•A Senate Judiciary Committee interim report released Thursday morning gives new details on Donald J. Trump’s efforts to use the Justice Department to overturn the November 2020 election (WaPo). The report reveals “the extent to which government lawyers threatened to resign en masse” if Trump carried out his January 3 threat to replace acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Jeffrey Clark.
•Former President Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, advisor Steve Bannon, and Kash Patel, chief of staff to Trump administration acting Defense Sec. Christopher Miller, are due to respond today to the January 6 House Select Committee’s subpoenas regarding its investigation of the Capitol insurrection, according to MSNBC. None are expected to comply, and Select Committee-appointed investigators have been unable to even find Scavino in order to serve him.
McConnell Will Not Block Short-Term Debt Limit Extension – Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, reached a deal with Democratic leaders Wednesday to extend the federal debt limit into December, and avert an economic crisis without forcing Democrats to use budget reconciliation, or “nuke” the filibuster. McConnell has promised not to filibuster the debt limit increase and not use procedural tools to “drag out” the arduous reconciliation process, Roll Call reports, and instead “kick the can” a short month-and-a-half down the road.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, said early Thursday that he and McConnell were still working out details. While Democrats initially pushed to extend the debt limit deadline through December 16, 2022, McConnell wants a specific dollar amount, which Senate Finance Committee ranking member Michael D. Crapo, R-ID, says could be about $300 billion.
Note: Who is the winner, who is the loser, here? Both Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, and former President Trump suggest the loser is McConnell, according to Politico Playbook. “Looks like Mitch McConnell is folding to the Democrats, again,” said Trump, still miffed over the minority leader’s damning speech after he helped acquit the ex-president over his second impeachment. Common wisdom Thursday is that a potential threat by Democrats to “nuke” the legislative filibuster pushed McConnell into caving.
Don’t dismiss Wall Street lobbyists’ effect on this struggle. As reported Wednesday, Roll Call says K Street lobbyists for business and corporate interests were poised to push Republicans into caving on the debt ceiling in order to avoid almost certain economic calamity by the time the federal government would start defaulting, October 18, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin’s warnings.
And while McConnell “lost” this battle, Schumer hasn’t quite won the war. Democratic leaders now have to extend the debt ceiling again in December, while bringing together the party’s progressives and moderates to pass the bi-partisan infrastructure bill and negotiate – and pass – a compromised version of the $3.5-trillion (a cut to $2.2-2.3 trillion seems likely) Build Back Better budget reconciliation bill. Happy holidays.
•••
Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Texas S.B. 8 – U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman temporarily blocked Texas’ controversial law banning abortions as early as six months into pregnancy, The Texas Tribune reports. It’s far from certain the ruling by the Obama-appointed judge will open the state to abortions, as Texas quickly filed notice of appeal and will likely seek an emergency stay with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, considered among the most conservative in the nation.
The law, S.B. 8, would subject violators to potential litigation, and the ACLU of Texas said in a press release that it’s unclear how Pitman’s ruling will affect abortion procedures in the state.
•••
COVID Cases Decrease … Sort Of — The number of new COVID cases has fallen by about 22% over the past two weeks, to approximately 102,000 new cases per day, according to stats from The New York Times. Still, 102,000 is a non-trivial number, given the number of people who have already been infected. While the decrease is certainly encouraging, there are still plenty of people who still need to be vaccinated —and perhaps not the people who you think. Axios Vitals, citing stats from the Kaiser Family Foundation, writes that while there is a general sense that people of color are lagging in jabs, it turns out that 64% of the unvaccinated are white compared with 14% Black and 16% Hispanic.
Note: Among the aforementioned unvaccinated, 59% are Republicans and 46% have a high school education. You can make your own assessment.
•••
World’s First Malaria Vaccine Approved – The World Health Organization has approved the world’s first malaria vaccine, The Washington Post reports. The vaccine took more than three decades to develop, because malaria is caused by a parasite, which is harder to target than a virus, the newspaper explains. Malaria kills more than 400,000 people a year globally, more than 260,000 of them children under age 5 in Africa.
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash
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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2021
•Bells at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., rang out 700 times – for more than an hour – Tuesday in memoriam of 700,000 U.S. deaths recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic Meanwhile, 700 white flags were planted on the grounds between the National Mall and the Lincoln Monument.
