The Morning Dispatch: Not With a Bang but With a Whimper

Plus, How to think about the latest GDP numbers.

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Happy Friday! With Sen. Lamar Alexander announcing he’s a “no” on additional impeachment trial witnesses, this whole thing could very well be wrapped up by the next time we’re in your inbox. What a journey we’ve been on together—didn’t we tell you we knew how it would end?

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • The White House created a new task force, headed by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, to deal with the coronavirus outbreak, just as the Centers for Disease Control confirmed the first human-to-human transmission of the virus within the United States. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global public health emergency, and the State Department issued a travel advisory, warning Americans to steer clear of China due to the virus.

  • Full-year gross domestic product (GDP) growth for 2019 came in at 2.3 percent, according to the Department of Commerce, compared to 2.9 percent in 2018.

  • The rate of fatal drug overdoses in the United States declined in 2018 for the first time in nearly 30 years.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Kevin Durant?

    “The Trump administration unveiled a new plan that would curb Medicaid spending by allowing states to convert portions of funding for the program into block grants.”

    ——————————————-

    The embedded link was to a Politico article that had a fairly egregious example of gross media malfeasance in the second sentence

    “The plan is the administration’s boldest step yet to curb Medicaid spending and shrink the program covering about 1 in 5 low-income Americans.”

    “...covering about 1 in 5 low-income Americans” is worded that way INTENTIONALLY to make it seem like Medicaid is a nice little program that covers 20% of poor people who need help

    WRONG

    Medicaid covers 1 in 5 Americans, period end of sentence. It covers 74 million Americans. Also, that coverage is UNLIMITED which requires states to spend and unlimited amount on their portion of the coverage, hence this plan

    LIE —->”But we need Medicare For All because poor people are currently uninsured/denied access”<——LIE

    PS This is not a criticism of The Dispatch for including the link. It is a warning to readers of the treachery and evil that lurks outside the friendly confines of The Dispatch 😃😃😃

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  2. Avatar photo
    Jesse R.

    Hmm... seems like Benicio del Toro is not the ideal pick to portray David. I think Bill Hader with some makeup or Stanley Tucci would have been better casting decisions. On the other hand, if there's a segment covering the French-Ahmari debate, then I think Del Toro could have a role to play! And if we de-age Bill Murray he can portray Ross Douthat. I am down for this true story!

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  3. Avatar photo
    Steven Spelledright

    Interesting interview with James Pethokoukis. He suggests that "America has an economy that should grow about 2 percent" each year, and points to data since the end of the Great Recession in 2009. But well before Trump entered the 2016 presidential race, I thought the view of most right-of-center economists and politicians was that America experienced anemic GDP growth during the Obama years. Would the economy still be growing at about 2 percent under, say, a President Cruz or Rubio?

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  4. Avatar photo
    John D. Wright

    chef's kiss is all that came to mind when I first saw it.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Andrew

      Me too. Then I remembered the scene in Reservoir Dogs with Mr. Pink playing the “world’s smallest violin.”

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