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1 Interest Rates Stay The Same For Another Month
Despite hopes that things might change this month, yesterday’s announcement from the Federal Reserve wasn’t a surprise. In a press conference yesterday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that inflation had cooled quite a bit over the last two years, but the current rate of 2.7-percent was still well above the Fed’s target of 2-percent. As a result, Powell announced that the baseline interest rates would stay unchanged this month, remaining at a 23-year high. In a statement released by the Fed yesterday, economic activity in the US “has continued to expand at a solid pace” while the increase in jobs has “remained strong, and the unemployment rate has remained low.” The agency had previously predicted several rate cuts this year, but the Fed now projects a single rate cut this year, with no predictions for when that might happen. On a monthly basis, inflation didn’t rise at all for the first time since July 2022.
2 House Republicans Vote To Hold AG Garland In Contempt Of Congress
After over six hours of discussion, the House of Representatives voted yesterday to pass a resolution to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress. The resolution was based on the fact that Garland refused to turn over the audio recordings made by special counsel Robert Hur when he interviewed President Joe Biden on his handling of classified documents. House Speaker Mike Johnson says Congress needs the recordings to verify the accuracy of the written transcripts “given this White House has been known to heavily edit the President’s statements.” President Biden claimed executive privilege over the recordings, but not the transcripts. Democratic members of the House unsurprisingly said the resolution was politically motivated, and the sharp divide on the issue showed in the final vote. Only one Republican, Rep. David Joyce of Ohio, voted against the resolution, while all Democrats voted against it. The final tally was 216 to 207 on the resolution.
3 White House Declines To Rule Out Commutation For President's Son
President Joe Biden previously said he wouldn’t pardon his son Hunter if the jury convicted him of three federal gun charges, but that’s only one option available to the president. A reporter asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre yesterday on Air Force One yesterday if the president would consider a commutation of Hunter’s eventual sentence, and Jean-Pierre avoided comment on the idea. She referred back to the president’s former comments about not pardoning Hunter, saying “He was asked about a pardon, he was asked about the trial specifically and he answered it very clearly.” When asked again, Jean-Pierre said, “You have his words…I just don’t have anything beyond that.” A commutation is an executive lowering of the sentence or punishment for someone convicted of a crime.