WED 1/26/22
•A panel of three federal judges has rejected Alabama’s latest congressional map and ordered a new one with a second district in which Black voters have a better chance of electing the House candidate of their choice (Roll Call).
•In a move gun-rights advocates will certainly take to the courts, San Jose’s city council “overwhelmingly” approved a law Tuesday to require gun owners to carry liability insurance (Los Angeles Times).
•Scroll down to read “Biden Breaking Build Back Better”, the center column to “Cut Joe Biden Some Slack” (left) and “Pivot to the Center” (right).
Still a Cold War, Not a Hot War – The White House is preparing extensive sanctions and trade authority, previously provided by Congress, to punish Russia for its aggression toward Ukraine, Roll Call reports. The sanctions go “well beyond” those the U.S. imposed against the Kremlin after Russia’s 2014 attack on the Crimea, but the White House says it will not publicly detail what is being considered so it can maintain its diplomatic leverage.
Meanwhile, diplomats from France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine are meeting Wednesday in Paris to resuscitate a stalled peace process, The Washington Post reports, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has objected to delivery of 79 tons of arms to Ukraine from Western nations.
Note: Russia is estimated to have about 127,000 of its troops gathered on the Ukrainian border, including along the Belarus border about 100 miles north of Kyiv, NPR reports, but some analysts suggest it’s not enough for a full-out invasion. Is a side benefit for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression influence over our midterm elections this November? Just, as Fox News’ Tucker Carlson might say, asking.
On that note: Carlson said on his show the U.S. has no reason to take sides on Russia versus the Ukraine, and former President Trump’s onetime national security advisor, Michael Flynn, defended Putin in an op-ed in a far-right journal, writing that “Biden might get hundreds of millions killed over Ukraine.” Clearly, Carlson and Flynn miss the warm Trump-Putin relationship.
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Low-Sodium Build Back Better – Senate Democrats are likely to remove the proposal to raise the cap on state and local tax deductions (SALT) from the White House’s Build Back Better proposal when they return to Capitol Hill next week, The Hillreports. The SALT cap is one of Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) top priorities, but members of his caucus believe the provision is too costly and would most benefit wealthy suburbanites in blue states. Such as New York.
Democrats involved in negotiations with key holdout Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) “blew up” the SALT cap provision, the report says.
Note: President Biden already has said he will break up his Build Back Better social infrastructure program, with a current price tag of somewhere between $1.75- and $2 trillion into smaller “chunks.” Raising the SALT cap appears to be an easy cut despite Schumer’s support, compared with, say, the child tax credit. The bigger surprise may be how eager Senate Democrats are to take up the package when they return to Capitol Hill next week, after a fruitless end to negotiations before the end of 2021.
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Charles Dervarics
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TUE 1/25/22
•The Federal Reserve begins a two-day policy meeting to discuss increasing interest rates in light of booming inflation.
•Scroll past News & Notes to read “Biden Breaking Build Back Better” in the center column and read responses on the left and right.
Putin Triggers U.S. Military – The Pentagon has ordered 8,500 troops on high alert for potential deployment, not to Ukraine, but to NATO bases elsewhere in Eastern Europe as Russian President Vladimir Putin takes advantage of Western panic over his amassing more than 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s eastern border (AP).
“Putin’s decision on invading Ukraine will depend on what side of the bed he wakes up on,” President Biden said Monday.
Known Unknowns: Kremlinologists still hold out the possibility that Putin is simply stirring up NATO, which he wants out of the former Eastern Bloc, and the U.S., where Biden is still dealing with deep criticism for his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
But invading all of Ukraine also will recall for Russians the nine disastrous years Soviet Russia spent in Afghanistan in the 1970s and 1980s, well before our own disastrous 20 years in the country.
“I don’t believe that full invasion is in his plans,” Nina Khruscheva, author and professor at The New School, and yes, great-granddaughter of the late Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev, told NPR’s Morning Edition Tuesday. “If he were to invade it wouldn’t be that open. … I think it would be more of a blackmail-brinksmanship.”
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About Those 11,780 Votes – Judges on Fulton County’s Superior Court Bench gave District Attorney Fani Willis the green light for a special grand jury to investigate ex-President Trump’s efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election resultsThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
A special grand jury will be impaneled May 2, according to the report, and can convene for a period “not to exceed 12 months,” chief judge Christopher S. Brasher, wrote in informing Willis of the court’s ruling last week.
