Category: Debate

Left and Right commentary on center-column political news.

Laws, Not Men

By Stephen Macaulay

The hand-wringing has been going on since, oh, about January 7, after Congressional Republicans, by and large, started thinking about their personal paychecks, which could be, they fear, taken away by Trump’s base. And so we begin to see the mewing about how the Trial of Donald Trump, the Sequel, will do nothing but tear the fabric of society still further.

Speaking of fabrics: that brings to mind the American flag. You know, that symbol of this country that was used by one of the insurrectionists at the Capitol on January 6 to beat a prone police officer.

MAGA, huh?

This country is predicated on principles. There is codification in the Constitution.

To paraphrase John Adams, this is a country of laws, not men.

And to quote someone who is probably more well recognized, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

Did the man who said, on more than one occasion, “"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay? It's, like, incredible," ever believe that he wasn’t above the law?

But he isn’t.

Like all presidents Trump swore to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” 

Article II, Section One, of the Constitution is about the Executive Branch. In it, it states, “The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.”

That day was January 6. The Congress was doing its Constitutional duty. 

And Trump, who had been claiming for months — even before the election was held —that it would be fraudulent, claims with not a scintilla of proof before or after, wasn’t having any of it.

Article II, Section One, also states, “The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed.”

So let’s see: Biden had the greatest number of popular votes. Biden had the greatest number of electoral votes.

Constitutionally he won the election.

So to go against that, didn’t Trump not “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution”?

(Let’s not enter into some hypothetical where an election could be rigged and the wrong person wrongfully elected. Again, we are a country of laws, and so were there to be evidence that that happened, then it would be addressed. Rudy Giuliani waving his arms is not proof of anything.)

According to the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3, “No Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.” (Emphasis added)

Clearly there was an “insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution of the United States on January 6, given that the elected representatives were in the Capitol performing their Constitutional duties.

Trump, having whipped up the crowd on January 6, told the assembled that “After this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you.” That is walk down to the Capitol. He, of course, lied.

So they walked down. They broke into the Capitol. Some claimed that they were going to hang the Vice President of the United States.

And Trump said in a tweet (before his ability to tweet was rescinded due to his vague association with what most of us know as “truth”) to the throngs who were doing things like urinating and rubbing feces on the walls of the Capitol, “We love you, you’re very special.”

Sounds like “aid or comfort” to me.

Let’s not count the number of Republican senators who may vote to convict Trump.

Let’s count the number of elected officials who believe in the rule of law and who will uphold the Constitution of the United States.

If they give this a pass because they think it will cause more division, then isn’t that just giving in to the people who have broken the law?

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Click on News & Notes for details of the impeachment article against former President Trump.

Will Trump’s Impeachment Trial be a Waste of Time?

By Todd Lassa

Contrasting with the flurry of more than 30 executive orders being signed by President Biden in the last few days and his cabinet picks working their way through the Senate at a rapid pace, things aren't going as well between newly promoted Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and similarly demoted Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, and his caucus on how, when and even if to conduct the trial of former President Trump. It appeared the Senate was headed for Trump-style deal-making that would have pit Senate Democrats’ effort to kill the legislative veto and give their 50-plus-Vice President Harris-majority more teeth against Senate Republicans’ wish to delay Trump’s impeachment trial, if not to spike it indefinitely. 

Schumer has since agreed to delay Trump’s impeachment trial to the week of February 8. McConnell on Monday night gave in to Schumer’s demands for a vote to rescind the legislative filibuster that forces a 60-vote majority to pass bills, in exchange for an agreement on Senate organization. But the deal may prove empty if two centrist Democrats, Krystin Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia honor their promise to vote with Republicans and retain the filibuster.

In the middle of all this, various news outlets, regardless of alleged political leanings, reported either a.) there are nowhere near the 17 Republican Senate votes needed to accompany an assumed unanimous Democratic vote in order to reach the 2/3-majority necessary to convict; or b.) a sufficient number of Republican senators have privately, anonymously committed to help Democrats reach the 67 votes necessary. 

The least Democrats can count on for now is that Sen. Mitt Romney, R-UT, appears ready and willing to vote for conviction. The editorial We might assume Schumer is also counting on Republicans Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, Susan Collins, of Maine and Ben Sasse, of Nebraska. Throw in possibly Sen. Rob Portman, R-OH, who has just announced he will retire after three terms, and fellow 2022 retiring Republican Sens. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Richard Burr of North Carolina, perhaps add in McConnell, who has already said he will not whip the Republican caucus on how to vote, count on all Democrats including two independents who caucus with them, and you may be up to 58 votes to convict, nine short of the number necessary to convict. 

Some Republicans who have joined the anti-Trump and never-Trump unofficial sub-caucus and Democrats hope that a Trump conviction will be followed by a vote on whether to ban the former president from ever running for federal office again, which may only require a 51-vote majority depending on the rules set forth for the impeachment trial. 

Because the week of February 8 will mark the first-ever impeachment trial of a former president, Chief Justice John Roberts will not preside. Instead, that honor goes to President pro-tem Patrick Leahy, Democrat from Vermont.

