WED 12/1/21
•The Supreme Court hears arguments today in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization over Mississippi’s restrictive abortion law, a case that ultimately could lead to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Clark Contempt; Former Chief of Staff Agrees to Cooperate – The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection will vote to seek contempt of Congress charges against Trump administration Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Clark, the Associated Press reports. Clark testified before a closed-door session of the committee November 5 but invoked executive privilege and “several other privileges” over his role in Donald J. Trump’s attempt to push the Justice Department to investigate false allegations of widespread fraud in the November 2020 presidential election.
In case you missed it, Trump lost.
The select committee has subpoenaed 40 associates of former President Trump so far. The Justice Department has issued contempt of Congress charges against former advisor Stephen K. Bannon, who is using his outlaw image to fuel MAGA outrage on his iHeart Radio show, Bannon’s War Room.
On Tuesday Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, agreed to cooperate with the committee on a “limited basis,” according to the AP. Meadows’ attorney, George Terwilliger, said his client was looking for a potential accommodation that would not require Meadows to waive Trump’s claims of executive privilege in testifying.
Note: Meadows’ testimony under the potential restrictions could be of questionable value to the House panel. It appears the pro-Trump crowd’s attempt to drag out the committee’s investigation to next year’s midterms, and probable dissolution of the committee if the GOP wins a House majority is working quite well.
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Fed May Accelerate Bond Buyback Over Inflation – As the omicron variant of COVID-19 threatens more inflationary pressure, the Federal Reserve is looking to accelerate its bond buyback program, Chairman Jerome Powell told a Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday.
“Generally, the higher prices we’re seeing are related to the supply and demand imbalances that can be traced directly to the pandemic and the reopening of the economy,” Powell said, Roll Call reports. “But it’s also the case that price increases have spread much more broadly in the recent few months across the economy. I think the risk of higher inflation has increased.”
Translation: This gives moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin III (WV) and Krysten Sinema (AZ) even more cover for placing the Biden Build Back Better program on the backburner, as Republicans push the case that the $1.75-trillion program will only fuel high inflation.
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Not Big on Books, But. . . -- Winning Team Publishing, a brand-new publisher headed by Sergio Gor, former Trump campaign aide, and Donald Trump, Jr., is publishing Our Journey Together, a book of photographs that will chronicle Donald Trump’s time in the White House, Politico reports. The ex-president announced the coffee table-style book last week and the book ($74.99 standard; $229.99 signed) obtained 70,000 pre-orders in its first week, according to Gor.
Note: As is well known, Donald Trump is not big on reading, so a picture book isn’t particularly surprising.
Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) has been established. According to recent reporting in Forbes, TMTG is valued at $10 billion, largely due to the creation of a SPAC that is to merge with it.
Of course, Trump’s social media efforts after he was removed from existing channels has done so incredibly well. . . .
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash
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TUE 11/30/21
•The Senate and House are scheduled to go on holiday recess after next week, but it’s clear the two chambers will have to stick around through Christmas as Democrats try to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open, raise the debt ceiling, move President Biden’s Build Back Better social safety net forward, and even fund the military by the end of the year. Republicans are happy to prevent most of this from getting done.
•Get something done: All adults should get a COVID-19 booster because of omicron, the CDC says (WaPo).
•The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization over the Mississippi law that bans nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy (SCOTUSblog).
Coronavirus Shutdown, Meet Government Shutdown – Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) seems almost proud of the GOP’s reputation as the party whose raison d’etre seems to be to put a dead stop on getting anything done. Whatever you’re for, I’m against it, Groucho Marx sang in Horse Feathers.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) seems to be his party’s weakest link as all he can do is shake in frustration over McConnell, who almost seems to be working as part of a comedy team with notorious swing vote Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-WV).
•On Monday, McConnell rallied his caucus to resist Schumer’s efforts to shut down debate on the National Defense Authorization Act, the $700-some-billion (the exact amount is part of the debate) annual defense budget that the majority leader had hoped to get passed early this week to move on to more contentious issues, Politico reports. Republicans’ excuse? They say they want more time to take up amendments.
•The current stopgap federal funding bill expires Friday. Democrats have another kick-the-can stopgap spending bill on the table that would keep the lights on through late January, but the Senate Appropriations Committee’s ranking Republican, Richard Shelby, of Alabama is balking, Politico says. “I’d like February. March would suit me. April. May … I think it gives us more time to seriously sit down.”
•Last, but not least, Manchin told reporters yesterday that McConnell wants Democrats to use reconciliation by itself in order to raise the debt ceiling by itself, which Politico says would be okay with him. It would also extend Trump-era policy still on the books into Biden’s second year as president, as we head toward those November mid-terms.
Note: What have we learned from all this? McConnell might famously be on the outs with the GOP’s leader, possible House speaker candidate and likely future presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump, but he’s doing what he can (and that’s a lot) to keep the ex-president’s rule in place. All Biden can do is wait to see how this plays out with a new coronavirus strain threatening to shut down the global economy again.
And isn’t it odd that the Republicans are putting the U.S. military in a bad place and showing levels of irresponsibility when it comes to paying bills? Maybe we’re thinking of the previous version of the Republican Party.
