NEWS AND OPINION:
Conventional thinking
And so it begins. The Republican National Committee — the RNC, of course — has revealed that the official 2024 Republican National Convention — which is of the bodacious kind staged in a presidential year — will take place July 15-18 in Milwaukee. That means the GOP has 571 days to get ready for it.
“The location is set, the dates are booked, and now the work of pulling off the biggest event in politics is underway. With partners like the RNC and the city of Milwaukee, we are confident the RNC Convention will be the gold standard for decades to come,” declared Milwaukee 2024 Host Committee Chair Reince Priebus in a written statement to Inside the Beltway.
He is a former chairman of the RNC, by the way, and served as White House chief of staff for then-President Donald Trump for seven months in 2017.
So party on, Reince.
A monument to whom?
It’s always interesting to comb through endless legislation to see what lawmakers want to spend money on. That goes for the 4,155-page, $1.7 trillion “Omnibus” spending bill, otherwise known as H.R. 2617, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023.”
One close observer has discovered on expense of note in the weighty legislation, and here it is: Taxpayers now will fund the price of raising up statues honoring the press in Washington, along with media subsidies worth over $1 billion, should the bill be passed into law in the coming days.
According to section 708 of the bill, the establishment media will be given a “‘commemorative’ location in Washington, D.C., to honor journalists,” wrote Wendell Husebo, a Breitbart.com analyst.
But wait, there’s more.
“The omnibus bill also provides taxpayer money to the establishment media. In section 407, taxpayers will give over $500 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $600 million for infrastructure within the public media system,” Mr. Husebo advised.
Looking out for Grandma
In keeping with the season, the Republican National Committee has a new and improved title for a rollicking little Christmas song titled “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” This novelty tune was released in 1979.
The GOP’s parody of the song for this day and age is called “Grandma Got Run Over by Bidenflation.”
The committee went to considerable pains to show the effects of inflation during President Biden’s era in a new report shared with Inside the Beltway.
“With inflation wreaking havoc on wallets this holiday season, shoppers are cutting back. 41% of Americans plan to spend less this year than last, marking the most cautious holiday season since 2013, according to CNBC, the committee said in its report.
“57% of Americans say it’s harder to afford presents according to a recent AP-NORC poll, up 17 percentage points from last year. Americans plan to buy an average of just nine gifts this year, compared with 16 last year. Christmas time favorite,” the report said.
“Staples like a Christmas ham (up 7.8%), pie (up 19.4%,) cookies (up 19.2%), and milk for Santa (up 14.7%) are all up,” it said, citing current data from the consumer price index.
“Bidenflation is cutting into charitable donations, with families strapped for cash unable to give back to the community. Kenneth Hodder, National Commissioner for the Salvation Army, said requests for assistance from people in need are up 25% to 50% from last year, and that he expects fewer coins and bills will be dropped into the Salvation Army’s red kettles,” the report also noted.
“Holiday work parties are looking less festive, with many companies that are facing hiring freezes or layoffs saying they simply don’t have the budget for events this year, according to The Wall Street Journal,” it said.
The big reveal
So do we need to see former President Donald Trump’s old tax returns?
“It would be good if all presidential candidates released their most recent tax returns. The power of the presidency is unequaled, and if you want to be the man with all that power, you have certain obligations to the public,” reasons National Review columnist Jim Geraghty in his own analysis of this complicated business.
“The American people have a right to know where a candidate makes their money, at least in the most recent years, as well as where they’ve invested their money and where their financial interests lie. The American people are also free to shrug and ignore this information; there’s no guarantee that all disclosed information will be deemed consequential by the public. But it is better for the people to have too much information about their leaders than too little,” Mr. Geraghty wrote.
Never a dull moment
“Russian space debris forces space station to dodge, cancels U.S. spacewalk,” reports Space.com, a news organization centered on, well, space.
The debris consisted of an 11-foot-wide hunk of an old Russian rocket; the U.S. flight team on the ground performed an emergency maneuver to move the space station out of the way.
“Never a dull day aboard the International Space Station,” said Daniel Huot, NASA spokesperson at Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, in live commentary streamed on Twitter as the situation unfolded.
Poll du jour
• 53% of registered U.S. voters disapprove of the way President Biden is handling the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: 80% of Republicans, 56% of independents and 22% of Democrats agree.
• 57% of men, 50% of women, 55% of Whites, 52% of Hispanics and 45% of Blacks also agree.
• 42% of U.S. adults overall approve of the way President Biden is handling the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: 16% of Republicans, 35% of independents and 72% of Democrats agree.
• 37% of men, 45% of women, 41% of Whites, 41% of Hispanics and 46% of Blacks also agree.
• 5% overall don’t know; 4% of Republicans, 9% of independents and 5% of Democrats agree.
• 6% of men, 5% of women, 5% of Whites, 7% of Hispanics, and 9% of Blacks also agree.
Source: A Fox News poll of 1,005 registered U.S. voters conducted Dec. 9-12.
Follow Jennifer Harper on Twitter @HarperBulletin.