Reports Say Moderates, Progressives Closer on Budget Reconciliation – President Biden and Democratic leaders are ready to downsize the $3.5 trillion Build Back Better social infrastructure program to $2.3 trillion “or lower,” according to a report in The New York Times covering the president’s visit to Michigan Tuesday to promote the plan. Citing private meetings at the White House Monday with House Democrats, party leaders are looking at narrowing the reconciliation bill’s plans for free community college and child tax credits and universal pre-Kindergarten, for example.
Part of the discussion involves whether some programs should be scaled back or cut out of the budget reconciliation bill altogether.
Meanwhile, Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, indicated to reporters Tuesday he is willing to consider a bill in the $1.9-trillion to $2.2-trillion range, up from his previous best offer of $1.5 trillion, according to The Hill.
“I’m not ruling anything out, but the bottom line is I want to make sure that we’re strategic,” Manchin said, “and we do the right job and we don’t basically add more to the concerns we have right now.” Reiterating the notion that the difference between the sticker price of $3.5 trillion and his best offers equals a shift from Reaganomics to more “socialism” in our economy, he added that he doesn’t “want to change our whole society to an entitlement mentality.”
Note: There has been talk, even among progressives, that the proposed programs could be scaled back in the number of years of coverage, rather than dollar amount, though that hasn’t come up here. As it stands during current intra-party negotiations, the range of $1.5 trillion to $3.5 trillion covers 10 years, and even at the top level would remain below annual defense spending.
•••
With an Estimated 12 Days to Go on the Debt Ceiling – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, plans for the third time an attempt to pass cloture on the bill approved by the House of Representatives to suspend the debt ceiling through December 2022. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, has repeatedly said Democrats must go it alone on this matter, and voting down cloture would force Democrats to go through the arduous process of suspending or raising the debt limit via the budget reconciliation process. Schumer has urged Republicans to simply “get out of the way” and allow a simple majority vote on the debt limit.
They have until, maybe, October 18, the day Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin says the federal government would default on its debt. As a constant reminder: Raising or suspending the debt limit would simply allow the government to pay for programs it already has funded. Biden Tuesday night also floated the idea Tuesday the Senate could “nuke” the filibuster.
Note: Business groups, corporate interests, to the rescue? K Street lobbyists for such groups are “quietly weighing” whether to spend money to “urge Republicans to end the standoff with Democrats,” Roll Call says. Wall Street, like Democrats, fear what will happen to the economy if nothing moves forward before October 18.
•••
Haugen Unites Republicans and Democrats on Senate Panel – It took whistleblower Frances Haugen to testify Tuesday that Facebook’s corporate culture promotes “growing at all costs” over user safety to bring together Republicans and Democrats, at least those on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Senators from both parties praised Haugen, a former data scientist for the social media monolith, for leaking internal Facebook documents to The Wall Street Journal and speaking out against its harmful effects.
Facebook consistently chooses “growth and virality over public safety,” Haugen told the committee.
Sen. Ed Markey, D-MA, went so far as to call Haugen a “hero.” Senators from both sides spoke of potential regulation against social media, with Facebook and its affiliated companies, including Instagram, the biggest target.
In an email to staff, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote that “many claims don’t make sense,” and said the company cares about safety and public health, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Zuckerberg said he doesn’t recognize the company portrayed by Haugen.
Note: Haugen suggested regulation of social media begin with abolishing Section 230, which gives such platforms immunity from libel laws that can be imposed on the authors who post on the social media platform.
•••
New Student Debt Policy Targets Public Sector Relief – The Education Department will unveil a revised Public Service Loan Forgiveness program Wednesday that targets student debt relief for about 550,000 borrowers, The Wall Street Journalreports. The planned changes would help less than half the 1.3 million individuals enrolled in the program get closer to forgiveness.
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Charles Dervarics
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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2021
•Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen testifies before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee today regarding her criticism of the social platform on 60 Minutes and leak of some of its documents and studies to The Wall Street Journal. The testimony comes a day after Facebook and its other platforms, including Instagram, went offline for several hours, costing the company billions of dollars.
•Johnson & Johnson has asked the Food and Drug Administration to approve extra shots of its COVID-19 vaccine to those 18 years old and up who have previously received its single-shot vaccine, the AP reports.