What should happen? What will happen in this historic anomaly? Pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay tackles those questions for the left column, and contributing pundit Bryan Williams considers the questions on the right.

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Click on News & Notes for details of the impeachment article against former President Trump

No Need for Trial, the GOP’s Mainstream is Done with Trump

By Bryan Williams

Remember when 2021 was supposed to be the year everything got better? The Year of Recovery started off more like the Year of Hell Part II. Our country witnessed an insurrection from the whackadoo Right, egged on by none other than the President of the United States and a few Republican senators and House members. Then we had the first non-traditional and arguably non-peaceful transfer in our nation’s history (unless you want to debate the election of 1800). In February, the Senate will hold the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump, who is now just a "regular" citizen.

What should we do? I think our country needs to heal and move on from the horrors of 2020 -- pandemic, divisive politics, economic upheaval -- all of it. Joe Biden claims he will unite us once again. The first 17 executive orders he signed within the first 36 hours of his administration have, in my opinion, failed to unite us, although there were some good ones in there, including halting construction of The Wall, delaying student loan payments until late September, and other pandemic-related orders. 

He signed others that will only continue to divide us: Orders relating to gender identity, abortion, energy and the environment. But I am just one moderate Republican. There are about 80 million other people in this country who voted for Biden and are happy with all of these. Those 80 million, and a few of my fellow moderate Republicans want to see Trump convicted in the Senate and barred from running for office ever again.

But it's going to be a tall order to convict Trump on the slapdash impeachment charges the House voted shortly before Biden’s inauguration. The single impeachment article was a rush job, and not very well thought through. The House impeached Trump on inciting an insurrection. Although the court of public opinion would assuredly convict him of inciting that mob, it may be a tougher sell for 17 Republican senators to agree based on the evidence.

If Trump does try to run again in 2024, he will still be a couple of years younger than Joe Biden when he became president. Do rational, reflective, analytical minds really believe Trump will still be focused on the presidency four years from now, or will he return to political power via more lucrative work in talk radio and conservative television?

Let’s not forget why he won the presidency in 2016 in the first place: He wasn’t Hillary. I think he lost in ’20 because more Americans were voting against Trump rather than in favor of Biden. The latter will be true again in ’24, and any thoughts of resurrecting MAGA will frighten many of us into voting for someone safe, comfortable like old shoes, and “moderate.” Maybe 2024 will be Romney's comeback year.

After Trump inflicted himself upon our body politic and the Republican party, impeaching him twice should be enough. I do not think it’s likely, nor necessary to convict him this time, and add the punitive result of a lifetime ban from running for federal office.

The same can be said for those who have pushed for Trump’s stolen election legerdemain. 

Sen. Josh Hawley, of Missouri, is the GOP’s Barack Obama. He can’t sit still in office long enough for a cup of coffee before he’s running for a higher office, and he’s remarkably inconsistent with his views. Stimulus, free speech on the Internet, you name it … Hawley flip-flops whenever it suits him politically. 

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who barely beat Beto O’Rourke in his re-election in 2018, who was “Lyin’ Ted” when Trump trounced him in the 2016 presidential primary run, is no Ronald Reagan. Cruz won’t win a comeback second attempt for the '24 GOP nomination.

Lastly, there’s Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who wants desperately to become House speaker. His 2020 re-election was the slimmest ever in his 14-year House tenure. I live in his district, and he still has solid support from many, but a well-financed Democrat did do damage last year and can do it again in ’22. The Republican House caucus is even more of a threat. Will they back him for speaker if the GOP retakes the House in 2022? They passed on him once already, and his ability to fundraise after his vote to support Trump's crazy election shenanigans will not be forgotten by the businesses that back his campaign committees.

And what about the 10 Republicans who did vote with Democrats in favor of Trump’s second impeachment (Rep. Liz Cheney, R-WY., here's looking at you), and have been censured by their local parties for it? As a former member and delegate of the California Republican Party, I can tell you state parties are much more red meat right now than the general Republican electorate, of which I now consider myself. In California, these party apparatchiks are obsolete and ineffectual. Don't worry about calls from these types for you to step down and resign, Liz. In fact, maybe it’s time to explore a run for president in 2024! Now there's something I think should happen.

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Click on News & Notes for details on the Impeachment Article against former President Trump.

The New Boss

By Stephen Macaulay

When people get new jobs, and they happen to be at upper management or executive positions, they like to change things to make it more in line with how they do things. For example, I once had a new boss who detested paper clips and demanded that everything be stapled. While that seems like not a big deal, it surely was to those who had spent years accumulating paper clips.

So imagine what happens when you become the President of the United States and have the ability to do things somewhat more substantive than determining when breaks can be taken or expense reports filed or whether transoceanic trips can be flown in Economy Comfort rather than steerage. New bosses have lots of power.

Joe Biden is the new guy. He wants to do things his way. After all, he did win the election. (Guess I might have stuck “Spoiler Alert” at the beginning of this paragraph.) One of his biggest priorities is to reverse the Trump administration’s harsh initiatives that put restrictions on immigration. 

