President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 Saturday just days after testing negative for the contagion.

From Fox News:

President Biden tested positive for COVID-19 in a “rebound” case on Saturday, according to the White House.

“As described last week, acknowledging the potential for so-called ‘rebound’ COVID positivity observed in a small percentage of patients treated with PAXLOVID the President increased his testing cadence, both to protect people around him and to assure early detection of any return of viral replication,” White House Doctor Dr. Kevin O’Connor said.

O’Connor said in the letter that Biden tested negative for COVID-19 on Tuesday evening, Wednesday morning, Thursday morning, and Friday morning, but tested positive on Saturday morning by an antigen test.

The doctor says that the re-infection represents “rebound positivity” and said that Biden has not experienced a reemergence of symptoms, and there’s no need to restart treatment.

This is a developing story…

A new report from the Wharton Business School is shedding more light on the President’s Inflation Reduction Act, claiming the legislation will actually increase inflation throughout the next 18 months.

From Wharton:

PWBM estimates that the Inflation Reduction Act, as written, would reduce cumulative deficits by $248 billion over the budget window.

The Act would very slightly increase inflation until 2024 and decrease inflation thereafter. These point estimates are statistically indistinguishable from zero, thereby indicating low confidence that the legislation will have any impact on inflation.

We project no impact on GDP by 2031 and an increase in GDP of 0.2 percent by 2050. These estimates include the impact of debt and carbon reduction as well as capital and labor supply distortions from rising tax rates.

As written, the Inflation Reduction Act contains a sunset for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies provision at the end of 2025. Under an illustrative scenario where that provision was extended indefinitely, the 10-year deficit reduction estimate falls to $89 billion. The impact on GDP remains zero through 2040.

Joe won’t say it —but New York City Mayor Eric Adams will.

According to a report from The Daily Wire, New York City Mayor isn’t wasting any time with definitions —”we’re in a recession,” he says. Adams made the comment while speaking at a meeting of interfaith leaders at the Sanzer Yeshiva in Staten Island.

From The Daily Wire:

During the speech, Adams stressed the need to spend money wisely, comparing the New York City budget to his experience growing up in a poor family. He described how his mother would show him and his siblings the family’s income and expenses. “’You tell me what to take off the plate if you want me to put something else on the plate,’” Adams said, quoting his mother. “I’m coming to you as a city and saying, ‘This is how much we have, that’s it.’”

“We are in a financial crisis, like you can never imagine,” Adams continued. “Wall Street is collapsing; we’re in a recession.”

Adams’ admission is surprising; Demcorats have been going to great lengths to avoid labeling the Biden economny as “in a recession.” The White House even released an official explanation exploring the definition of the word.

“What is a recession?” the White House posted on its official website ahead of the GDP report. “While some maintain that two consecutive quarters of falling real GDP constitute a recession, that is neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle. Instead, both official determinations of recessions and economists’ assessment of economic activity are based on a holistic look at the data—including the labor market, consumer and business spending, industrial production, and incomes. Based on these data, it is unlikely that the decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year—even if followed by another GDP decline in the second quarter—indicates a recession.”

President Biden’s official schedule was empty Friday just one day after economic data showed the US sliding into a full-blown recession.

The President’s public calendar was notably empty despite receiving his Daily Brief at 10:15AM.

This is a developing story…

To paraphrase Mark Twain, everyone talks about third parties but nobody does anything about it. Maybe that’s changing.

This week a few stalwart moderates put their money where their mouths are. Former Republicans David Jolly and Christine Todd Whitman have joined with Democrat Andrew Yang in a Washington Post op-ed announcing the creation of the new Forward Party. The article is optimistically titled, “Most third parties fail. Here’s why ours won’t.”

Citing statistics about the number of Americans who want another option and who now consider themselves independents, the trio writes, “Most third parties in U.S. history failed to take off, either because they were ideologically too narrow or the population was uninterested.”

I think that’s a true statement. Most third parties form because some partisans believe that the major parties aren’t pure or radical enough.

But this is not what voters want. Voters want moderation and sanity. Voters don’t want either radical extreme. The independent voters in the middle decide most elections and, as a rule of thumb, they usually pick the least scary and radical candidate. (This isn’t necessarily true in House races where small, partisan districts on both sides all too often pick whack jobs.)

That’s one reason the country veers from a liberal extreme to a right-wing extreme and back again. Partisan primaries reward radicalism while general election voters punish it. When one party gains power, its radicals gain more power and push their extremist platform. The voters are scared towards the other side, which does exactly the same thing when its radicals arrive in Washington.

Repeat ad nauseam.

The Forward Party says it wants to change that.

“We’re proposing the first ‘open’ party,’” they write. “Americans of all stripes — Democrats, Republicans and independents — are invited to be a part of the process, without abandoning their existing political affiliations, by joining us to discuss building an optimistic and inclusive home for the politically homeless majority.”

They cite guns, abortion, and climate change as examples of issues where voters reject the all-or-nothing platforms of the Big Two parties. I could add a few others to that list. I can also get on board with other proposals that they advocate such as ranked-choice voting, an end to gerrymandering, protecting voting rights, and ensuring secure elections.

If you’re politically homeless like me, you probably find at least some of these ideas appealing. I’m too conservative to be a Democrat, but I see the Republicans as spineless and dominated by a corrupt MAGA faction that is even more dangerous to America’s future than progressivism. I’ve tried to like the Libertarians, but they are simply crazy (and infested with MAGAs these days). I long for a viable alternative to the Duopoly.