Note: The grand jury investigation almost certainly will affect the Democratic-Republican balance in the U.S. Senate, where Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) faces re-election in this fall’s midterms. Warnock’s challenger will be determined in the state’s May 22 primaries, and Trump’s hand-picked candidate is former New Jersey Generals (the Trump-owned USFL team) running back Herschel Walker, and Georgia voters will be watching for news from the grand jury for those six months between the primary and midterms.
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People Across U.S. Clutch Their Pearls Monday — President Joe Biden met with the White House Competition Council Monday to talk about efforts it has made so far to improve competitiveness in the economy. Among the topics discussed were:
- FDA-proposed rules that would make hearing aids available over the counter;
- FTC commitments to ramp up enforcement on behalf of “right-to-repair” rules;
- DOJ actions to challenge or block mergers that would have negative impacts on the economy.
But of course, you probably know none of that. You do know that Biden referred to Peter Doocy of Fox News as “a stupid son of a bitch.”
Note: While it is absolutely indecorous for the president of the United States to use language considered to be common, one could make the argument that Donald Trump’s litany of verbal abuses is something that will be hard for any 10 presidents to trump, even if they each spent hours before getting in front of a microphone slamming boilermakers.
Perhaps this will help Biden’s numbers with some Republicans and Independents who support(ed) Trump because of his alleged shoot-from-the-hip approach.
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods
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MON 1/124/22
•Scroll down to read “Biden Breaking Build Back Better” in the center, and columns by Eric Blair (left) and Stephen Macaulay (right). New opinion pieces on the center column are on the left and right of this page.
•NASA’s $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope, replacement for the Hubble, is scheduled today to reach its destination about 1 million miles from Earth, where it will study the oldest light in the universe (NPR).
•COVID-19 cases are beginning to fall nationwide, although not yet in parts of the South and West. The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told ABC News This Week Sunday that going into February, “it is very likely that most of the states in the country will have turned around with their peak and are starting to come down,” with fewer cases and hospitalizations.
U.S. Troops into Former Eastern Bloc – President Biden may send up to 5,000 U.S. troops into NATO’s Eastern Europe countries as Russia amasses more than 100,000 of its troops along Ukraine’s eastern border, NPR’s Morning Edition reports.The U.S. State Department has warned American citizens, including its own non-essential personnel, to leave the country. On Saturday, a British government communique warned that the Kremlin was planning to install a puppet regime into the Kyiv, according to The New York Times.
Ukraine’s Western Border: Russian President Vladimir Putin is anxious to prevent the spread of NATO’s influence in the former Eastern Bloc as he tries to get the U.S.S.R. band together again, minus the Marxist ideology. NATO nations covering Ukraine’s western and northwestern border are Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. Even after talks between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Kremlin counterpart, Sergey Lavrov last weekend, the White House has committed to providing arms and military aid to Ukraine.
Known Unknown: The communique from the U.K.’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office named four men who held senior positions in the Ukrainian government, the NYT says, as potential leaders in a puppet government. All four “worked in proximity” with Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign manager, the NYT says. Manafort also worked as campaign manager to former Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych, the Kremlin’s last puppet there. Donald J. Trump pardoned Manafort during his last days in the White House, just before Christmas 2020, for a conviction in an investigation into the alleged Russian meddling of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
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As the AG Turns – The House of Representatives Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection has already had “conversations” with ex-President Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, the panel’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) revealed on CBS News’ Face the Nation Sunday. Once derided as working as Trump’s attorney rather than as head of the Department of Justice, Barr has quickly turned from the ex-president since his resignation just before Christmas 2020.
“We have information that between the Department of Justice, a plan was put forward to potentially seize voting machines in the country and utilize Department of Defense assets to make that happen,” Thompson told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan.
Mark your calendars: Thompson says the 1/6 panel will hold public hearings on its findings “this spring”.
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O Solo Mio -- Silvio Berlusconi, 85, Italian media tycoon and four-time Italian prime minister, a man who was convicted of tax fraud in 2013, who has been involved in several sex scandals (e.g., he was convicted of paying an underaged prostitute for sex in 2013, which was overturned on appeal in 2014), dropped out of the Italian election for president Saturday. According to Politico, it is reported that Berlusconi is presently hospitalized.
Note: This from Politico’s Pietro Lombardi pretty much says it all: “His insistence on running, and strong-arming his allies into supporting him, had blocked negotiations on an alternative candidate that could secure cross-party support. Even Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the most-qualified candidate, saw his path obstructed by Berlusconi’s campaign.”
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods