District of Columbia | November 11, 2021
Stefanik-led PAC boosts GOP women candidates to help flip control of Congress in 2022
District of Columbia | November 11, 2021
House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik on Wednesday endorsed eight women running for Congress next year, the latest recruits in her effort to swell the ranks of conservative women in the House GOP.
Ms. Stefanik‘s Elevate PAC has been on a mission since 2019 to recruit and elect female candidates. She said that Republican women will be crucial to the party’s retaking the majority in the lower chamber next year.
“E-PAC’s endorsed candidates are determined to build on the historic success of last cycle, when we more than doubled the Republican women elected to Congress,” Ms. Stefanik said in a statement. “In 2020, GOP women were history makers, and in 2022, GOP women will be majority makers.”… (Excerpts from the Washington Times)
District of Columbia | November 11, 2021
Feds ponder how much to pay illegal immigrants in compensation
District of Columbia | November 11, 2021
Members of Congress who die in office customarily have a year’s salary, currently $174,000, as a payout to their survivors.
Families of U.S. service members who die on active duty get a $100,000 death gratuity.
Japanese Americans, forced out of their homes and into internment camps for more than two years during World War II, collected $20,000 payments four decades later. That’s worth about $46,000 in today’s dollars… (Excerpts from the Washington Times)
District of Columbia | November 11, 2021
Consumer prices soar, Biden doubles down on higher government spending
District of Columbia | November 11, 2021
Consumer prices hit a 31-year high in October, a worse-than-expected report on inflation that put President Biden on the defensive and spelled more trouble for his unfinished massive social spending bill.
The Consumer Price Index, which monitors the costs of goods such as gasoline and groceries, rose 6.2% in October compared with October 2020, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. That was the largest increase since December 1990 and greater than the Dow Jones estimate of 5.9%.
The worsening inflation bolstered the arguments of economists such as Democrat and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who has been saying for most of this year that more government spending and higher taxes would “further stimulate an already overheating economy.”.. (Excerpts from the Washington Times)
District of Columbia | November 10, 2021
Over 2 dozen Navy SEALs sue Biden admin. over COVID-19 vaccine mandate
District of Columbia | November 10, 2021
A group of about 35 U.S. Navy personnel, including 26 Navy SEALs, have filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration and the U.S. Department of Defense over the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The lawsuit filed on Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas names President Joe Biden, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III, the U.S. Defense Department, and Secretary of the Navy Carlos del Toro as defendants.
In addition to the 26 Navy SEALs, plaintiffs also include five U.S. Navy Special Warfare Combatant Craft Crewmen, three U.S. Navy Divers and one U.S. Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician.
The complaint argues that the Navy fails to provide an adequate exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for those with sincerely held religious objections… (Excerpts from the Christian Post)
District of Columbia | November 10, 2021
Biden admin. to rescind Trump-era religious exemptions for federal contractors
District of Columbia | November 10, 2021
The Biden administration has proposed narrowing the religious exemptions to federal discrimination law given to entities that contract with the federal government, which currently allows them to uphold religious convictions in certain hiring decisions.
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, a U.S. Department of Labor division, has proposed rescinding a federal contractor rule adopted under President Donald Trump in 2020.
In the proposed rule change, published in the Federal Register Tuesday, the OFCCP argued that the Trump administration rule was too broad compared to previous administrations and ran afoul of discrimination measures governing federal contractors…. (Excerpts from the Christian Post)
District of Columbia | November 10, 2021
Inflation has taken away all the wage gains for workers and then some
District of Columbia | November 10, 2021
Real average hourly earnings when accounting for inflation, actually decreased 0.5% for the month. A 0.9% inflation increase negated a 0.4% rise in wages.
Consumer confidence has been sliding despite the rising wages, which are up nearly 5% nominally year over year but have declined 1.2% in real terms.
The Fed finds itself under increasing pressure to adjust policy accordingly.
What looked like a big jump in workers’ wages during October turned into just another gut-punch after accounting for inflation.
The Labor Department reported Friday that average hourly earnings increased 0.4% in October, about in line with estimates. That was the good news.
However, the department reported Wednesday that top-line inflation for the month increased 0.9%, far more than what had been expected. That was the bad news – very bad news, in fact.
That’s because it meant that all told, real average hourly earnings when accounting for inflation, actually decreased 0.5% for the month. So an apparent solid paycheck increase actually turned into a decrease, and another setback for workers still struggling to shake off the effects of the Covid pandemic.“For now, inflation is going to continue to run above very solid wage growth,” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief economist for the Americas at Natixis and former chief economist for the National Economic Council during the Trump administration. “This is why when you look at consumer confidence, it’s really taking a beating. Households do not like the inflation story, and rightly so.”… (Excerpts from CNBC)