FRI 2/4/22
•The Republican National Committee voted at their national convention in Salt Lake City Friday afternoon to censure Reps. Liz Cheney (R-AZ) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) for their participation as members of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection. Read pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay's commentary at thehustings.substack.com.
•Russian President Vladimir Putin becomes the first leader in two years to meet with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, as the Winter Olympics opens in Beijing (NPR).
Despite Omicron, Good Jobs Report – Payroll employment was up by 467,000 jobs in January, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, far greater a number than expected particularly as the omicron variant of COVID-19 shut down large portions of the economy. The unemployment rate rose just 0.1 point, to 4.0%, an indication that a few more people sought jobs in January. The BLS cited growth in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, retail trade and transportation and warehousing as major factors in the jobs growth rate.
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Pence Strikes Back? – Believe it when you see it. Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at a Federalist Society event in Florida Friday where he “will discuss remarks about constitutional principles and the rule of law,” The Hill reports, which is being interpreted to mean he will answer his ex-boss’ constant and continuing bleating about how Pence could have “stopped the steal” when counting Electoral College votes properly cast for Joe Biden, January 6, 2021.
It’s hard to parse the latest Donald J. Trump attack on Pence, especially with the 45th president’s Twitter account suspended, though Newsweek Thursday reported on Trump ally Roger Stone calling the former Veep “a disloyal POS” on the right-wing messaging platform Telegram. No, we don’t follow that MAGA echo-chamber, either.
According to The Hill, “it’s unclear how far Pence will go.”
Note to the former Veep: Let’s not get carried away just 13 months after January 6 Capitol insurrectionists were ready to hang you for not withholding the Electoral College votes that went for Biden. However, you might have used that time to help try to steer the GOP away from Trump, especially evangelicals. We can assure you that you will not be Trump’s 2024 running mate.
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Opportunity to Increase Defense Spending – Defense spending should be folded into a fiscal year 2022 omnibus spending bill in order to send a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin to lay off Ukraine, congress members said at an event held at the Wilson Center Thursday.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the number-two Republican on the Armed Services committee urges President Biden “to get personally involved.”
“Everybody agrees that working off defense appropriations from a year and a half ago are completely inadequate and sends exactly the wrong signal not only to Vladimir Putin but to our friends and potential adversaries all over the road.”
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) said, “Putin’s thinking, ‘boy they can’t even pass a budget, never going to be able to unite against our actions.’”
The Issue: Good old “kick the can” with an evenly split Senate gumming up the FY22 budget over the White House’s Build Back Better program. The House passed the budget in December, while the Senate has kept the federal government funded with continuing resolutions, the latest expiring just two weeks from today – February 18 – and with the Senate in recess next week.
The $$$: Count on another CR kicking the can further. However, that means the Pentagon will have to work off its FY21 budget of $705.4 billion. The 2022 National Defense Authorization Act would budget $768.1 billion, which is $25 billion more than the White House had proposed.
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Unionization South of the Border -- “As workers, we are stronger when we can speak with one voice – and we are stronger when our fellow workers around the world can do the same.” That’s U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, on the occasion of this week’s election at General Motors’ Silao, Mexico assembly plant, where the National Independent Auto Workers’ Union (SINTTIA) received the majority of votes to represent factory workers where pickup trucks are built. (The votes are still to be certified, but highly likely.)
The election was overseen by Mexico’s Federal Center for Conciliation and Labor Registration. Said Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs Thea M. Lee, “This election at the Silao General Motors’ plant represents a landmark achievement for the newly created Federal Center in ensuring a free and fair election for workers under Mexico’s new labor justice system. The Federal Center’s administration of this election helped to ensure a fair and transparent process.”
Note: President Joe Biden’s support of organized labor is well and widely known. But who knew that it extends as far as it evidently does?
According to the Labor Department, “In July 2021, the U.S. and Mexico announced an unprecedented comprehensive plan to remediate a past denial of the rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining rights for workers at the same facility under the USMCA [United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement].”
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Charles Dervarics
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THU 2/3/22
•ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi was killed following a U.S. operation in northwest Syria. “All Americans have returned safely from the operation,” President Biden said (NYT). UPDATE: Biden says al-Qurayshi blew himself up, taking along several members of his family, to avoid being taken alive by U.S. special forces (NPR).
•Biden meets with police and community violence intervention groups in New York City today in an effort to lobby Congress to allocate an additional $500 million to combat violence in the fiscal 2022 spending package (Roll Call).
•It appears White House agenda items will be held up on Capitol Hill for four to six weeks, the amount of time Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) is expected to need to recover from a stroke (The Hill).
More than Coup Practice –The efforts that followed Donald Trump’s re-election defeat weren’t successful, but it was not for lack of trying. Descriptions of the former president’s henchmen (and women, we haven’t forgotten you, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis) plotting to use fake alternate electors, rogues within the Defense Department – which even former Trump attorney and future masked singer Rudy Giuliani rejected – or the Department of Homeland Security have been leaking out over the past week.
Latest is from The Washington Post, which Thursday revealed a Trump White House memo suggesting the National Security Agency and the Defense Department sift through raw electronic communications in search of proof that foreign powers had interfered in the presidential election. Such proof (assuming, of course, that it actually existed) would “support next steps to defend the Constitution in a manner superior to current civilian-only judicial remedies,” says the memo circulated December 18, 2020 “among Trump allies.”
Note: No doubt those interfering countries would not include Russia or any other authoritarian-led nation whose leaders Trump admires.
