THANKSGIVING RECESS 2023
The Consumer Price Index slipped by half a point in October, to 3.2%. It’s a nice drop from September’s 3.7%, but still well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Month-over-month prices were flat at 0%, though that was led by gas prices, which fell 5%, with energy off by 2.5%. Food, and food from home, was up 0.3%. Food away from home was up 0.4%. That other basic necessity, shelter, was up 0.3%.
Israel to Hold Gaza – Israel will have to occupy and control Gaza for the foreseeable future to assure Hamas’ authority there is not replaced by another Hamas-like group, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told NPR.
“Once we defeat Hamas, we need to make sure there’s no new Hamas,” Netanyahu told Morning Edition’s Steve Inskeep on its Friday broadcast. “No resurgence of terrorism. The only force that is able to secure that is Israel.”
Netanyahu described the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza which the Israeli Defense Force has raided for days as a “command center” for Hamas; “a lot of terrorists there, they fled as our forces approached the hospital, and happily we didn’t have to have a firefight with anyone.”
Gaza health authorities and Shifa directors have denied assertions by Israel and the United States that the hospital is hiding an elaborate tunnel system and have invited international inspection (Reuters).
The IDF has let reporters see a stairway leading under the hospital, but not the alleged tunnel system. Netanyahu said the IDF has found “a lot of weapons … a lot,” as well as ammunition and bombs underneath.
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So Long, Santos? – Rep. George Santos (R-NY) is “in real jeopardy of being expelled,” says Punchbowl News, after Thursday’s House Ethics Committee report sent to the Justice Department that says the freshman congressman diverted tens of thousands of dollars from his campaign fund for personal use, secretly funneled more than $176,000 from it to a company he secretly controlled and falsified his financial disclosures and campaign reports.
On Thursday, Santos issued a statement with Trumpy language, accusing the Ethics Committee of a “disgusting political smear,” and announced a November 30 press conference on the Capitol steps.
He may not have that much time. Rep. Michael Guest (R-MS), chairman of the Ethics Committee, planned Friday to introduce a privileged resolution, backed by ranking member Susan Wild (D-PA) to remove Santos from Congress, Punchbowl News notes. It would be the first such removal since Rep. Jim Trafficant (D-OH) was convicted in 2002 of bribery, tax evasion and other crimes.
Note: An earlier resolution to remove Santos backed by fellow New York Republicans in the House had the support of just 24 GOP congress members. If all 213 Democrats back Guest’s resolution, it needs at least 77 Republicans.
Given Santos’ fervent support for ex-President Trump and his House minions, it’s in the interest of those minions to keep him in his seat. If Santos is removed, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) could afford to lose only three Republicans to pass legislation.
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Tuberville Christmas – Republican senators are “laying the groundwork” to vote before Christmas for a Democratic-drafted resolution to change the Senate’s rules and circumvent Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-AL) hold on more than 400 military nominees, The Hill reports. Defense hawk Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who otherwise like Tuberville is a Trump ally, said he would be ready to vote for the bill, which would allow Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to confirm the military promotions as a bloc.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa
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THURSDAY 11/16/23
UPDATE: Santos announced shortly after release of the scathing House Ethics Committee report he will not run for re-election next year (The Hill).
Ethics v. Santos -- The House Ethics Committee handed over a 55-page report to the Justice Department that finds "substantial evidence" that Rep. George Santos (R-NY) violated federal criminal laws. The report says freshman congressman Santos spent campaign funds on Botox treatments and lavish Atlantic City trips with his husband. It also details efforts to obscure his money trail and that he sought to build a "fictional" financial narrative on official records. The report "almost certainly" will trigger another expulsion attempt, according to Politico.
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Just in Time, Senate Passes CR – Or you could call Wednesday’s 87-11 Senate passage of the House’s Continuing Resolution early, in that it prevents government shutdown Friday. The bill now goes to President Biden’s desk for his signature, but the CR does not include additional funding for Israel or Ukraine. Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told NPR’s Morning Edition there is bi-partisan support in the Senate and House to pass a separate bill for Israel and Ukraine after Thanksgiving. According to Roll Call the Senate Armed Services Committee’s ranking member, Roger Wicker (R-MS) won a commitment Wednesday to vote on sending the annual defense policy bill to a formal conference with the House.
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Biden Meets With Xi – President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jingping have agreed to resume military-to-military contact at their first in-person meeting in a year in Woodside, California Wednesday, ahead of an annual summit of Asian leaders in San Francisco.
“As a lot of you press know who follow this, that’s been cut off, and it’s been worri … worrisome,” Biden said in a press conference following the meeting. “That’s how accidents happen; misunderstandings. So, we’re back to direct, open, clear, direct communications on a … direct basis.”
Biden also announced Xi has agreed to a crackdown on precursor chemicals and pill presses used to process fentanyl and fentanyl chemical ingredients flowing from China to the West, “which are being shipped without controls.”
