This week people have started receiving not only the $500 rebate checks going to about 1 million ACA individual market participants who fully fund their premiums, as I had discussed previously, but also $90 rebate checks going to about 20 million Americans enrolled in traditional Medicare (as opposed to Medicare Advantage). These $90 checks are being funded via the administration’s depletion of a $2 billion Medicare Improvement Fund, which was established by statute in 2008 but which has never been tapped for its intended purpose. Both actions are of debatable legality, but when did that ever stop this administration from doing anything?

There was an interesting story out of the Wall Street Journal this week about the U.S. Ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle. She was previously the fiancee of Donald Trump Jr., but they split in 2024 (and he got remarried earlier this year); there is speculation that Trump gave her an ambassadorship in an effort to keep her in the family fold, given how close she had previously been to the family. (Guilfoyle was also previously married to California Governor Newsom, oddly enough.) Per the WSJ, Guilfoyle recently implored a Republican donor to directly pay off $100,000 of debt Guilfoyle had incurred with American Express, offering the donor access to IRS officials as a quid pro quo. You’d think Congress would be interested in exploring such brazen corruption; of course they’re not currently in session.

Trump bowed to pressure and announced this week that the federal government would no longer directly fund the controversial TV ads mentioned in my last post, but he has no intention at this point of having his super PAC reimburse the government for the millions already spent. The DNC is suing Trump, asking for a declaration that the actions were unlawful and an injunction against further such federal spending.

There is reporting today that the DOJ is opening an antitrust investigation into the five news networks that discontinued White House pool TV coverage in solidarity with the administration’s removal of White House press passes from one of those networks plus two other news outlets. Sigh.

National gas prices have come off their highs, but remain elevated: $4.37 a gallon for regular gasoline, and $6.28 a gallon for diesel. The national average 30-year mortgage rate has kept climbing in recent weeks and now sits at 7.40%, about 75 bps higher than three months ago. That largely reflects the fact that 30-year Treasury yields have been climbing; at one point this week the yield hit 5.73%, the highest level since 2002.

Silver’s odds of Democratic control have reached new highs of 75% in the Senate (with the median result still 52-48) and 94% in the House (with the median result now 239-196). The Kansas Senate race is increasingly looking like a tossup, with Silver’s assessment of the Democratic challenger Hamilton’s odds now up to 49%. And some even longer shots are starting to come into view in the Senate. In Nebraska, where second-time independent candidate Dan Osgood is challenging incumbent Senator Ricketts, Silver has Osgood’s odds up to 29%. In South Carolina, Democratic challenger Annie Andrews is now up to 23% against recently appointed incumbent Senator Darline Graham. Even Florida is not safe for the Republicans, as incumbent Senator Ashley Moody is running a lackluster campaign against Angie Nixon; Silver has Nixon at an 11% chance to pull the upset.