Recently departed President Trump tried to prevent counting non-citizens in the 2020 Census. As a result, the Trump administration has delayed the census count past its Constitutionally mandated due date. While it may seem odd, not counting non-citizens violates Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution. Yeah, that Constitution. The resulting delay of the count past the Census Bureau’s December 31 deadline also means state Electoral College vote numbers and House of Representative districts cannot be apportioned.

Another Biden administration executive order also ends the “Muslim” travel ban. This called for restricted travel and immigration from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Somalia Yemen, Eritrea, Nigeria, Myanmar, Kyrgyzstan, and Tanzania. Not specifically a “Muslim” travel ban, it was one with a wink. Do you think that were there not such a restriction, people from those countries would have been at the Capitol in numbers on January 6?

Biden’s easiest EO puts a hard stop to building The Wall. According to FactCheck.org, as of late December 2020, of the 438 miles of the “border wall system” built under the Trump administration, “365 miles of it. . .is replacement for primary or secondary fencing that was dilapidated or of outdated design. In addition, 40 miles of new primary wall and 33 miles of secondary wall have been built in locations where there were no barriers before.” My math has it at 73 miles. Given the number of times that Trump mentioned The Wall you might imagine there’d be more. There isn’t. There was a lot that was said during the past four years that was Fake News. Much of it from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Spoiler alert: Trump lost Pennsylvania in 2020.

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Other first-day executive orders:

  • 100 Days Masking Challenge. With over 403,952 dead of COVID-19—no, it didn’t “just disappear”—let’s stop making this partisan. Viruses don’t vote. So asking all Americans to wear a mask and for enforcement on federal properties, it is an acknowledgement that it is still a massive problem—a fatal, massive problem.
  • Create the Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense. Remember when Trump was whining about how Obama dealt with the 2014 Ebola epidemic? Well this position was created by Obama, and like many things done by that administration, eliminated by the Trump administration. How did that work out? See above.
  • Rejoin the World Health Organization. Maybe it was snowed by China. And if we’re talking about being snowed: remember the chest thumping after the U.S. China Phase One trade agreement was put into effect? According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, through November 2020, “China’s year-to-date total imports of cover products from the United States were $86.9 billion, compared with a prorated year-to-date target of $153.8 billion. Over the same period, U.S. exports to China of covered products were $82.3 billion, compared with a year-to-date target of $141.7 billion.” That’s one hell of a dealmaker. As for the WHO specifically: viruses don’t carry passports. They get fought globally. Or they do far more damage than they otherwise would.
  • Extend eviction and foreclosures moratoriums. This is a multiagency lift. Had the pandemic been addressed early on, perhaps this wouldn’t be necessary. It wasn’t. This is.
  • Pause student loan payments until September 30. Again, see previous.
  • Rejoin the Paris Climate Accord. If Ford Motor Company — a major U.S. corporation that sells hundreds of thousands of pickup trucks every year—thinks climate change is real and that the Paris Accord is worthwhile, isn’t it?
  • End the Keystone XL pipeline. Check the price of gas at your local station. The Biden administration also wants to reverse the decisions that turned over what had been national monuments in places like Utah and Maine to development. Seriously: Once they’re developed they’re done.

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Immigration Executive Order are Only a pre-Trump ‘Reset’

By Nic Woods

President Joe Biden, in his first day in office, signed a slew of executive orders, memoranda and proclamations that included some attempts to overturn his predecessors’ immigration policy, which were, essentially, done with executive orders signed mainly to undo the work of his predecessor.

Just like the tit-for-tat, the policy signals in the immigration executive orders aren’t new. Much either resets immigration policy to where it was before Trump was inaugurated, or underscores what was the pre-Trump normal. 

Unlike former President Trump, Biden is signaling that he’d prefer legislation be passed to bolster the executive orders and is currently preparing a legislative package that further codifies the policy, but key Republicans have started to balk, claiming that because he was signing executive orders already, he didn’t actually mean what he said in his inaugural address about unifying, and governing, as one nation.

But Biden’s immigration asks are not that egregious. One EO basically requires the Census Bureau to do what it is already required to do by the U.S. Constitution – count every person, citizen or not. But this differs from Trump’s efforts to carve out non-citizens from the Census count. 

The main ask – a streamlined, eight-year process for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants to become citizens – would make the Census EO redundant, as people in the pipeline for citizenship would likely have less to fear from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and are more likely to be comfortable with answering a Census worker’s questions.

Many of the other immigration EOs, such as lifting the ban of travelers from Muslim nations, either returns us to “normalcy” or it brings back to the table issues Trump tried to avoid or end altogether, e.g. protection from deportation for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) or programs for refugees and asylum seekers, some of whom were in mortal danger for assisting U.S. troops in such trouble spots as Iraq. 

Others overturn Trump executive orders that pushed for the aggressive deportation of unauthorized immigrants and deported Liberians who have been living in the U.S. For these, Biden has directed the State department to restart visa processing and develop ways to address the harm from having that process be in limbo for so long.