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Dog-Whistle for Authoritarianism – If you thought the Republican Party’s love affair with Russia’s longtime authoritarian leader President Vladimir Putin came and went with the Trump administration, you have not been paying attention. Now comes Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), he of the fist-pump proffered to January 6 Capitol insurrectionists, who is presuming to tell the president – the one who actually won the election -- to back off on talk about the Ukraine joining NATO.
Specifically, The Hill reports, in a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Hawley says President Biden should abandon support for Ukraine’s eventual admission to the NATO -- even though neither Biden nor anyone else on our side is talking about Ukraine entering NATO.
White House React: This prompted White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki to admonish; “If you are digesting Russian information and parroting Russian talking points you are not aligned with longstanding bipartisan American values, which is to stand up for the sovereignty of countries like Ukraine, but others.”
It’s OK, get personal: Later, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), the 1/6 House Select Committee member who apparently has been disinvited to this weekend’s Republican National Committee annual meeting in Salt Lake City, tweeted “I hate to be so personal, but Hawley is one of the worst human beings, and self egrandizing (sic) con artists. When Trump goes down I certainly hope this will be layed (sic-after all, this is a tweet) in the open for all to see, and be ashamed of.”
Note: Hawley is presuming to tell the president to not do something that he isn’t doing. All part of the “let’s make stuff up and thereby magically make it real” approach that served Trump so well for so long.
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The Key is Timing – The Senate goes on recess today, with just 15 days before federal agencies run out of cash, Punchbowl News reports. There will also be no action before the Senate returns in one week on sanctions against Russia. As for the omnibus spending bill funding the federal government, it is time, once again, for another continuing resolution.
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About Those Red Social Sites — Remember the Trumpian-driven outrage about “mainstream” social media — like Twitter and Facebook? Remember how there would be a phalanx of right-wing alternatives that would bury what eventually became outlets that banned the lies and misinformation being promulgated by Trump and his allies? It turns out that those alternatives had their moment. Publishers Daily, citing data from TheRighting, a site that monitors website traffic, found that several sites had serious declines in unique visitors in December 2021 compared with the year earlier.
As in Newsmax down 36%, The Blaze down 23%, Washington Examiner down 56%, Brietbart down 52%, and The Federalist down 49%.
However, it is not that there weren’t some gains, as it found that four of the 20 sites it tracks have increased visitors: The Daily Signal, NewsBusters, The Daily Wire and Townhall.
To be fair: it was also calculated that The Washington Post, HuffPost, CNN, and The New York Times all saw declines.
Note: Traffic on DonaldJTrump.com was down 69%.
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash
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WED 2/2/22
•President Biden is sending about 2,000 U.S. troops to Poland, and is shifting about 1,000 troops from Germany to Romania to support NATO as Russian troops gather near Ukraine’s border, the Pentagon has announced (AP).
•OPEC meets today to discuss production levels of crude oil, which has hit a seven-year price high of about $90 per barrel due to high demand (NPR).
•President Biden will announce revival of the “cancer moonshot” to boost prevention, detection and treatment, an initiative he led while serving as vice president to Barack Obama (WaPo).
And Now there are 49 – Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) underwent brain surgery after suffering a stroke Monday, Punchbowl News reports. With no timetable for his return, the Democrat’s 50-plus-veep majority in the Senate is on hold as Luhan recovers in his home state, and there are questions whether the chamber will pass anything significant before President Biden’s State of the Union speech March 1.
Note: Best the White House can hope for is bipartisan Senate support for small “chunks” of the Build Back Better program, but of course the focus will be on Biden’s replacement for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. Politico reports that ranking minority member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lindsay Graham (R-SC) is ready to support Biden’s choice. It’s worth noting that Lujan is not on that committee, so his absence will not be a factor in the committee’s vote to send the nominee to the Senate.
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Some Republicans Have a Memory Problem — Some Republicans (e.g., Susan Collins of Maine) have expressed concern over Joe Biden’s announcement while he was a candidate that he would appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court, considering it to be politicizing the judicial branch.
It is worth remembering that in May 2016 Donald Trump, who was not at that time the Republican nominee, released a list of 11 potential nominees to the Court, and a second list of 10 in September 2016 (per SCOTUSblog).
Note: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said it was “offensive” for Biden to zero in on a Black woman as nominee because Black women constitute about 6% of the U.S. population, according to Politico Playbook. Cruz shouldn’t be too smug: the population of Texas is approximately 8.9% of that of the entire country, so one wonders about the statistical viability of anything he has to say about anything.
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Trump’s Next Rally is in Salt Lake City – Donald J. Trump’s two-time campaign advisor, David Boise, is expected to introduce a resolution to expel Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) from this weekend’s annual convention of the Republican National Committee in Salt Lake City, The Washington Post reports. Boise also serves as the RNC’s national committee member from Maryland.
Note: Boise seeks to punish Cheney and Kinzinger for voting in favor of Trump’s second impeachment, and of course they are the only Republicans who serve on the House of Representatives’ Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection. Kinzinger is retiring from the House after the current term, while Cheney faces Trump’s endorsed primary challenger for this November midterms. Meanwhile, House Republicans who voted to oppose electors for Joe Biden January 6 are having no problems raising sufficient funds for their re-election this year, Roll Call reports. Trump has effectively cemented his control of the GOP at least through the year, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) should continue to worry about the former president becoming House Speaker if the party wins a majority there in November.
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods