Today’s Wheeling Intelligencer op-ed by WV’s West Virginia’s Republican senator blames President Biden's policies for America’s inflation. Not surprisingly, Shelley Moore Capito’s message has not changed in two years: the inflation is all Biden’s fault. Sadly, in that period, with the exception of pipelines, Capito has never mentioned which specific Biden policies are inflationary. And of course, no reporter has asked her. At least Representative Alex Mooney, who hopes to run against Joe Manchin next November, has been specific in his inflation attacks. Here he is describing his opposition to the infrastructure bill in December 2021:

A plan that irreparably harms our nation and serves as a springboard to socialism. A liberal dream version of the future that I will not support. Inflation is at a 30-year high and continues to rage as we head into the holiday season. West Virginia families have been hit hard.

The price of gas, groceries, and everyday goods continues to climb. Meanwhile, President Biden and Democrats in Congress are laser focused on how to spend more of your hard-earned money.
On Nov. 6, Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., and I stuck to our conservative principles and voted against President Biden and Speaker Pelosi’s $1.2 trillion-dollar non-infrastructure bill in the U.S. House of Representatives.*

So why doesn’t Capito tell us specifically which policies are “hurting America?” Here’s a thought: perhaps, she’s part of the problem that she describes. For an obvious example, Capito voted for the infrastructure bill just mentioned. More likely, I think, she believes that it's not necessary -- she knows that West Virginia’s stenographers won’t ask which specific policies she's talking about. (They haven't so far.) Nor would they ask the other obvious question: Is Biden responsible for the inflation that most countries now face? Here is a sample of some of the inflation rates in Western Europe from Trading Economics:

-- France 6.2%
-- Belgium 8%
-- Germany 8.6%
-- Italy 10.1%
-- United Kingdom 10.5%
-- Sweden 12.3%
-- Poland 16.6%

So isn't inflation a worldwide problem? Has Biden caused that, too?

The senator meets with the state’s stenographers and one of them tees it up for her

Last week, the senator held one of her online press conferences with West Virginia's stenographers. Here’s what happened according to the Morgantown Dominion Post’s David Beard:

A reporter asked Capito what she and her GOP colleagues can do about inflation, until the balance of power changes, adding that the president is detached from the facts.

She answered that with a divided Congress they actually have a better chance to ask him to wake up. A major part of inflation is his shutting down domestic baseline energy supplies, along with three recent Democrat spending bills amounting to trillions of dollars.

So the "reporter"asserts in the question that Biden is “detached from the facts.” How is that an objective question? Capito responds that she wants to “ask him to wake up”; how respectful of her. Finally, didn’t Capito vote in favor of one of those trillion dollar Democratic spending bills? Don’t worry, Senator, WV's stenographers are blank slates, and they never ask a tough question. Yeah, and they get worse by the month.

*Of course, strongly stating his opposition to Biden’s bills didn’t stop Mooney from taking credit for the infrastructure they created once they were passed. (See here.)