I don’t know what lies ahead for the Forward Party, but I do know that if we want to preserve our American Republic we need to find ways to unite and escape the dangerous radicalism that dominates our politics.

I hope the Forward Party can start moving us in the right direction.

The First TV contributor network is a place for vibrant thought and ideas. Opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of The First or The First TV. We want to foster dialogue, create conversation, and debate ideas. See something you like or don’t like? Reach out to the author or to us at [email protected]. 

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While Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi mulls a stopover in Taiwan during her latest swing through Asia, former President Donald Trump shares his thoughts on Pelosi’s plans on TRUTH Social; he asks why Pelosi is getting involved in China at all.

“Why is Nancy Pelosi getting involved with China and Taiwan other than to make trouble and more money, possibly involving insider trading and information, for her cheatin’ husband?” Trump wrote.

“Everything she touches turns to Chaos, Disruption, and ‘Crap’ (her second big Congress ‘flop’ happening now!), and the China mess is the last thing she should be involved in – She will only make it worse. Crazy Nancy just inserts herself and causes great friction and hatred. She is such a mess!!!”

Pelosi has declined to share her travel plans for security reasons —it is not yet known if she is planning a stopover in Taiwan. But she does have the support of one former Speaker: Newt Gingrich.

“I feel very strongly that Speaker Pelosi should go to Taiwan and that she should take a bipartisan congressional delegation,” Gingrich said at the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit on Monday. “I can say this with some authority. I am the highest-ranking American official ever to visit Taiwan. In 1997, I led a delegation, and John Dingell, the senior Democrat, was on the delegation. It was a truly bipartisan group.”

More over at Fox News:

In a recent piece for Newsmax, Kentuck Senator Rand Paul shared that, on August 3rd, there will be a Congressional hearing on gain-of-function research —the significant step towards uncovering the origins of the COVID-19 virus.

From Newsmax:

While we may never know whether the pandemic arose from a lab in Wuhan or occurred naturally, the emergence of COVID serves as a reminder that dangerous research conducted in a secretive and totalitarian country is simply too risky to fund.

My amendment would have ensured that this never happens in the future. No taxpayer money should ever be used to fund gain-of-function research in China, and because of Dr. Fauci’s allies in the Democratic party, Congress will continue to send your money to fund this reckless research.

Aug. 3, I’ve finally gotten Democrats to agree to the first Congressional hearing on gain-of-function research. Finally, we will begin to shed light on the origins of the pandemic.

House Democrats unveiled a last-minute vote Friday afternoon on a potential assault weapons ban before lawmakers break for a month-long August recess.  

From The Hill:

House Democrats announced a last-minute vote on a bill to ban assault weapons on Friday, looking to pass the highly anticipated legislation before lawmakers break for the month-long August recess.

In a letter to colleagues just after 11 a.m. on Friday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the House would vote on the assault weapons ban that afternoon, calling the legislation “a crucial step in our ongoing fight against the deadly epidemic of gun violence in our nation.”

The House took a key step toward passing the assault weapons ban Friday morning, approving a resolution for same-day authority that allows the chamber to fast-track top priorities.

The chamber approved the resolution in a largely party-line vote of 218-206. Reps. Jared Golden (Maine) and Kurt Schrader (Ore.) were the only two Democrats to oppose the measure.

The Senator from West Virginia won’t commit to Biden 2024.

According to a report from Fox News, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) is taking a “wait and see” approach to a potential Biden bid for reelection; “I’m not predicting anything,” Manchin says.

During a recent interview with NewsMation’s Chris Cuomo, Manchin cast doubt that he would rally behind his party’s leader.

“I’m not predicting anything or how I’ll support or not support […] but I can tell you this. Whoever the elected president is — Democrat, Republican, independent — everyone should pray they succeed. I’m gonna do everything I can to make that person successful.”

“I’m just, I’m always for the right person when they’re running. […] Joe Biden is a good person with a good heart who wants to do the right thing,” Manchin continued.

Manchin did have some positive things to say about Biden, including “some people around him sometime I disagree with, and I disagree with a lot of the advice he’s getting, and we talk back and forth. But we have a very respectful, candid conversation.” 

But he still wouldn’t commit to supporting him.

More at Fox News:

Comedian Jon Stewart -a vocal advocate for American veterans and 9/11 first responders- excoriated members of Congress this week for their refusal to pass new legislation that would expand healthcare for service members affected by “burn pits” in theaters of war.

The legislation would expand health services and benefits for veterans who were exposed to toxic smoke from the U.S. military’s use of burn pits to dispose of waste on bases overseas.

“Ain’t this a b*tch. American heroes who fought in our wars, outside sweating their asses off with oxygen tanks, battling all kinds of ailments, while these motherf***ers sit in the air-conditioning walled-off from any of it. They don’t have to hear it. They don’t have to see it. They don’t have to understand that these are human beings,” began Stewart.

“I’m used to the hypocrisy…I’m used to the lies…I’m used to the cowardice…I’m used to all of it, but I am not used to the cruelty,” explained Stewart.

“You don’t support the troops; you support the war machine. That’s all you care about…They haven’t met a war they won’t sign up for, and they haven’t met a veteran they won’t screw over,” added the former Comedy Central host.

Watch Stewart’s comments above.