Nobody tells you how expensive breaking up is. (Or maybe they did and I didn’t want to hear it.) Overnight, your expenses soar, your safety net vanishes, your financial goals shift from long-term dreams into short-term survival. You might need to pack up and move unexpectedly, purchase furniture you didn’t budget for. Your dollars went […]
Nobody tells you how expensive breaking up is. (Or maybe they did and I didn’t want to hear it.) Overnight, your expenses soar, your safety net vanishes, your financial goals shift from long-term dreams into short-term survival. You might need to pack up and move unexpectedly, purchase furniture you didn’t budget for. Your dollars went […]
The latest economic figures for President Donald Trump's economy raised all sorts of red flags for one analyst on Thursday. The Department of Labor reported that just 57,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy over the last three months, which is far below the 129,000 jobs that were cited in the last report. The unemployment rate also dropped to 4.2%, which is often a sign of a healthy economy, but the numbers were not comforting to David Goldman, CNN's senior business reporter. Goldman reacted to the numbers on "CNN News Central" on Thursday. He noted that the data suggest certain sectors of the economy, such as health care and hospitality, are struggling to hire workers. For instance, he noted that just 22,000 nursing jobs had been added over the last year, far below the 38,000 added at this time last year. "That is something that we need to watch," Goldman said. He also noted that the figures showed a significant decline in hospitality hiring, which seemed hard to believe because multiple cities are hosting World Cup games. "I think, and there are a number of economists who are smarter than me who think, that this might change as we get those revisions in the future months, because this is kind of defying logic and defining what we can see with our own eyes," Goldman said.
"This is Citizens United 2.0," Representative Greg Casar said Tuesday about the Supreme Court's ruling allowing political party campaign committees to coordinate directly with campaigns without a cap on spending. Republicans praised the decision, while Democrats issued dire warnings about the fate of democracy.
“This is Citizens United 2.0,” Representative Greg Casar said Tuesday about the Supreme Court’s ruling allowing political party campaign committees to coordinate directly with campaigns without a cap on spending. Republicans praised the decision, while Democrats issued dire warnings about the fate of democracy.But behind the partisan divide, there’s an interesting disagreement about what, exactly, the ruling will do: Some analysts say this decision could weaken the power PACs have over elections, making political parties the dominant spending force. Unfortunately for Democrats, though, the decision will probably heighten a fundraising advantage Republicans already have this year. Then-Senator JD Vance, then-Representative Steve Chabot, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, or NRSC, and the National Republican Congressional Committee, or NRCC, first brought National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission to federal court in 2022. They argued that the court should overrule its 2001 decision restricting the amount of money political parties can spend in coordination with candidates—particularly via committees like the Democratic National Committee, Republican National Committee, or House and Senate campaign committees. The petitioners argued that these limits violated the First Amendment.Due to Tuesday’s ruling in favor of Vance and his associates, political parties can now both coordinate with candidates and raise unlimited funds—giving them an advantage over PACs, which can raise unlimited funds but cannot coordinate directly with candidates.Super PACs have become a dominant force in campaign spending since 2010, when the Supreme Court struck down caps on independent spending by corporations in Citizens United. That decision gave corporations immense power to influence elections, but with the important caveat that super PACs aren’t able to coordinate with campaigns. (Campaigns have found creative ways to get around this, namely by putting “red boxes” on their websites that instruct PACs how to spend their money without directly communicating with them.) Super PACs will remain important forces in elections. But after Tuesday’s decision, political parties may once again have an advantage over super PACs.Democrats are concerned about both the short- and long-term impacts of the decision. In the short term, they say, this could deal a blow to vulnerable House and Senate candidates, since the RNC has a major fundraising advantage over the DNC. At the end of May, the RNC reported its highest-ever cash-on-hand total, $125 million. In comparison, the DNC had just $14.4 million on hand and was $18 million in debt.On the Senate side, candidates in competitive races like Mary Peltola in Alaska and Sherrod Brown in Ohio may face better-funded opponents this fall. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “frontline” candidates, incumbents running in swing districts, could face a similar challenge from their Republican opponents. The ruling could throw a wrench into the Democratic Party’s confidence that they will be able to retake the House, and perhaps the Senate, this fall.In a statement, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, or DSCC, Chair Kirsten Gillibrand, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC, Chair Suzan DelBene, and DNC Chair Ken Martin downplayed the threat to Democratic candidates. “In November, voters will reject Republicans’ toxic agenda and efforts to rig the system and weaken our democracy by electing a Democratic House and Senate majority,” they wrote.In the long term, Democrats say the ruling will make elections more corrupt and flooded with dark money. Casar called the decision an example of the “hyperpartisan donor-purchased Supreme Court” reversing one of the landmark campaign finance wins of the post-Watergate era. “It’s essentially legalizing corruption in our political system,” he said.Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, had a similar view. “Republicans would get laughed out of Congress if they tried to repeal the few remaining guardrails against dark money and special interest influence,” he wrote in a statement. “So instead, Republicans run to their captured Supreme Court to do the democracy-damaging work for them.”
Right-wing pundit Tucker Carlson said he plans to build a new party after leaving the Republican Party last month. “I’m going to help build a third party,” Carlson told the Columbia Journalism Review in an interview published Wednesday. “There should be a good-faith effort to figure out what benefits the country.” Much of his frustration […]
For decades, Americans have been told that political speech becomes dangerous when too many people hear it or when the wrong people can afford to amplify it. We have been asked to accept the strange premise that the government protects democracy by limiting how citizens, candidates, and political parties communicate with one another. That idea […]
Republicans scored a victory Tuesday at the Supreme Court, and Vice President J.D.
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