* America’s employers added 467.000 jobs in January, a number that was surprising in the context of an omicron wave and underscored the economy’s resilience.
* “Biden should use his informal powers aggressively. … As president of the United States, Biden is a mega-celebrity who controls the biggest, most prestigious microphone in the world.”–Perry Bacon, Washington Post.
* Call it irrational exuberance. Also call it another unforced error. For a while, at least to a number of activist Democrats, having attorney Michael Avenatti taking on Donald Trump by representing Stormy Daniels seemed like a welcome, appropriately pragmatic, bare-knuckle, political response. Only problem, if you bring in a sleazy punk to combat the nastiness on the other side, you will pay a price. You can be tarred by the association and appeals to our better angels can be devilishly compromised.
Avenatti has been convicted of cheating porn actress Daniels out of some $300,000 she was supposed to get for writing an expose of a Trump tryst. Previously, he was convicted of trying to extort up to $25 million from Nike.
In short, Dems don’t need devious, self-serving, hard-ball hucksters on their side of the cause, even if they’re going after Trump and his low-life cult followers. BTW, Avenatti acted as his own attorney in the Daniels’ case, which means he had a fool for a client. Prior to that, he had some well-intentioned fools applauding his high-profile, snarky, cable news antagonism of Trump.
* State of the Union speech: March 1.