“We’re taking action to significantly reduce the flow of precursor chemicals and pill presses from China to the Western Hemisphere,” Biden said. “It’s going to save lives, and I appreciate President Xi’s commitment on this issue.”
--TL
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WEDNESDAY 11/15/23
Government Stays Open, For Now – Will Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) survive his “clean” two-step Continuing Resolution (CR), passed by the House Tuesday by 336-95 vote (per NPR)? The oppo came from two Democrats, Reps. Jake Auchincloss (MA) and Mike Quigley (IL) and 93 Republicans, including Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who was one of eight who voted to take away Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) gavel.
“Everybody gets a mulligan,” Gaetz, who was among the 93, explained (per The Hill).
“He’s had two weeks to pass it. His predecessor had since January, and then he jammed us up against the September 30 deadline,” agreed Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), another of the eight who voted to remove Johnson’s predecessor.
The CR extends four appropriations bills – Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture and Energy & Water – to January 19, and the remaining eight bills to February 2.
The “clean” part of the bill is that it doesn’t include deep spending cuts or provisions for a southern border crackdown. It also does not include funding for Israel or Ukraine, both of which are likely to be in the Senate’s version of the CR expected in time to keep the government open past Friday.
Saving Speaker Johnson: In a CNBC interview Tuesday, Johnson reiterated his support for Donald J. Trump and endorsed him for president for 2024. He also has the backing of “Christian Nation” advocates, who were represented in the January 6th Capitol insurrection. That may be enough to prevent Republican Congress members from invoking a motion to vacate when the appropriations bills face expiration again early next year.
If it’s not enough, House Democrats will likely enjoy watching the House GOP caucus collapse into chaos again.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa
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MONDAY 11/13/23
ICYMI Dept: Trump's Second-Term Dictatorship
By Todd Lassa
Donald J. Trump did everything he could to tear up the Constitution in his first term, including desperate attempts to procure a concurrent second term. The Washington Post last week outlined in an expose how “Trump and his allies plan to use a second term to wrest control of and politicize the Justice Department to target his political foes.” The analysis piece, by Aaron Blake, notes this is “hardly the first evidence of the plans for a consolidation of power and a more authoritarian second term.”
“Authoritarianism” does not go quite as far as “dictatorship,” but a potential dictatorship is what it is. So notes Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch, which on its front page at presswatchers.org offers readers the chance to “Read the full transcript of (Trump’s) fraud-trial testimony.” If the authoritarianism isn’t enough, this transcript offers insight into how unhinged Trump is.
Froomkin told WNYC’s On the Media that “elite journalists in our top institutions lack the vocabulary and the mechanics necessary to accurately cover Trump right now.” Responsible media outlets that endeavor to present straight news objectively – among them, WaPo, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, CBS News, ABC News and NBC News. They are mired by covering him with “false equivalency,” as if there is a counterpoint to authoritarianism. [It should be noted that CNN’s new CEO, Mark Thompson, told staffers on his first day at the office not to be “distracted by complicated arguments about balance or whataboutism or false equivalency.”]
Trump is no Vladimir Putin, dictatorship-wise, though as told by sources to WaPo his second term would be in the same class as Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Poland’s recently defeated Andrzey Duda. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been working on consolidating his power by kneecapping Israel’s judiciary, also could be included in this discussion.
This is what Trump and his loyal enablers have planned for 2025, according to WaPo:
•Use the Justice Department for political purposes. (Including prosecution of his former allies such as Bill Barr, who did much of Trump’s bidding as attorney general until Christmas 2020, just before the Capitol insurrection.)
•Purge the government and install loyalists.
•Consolidate power in the presidency.
•Pardon January 6 insurrectionists.
•Crack down harder on immigrants, with extraordinary tools.
On that last point, the NYT reported Sunday that Trump plans an “extreme expansion” of his first-term crackdown on immigrants, “including preparing to round up undocumented people already in the United States on a vast scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled.”
This would destroy our democracy. All Trump needs next November is his MAGA core, roughly one-third of the electorate, plus a substantial share of swing voters and a majority of mainstream Republicans cowed by the threat coming from Trump’s power grab – or maybe no more than a handful of election officials in swing states who are willing to do his bidding.
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R-Col. HED: Who Are Trump’s Potential Spoilers?
Seven Republicans want to spoil Trump’s huge lead in the polls for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination. Of the five among those who qualified for last week’s debate, the former president’s former United Nations ambassador, Nikki Haley, now appears to lead the race for second place.
Another of the five, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, is the only one of seven Republican presidential candidates who has openly declared himself a Trump spoiler. So far, he has not done much more than take about 5% of poll standings from the other challengers.
Then there’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the formerly Democratic challenger to President Biden for the nomination who withdrew his challenge to go independent. Having gone indy, Kennedy as an anti-vaxxer would seem to appeal to the considerable conspiracy theory contingent of MAGA. He may also appeal to those mythical voters who claim they backed Barack Obama before they backed Donald J. Trump.
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