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Federal District Court Judge Blocks Vax Mandate in 10 States: Matthew T. Schelp, a federal judge in Missouri, has blocked the Biden administration’s requirement that health-care workers in facilities that receive funding from Medicare and Medicaid to be vaccinated, Axios reports. This covers 10 states -- Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming—which had brought a lawsuit against the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
Note: In his ruling, Schelp, a Trump appointee, described the vaccination requirement as a “politically and economically vast, federalism-altering, and boundary-pushing mandate.”
The reference to “federalism” is interesting. It generally refers to the Constitution’s division of powers between the national government and the states. The funding for Medicare comes from the Social Security Administration, which is squarely in the federal category. Funding for Medicaid is a national-state proposition, with the federal government sending money to the states to fund it. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “the federal share (FMAP) varies by state from a floor of 50% to a high of 78% for FY 2022.” In Missouri, where Schelp works, the federal government kicks in at least 60%. In Arkansas, another of the state involved in the lawsuit, the percentage is at least 70%.
Somehow it seems that when there is that kind of money involved, the federal government ought to have at least the right that stores and restaurants do in posting signs saying, “No shirts, no shoes, no service.”
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They Don’t Make Up This Sort of Thing About Schumer – Just how much more effective and powerful is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) next to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)? The far-right propaganda machine only is concerned about the Speaker.
Consider this: An obviously false report that Pelosi had closed on a $25-million Jupiter, Florida “retirement” mansion just 25 miles from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago spread across social media and the edges of more legitimate right-wing outlets, including the Washington Examiner. Jim Swift’s debunking in the anti-Trump conservative news site The Bulwark can be found here: https://www.thebulwark.com/conservative-media-makes-up-a-fake-florida-mansion-for-nancy-pelosi/
Odds are Schumer doesn’t mind.
–Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash
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MON 11/29/21
•Congress returns this week (the Senate today; the House Tusesday) with an end-of-the-year agenda of “must-pass” legislation. An extension of the spending bill to avoid a federal government shutdown expires Friday. Congress also must pass a bill to raise the federal debt limit, which the government is expected to reach by paying for funding already approved, within a couple of weeks into December.
•We’re back from Thanksgiving recess with new worries about the omicron variant of COVID-19, first detected in Botswana. The U.S. has banned travel from eight countries and southern Africa, NPR reports. South Africa announced a surge in cases last week, and omnicron[GV1] has been reported in Britain, Germany and Italy, NYT reports, while two cases were found in Canada Sunday evening.
Israel Stops Entry to Noncitizens — For the next two weeks (as it stands now, things could change) Israel is not allowing non-citizens to enter the country in an effort from stopping the omicron variant of the coronavirus from expanding in the country, The Washington Post reports. What’s more, cellphones of those people confirmed to have been infected by the virus are being monitored by Shin Bet, the country’s internal security service. Any gathering of over 50 people will have to acquire a “Green Pass,” indicating the participants have been vaccinated or recovered from the coronavirus.
Israelis who have been to any country that is defined as being “red” — in Africa, only Morocco and Egypt aren’t among them — will (1) have to take a PCR test after landing, (2) enter quarantine at a hotel setup for handling coronavirus cases and (3) even if they pass the PCR test must quarantine at home for seven days, at the end of which a PCR test is taken.
Those Israeli citizens who are fully vaccinated and not coming back from a “red” country must take a PCR test, quarantine at home for three days and then pass a PCR test.
Note: It is clear that the Israeli government is taking the omicron variant as seriously as the omicron variant should be. Meanwhile, back in the U.S., there are people like Gov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi (R), who, following the warnings of the potential of omicron by Dr. Anthony Fauci made in the previous segment of Meet the Press, said he is against mandating vaccinations because he believes “in individual liberties, and I believe in freedoms, and I believe individuals can make their own decision, what’s best for them, after they talk to their physician.” Reeves had previously said, “We have 1.6 million Mississippians that have been vaccinated. That’s not enough.” But he won’t make it happen. Meanwhile, in Israel, there is a clear understanding that this is a dire disease.
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Congress Members Go To Taiwan; China Unhappy: U. S. Representatives Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Nancy Mace (R-SC), Sara Jacobs (D-CA), Mark Takano (D-CA), and Colin Allred (D-TX) traveled to Taiwan last week to discuss the supply chain shortage; the Chinese Embassy had asked them not to go, Fox News reports.
"That individual U.S. politicians want to only challenge the one-China principle and embolden the 'Taiwan independence' forces has aroused the strong indignation of 1.4 billion Chinese people," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said, according to the outlet.
Note: In explaining why she took the trip, Slotkin had tweeted that the auto industry is dependent on microchips. It so happens that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is the largest producer of semiconductors in the world. (Yes, bigger than Intel, Samsung and other names you’re probably more familiar with.)
Presumably the U.S. officials realize that it is important to the well-being of all of those who are dependent on digital devices for TSMC to continue to produce as many chips as is possible. Which pretty much means that TSMC is important to everyone.
--Edited by Gary S. Vasilash and Todd Lassa