MONDAY, MAY 3, 2021

President Biden is willing to negotiate with Republicans over his $4-trillion in infrastructure and government benefits, including tax increases, up to Memorial Day. But he is willing to push the initiatives through without their support if the Republicans don’t negotiate in “good faith” with reasonable counter-offers. The administration’s push for the packages intensifies this week, and Biden is expected to propose at least two more big government programs by the end of May.

Reuniting Separated Migrant Children Begins – Four families separated at the Mexican border during the Trump administration will be reunited in the U.S., the AP reports. It is “just the beginning” of a broader effort, Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas said in comments at the border in San Diego over the weekend. “We continue to work tirelessly to reunite many more children with their parents in the weeks and months ahead.”

Two of the four families to be reunited this week include mothers who were separated from their children in 2017, one Honduran and the other Mexican. Parents are being allowed to return to the U.S. on ‘humanitarian parole ’ which allows immigrants in without threat of arrest or deportation. More than 5,000 children are estimated to have been separated from their parents while trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border during the Trump administration beginning July 1, 2017.

Note: The Biden administration has been between The Donald and a hard place for much of its first 100 days, facing criticism for both “encouraging” a “record” rush of immigrants trying to cross the border from Mexico and Central and South America as a result of Biden reversing the former president’s immigration policies, and for crowding more than 20,000 children into 14 emergency intake centers. This week’s effort by the administration will relieve some pressure from the left but will continue to be fodder for the right.

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Cheney vs. Trumpian House Republicans – It appears House GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney, of Wyoming, is about to face yet another attempt to remove her from the number-three leadership post by pro-Trump Republicans angry over her continued sparring with them, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, The Hill reports. Some House Republicans want to strip Cheney of her power ahead of a 2022 mid-term re-election campaign for which she surely will be “primaried” by a MAGA candidate hand-picked by the Office of the Former President at Mar-a-Lago. For her part, Cheney appears to be considering a run in 2024 for the Republican nomination for president.

Note: Liz Cheney, daughter of the tough former vice president, Dick Cheney, appears to be yet another canary in the coalmine that is the GOP’s future direction.

Editor's note: This news item originally called Rep. Liz Cheney the number-two leader. It has been corrected to say she is the third-most powerful House Republican.

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Angry Buzzing in the Beehive State -- Senator Mitt Romney, R-UT, was booed by members of the audience at a Utah Republican Party convention this past Saturday, according to The New York Times. However, the paper also reports that while the boos were “overwhelming,” some audience members “cheered and applauded” him. According to The Washington Post, Romney said to the audience, “Now you know me as a person who says what he thinks, and I don’t hide the fact that I wasn’t a fan our last president’s character issues.” The boos intensified. The Post reports, “He paused for a few seconds as the booing continued before asking the crowd: “Aren’t you embarrassed?”

Note: The answer to that question is probably “no.” Or that should be “NO!” Clearly there are people in the Republican Party who have forgotten the notion of shame. It is worth noting, however, that the Times reported “a vote to censure Mr. Romney narrowly failed.” The number of votes were 798 to 711. That is an 11% difference. Which means The Times is using a rather generous definition of “narrowly.”

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Cindy McCain Calls Arizona Vote Audit “Ludicrous” – Cindy McCain, widow of the late Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, called a state Republican Party audit of 2020 Phoenix-area votes “ludicrous” in a CNN interview last weekend. The Arizona GOP has hired Florida firm Cyber Ninjas, which has no experience auditing votes, to do just that for the November 2020 results in Maricopa County. Cyber Ninja founder Doug Logan has “offered pro-Trump conspiracy theories about the election,” according to Politico. “The election is over,” McCain told CNN’s State of the Union. “Biden won. “I know many of you don’t like the outcome, but elections have consequences.”

Note: Were McCain to speak at a convention of the Arizona Republican party, odds are that the boos Romney heard would be whispers by comparison to what she’d hear. Yes, boos turned up to 11.

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EPA to Propose Cuts in Use of Potent Greenhouse Gas – The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday will propose a rule to sharply cut the use of hydrofluorcarbons (HCL), the greenhouse gas widely used in air conditioning and refrigerants that is thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide in producing greenhouse gases, The Washington Post reports. The EPA’s proposal is yet another reversal of a reversal. Former President Trump had rolled back a 2016 international agreement signed by the Obama administration to restrict use of HCLs. But the new proposal appears to have widespread bi-partisan support. Last year, Congress voted to cut HCLs by 85% over the coming 15 years as part of a broader omnibus bill. –Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash