Comment on SPIN METER: 'Middle class' turns fuzzy in politics

Seth Masket picks the biggest political story of the year: “Democrats: In the seven weeks between the Trump/Biden presidential debate and the Democratic National Convention, the Democrats pushed their scandal-free, well-accomplished incumbent president off the ticket because they thought he would lose. That’s an amount of party power we don’t often see in the U.

“Right up until he was assassinated, Hassan Nasrallah did not believe that Israel would kill him,” the New York Times reports. “As he hunkered inside a Hezbollah fortress 40 feet underground on Sept. 27, his aides urged him to go to a safer location. Mr. Nasrallah brushed it off, according to intelligence collected by Israel and shared later with Western allies.

Mexico is launching a smartphone app that allows Mexican migrants to warn relatives and instantly alert the nearest consulate if U. S. immigration agents detain them, Axios reports.

Britain’s ruling Labour Party would lose nearly 200 seats if elections were held today as the populist Reform UK Party surges, according to a Sunday Times poll.

Paul Krugman: “Like many observers, I expected severe buyers’ regret fairly early in the second Trump administration. After all, many Americans who voted for Trump did so because they believed he would bring down grocery prices. He was never going to be able to deliver on that promise and stopped talking about the subject as soon as the election was over; sooner or later, voters were going to notice.” “I did not, however, expect a MAGA civil war weeks before Trump had even taken office.

“Wall Street is optimistic that a buoyant stock market, declining interest rates and Donald Trump’s lighter-regulation agenda will prompt a dealmaking rebound in 2025. But jitters remain thanks to the president-elect’s unpredictability,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “Deal volume has been muted for the past few years following record volumes coming out of the pandemic.