Econ 101: The financial markets took a dive yesterday on the news that inflation was higher in August than had been expected. The S&P 500 slumped 4.3 percent for the day and the Dow was down 3.9 percent, more than 1200 points. Bond yields rose, a normal reverse reaction to lower stock prices.

  Although gasoline prices have fallen for 91 straight days … a critical thing … inflation came in at 8.3 percent. It was 6.3 percent minus food and energy, but everyone needs food and energy.

   Groceries are up 13 percent in the past year; eggs up 39.8 percent, flour, 23.3 percent, milk, 17 percent, and bread, 16.2 percent.

  Running up to the midterms, President Biden is still trying to sell the notion that things aren’t so bad. “Overall,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House, “prices have been essentially flat in our country these last two months: that is welcome news for American families, with more work still to do.”

  Posing as a new threat to the economy is a threatened strike by 60,000 railroad workers that would begin Friday, crippling shipping. 

Abortion Beat: The West Virginia legislature passed a law to stop nearly all abortions, making it the second state to pass a new ban since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in June. It will take effect in 90 days.

  Also yesterday, South Carolina’s Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham pitched a federal law that would ban abortion after 15 weeks. The law, if passed, would override the law in states where there is no ban or time limit on abortion.

  Graham’s bill does make exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother.

  Coming at a time when voter registrations are up in some states and support for the Republican party is down since the Supreme Court overturned the precedent that made abortion legal nationwide, some Republicans are annoyed with Graham for introducing this bill less than two months before the mid-term elections.

  Politico quotes West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Caputo saying, “I don’t think there’s much of an appetite to go that direction.”

The Intel: Russia has funneled at least $300 million to foreign political parties and candidates in more than two dozen countries since 2014 attempting to influence political events in its favor, according to a new US intelligence review revealed yesterday to the press. 

  Russia also planned to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more in a covert campaign to weaken democratic governments and align global politics  with the Kremlin’s interests, according to the review commissioned this summer by the Biden administration. 

  The Washington Post quotes a senior US official speaking on the condition of anonymity saying that, “By shining this light on Russian covert political financing and Russian attempts to undermine democratic processes, we’re putting these foreign parties and candidates on notice that if they accept Russian money secretly we can and we will expose it.”

  Countries mentioned by the briefers are Albania, Montenegro, Madagascar and, possibly, Ecuador. 

The War Zone: It’s too early to know whether Vladmir Putin can hold power as his military retreats in Ukraine, but nearly 50 municipal deputies around the country have called for his resignation.

  A petition signed by 47 officials says, “We, the municipal deputies of Russia, believe that the actions of its president Vladimir Putin are detrimental to Russia’s and its citizens’ future. We demand Vladimir Putin’s resignation from the post of the President of the Russian Federation.”

  It’s risky to speak up. Deputies in the Smolninskoye municipality of St. Petersburg already face charges of “discrediting” the Russian army after calling for Putin to be charged with treason.

  On the battle front, news reports show that Russian troops in the east retreated so quickly they left behind piles of ammunition stocks, abandoning vehicles, artillery, and tanks. Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelensky yesterday visited the re-taken city of Izyum. He said, “Our blue-and-yellow flag is already flying in de-occupied Izyum. And it will be so in every Ukrainian city and village.”  

The Obit Page: Ken Starr, the independent counsel whose investigation into President Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky resulted in Clinton’s impeachment for lying under oath and obstructing justice, died yesterday in a Houston hospital. He was 76. The cause was not disclosed.

  The conservative lawyer, as well as Miss Lewinsky, were for a time household names in the tawdry scandal that smeared the presidency. 

  Starr made a comeback on the national stage in 2020, representing President Donald Trump in his first Senate trial impeachment trial. Starr denounced what he called “the Age of Impeachment” as part of the deep partisan divide in Congress. 

The Spin Rack: Federal investigators are on the scene where a package exploded, injuring an employee of Northeastern University in Boston. — The first recorded death of Monkeypox in the US occurred in Los Angeles. There have been 22,000 cases since the first in the US was diagnosed in Boston on May 19^th. —  An FBI agent testified tearfully yesterday about what he saw inside the Sandy Hook school after the 2012 massacre in the second civil lawsuit against conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones. William Aldenberg is suing along with eight families because Jones repeatedly claimed that the massacre was a hoax carried out by crisis actors. — A woman whose DNA from a rape kit was later used to charge her with retail theft is suing the San Francisco police, claiming invasion of privacy. The cops were putting the DNA of victims into a database to then help them identify those same women as criminal offenders. — The NBA issued a one year suspension to Robert Sarver, the majority owner of the Phoenix Suns, and fined him $10 million for using racial slurs, shouting at employees, and poorly treating women employees.  Sarver also owns the Phoenix Mercury  of  the WNBA.

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