In yet another EO, Biden ends construction of Trump’s border wall in favor of bolstering the borders with new technology that does similar work at, perhaps, less cost.

What Biden isn’t doing is throwing open the U.S. borders for everyone to get in unvetted. No one wants that and, as a centrist, such an extreme position isn’t in his wheelhouse. But he seems to be making a bold move to succeed where presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush failed by finally providing a clear, legal, more humane route to U.S. citizenship.

Other Biden first day initiatives:

• A 100-day “masking challenge” that entails mask requirements in federal buildings and on federal land, as well as public transit. Biden called for mask requirements on trains, airplanes and buses, and in public airports. 

• Establishment of a directorate for global health security and biodefense, with the goal of having protocols in place determined by past pandemics in order to be prepared for future pandemics.

•At first a fan of China’s early response to COVID-19, former President Trump quickly came to criticize and then pull representation from the World Health Organization for not being tougher on the country. Other critics agreed the WHO for failing to take a tough stance on China’s slow response to early outbreaks, The Washington Post says. Thanks to Chinese bureaucracy and restrictions, the Post reports, it took nearly a year for WHO to gain access to the country, which finally happened this month. But WHO helps with worldwide distribution of medical supplies and holds regular meetings on the coronavirus, which Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease official in the U.S., attended by webinar Thursday.

• Eviction and foreclosure moratoriums that were part of the March 2020 CARES Act were extended by Trump in December, set to expire at the end of January. Biden’s EO extends the moratoriums through September 30.

• Like the eviction and foreclosure moratoriums, Trump extended to the end of January a freeze on student loan payments otherwise due to expire with the CARES Act in late December. Biden’s EO also extends the freeze, again, to September 30.

• Trump exited the Paris Climate Agreement, which the Obama administration signed on to in 2015, calling climate change a “hoax” and claiming the international treaty was unfair to the U.S. But Biden has nominated John Kerry to a new cabinet-level position, special presidential envoy for climate, with the intention to rejoin and continue work on the treaty.

• Canada’s TC Energy’s Keystone XL pipeline has been in the works for nearly a decade, connecting Alberta’s oil sands with Montana. While some state Democrats, as well as most Republicans support the $8-billion project, Native American tribes and ecology groups have fought it since the beginning, and the U.S. achieved energy independence during the Obama administration. Biden has issued a moratorium and TC Energy has suspended its development. Biden is to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Friday.

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Same as the Old Boss — Obama

By Andrew Boyd

President Biden’s slew of executive orders and proclamations are less practical and effective than they are an apparent attempt to enhance the Democratic Party’s image. Biden is particularly bent on reversing former President Trump’s immigration policy without proposing the sort of permanent policy that has evaded both parties for decades. 

Counting non-citizens in U.S. Census is a nakedly political effort to disenfranchise American citizens through reapportionment leveraged against illegals (sorry, non-citizens) by executive fiat. DACA part deux. Halftime show brought to you by SCOTUS and their denial of Trump’s authority to overturn part one. Farcical. 

There is one executive order I can support, to stop building The Wall. I’ve always been dubious on the efficacy of The Wall. On that basis, I’m good. As to walls being immoral, which was the rallying cry like 20 minutes ago, I’d call that complete trash thinking. Look no further than Wednesday’s inauguration ceremony. I await some reasoned argument from anyone on how to effectively manage and monitor inflows and outflows of peeps as do all other sovereign nations. See beloved progressive Canada.

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My take on the other major executive orders …

•Masking challenge and creation of a directorate for global health security and biodefense. What the hell is a directorate? Sound like something we can neither afford nor effectively contain. Watch to see the swell of SJW agenda items that get smuggled in through this baby. A ministry of funny walks would be more to my liking. It’s at least good for a laugh. [Note: SWJ is “social justice warrior” –Ed.]

•Rejoin the World Health Organization. The WHO proved itself utterly unreliable as an honest broker of information in this pandemic, which is putting it kindly. Lapdogs of the Chinese communist party is more on the nose. You can pretend this is a nod to the primacy of science and the critical importance of global coordination, but I suspect it’s more about the Dems unrelenting desire to be loved by their EU counterparts, which is most easily achieved by kneeling to a global bureaucratic hegemony that has anything but the best interests of the American people in mind.

•Extend eviction and foreclosure moratoriums. It’s easy to be humane when you’re doing it with other people’s money. It’s also, inconveniently, immoral. In principle, no different than “stimulus” via the accumulation of public debt, a.k.a. stealing from the future, only this one is on a shorter time frame and more directly tied to a specific group of people in the present, a.k.a. property holders. It’s all theft.

•Pause student loan payments through Sept 30. Why are we so focused on the particular slice of consumer debt that applies to college? It’s regressive in many respects, and again, stealing. Then, of course, there’s the moral hazard behind the notion that the government should have the power to step in and abrogate a legally constructed agreement between two private parties. But that’s just a matter of principle, so whatever.

•Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement. An agreement without teeth, and mostly another means of smuggling in global economic wealth transfers. Among first world nations, who reduced their total CO2 emissions the most, on an absolute basis, in 2019?. That would be the U.S., courtesy of technological innovation driven by the big, bad free market. Meanwhile, 80% of increases in global CO2 emissions in the same time period came from China, Asia and India, and future forecasts see the U.S. remaining relative stable while China, India and other developing economies will fuel their growth with ongoing increases in greenhouse gas emissions.  

•End Keystone XL Pipeline. The environmental impacts of a pipeline are minimal and, to my mind, substantially outweighed by the economic and national security benefits of America’s energy independence. I know, I hate polar bears and seals and life in general. Shame on me. Oh, and Canada is not so pleased either.

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It’s the Economic Stimulus We Need Now

By: Michelle Naranjo

There is an inexorable connection between the physical health of a nation, and the well-being of its economy. In advance of his inauguration, President-elect Biden has announced an ambitious rescue plan with the intentions of healing both.

A $1.9 trillion package would surely have something for everyone: additional stimulus checks to individuals, state, and local governments, extended jobless, benefits, allocations to assist with reopening schools, fortified testing and tracing, and coordinated effort to deliver 100 million vaccines within the first 100 days of a Biden presidency. 

Currently, there has been suspicion and doubt that a federal reserve of vaccinations even exists. The states have been largely left to figure out procedure and distribution for themselves, resulting in a meager number who have been successfully vaccinated in numbers that cannot keep up with the pace of new infections. 

One support employee at the largest healthcare provider in one heavily infected state said that the provider’s call centers are overwhelmed with people trying to get the vaccine. One woman attempted to cancel the scheduled vaccinations of her “friends” because they were neither as “old, not as sick” as she is. 

It smacks a bit too much like a real-life “Hunger Games.” 

If Biden’s plan is able to be passed in its full form, Moody’s Analytics speculates that economic growth nearing 8% is possible, unemployment would fall to 4% by the end of 2022, and the entire population -- including undocumented workers -- would speed towards a herd immunity goal of having 245 million vaccinated by fall. 

But, of course, even with the country in dire straights while the COVID-related deaths leap over the 400,000 count, Republicans have been quick to resist Biden’s plan. 

Senator Rick Scott, R-Fla., was quick to issue a statement saying, “We cannot simply throw massive spending at this with no accountability to the current and future American taxpayer.” His biggest contention is the money that would be allocated to bailing out state and local government which saw significant loss of revenue during the last year. Aid to alleviate this burden was kept out of the December 2020 package by Republicans, much like it was partially sidelined in the earlier Heroes Act.

There will undoubtedly be concessions on the road to this next relief package. Still, the long tail of this immediate problem is that financial equity is not attempted, and containment of the virus is not sought; this winter will certainly not be our darkest. 

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Biden to the Rescue?

By Todd Lassa

President-elect Biden is ready to test the mettle of his party’s wafer-thin majorities in the House and Senate with his $1.9-trillion coronavirus American Rescue Plan. Key feature of the plan is $1,400 in stimulus payments to complement the $600 mailed out late last year, thus matching the $2,000 President Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought. 

In campaigning for Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossof in their successful January 6 Georgia runoff races for U.S. Senate, Biden suggested that it would take their victories, which give the party a 50-50 count plus Vice President-elect Harris’ tiebreaker, to pass the additional $1,400 stimulus checks. The Trump administration 2017 tax cuts and last March’s $2.2-trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the largest stimulus package in U.S. history, pushed the federal deficit to record levels. Now Republicans on Capitol Hill are starting to move back to their more traditional model fiscal responsibility and opposing such large deficits. 

After details of The American Rescue Plan (or TARP, which recalls the Targeted Asset Relief Program of the Bush 43 and Obama administrations in response to the 2008 credit crisis) were released, The Wall Street Journal suggested in a Friday morning story that Biden’s proposal, along with a 0.7% drop in December retail sales, were to blame for a decrease in stock market averages. But the story quoted one analyst as suggesting that the market was expecting a larger dollar amount that would better stimulate the economy as vaccinations continued across the country and the economy started opening up. 

Conversely, critics of the CARES Act and the short-term extension passed by Congress just before the New Year say the stimulus funds, when distributed to Americans who need it most, were being saved rather than spent (the objective of the payments is to help generate commerce) as they feared for their future employment. 

In addition to direct payments for individuals, Biden’s TARP proposes an additional $400 per week in unemployment insurance supplement through September, expanded paid leave and increases in the child tax credit. About half the package would be claimed by household costs. 

There is $20-billion for national vaccination centers across the U.S., open to anyone living here regardless of immigration status, with the goal of reopening public shools by May 1, within Biden’s first 100 days. Most of the rest of the remaining $950-billion or so would pay for relief to state and local governments, which have suffered severe tax revenue declines due to small business failures and higher unemployment, and to vaccine distribution, including the national centers. 

“If we invest now boldly, smartly and with unwavering focus on American workers and families, we will strengthen our economy, reduce inequity and put our nation’s long-term finances on the most sustainable course,” Biden said Thursday evening (AP). 

