
Yahoo News: “Forecasting firm Moody’s Analytics estimates that Trump’s trade war with China has already reduced U.S. employment by 300,000 jobs, compared with likely employment levels absent the trade war.”
“That’s a combination of jobs eliminated by firms struggling with tariffs and other elements of the trade war, and jobs that would have been created but haven’t because of reduced economic activity.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has officially declared the date for Canada’s general election: October 21, Axios reports.
“The election will effectively be a referendum on Trudeau’s first term. That’s not necessarily good news for the telegenic PM — an ethics scandal and unfulfilled expectations mean it’s far from certain he’ll win a new term. Polls show his Liberals neck and neck with the opposition Conservatives.”
“Vulnerable Senate Republicans are standing with President Trump and his efforts to build the wall. And it may cost them,” Politico reports.
“Last week, the Trump administration unveiled its plan to divert $3.6 billion in military construction funding to build the president’s border wall, a move which came after Trump declared a national emergency in February to access the funds. Among the states with projects the administration plans to raid are Colorado, Arizona, North Carolina, Texas and South Carolina — all of which have senators up for re-election in 2020.”
Axios: “Pelosi’s proposal would direct the federal government to negotiate the price of certain expensive drugs with little or no competition — and, crucially, that would also become the price in the private market, not just the Medicare drug coverage price, according to Democratic aides and lobbyists working on the issue. That’s awfully close to what Trump has endorsed before, but Democrats aren’t eager to share the issue ahead of 2020.”
“People following the legislative debate suspect that normal partisan politics will likely take control over this particular plan — ‘except if the president is for it. That will change everything,’ an industry lobbyist said.”
It’s fairly obvious the Big Pharma is out to make one more killing on drug prices before the brakes are put on the racket, that it has taken this long for the politicians to even start to do something shows the powerful grip Big Pharma has on the politicians of both parties. Carper and Coons come to mind. Like usual the politicians ignore the will of the people until it becomes obvious that we’ve reached the point of pitchforks and tar and feathers.