NEWS AND OPINION:
Here we go. The countdown is on for the 2024 presidential election. Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has the first bit of significant news for the GOP when it comes to the big event.
She revealed Wednesday that Fox News will host the first Republican presidential primary debate. It is scheduled for August in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, though the exact date was not specified.
It could be a very crowded affair. Some 19 potential or declared GOP candidates may be running, according to a Fox News on-screen graphic.
The event will be live-streamed on Rumble, and the GOP also will partner with Young America’s Foundation for the event — in an effort to reach out to young voters, Mrs. McDaniel said.
INFLATION NATION
Things are still fragile for Americans’ pocketbooks. The aforementioned Republican National Committee continues to track this unsettling phenomenon with great zeal.
“March’s Consumer Price Index soared by 5% compared to last year, remaining excessively high and well above the Federal Reserve’s average target of 2%. Core consumer prices — excluding food and energy — rose 5.6% compared to last year,” the committee said in a terse but effective written analysis released Wednesday.
“Real average hourly earnings fell 0.7% since last year, marking the 24th month in a row under President Biden in which inflation has outpaced wages. Real wages have fallen every month since President Biden and Democrats passed their wasteful $1.9 trillion ‘stimulus,’” the GOP analysis said.
The news media was on the case as well, complete with fancy graphics and speculation. A few headlines of note from the last 24 hours:
“Inflation, recession and the Fed” (Forbes); “The White House is welcoming the latest inflation numbers, others aren’t so sure” (Politico); “Fears of recession this year from banking crisis, concern inflation remains too high” (U.S. News & World Report); “Stocks erase earlier gains as recession concerns weigh on traders” (CNBC); “Falling inflation may be too late for retirees. Here’s where it’s still hitting hardest” (Barron’s); and “Not enough: Low-wage workers continue to grapple with inflation” (CNN).
A VISIT TO THE MALL
Bill King — author of the 2018 book “Unapologetically Moderate: My Search for the Rational Center in American Politics” — recently paid a visit to the National Mall in Washington.
Here’s what he encountered.
“We saw Americans being unfailingly kind to each other. Laughing, smiling, sharing where they were from, what they had seen, what they planned to see. We saw them volunteering to take families’ pictures for each other so entire families could be included in the shot,” he wrote in an essay for RealClearPolitics.com.
“We saw people stopping military personnel and thanking them for their service. We saw Americans standing at the Vietnam War memorial with tears streaming down their faces. We saw tourists at Arlington stopping and removing their hats or saluting as our funerary procession passed. We saw people poring over the words of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, many I suspect for the first time reading the greatest speech ever written in the English language,” Mr. King continued.
“What we did not see was the toxic polarization that the media constantly tells us is the state of the country. We saw almost no hats or T-shirts with political slogans. There were no protests. There was no one arguing or yelling at each other. All we saw were thousands of our fellow Americans basking in the pride of their remarkable country and its history,” he said.
THE JUDGE FACTOR
President Biden has kept a close eye on the nation’s judges.
The U.S. Senate has confirmed 119 of Mr. Biden’s judicial nominees — the most in the same period since former President Bill Clinton was in the White House, according to a count by Ballotpedia, an online political resource.
“As of April 5, roughly 800 days into his first term, President Biden has nominated 158 individuals to federal judgeships on Article III courts,” the analysis said.
“Article III judgeships are those on the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of International Trade, the 13 U.S. courts of appeal, and the 94 U.S. district courts. The president makes these lifetime appointments with U.S. Senate confirmation,” Ballotpedia analysis noted.
“Biden’s 119 Article III appointments are the second-most among any president at this point in their presidency since [Ronald] Reagan. By April 1 of the third year in their term, only President Bill Clinton had made more appointments at 137,” it said.
NASA SEEKS ENTREPRENEURS
The nation’s space agency is seeking visionary entrepreneurs. No, really. Know any? If so, pass this on.
“At NASA, there is no ambiguity in our mission: we reach for new heights and reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind. Doing so, however, doesn’t just require groundbreaking technologies, it requires visionary people — people who are unwilling to quit despite the most difficult of circumstances,” the agency said in a public notice released Tuesday.
The 2023 NASA Entrepreneurs Challenge is now underway, open to U.S. citizens over age 18 and organizations incorporated and maintaining a primary place of business in the U.S.
“NASA’s Science Mission Directorate will award up to $1,000,000 in total prizes to participants who can successfully contribute ideas that advance the state-of-the-art in two, broadly-defined areas for 2023: Lunar Payloads and Climate Science,” the notice advised.
Find the details at NASAentrepreneurchallenge.org — which includes some important deadline dates for those who want to pitch their ideas to NASA.
POLL DU JOUR
• 83% of U.S. adults say they won’t buy an electric vehicle because the cost of a new one is too high.
• 77% won’t buy an electric vehicle because there are “too few charging stations.”
• 71% won’t buy an electric vehicle because battery technology “isn’t ready yet.”
• 67% won’t buy one because they “prefer a gas engine vehicle.’
• 60% won’t buy the vehicle because “it takes too long to charge.”
SOURCE: An Associated Press/NORC Center/Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago poll of 5,408 U.S. adults conducted Jan. 31-Feb. 15 and released Tuesday.
• Follow Jennifer Harper on Twitter @HarperBulletin.
• Jennifer Harper can be reached at jharper@washingtontimes.com.