Deaths globally from the coronavirus pandemic topped 2 million on Friday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. death toll accounts for nearly one-fifth of that, now close to 400,000.

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Spending Trillions in Dire Times

By Bryan Williams

A trillion here, a trillion there...pretty soon you're talking real money! Last year during the debate about the CARES Act, being the Republican that I am, I was taken aback at the sheer size of it. Congress and the Trump Administration were talking trillions of dollars. Woah.

I remembered just eight years ago (my mind is boggled realizing it's been that long) Representative Paul Ryan, R-Wis., was cautioning about our debt bomb and entitlement reform and how it was almost too late to do anything about it. The CARES Act, stimulus part II, and now TARP will conflate the national debt way past anything Paul Ryan dreamed of.

And yet ... we are in dire straits. I am relatively amazed at how well our economy has weathered the COVID pandemic from an economic standpoint, and from what I've read, weathered it better than most other countries. Is it because of the massive federal stimulus plans? Maybe Keynes was right?

What is a fiscal conservative to do? Are we to fight these stimulus plans, or see that they are necessary during this pandemic year? Isn't this what government should be doing? Ensuring folks are safe and able to get by when something happens through no fault of their own?

If I were a congressman or senator, I believe I would vote for the stimulus bill. I've seen too many restaurants and other businesses in my city closed up and people desperate. But I think I would also ask for strict accountability and audits after the fact to make sure these trillions are spent judiciously and legally.

The U.S. is still the world's number-one economy despite some of its competitors taking unfair advantage (that's you, China), as a global pandemic, and societal strife have done their best to bring it down. Paul Ryan was right. We do need to keep a watchful eye on our debt. But as my grandfather has half-jokingly always told me, "It's only money." I vote to stimulate.

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Follow the Money

By Stephen Macaulay

Jesse—Big Daddy—Unruh, California politician during the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s and, yes, ‘80s, famously said: “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.”

He also said regarding lobbyists, “"If you can't eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women and then vote against them you've got no business being up here.”

So the question is whether Unruh was a cynic or a realist. I’ll go for the second choice.

Even in cases where there is what is generally accepted “normal” behavior by the men and women who hold higher office, in point of fact their insatiable need for money to keep the wheels of their careers well oiled often puts them in positions wherein temptation is at an intensity that most of us will never experience.

And when you have the Trump Family, things are really off the rails.

What is surprising is the number of individuals and corporations Team Trump have, to put it indelicately, screwed. Whether it was contractors who didn’t get paid or hotels that had to send invoices to a collection agency, the Trumps, led by the paterfamilias, have had a thing for other people’s money. Getting into the Oval Office was hitting the jackpot. Presidents don’t need to carry wallets.

One reason why we have heard ad nauseum about how the election was stolen, rigged, etc., about how he “won in a landslide,” probably has more than a little something to do with dead presidents—and I don’t mean Bush 41, Reagan, Johnson, etc.—than any concern with the well-being of the polity.

Remember those tax returns we’ve only seen by fits and starts? Or the return that showed Trump paid $750 in taxes in 2017?

Odds are good that Trump is going to realize that he’s going to make more money being out of office than would back in office (remember that he is 74 and although his parents lived long lives — his father to 93 and his mother to 88 — according to the Social Security actuarial table he has an average 11.76 years left, so he might as well optimize his earnings, such as they may be). What about the kids? Don Jr., Eric, Ivanka? Might they try a run? Anything is possible, but fealty seems to be to Senior, and there is less likelihood that they could pull it off with the bold bluster of the Old Man. And if there is a — and I use this term technically — a shit-storm of lawsuits that come raining down on Trump, the brand is going to be largely besmirched for all but the most dedicated, so the money won’t come raining with it.

So if not Trump, then who? Marco Rubio — a.k.a., “Lil’ Marco” — will probably give it another run. And Mike Pence hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory during his tenure in the White House, nor endeared himself to the Base, so there doesn’t seem to be a path for him to take, so odds aren’t good there. (And that second Unruh quote would undoubtedly be too upsetting to him to contemplate.)

It could be that the Republicans try to do a bit of a reset and go for a more “normal” Ben Sasse — although it should be noted that while Nebraska has been a reliably Republican state, in the last presidential, for only the second time in its history, it awarded one of its five electoral votes to someone else, in this case, Joe Biden.

It should not be forgotten that before the chairman and CEO — then, as now — of The Trump Organization won the Republican nomination, there were Rubio, John Kasich, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, Jim Gilmore, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Rick Santorum, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, George Pataki, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, and Rick Perry all in the game at one point.

Politics is a nasty game and corporations play hard ball. Make no mistake: they’re not going to put their efforts behind people supported by grown-ups who wear Viking garb — and I don’t mean the Minnesota team — when it isn’t Halloween.

Follow the money.

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GOP faces Faustian bargain with Trump supporters

By Todd Lassa

Before the presidential inauguration of Joseph R. Biden, the party structure and big business supporters of the Republican candidate who earned the most votes in U.S. election history are rather suddenly fleeing their erstwhile party leader, President Donald J. Trump. The answer to the question of whether Trump and his family maintain at least some control over the GOP through 2024, when the president has indicated he may run for a second term, appears to have shifted quickly in the days following the pro-Trump insurrection on Capitol Hill. 

