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President Joe Biden has weighed in on the Department of Labor report out Friday that shows the consumer price index, which measures the prices consumers pay for a market basket of everyday goods and services, climbed at its fastest rate in nearly 40 years. "It matters to people when you're paying more for gas, although in some states we've got the price down below three bucks a gallon. But the point is, it's not gone down quickly enough, but I think it will," Biden said at the end of his remarks closing out the Summit for Democracy on Friday.

There is a school of thought that holds that if Donald Trump sweeps back into power in 2024, or else loses narrowly but then plunges the United States into the kind of constitutional crisis he sought in 2020, the officially nonpartisan news media will have been an accessory to Trumpism. It will have failed to adequately emphasize Trump’s threat to American democracy, chosen a disastrous evenhandedness over moral clarity and covered President Biden (or perhaps Vice President Kamala Harris) like a normal politician instead of the republic’s last best hope.

Democrats are rushing to pass President Biden’s $1.9 trillion reconciliation package before the upcoming campaign year of the 2022 midterms. With the midterm elections less than a year away, campaigns are stepping into full swing. Democrat candidates are positioned to win primaries with hopes of defeating well-positioned Republicans in the general election.

The Biden administration is sending 44 medical personnel from the U.S. military to support two hospital systems in the state of Michigan, state officials said Wednesday.The U.S. Department of Defense will send two medical teams, each comprising 22 doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists, who are expected to arrive next week, according to a Michigan Department of Health and Human Services news release.The teams will assist health care workers at Beaumont Hospital in Dearborn and Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids in dealing with the growing number of COVID-19 cases in the state, as hospitals across Michigan suffer from a lack of...

Vice President Kamala Harris and former first lady Michelle Obama are leading contenders for the Democratic Party's 2024 presidential nomination if President Joe Biden chooses not to run again, according to a new poll. A Hill-HarrisX poll conducted from November 18 to 19 showed Harris and Obama ahead of other possible candidates, including Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation is soaring, businesses are struggling to hire and President Joe Biden’s poll numbers have been in free-fall. The White House sees a common culprit for it all: COVID-19. Biden’s team views the pandemic as the root cause of both the nation’s malaise and his own political woes. Finally controlling COVID-19, the White House believes, is the skeleton key to rejuvenating the country and reviving Biden’s own standing. But the coronavirus challenge has proved to be vexing for the White House, with last summer’s premature claims of victory swamped by the more transmissible delta variant, stubborn millions...

The Job Creators Network (JCN), a business advocacy group, has filed a notice with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals—which is hearing all legal challenges to President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine requirement—and sent a letter to the president saying the group expects the White House to comply with a court decision to freeze the mandate. “We expect the White House to respect and listen to the judiciary rather than barnstorming ahead and bullying businesses to comply with this rule whose legal fate is in serious jeopardy,” JCN wrote in the Nov. 19 letter to Biden (pdf). “We expect the White...

Fox News reported, “The Biden administration is reportedly weighing the potential market consequences of shutting down an oil pipeline in Michigan. …” The pipeline, known as Line 5, is 30 inches in diameter and travels from Superior, Wisconsin, through both the Upper and Lower Peninsula of Michigan before ending in Sarnia, Ontario. According to Enbridge, which owns Line 5, closing the 645 mile-long pipeline would mean that Michigan would lose access to 756,000 gallons of propane a day, or 55% of the amount the company supplies to the state. Michigan's residential propane consumption is the nation's highest. About 315,000 homes...

The White House deployed Susan Rice to Capitol Hill late Thursday evening to help push President Joe Biden’s agenda through Congress. Rice, who previously served former President Barack Obama as a national security advisor, now works for Biden as the director of the White House domestic policy council. Rice joined Counselor to the President Steve Ricchetti, White House Legislative Affairs Director Louisa Terrell, and National Economic Council Director Brian Deese for meetings with Sen. Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) as Biden tries to push $5 trillion in proposed domestic spending through Congress. On Thursday, Manchin voiced his...

Pelosi called on Congress to “keep government open” and work to “address the full Obama agenda ....of building back better.”

Former President Donald Trump blasted the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan and speculated that China and Russia could already be reverse-engineering U.S. military equipment left behind. Speaking with host Sharyl Attkisson during an interview that aired Sunday on "Full Measure," Trump excoriated the withdrawal as "incompetent" and warned it will likely endanger the United States and benefit its enemies. Trump also expressed doubt regarding whether the war in Afghanistan is over, noting how many unvetted Afghan refugees are being resettled in the United States and around the world. "I don't know because you have people going all over the world...

With a prediction for very stormy weather ahead for the nation he loves, meteorologist Karl Bohnak signed off last week after being fired for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine. Bohnak had served as the weatherman at Michigan’s WLUC-TV for 33 years, according to The Washington Post. Gray Television, WLUC’s parent company, instituted a vaccine-or-else policy that went into effect on Wednesday. “I am sad, but, to borrow a quote from a famous ballplayer, ‘I’m the luckiest man on the face of the earth’ because I had a dream as a kid to be a weatherman. “That dream came true...

President Joe Biden marked the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by criticizing Americans for the anti-Muslim anger that occurred in the United States after the attacks took place. “We also witnessed the dark forces of human nature. Fear and anger. Resentment and violence against Muslim-Americans — true and faithful followers of a peaceful religion,” Biden said in a prerecorded video published for the occasion.

he U.S. oil market is tightening as commercial crude inventories are declining at a fast clip and driving wider time spreads in the WTI Crude futures curve. The curve is strengthening into backwardation, the state of the market signaling tighter supplies with the prices of the nearer futures contracts higher than those further out in time. The premium of the nearest contract to those for later delivery has been widening in recent days, suggesting that immediate supply is tightening. The spread between the cash WTI and the November contract, for example, was $3.40 early on Friday. This is the widest...

Critics slammed The New York Times on Sunday for an article that suggested the American flag has become a symbol of divisiveness. The New York Times published an article on Saturday titled: 'A Fourth of July Symbol of Unity That May No Longer Unite.' In the article, Pulitzer Prize finalist Sarah Maslin Nir examined how the American flag 'once a unifying symbol' has become a divisive symbol in the United States along political party lines.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki Monday defended U.S. track and field star Gwen Berry's decision to turn her back on the nation's flag, saying Berry was seeking to "peacefully protest" the moments that Americans "haven’t lived up to our highest ideals." Berry, 31, placed third over the weekend in the hammer throw during the U.S. Olympic trials, earning her a spot on the team. As the National Anthem was played, she turned from the flag. "This weekend, Gwen Barry, who hopes to represent the United States as an Olympian on the hammer throwing events, won a bronze medal at...

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday defended the “peaceful protest” of Olympic hammer thrower Gwen Berry, who on Saturday turned away from the US flag while the national anthem played and covered her head with her T-shirt that read, “Activist Athlete.” Berry said she was “pissed” to hear “The Star-Spangled Banner” after winning a bronze medal at the US Olympic Track & Field Team Trials. “I haven’t spoken to the president specifically about this, but I know he’s incredibly proud to be an American and has great respect for the anthem and all that it represents, especially for...

Speaking from the East Room of the White House Wednesday afternoon, President Joe Biden re-introduced his extreme gun control agenda, advocating for a ban on modern sporting rifles and reminding lawful gun owners that the federal government has nuclear weapons. "Those who say the blood of Patriots, you know, and all the stuff about how we’re gonna have to move against the government," Biden said. "If you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons."

Former President Obama said Monday that Congress needs to pass voting rights legislation before the 2022 midterm elections, or American democracy could be at risk. "We can't wait until the next election because if we have the same kinds of shenanigans that brought about Jan. 6, if we have that for a couple more election cycles, we're going to have real problems in terms of our democracy long-term," said Obama. Speaking on a call with grassroots supporters alongside former Attorney General Eric Holder, Obama said debate over the voting rights bill, known as the For the People Act, was worth...

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised the outcome of his summit with U.S. President Joe Biden and called him an astute and shrewd negotiator. The two leaders concluded three hours of talks Wednesday at an opulent villa facing Lake Geneva by exchanging expressions of mutual respect but firmly restating their starkly different views on cyberattacks, the conflict in Ukraine, political dissent and other issues. At the same time, they announced an agreement to return each other’s ambassadors and mapped more talks on arms control and cybersecurity. Putin, who hailed Biden as a highly experienced and constructive...