Post Politics Now ‘This is your victory,’ Biden celebrates Inflation Reduction Act

President Biden and first lady Jill Biden made a quick stop in Wilmington, Del., to cast a vote in the state’s midterm primaries.

Per the White House pool, the Bidens visited a polling station inside Wilmington’s Tatnall School’s Laird Performing Arts Center after a flight from Joint Base Andrews.

The last-minute trip to Delaware had not been announced until just before departure and the president had spent Tuesday participating in an event at the White House celebrating the Inflation Reduction Act.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) echoed his party’s line after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.

“Today’s decision by the Supreme Court is a long overdue constitutional correction allowing for elected officials in the states to decide issues of life,” he wrote on Twitter. “Roe was Constitutionally unsound from its inception as the flawed legal theory behind the decision gives unlimited power to five unelected Supreme Court justices.”

Republicans defended the Supreme Court’s decision by arguing that abortion could now be decided by leaders chosen by the people — state-level politicians, each making decisions about access to abortion in line with what their residents sought.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) swore in three new House members. The group included Rep.-elect Mary Peltola, the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress.

The two other new House members are New York’s Pat Ryan (D) and Joe Sempolinski (R). The two are replacing incumbents who resigned.

Peltola will finish the term of the late Rep. Don Young, a Republican who held Alaska’s sole House seat for 49 years. Peltola will be back on the ballot in November, when she will run for the chance to hold on to the seat for a full term.

Monica Lewinsky, who was the intern at the center of Bill Clinton’s biggest scandal, said Tuesday that while Ken Starr’s death sparked “complicated feelings” for her, she can imagine the pain his family is going through in the wake of his death.

Lewinsky was 25 when Starr uncovered the affair between her and President Clinton as part of the independent counsel’s probe of the president’s dealings — an investigation that ultimately led to Clinton’s impeachment. Starr’s work as an independent counsel investigating Clinton was detailed in a 475-page report that became public on Sept. 11, 1998, giving, as The Washington Post reported, “the public the sordid details one might find in a romance novel.” Its existence has haunted Lewinsky and her reputation ever since.

Kenneth Starr, the attorney who led the Whitewater investigation into the Clinton administration that began with probes into alleged improper real estate transactions but grew into wider investigations that led to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, died Sept. 13 in Houston. He was 76.

His death was a result of complications from a surgery at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center in Houston, according to his family.

In a statement, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called Starr a “brilliant litigator, an impressive leader, and a devoted patriot.”

Twitter whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko alleged during a Senate hearing Tuesday that, because of Twitter’s lack of internal controls, company engineers had wide system access that would allow them to tweet as other users — including U.S. senators.

Zatko said he was not specifically aware of this occurring, but the example underscored how he was grounding his claims in anecdotal examples that senators could find relatable. In responding to lawmakers, Zatko has sought to ground his highly technical allegations by illustrating the real-world risks and harms of the company’s alleged lack of security.

As President Biden noted lower gas prices and celebrated the Inflation Reduction Act, the stock market plunged after the latest report showed that other costs climbed unexpectedly in August.

The Dow plummeted more than 1,200 points Tuesday as Biden appeared on the South Lawn of the White House for an event celebrating the legislation that addresses health-care costs, climate change and inflation.

The Wall Street plunge came after the monthly consumer price index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that, overall, prices were up 8.3 percent in August compared to 12 months earlier, higher than analysts expected. The overall figure was lower than the inflation rate notched in July and June but still higher than expected given the drop in gasoline prices.

President Biden took a victory lap at the White House on Tuesday, calling the recent passage of one of his signature pieces of legislation an example of Democrats delivering meaningful results when Republicans failed to do so.

“Republicans choose not to join us,” Biden said at the event, describing the vote along party lines to pass the Inflation Reduction Act. “In the end, every single Republican voted against this historic law. So it fell to the Democrats to meet this moment and deliver for the American people. And that’s exactly what we did.”