October 25, 2022

Vol. 11, No. 1841

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Musical Chairs: Britain’s Conservative Party elected former finance minister  Rishi Sunak to become the country’s next prime minister. The 42-year-old Sunak will be Britain’s third leader in seven weeks, the first prime minister of color in the country’s history, and the first Hindu.

  He said in a speech, “We now need stability and unity.”

  Sunak is the son of Indian immigrants and has a lot of experience with money — he’s believed to be one of the wealthiest people in England. As Chancellor of the Exchequer from February 2020 to this past July, Sunak poured government money into shielding  households and businesses from the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. Now with high inflation and “petrol” prices, he has to deal with the debt incurred during the pandemic.

  In the last election, Sundak had warned against the tax cut, spending, and borrowing plans proposed by his predecessor, Liz Truss, which turned out to be disastrous. Sunak will take office being able to say “I was right and you were wrong.” 

  And it turns out that former Prime Minister, Liz Truss, is no financial fool after all. Having put in just 44 days on the job, she gets a pension of the US equivalent of $129,000 a year, for life. 

Speech or Debate: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas yesterday granted a temporary stay to South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, shielding him from questioning by a special grand jury in Georgia investigating attempts to overturn former President Donald Trump’s loss of the 2020 election in the state.

  Thomas’s order was an “administrative stay” that gives the court time to weigh  Graham’s emergency application, which claims he is shielded from questioning by the Constitution’s “Speech or Debate” protection for legislators. The Republican senator has claimed that phone calls he made to Georgia officials following the election were legislative rather than an attempt to lobby about election results.

  A lower court had said that “Activities that fall outside the clause’s scope include, for example, ‘cajoling’ executive officials and delivering speeches outside of Congress.” Therefore they had said, Graham would have to answer questions regarding “communications and coordination with the Trump campaign regarding its postelection efforts in Georgia, public statements regarding the 2020 election, and efforts to ‘cajole’ or ‘exhort’ Georgia election officials.”

  Justice Thomas’s order indicates that the Supreme Court is likely to hear the case. We should note that Thomas’s right wing wife, Ginni, was involved in efforts to overturn the election and he has not recused himself from hearing related cases.

The Shooting Gallery: A teenage girl and a teacher were killed yesterday in a shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School in St. Louis.

   The shooter, identified as 19-year-old Orlando Harris, a graduate of the school, was killed in a gunfight with the police. Witnesses said they heard the shooter ask people if they were ready to die.

  In Michigan, school shooter Ethan Crumbley, who killed four students and wounded seven others last year, pleaded guilty. Now 16, Crumbley faces life in prison.

Americun Edicashun: American students in most states and in all demographic groups fell behind in both math and reading during the pandemic, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the nation’s report card, which tests a sampling of fourth and eighth graders. 

  During the pandemic, math scores for eighth graders fell in nearly every state. Only 26 percent of eighth graders were proficient, down from 34 percent in 2019. And 34 percent was nothing to brag about either.

  Just 36 percent of fourth graders were proficient in math, down from 41 percent. Only about a third of students met proficiency standards in reading. 

  Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said,  “This is a moment of truth for education. How we respond to this will determine not only our recovery, but our nation’s standing in the world.”

Debatable: Pennsylvania senate candidates John Fetterman and Dr. Mehmet Oz face off tonight for the only debate of their race. Fetterman will have to convince voters to vote for a Democrat and convince them that he’s fit to serve. In the wake of a serious stroke, he’ll need closed captioning to read the debate questions because his brain has difficulty understanding the spoken word.

  Oz, a television celebrity who established residency in the state to run for office, trails in the polls. He’s been mocking Fetterman as being unfit for office.

The Spin Rack: The Addidas sportswear company severed its relationship with rapper Kanye West, who now goes by “Ye,” because of his recent antisemitic remarks. The company joins the Gap, Balenciaga fashion, and the CAA talent agency in dumping West.  — Debating Democrat Charlie Crist last night, Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis declined to say he would serve a four-year term. He’s likely to run for president. 

Below the Fold: Donald Trump threatened to sue journalist Bob Woodward for releasing audio recordings of 20 interviews Woodward did with the former president. Although Trump knew he was being recorded, the former president  claims that he owns the recordings.

  Woodward made the recordings in 2019 and 2020 while researching his second book on Trump, Rage. The recordings are being released today as an audio book, The Trump Tapes. 

  Explaining why he’s releasing raw interviews for the first time in his career, Woodward said in a Washington Post column, “Sound has an extraordinary emotional power, an immediacy and authenticity. A listener is brought into the room. It is a completely different experience from reading Trump’s words or listening to snatches of his interviews on television or the internet. Trump’s voice magnifies his presence.”

  On Fox News, Trump called Woodward “very sleazy” and said he needs to be paid for sale of the recordings because they belong to him.

  Like his claim that he owns the documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump’s thinking is revealed in his answer to one of Woodward’s questions in which he said,  “Want to know something? Everything’s mine.”

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