Schumer to Take Another Shot in Debt Ceiling Fight – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, says he will schedule another vote on the debt ceiling later this week. It will surely be sunk by his counterpart, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, Politico reports, the third such vote to be defeated by a Republican filibuster. McConnell has made it clear Democrats must go it alone in waiving the debt limit as they move to pass a budget reconciliation bill that currently has a $3.5-trillion price tag.
Schumer and President Biden have called on McConnell to step aside and let Democrats pass a bill to raise the debt ceiling, via a cloture vote. The Senate parliamentarian issued an opinion last week, however, that the Senate could pass a debt ceiling hike via budget reconciliation without endangering protections for the whole budget reconciliation package, according to Punchbowl News. Democrats would rather raise the debt limit without resorting to the complications of reconciliation.
Senate Democrats are in the process of using the fiscal year 2022 budget resolution to pass spending extensions and tax breaks likely in the $2-trillion-plus range, Roll Call reports, to be paid for by tax increases on wealthy households and corporations, chipping away at the Trump tax cuts.
Meanwhile, President Biden travels to Michigan today to promote that budget reconciliation bill, his Build Back Better plan with key provisions for family leave, child care and climate change mitigation. The White House this week will get surrogates out to cable news shows and other outlets to promote budget reconciliation and specifically target McConnell as the key foil to Biden’s sweeping social infrastructure proposals, according to Politico.
Note: The posturing between Schumer, who knows he will fail to get cloture on his third vote on the debt ceiling this week, and McConnell is all about next year’s midterm elections. It’s clear that neither party will budge on both budget reconciliation (as Democrats try to get its progressives and moderates on the same page) and the debt ceiling, so all that’s left is to convince voters that the other side has jeopardized the nation’s economic future with their intransigence.
•••
Biden Reverses Rule Banning Abortion Referrals – The Biden administration has reversed a 2018 rule that bans federally funded family planning clinics from referring patients for abortions, The Washington Post reports. Many of the clinics who received Title X funding simply declined it, after the Trump administration rule went into effect. Biden’s reversal takes effect November 8.
•••
NIH Director Announces Retirement – National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, 71, says he will retire by the end of the year, after more than 12 years in the chief position.
“No single person should serve this position too long,” Collins said in his announcement, according to Roll Call, adding “it’s time to bring in a new scientist to lead the NIH into the future.” Collins is the agency’s longest-serving director.
No interim director has been named. President Biden will nominate a replacement for Collins, who must be confirmed by the Senate.
Note: It’s important that Collins specified a “new scientist” to lead the NIH, which has given relatively low-key support to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations on masking, social distancing and vaccinations for the coronavirus. In normal times, Collins’ replacement would sail through Senate confirmation, but these are not normal times.
•••
Romania’s Center-Right Coalition is Out – Romania’s center-left Social Democratic Party (PSD) and far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians have joined to vote out Prime Minister Florin Citu’s center-right coalition government, Politico Europereports. The vote of no-confidence comes less than a year after Citu established his coalition. The PSD has demanded elections as soon as possible.
Note: So far, Romania’s government has avoided the authoritarian, nationalist tendencies that have plagued fellow former Eastern Bloc countries, Hungary and Poland. It’s somewhat reassuring that in the context of this short-lived center-right government, its foils combine the center-left PSD with the hard right.
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Charles Dervarics
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MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2021
•SCOTUS back in town: The Supreme Court’s 2021-22 term begins today.
•Democrats can pass an increase in the debt limit package via reconciliation with just a majority vote, the Senate parliamentarian has ruled, according to Punchbowl News, without any effect on the bigger ‘social infrastructure’ budget reconciliation currently stalled on Capitol Hill.
•See the left and right columns for our pundits’ comments on what should be the fate of Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Scroll down this column to read the facts behind the debate.
Pandora’s Box of Tax Dodges – Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has become a modern Swiss Bank, according to the Pandora Papers, analysis of documents exposing more than 29,000 offshore accounts belonging to heads of state, business executives and entertainment personalities, reports The Washington Post. The newspaper is one of 150 media outlets in 117 countries examining the documents uncovered by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which has more than 11.9 million financial records, private emails, secret spreadsheets, clandestine contacts and other records, making it bigger than the Panama Papers.