It has affected the future of the Trump family’s businesses. On Tuesday, The Trump Organization’s biggest lender, Deutsche Bank, announced it was cutting ties with both the outgoing president and his business interests, Politico reports, quoting “a person familiar with the matter.” Trump owes the bank more than $300 million, Politico says.

In addition, the political news website reports that New York Signature Bank is closing Trump’s personal accounts and has called for his resignation ahead of January 20. The bank plans to “no longer do business” with members who voted against Congress’ certification of President-elect Biden’s Electoral College victory of 306 to 232.

Meanwhile, at least 10 big businesses say they will withhold contributions to those same Republican senators and members of the House of Representatives, including health insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield, which has contributed more to Republicans than Democrats in every election since 1996, according to reports. Others withholding GOP contributions include American Express, MasterCard, Dow Chemical Company and Hallmark. 

BlackHawk, Goldman Sachs, Facebook and Google all will pause political contributions to both parties. 

On Monday, John R. Bolton, Trump’s national security advisor from April 2018 to September 2019, in an interview with MSNBC’s Katy Tur called on the GOP to “purge the taint of Trumpism.” 

Also Monday, Trump’s approval rating fell to a record low for presidential approval ratings, of 33% in the Quinnipiac poll, with 56% of respondents holding him responsible for the Capitol insurrection. This raises the question of what portion of the 74.3 million Americans who voted for Trump last November 3 still support the president after the Capitol Hill riots – and what portion are the type of supporters who would participate in such riots. 

Before the House’s vote on Trump's second impeachment Wednesday, a report in The New York Times and from other outlets said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, would leave it up to his fellow Senate Republicans whether or not to vote for Trump’s conviction. McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, resigned her cabinet post as Trump’s Transportation secretary early in the month.

This slippage in support counters conventional wisdom that Trump-style populism will continue to dominate the Republican Party, which, after Mitt Romney’s loss to incumbent President Obama in 2012, conducted an election “autopsy” to figure out how to adapt a big-tent constituency as the white majority continued to shrink below 50% of the nation’s voting population. 

Even if Trump and his family, especially son Donald Jr. and daughter Ivanka, fade from GOP favor between now and the 2022 midterm elections, several pro-Trump Republicans are poised to make a run for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri face potential discipline for their votes against the Electoral College certification, but Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is still in the running. Moderate Republicans considered 2024 candidates include Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Maryland Governor Larry Hogan. 

No matter what happens, the traditional Republican issues of tax cuts, small government and minimal regulation will thrive, just as they did under President Trump.

So … what’s next for the GOP? Can it, and should it, purge the Trump family and undermine the power of Trump’s acolytes on Capitol Hill, or should the Republican Party embrace his hard-boiled populism to build on his loyal base?

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Trump Still Leads the Movement, if Not the Party

By Andrew Boyd

Efforts at predicting the future, particular in things as non-mechanistic as politics, is a fool’s errand, but here we go!

First, we must ask ourselves what is Trumpism?  Your guess is probably as good as mine.  Well, no, I necessarily believe my guess is better, and my guess is that Trump gives voice to a deeply seated distrust of our political institutions on the part of something approaching half or more of the voting public, and the belief of same that the whole game, top to bottom, is rigged.

These same people witnessed the hollowing out of our manufacturing economy in service to free and fair trade that was neither.  They watched as same elites, under the pretext of environmental conservation, sought to enable both the destruction and transfer of wealth on a global scale.  Same game, different rationale.  And most critically, they saw in their own party leaders a cowardice and cynicism that left them feeling altogether betrayed. 

Onto that fertile ground stepped an extraordinarily charismatic man. I won’t pretend to know his motives. Such things are very hard to discern.  Given Trump’s history, one might be forgiven for thinking he is, first and foremost, an opportunist and a narcissist in the same league with most of the men who’ve held our nation’s highest office.  Politics on a national scale is the domain of such people, which is among the main reasons I appreciate the checks on power provided by our constitutional system.

The momentum of Trumpism is Trump himself, and I suspect he will find ways to take the movement with him, and the harder the left pushes back by censorship or other bullish, un-American means, the stronger he will become, like Obi Wan Kenobi. That is not a comparison of character, but of the dynamics of ideological movements, and it carries a warning to those who would seek to make Trump a martyr for the cause.  Bad move.  Really, really bad move. 

I despise the cult of personality that surrounds Trump, as I do all charismatic movements, theological, political or social.  Bad things grow in that ground, such as all reasonable people witnessed with horror in the halls of the Capitol last week.  

I hope, naively, that whomever next reaches for the brass ring is more principled in character and measured in tone, for all our sakes. But the gravitational pull of Trump is not soon to be diminished, I’m afraid, and I don’t see anyone on the national political stage today with the power to achieve escape velocity.

For now, the movement, if not the party, is the fiefdom of Donald. God help us all. 

