In the 2020 presidential election cycle, more than $14bn went to federal candidates, party committees, and Super Pacs – double the $7bn doled out in the 2016 cycle. Total giving in 2024 is bound to be much higher.

That money is not supporting US democracy. If anything, that money is contributing to rising Trumpism and neofascism.

Monday’s oral argument in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on the validity of Judge Tanya Chutkan’s limited ban of defendant Donald Trump’s pretrial free speech rights underscores the uniquely problematic nature of the most important criminal prosecution in the nation’s history.

While Chutkan’s pretrial gag order was narrowly drawn to preclude only gangsterlike attacks on prosecutors, court staff, and trial witnesses—a much narrower ban than the government had sought—the former president’s lawyers argued that absent their client’s remarks having crossed any criminal lines, the First Amendment precludes imposition of the gag order. After a notably long 2½-hour debate about where such lines can and should be drawn, and the level of threat to witnesses that must be established before a gag order can be issued, the court adjourned to consider the matter.

"A fiscal commission is direly needed," Republican Senator Mike Braun, a Budget Committee member, said in an interview.

Braun said deficits and debt could become an important issue in the 2024 elections, especially as "the heavy weight of paying interest will start crowding out all the other things," referring to the cost of federal programs ranging from defense to homeland security.

Somehow he fails to mention how this ballooning debt was precipitated by the tax cuts he and his ilk passed under Trump, followed by the constant threat of shutdown and defaulting on debts by his party.

Expect nothing but nonsense from Republican leadership on this issue.

Federal Reserve officials concluded earlier this month that inflation was steadily falling and agreed to closely monitor incoming data to ensure that the pace of price increases would continue slowing toward their 2% target, according to the minutes of their meeting released Tuesday.

As a result, the policymakers decided to leave their key benchmark rate unchanged but to keep it elevated for an extended period. Speaking at a news conference after the meeting, Fed Chair Jerome Powell kept the door open for another rate hike, though most economists say they think the central bank is done raising rates.

Mailed ballots that arrive on time but in envelopes without dates handwritten by Pennsylvania voters should be counted, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in a case that's likely to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter is expected to be appealed to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals before it ultimately reaches the high court, whose final word on what are often referred to as "undated ballots" may help determine the outcome of the 2024 presidential race and other key upcoming elections in the swing state.

Gordon said there's also a ton of uncertainty surrounding the Social Security program itself. Because of this, there will likely be reduced benefits in the future to keep the program solvent.

Couples who wait until the higher earning spouses max their benefits at age 70 face additional issues.

I can't help but note that Newsweek didn't even attempt to discuss the prospect of increasing payments to Social Security from upper income earners or requiring Congress to payback the "loans" they took from it to pay for military expenditures.

Members of the United Auto Workers have overwhelmingly approved a contract that will deliver higher wages, assure them of a role in the EV transition, and possibly lead toward greater unionization of the auto sector. With all of the benefits the pact provides, tens of thousands of people will immediately see their pay rise more than 40 percent, the union said.

The union’s ratification of the pact, by a margin of 64 percent, with Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis followed a two-month strike. Though the electric vehicle transition was never an explicit part of bargaining, it ran as a simultaneously tense and hopeful undercurrent through the walkouts, pickets, and negotiations. This contract, analysts say, will allow the union’s 150,000 members to maintain their quality of life as the nation decarbonizes the transportation sector.

For decades, regulators have tried to clamp down on front-running, the term for when investment professionals make personal purchases or sales of securities when they know that their employers or clients are about to buy or sell the same securities. But a massive assemblage of confidential stock trading data obtained by ProPublica reveals that the practice may be continuing on a notable scale.

How the economy is doing has always been a contentious topic, particularly when friends and family with different politics gather for Thanksgiving dinner. And the question has gotten even thornier this year, with consumer sentiment and polling data about the economy becoming historically de-linked from official measures of economic health like GDP. It’s not our job to tell people how they should feel about the economy, but we can at least add some facts as context to common complaints.

Americans who want to get free COVID-19 tests mailed to them by the federal government are once again able to request them as of Monday, after the White House restocked the program for the holiday travel season and an expected seasonal rise in coronavirus cases.

At covidtests.gov, each residential household can order four free rapid antigen COVID tests, which will begin shipping on November 27. Those who did not order tests during the last round in September are allowed to order a total of eight tests.

Latino voters appear to be evenly divided between Trump and Biden, including in battleground states. And with the economy and the war in Israel, immigration policy might not rank as the top-of-mind issue for most voters. But it has the potential to draw a striking contrast between the two candidates. Biden came into power vowing to roll back many of Trump’s worst policies and restore humanity to a broken immigration system. While he has delivered on some campaign promises—rescinding the Remain in Mexico program, launching efforts to reunite families separated under Trump, and expanding the use of temporary humanitarian protections for migrants from several nationalities—his administration has also come under fire from advocates for turning to restrictive asylum measures and even Trump-like policies to appease criticism from Republicans of “open borders.”