“The files provide substantial new evidence, for example, that South Dakota now rivals notoriously opaque jurisdictions in Europe and the Caribbean in financial security,” with tens of millions of dollars tucked away in Sioux Falls, WaPo reports. Much of the billions of dollars in assets are hidden in trusts, according to the report, and would not otherwise be exposed without an apparent encroachment into those financial records. More than 130 people on Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires, and more than 330 public officials in more than 90 countries and territories have been uncovered by the ICIJ investigation.
It must be noted that none of this offshoring and placement of assets in trusts is illegal. The ICIJ is protecting its sources in this release of private documents.
Monday’s revelations entail the first of eight reports The Washington Post will publish in coming days. Prominent individuals named so far, the Associated Press reports, include King Abdullah II of Jordan, who has spent more than $100 million on luxury homes in Malibu, California, former Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom, Czech Republic Minister Andres Babis, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan and Colombian pop star Shakira. Oh, and a Russian woman rumored to have a child by Russian President-for-Life Vladimir Putin owns a waterfront home in Monaco, making Donald J. Trump’s payoff of Stormy Daniels a relative bargain.
Note: WaPo’s report – somewhat relievedly, we’d suspect – notes that billionaires NOT named in the Pandora Papers includes Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos. Also not among them are Tesla’s Elon Musk, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Berkshire-Hathaway chief Warren Buffett.
•••
Whistleblower Says Facebook Values Profits Over Safety – Facebook whistleblower and former research scientist Frances Haugen revealed herself on CBS News’ 60 Minutes Sunday night and said she secretly copied tens of thousands of pages of the social media site’s research forwarded for “at least eight” complaints her attorneys have filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Haugen worked for Facebook’s Civic Integrity department, which was dissolved between the time of Joe Biden’s defeat of Donald J. Trump in last November’s presidential election and the January 6 insurrection. She left the company in May.
Facebook’s own research shows the social media site amplifies hate, misinformation, and political unrest, but hides what it knows in favor of algorithms that reward such activity, Haugen told the news magazine show’s Scott Pelley. The Wall Street Journal first reported on revelations from Haugen’s copied documents in a series of reports last month but did not name its source. Facebook’s Instagram platform also has come under fire for its deleterious effects on teenagers, especially girls, and has postponed plans to launch Instagram for kids.
"Facebook makes more money when you engage more content," Haugen said.
Facebook turned down 60 Minutes’ request for an interview, and in a written statement defended its efforts to “balance the rights of billions of people to express themselves openly with the need to keep our platform a safe and positive place.” …
“To suggest we encourage bad content and do nothing is just not true.”
Note: Surely Facebook doesn’t “encourage” bad content so much as it pushes it to readers looking to confirm their biases and let them organize such action as the January 6 Capitol insurrection. As for not doing nothing, watch for Facebook’s already considerable financial support for Democratic and Republican politicians to thrive in the face of proposed regulation of the social media industry.
•••
When We Last Left the Reconciliation Bill – Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s, D-CA, September 27 deadline for the House of Representatives to vote on the $1.2-trillion infrastructure bill has come and gone, with President Biden calling on both sides – progressive and moderate Democrats – to work it out over the next month or so in order to get his Build Back Better proposal passed. Such negotiations amount to finding a pricetag somewhere between $3.5-trilllion over 10 years that would pay for family leave, child care and climate change, and the $1.5-trillion ceiling Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, has stated is his top price.
Still no word on what Sen. Krysten Sinema, D-AZ, is willing to spend.
“I’m telling you we’re going to get this done,” Biden told House Democrats in a half-hour meeting at the Capitol Friday, according to Roll Call. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s in six minutes, six days or six weeks. We’re going to get it done.”
Note: C’mon, man. Six months drops this smack into the beginning of primary election season in many states. Conventional wisdom is that the House will sort this out in 30 days or so, but we’re going to bet on some late nights between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, along with a debt ceiling vote the Senate will have to sort out by December 3.
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Donna MacKeand
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2021
•A federal judge will consider Biden’s request today to block Texas’ SB8 abortion law, one of several lawsuits filed (WaPo).
•Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has tested positive for COVID-19 but has no symptoms and has been vaccinated since January, the AP reports.
•Joint Chief of Staffs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley is under fire after revelations in the book, Peril. Scroll down this center column for details and read our pundits' opinions in the left and right columns. Join the conversation by emailing your comments to editors@thehustings.news
Spending on Goods and Services, Income, Rose in August – Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) rose by 0.8%, or $130.8 billion, in August, after an 0.1% drop in July, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported Friday. Disposable Personal Income (DPI) was up 0.1%, or $18.9 billion.