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The Teachable Moment About Lying

By Michelle Naranjo

Last week, I overheard an 8-year old say to her parent, "Maybe I would vote for Trump because if I robbed a bank, I could probably lie and get away with it." The parent laughed, and exhaustedly sighed through another teachable moment.

We have persevered four years of this presidency, so it seems as if we should all be able to trudge through the final 12 days.

But we can't, and we shouldn't. 

This human-made disaster isn't about the personal indiscretions, the golf, the taxes, the children, or the fascination with dictators. 

It is about the lies. They added up until there was a tipping point that has caused a historic amount of damage. 

Inciting an insurrection with repeated and documented lies should have consequences. 

If the 25th Amendment is not brought forward immediately, then there should absolutely be an impeachment as soon as possible. 

But impeachment is just the start of the means to make the wrongdoer be held accountable. There should also be prosecution to return public trust and send a strong message to the treasonous supporters alike. 

Too many have turned a blind eye too often to Trump's treasonous acts during his presidency. It is almost as if some forgot their inalienable roles as inhabitants and allowed themselves to become viewers to be bought and sold. Too many found the manipulations and bungles...funny. 

The supporters of the inciter should also be held accountable, in whatever shape that might take. Historian Timothy Snyder recently wrote, "Politicians who do not tell the simple truth perpetuate the big lie, further an alternative reality, support conspiracy theories, weaken democracy, and foment violence far worse than that of January 6, 2021."

From the eight senators and 139 representatives who consciously chose to support the lies against democracy to those who claimed that believing was more important than their fellow citizens, violence and destruction is not an acceptable tactic to change the minds of non-believers.

 The chasm in the culture of this country is repairable but is so very fragile right now. 

Democracy is showing us a teachable moment. It is exhausting; it is not amusing. 

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Natasha Romanoff Is My Girlfriend. Everybody Says So.

By Stephen Macaulay

Amendment XXV, Section 4.  “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”

As rioters attacked the Capitol, Donald Trump put up a video on Twitter—a tweet that carries a label “This claim of election fraud is disputed, and this Tweet can’t be replied to, Retweeted, or liked due to a risk of violence” — read that again and let it sink in and realize that this is a message from the President of the United States.

He claimed he’d won the election by a landslide. That the election has been stolen from him. That “There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us—from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election. …”

Oh, and he said that the people that he loved should go home.

In the weeks following the election, neither he nor his supporters have presented any certifiable proof of any fraud. Any landslide. Any malfeasance that would lead to a change of the election results.

Yet he repeats it. Over and over. Nothing tangible. Nothing real.

There is what is generally accepted to be reality. Then there is something that is pure fantasy. Most people can discern the difference.

Not even the most rabid Marvel fanboy believes that he’s ever going to date the Black Widow. But if someone kept repeating that he was going to be dating Natasha Romanoff, would someone take him aside and suggest that that isn’t ever going to happen? That he should move on?

And if that fanboy kept repeating it, perhaps saying things like “They are keeping her from me,” wouldn’t it seem that that person is more than a bit off?

Would you allow that person to have the nuclear codes?

There is reality. Things break. Things can’t readily be put back together.

Have we not gotten to the point where people who are allegedly responsible step up and do their sworn duty to preserve and protect the United States?

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Trump Must Resign

By Bryan Williams

Since the release of the smart phone upon the world in the latter half of the first decade of the 21st Century, our collective societal will to have patience has been nearly eliminated. These Internet connected devices have allowed for instantaneous communication, instantaneous transfer of money across the world, and food delivered to our door within an hour. Our political and governmental machinations have not caught up. They are still painstakingly slow. That it takes two and half months between a presidential election and the inauguration of the next president is enough to make us tear our hair out (and have enough time to order a wig on Amazon to be delivered within two days).

Let me be clear: Any admiration I had for President Trump is now gone. He must go. But how? It is agonizing to think he has (as of my writing this) 291 hours left in his presidency before Joe Biden is sworn in. How do we wait that long?

Many have said Vice President Pence and the Cabinet should invoke the 25th Amendment. Cabinet secretaries are dropping like flies with resignations over Wednesday's chaos, so soon there may not even be enough of a Cabinet left to invoke the 25th. But even if there were, in my opinion, this would be the wrong course of action. The 25th Amendment is to be used when the president is physically or mentally incapacitated. Working in the mental health field as I do, I can tell you it would be a stretch to declare Trump mentally incapacitated. Trump is mentally capable of doing many things. He is of sound mind. The problem is, he just won't do what is right. We should not degrade the 25th Amendment even though it would be tempting to do so, and I believe, could be up to legal challenge in this case.

How about impeachment by Congress? This is most attractive and should be undertaken even if there is not enough time considering how slow this process is. At the very least Congress should censure Trump.

What should happen is for Trump to resign and let Pence be our President for the balance of the remaining 291 hours. But we all know he won't. Trump is going to ride this horse until its time is up on January 20th at 11:59AM EST.

So the rest of us here in America have to be adults and have a little patience - 291 hours isn't so bad, is it?

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