Accounting for Inflation, Real PCE was up 0.4%, with goods up 0.6% and services up 0.3%, and Real DPI actually fell 0.1%, the BEA says. The PCE price index was up 0.4%. Excluding food and energy prices, the PCE price index rose 0.3% in August.
•••
Biden Their Time – President Biden signed the temporary spending bill that keeps the federal government’s lights on to December 3, yesterday, after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, separated out a hike in the debt ceiling that would have expired in December 2022. The Senate then passed the bill 65-35, and the House of Representatives passed it 254-173, (per Roll Call).
•••
Pelosi Promises BIF Vote Today – Yes, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, withheld a vote Thursday on the $1.2-trillion bi-partisan infrastructure bill (BIF) and says she plans to bring it to the floor before the end of the day today. Last-minute talks “hit a wall” before midnight Thursday, according to Roll Call. One immediate result is that highway and transportation funding is suspended, resulting in the furlough Friday of Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration employees, The Hill reports.
No indication whether Pelosi is close to any sort of deal that would satisfy her party’s progressives in the House. Could Pelosi subvert the prog Dems? Numbers are against her, as the Congressional Progressive Caucus counts 95 House members, while the moderate Problem Solvers Caucus has 56 members, 28 of whom are Republicans.
One of the Problem Solvers, Rep. Fred Upton, R-MI, is confident Pelosi can pass the BIF before Schumer can reach some sort of compromise in the Senate that satisfies Manchin and Sinema, while also keeping Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, in-check.
“I don’t think we’re going to go home until we get it done,” Upton told NPR’s Morning Edition.
Under Pressure: Schumer[GV1] is under pressure today to get Manchin and Sinema on board with negotiations over the $3.5-trillion budget reconciliation bill – which most prominently goes by the name “human infrastructure,” and is more formally, President Biden’s Bring Back Better plan.
Whereas Manchin told reporters yesterday that he gave Schumer his “final offer” of $1.5 trillion last summer, Sinema has enigmatically refused to tell anyone her ceiling price.
New Deal vs. Supply Side: Manchin says anything more than $1.5 trillion smacks of “entitlement culture,” which jibes with our take that the Biden budget agenda – Bidenomics – amounts to an attack against nearly 40 years of Supply Side/Laffer Curve Reaganomics (which was, in turn an assault on FDR’s New Deal Keynesianism).
If progressive Democrats want to get more than $1.5 trillion passed, Manchin suggested, they ought to go out and get more progs elected – which of course would take effect only after November 2022 midterms (and not coincidentally, about the time Schumer’s failed proposal to raise the debt limit would have expired). Most pundits expect Republicans to win that one, and potentially take back both the Senate and the House. And pro-Trump Republicans expect a large share of those GOP majorities thanks to a concerted effort in next year’s primaries.
•••
Potential Relief for Anti-Vaxxers? – If you can’t get everyone on board to prevent, there’s now a potential cure. Drug manufacturer Merck says it has an experimental version of a COVID-19 pill that cuts the risk of hospitalizations and deaths from the coronavirus in half, The Washington Post reports. If administered early in the infection the pill can cut the risk of a mild to moderate case from becoming something worse. The patient must take the pill twice a day for five days.
Merck plans to ask for emergency authorization as soon as possible.
Note: Merck’s breakthrough “could make a huge difference, especially in parts of the world where it’s hard to get vaccines,” WaPo concludes. No, they’re not talking about Florida. What’s more, this is not some sort of panacea: it reduces hospitalizations and deaths. Not the sorts of things that anyone really want.
•••
Everyone Talks About the Weather — Wildfires, hurricanes, flood and droughts will become more severe in the next five years, say 55% of adults surveyed by Morning Consult. Not surprisingly, there is a gulf between Democrats who think so — 69% -- and Republicans — 38% -- but it should be noted that 54% of independents think it will be the case.
When asked who they trust on the subject of climate change, scientists came out #1, with 36% saying they trust them “a great deal” and 34% “somewhat.” Environmental groups (24% and 37%, respectively) and the EPA (22% and 39%) come in second and third.
Note: One of the refrains that has been heard from Biden and his associates on the topic of COVID-19 has been “follow the science.” Seems that when it comes to climate change people believe in that. Those who have a fantastical sense of what reality is appear to be losing their significance on important matters.
•••
House Committee Advances Marijuana Legislation – Reps. Matt Gaetz, R-FL, and Tom McClintock, R-CA, joined Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee in approving a bill to decriminalize and deschedule marijuana, in a 26-15 vote, per Roll Call. The committee vote came after a two-day markup in which the panel also approved a bi-partisan measure to lower drug prices.
The marijuana legislation is based on a bill Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, sponsored in 2020 that passed the House, but stalled in the Senate, then controlled by the GOP. In July, Sen. Chuck Schumer proposed similar legislation, though such a bill’s prospects on the Oval Office resolute desk are less clear, as President Biden has endorsed de-criminalization, but not full legislation, Roll Call says.
Happy 97th Birthday – To Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States.
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2021
•Should Gen. Mark Milley resign as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Our pundits debate in the left and right columns. Join the debate with comments emailed to editors@thehustings.news.
•’Round Midnight: If Congress doesn’t pass a continuing resolution by then, the government runs out of money and a partial shutdown begins at the first ring of Friday. More on the budget, bipartisan infrastructure and $3.5 trillion worth of budget reconciliation social and green programs, below.
Schumer’s Hail Mary – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, began a process this morning to fund the government through December 3 with a continuing resolution, Punchbowl News says, that has been detached from raising the debt ceiling. Republicans refused cloture on the debt ceiling part of the bill twice this week, but the CR is considered a sure thing with both sides supporting an avoidance of economic calamity.
If for some reason Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, doesn’t go along, mark your calendars for October 18, the day that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin says the federal government would likely begin defaulting on its obligations.
Note: Said economic calamity would mean downgrading the federal government’s credit rating and a subsequent hike in the cost of borrowing money, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average slides and we plunge into a deep, potentially global, recession while still suffering the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic, Democrats and Republicans living together … No, wait, strike that last part.
Infrastructure and Budget Reconciliation: Progressive House members appear ready to torpedo the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure program, up until now the surest thing in President Biden’s agenda. Word on The Hill is that Speaker Nancy Pelosi won’t bring infrastructure to the floor of the House, as is her established practice, if she doesn’t have the votes necessary for passage.
Word in The Hill is that Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, Krysten Sinema, D-AZ and Joe Manchin III, D-WV, each have their “proxies” in the House who are pushing their agendas on how to negotiate a passable budget reconciliation that would have support from progressive and moderate Democrats in the House while satisfying these three and securing 51 votes in the Senate.
Only Half of Manchema the Sticking Point?: One progressive House Democrat, Ro Khanna of California, told NPR’s Morning Edition Thursday that Manchin is not the problem, that the senator from West Virginia is willing to compromise on the $3.5 trillion Build Back Better program, but that Sinema won’t negotiate, won’t make statements or talk to the press and won’t even make an offer that is south of the package’s sticker price.
Stephen Colbert told The Late Show audience Wednesday night that whichever Washington pundit mashed up Manchin and Sinema’s names missed the opportunity to go with “Sineman.”
Or Perhaps it IS Manchema: Manchin told the conservative National Review that he would not support a Medicaid-like program that’s part of the budget reconciliation bill that does not keep the Hyde Amendment intact, according to Roll Call. Hyde for decades has banned federal dollars from going to abortion providers.
Don’t Forget K Street: Lurking in the background of all of this are the lobbyists, The Wall Street Journal reminds us. “Drug makers, oil and gas firms, tobacco companies and other U.S. industries are complicating President Biden’s efforts to move along his domestic agenda as intraparty divisions threaten its path in a narrowly divided Congress,” it asserts.
These include business groups trying to gut measures to raise billions in taxes from their industries, the energy industry lobbying Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas and other Democrats from oil-producing states, trade group The American Petroleum Institute fighting tax hikes, The Business Roundtable pushing back against corporate tax measures to pay the bill, and a business coalition that includes AT&T, Home Depot and CVS running commercials in Arizona, New Hampshire and Virginia calling on Democrats not to raise the corporate tax rate.
This backs arguments by progressives, chiefly Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, that moderates beholden to corporate lobbyists are the ones holding up the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, which is why they’re making the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill contingent on it.
The Meaning of All of This: If Schumer’s continuing resolution manages to suck all the air out of the Capitol all day Thursday, infrastructure and the budget resolution could slip into October as Congress lets out a sigh of relief over not having to shutter the federal government’s doors. Unless, of course, Pelosi pulls a rabbit trick.
•••
Not All White Men – The House select committee investigating the 1/6 pro-Trump insurrection at the Capitol has issued its second wave of subpoenas to 11 individuals involved in planning and organizing prior to the riots, Roll Call reports. Prominent among them are Amy Kremer and Kylie Kremer, founders of Women for America First, which organized the January 6 rally on the Ellipse preceding the move to Capitol Hill, and Cynthia Chafian, who submitted the application for the group. Chafian is also founder of the Eighty Percent Coalition, whose website describes the organization as “a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to eradicating the socialist policies that harm all families, businesses, schools, and churches.”
Women for America First also organized rallies at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., November 14 and December 12, according to Roll Call, as well as “March for Trump” bus tours across the nation, “which garnered interest for the D.C. rallies, according to the committee.”
The 11 subpoenaed are required to produce documents and testify in depositions.
•••
Pot to Kettle: ‘You’re Fired!” — Corey Lewandowski, who had been overseeing Make America Great Again Action, the leading pro-Trump super PAC, has been removed from his position, presumably because of a Politico report that Lewandowski “pursued a female donor, Trashelle Odom, during a charity event in Las Vegas” Sunday evening, including, according to Ms. Odom, “touching her repeatedly, including on her leg and buttocks, talking about his genitalia and sexual performance,” Politico reports today. Mrs. Odom and her husband, John Odom, had donated $100,000 to the super PAC prior to the evening event.
Taylor Budowich, a Trump spokesperson, Tweeted Lewandowski’s removal: “Corey Lewandowski will be going on to other endeavors and we very much want to thank him for his service. He will no longer be associated with Trump World.”
Note: This could be a sign that there are fissures forming in the crust of “Trump World” (really: do they call it that?). This isn’t, Politico points out, the first time that Lewandowski has been alleged to touch women who weren’t at all interested in the 48-year-old’s advances (creepy advances, if Mrs. Odom’s reported comments about what Lewandowski said are accurate). Yet Lewandowski, who had previously been released from the gravitational pull of Trump World, had been brought back. But now, again, exiled.
Clearly the denizens of Trump World realize that while the Access Hollywood tape was one thing at one point in time, it is too perilous to keep someone who is accused of sexual misconduct on the payroll, especially when the accuser is the wife of a prominent contributor.
Another associated crack in the surface of Trump World is a report in a conservative website, American Greatness, that Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem “is having an extramarital affair with Corey Lewandowski,” The Washington Postreports.
Gov. Noem, a conservative, denied the allegation in a Tweet.
It seems that there are some minor seismic tremors rumbling in Trump World.
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods
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Should Gen. Milley Resign?
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs (JCS), attracted negative attention from the right wing when he apologized for appearing in military fatigues in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church with President Trump in a photo op June 1, 2020. This was about an hour after the National Guard used teargas to disperse Black Lives Matter protesters at nearby Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House.
What’s more, earlier this year, Milley took issue with Rep. Matt Gaetz’s, R-FL, description of military colleges’ teaching of Critical Race Theory as “woke.”
So it was the last straw for some conservatives, particularly those in the MAGA wing of the GOP, when a new book by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa described the JCS chairman as intervening in President Trump’s authority to launch a nuclear strike as he rejected his re-election loss last November.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, ranking Republican member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called for Milley’s resignation after excerpts of Peril were reported ahead of its September 20 release date. According to the Woodward/Costa book, Milley warned his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng of President Trump’s potential plans last year to launch a military attack on China and told officers in the Joint Chiefs of Staff to consult with him before executing any such command by the lame-duck president.
President Biden pushed back on calls he resign, saying he has “great confidence” in Milley, whose four-year term as Joint Chiefs’ chairman ends in October 2023.
Milley told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday, in testimony mostly involving the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, that his call to Gen. Li was among his duties as Joint Chiefs’ chairman.
“I assured Li that President Trump did not plan to attack,” Milley said.
Peril further reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, called Milley prior to the January 20 inauguration about her concerns regarding Trump’s state of mind, particularly after the January 6 Capitol insurgency. Milley told the Senate committee Tuesday he assured the Speaker that he was part of the official process, on missile launches.
Should Gen. Milley resign or be removed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? We asked our pundits what they think.
--Todd Lassa