Musings On the Iowa Two-Percenters

By Ken Zino

Two percent. That’s the number of Iowa electors as a percentage of the total delegates to the 2024 Republican National Convention where the presidential candidate and vice-presidential candidates will be selected or rejected. With the Iowa results fresh-frozen yesterday, here’s a bird’s eye view of (apologies to Brooklyn born Clarence B, the founder of what became General Foods) the Iowa Republican Caucuses.

The vote in Iowa on Monday may or may not signify something new. Consider some history that is a miniscule part of all the millennia of history studies that Republicans want to ban. Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee were the last three winners of the Iowa Caucuses. I’m still waiting for any of them to become a presidential candidate. Advice to followers of the often-breathless coverage of such non-events. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Republican cornfield crownees to run, unless it’s from a congressional committee, grand jury or court.

This brings us to Mr. Trump’s win in Iowa. If there was any doubt about his grip on the base of the basest in the Republican party in a voter’s mind, it shouldn’t require electro-shock therapy now to understand the obvious. Trump is going to be the Republican candidate for president. He held sway among rural Iowa caucus voters who already think he should be president because the election was “stolen.” Christion nationalism is the latest name for white fascism and supremacy.

Yes, Donald Trump was indicted four times. And yet, Trump appears to have a fundraising advantage so far. Polls are showing that Trump and President Biden are roughly tied. But consider the well-timed strategic broadcast leak on MSNBC Sunday with former White House insider Jen Psaki that played under the guise of an interview with Biden’s re-election campaign staff. It is more than likely that aside from political nerds, the potential voters who will decide the 2024 Presidential race are not paying any attention to the race yet. Moreover, Trump’s Republican opposition in Iowa didn’t force him to clarify his position on any of the issues that will be crucial in swing states. 

Now is the is the time for Biden and his campaign staff to play up the policy and positions of the president. The incumbent with vast foreign policy experience is grappling with Gaza. He can point to a great, growing economy that is uplifting all here and is in far better shape than the post-pandemic economy in the rest of the world. He supports reproductive rights and gun control regulations. He wants to make the wealthy two-percenters pay their share of taxes. He has demonstrated ability to address climate change and fix the infrastructure, including bringing Wi-Fi to rural economies and he has no indictments or convictions on his record.

Biden has beaten Trump before. The president made a mockery of the “Red Wave” in the midterms. 

In Iowa, roughly as many Republicans in total voted against Trump as voted for him.

Biden needs to address younger voters’ concerns in way they can relate to. Biden is pro-democracy. His party needs to be actively talking about this non-stop. Biden can win again. Let’s get on with clarifying the policy and positions that matter.

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What Does Iowa Mean?

Read the right column for pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay’s take on the Iowa Republican Caucus and then let us know what you think, with an e-mail to editors@thehustings.news. 

Whether you are liberal, never-Trumper conservative or pro-Trump conservative, The Hustings values your civilly stated Comments. Please indicate in the subject line whether you identify as left/liberal or right/conservative, or Democrat or Republican. Independents are welcome as well, but please tell us whether your comments should be in the left or right column.

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…meanwhile…

FRIDAY 1/19/24

The Can is Kicked … to March 1 for some agencies. To March 8 for others. Will Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) last that long?

President Biden is expected to sign the latest continuing resolution, third in this fiscal year, as soon as it hits his Oval Office desk, The Guardian reports. Funding for some agencies would have expired 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

“Avoiding a shutdown is very good news for the country, for our veterans, for parents and children, and for farmers and small businesses – all of whom would have felt the sting had the government shut down,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). 

But is it good for Johnson’s future? 

The Senate vote was 77-18, according to Punchbowl News, which reports that members of the House Freedom Caucus attempted to get the speaker to put the bill through rules and amend it with H.R., the MAGA-esque U.S. border bill Johnson had previously tied to passage of continued funding for Ukraine’s fight against Russia.

Johnson’s problem is that erstwhile House Republican allies voted against him (Punchbowl News, again). They include Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY), third-ranking GOP House member and a leading contender to become Donald J. Trump’s running mate, and; Jodey Arrington (Budget chair from TX), Mike Bost (Veteran Affairs chair, TX), Mike Gallagher (China Select Committee chair, WI), Mark Green (Homeland Security chair, TN), Mike Guest (Ethics chair, MS), Jim Jordan (Judiciary chair, OH), Brian Steil (administration chair, WI), Bruce Westerman (Natural Resources chair, AR) and Roger Williams (Small Business chair, TX).

•••

Willis Quagmire – Fani Willis, the Fulton County, Georgia district attorney who has mounted what many pundits consider the strongest of three 2020 election interference cases against Donald J. Trump, has accused Joycelyn Wade, wife of one of her top deputies, of using the Wades’ divorce case to harass and damage the DA’s reputation and obstruct the election interference investigation (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution). Willis’ attorney has filed a motion to block a subpoena for the DA to give a pretrial deposition in the divorce case filed by Joycelyn Wade against Nathan Wade.

Earlier in January, Ashleigh Merchant, attorney for Trump co-defendant Mike Roman, in a court filing contended without evidence that Willis is having an improper, romantic relationship with Nathan Wade and that the DA has benefited financially from it, with Willis and Wade taking “lavish” vacations with money Wade made as special prosecutor. 

At the very least, the allegations can build skepticism of Willis’ case, built on months of a grand jury investigation. At most, the allegations could torpedo the one election interference case against Trump that would not be covered by a pardon if he becomes president next January.

--TL

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THURSDAY 1/18/24

Squeezing Johnson – President Biden and congressional Republican leaders as well as Democratic leaders are “ramping up pressure” on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to accept a deal with Ukraine funding and a border security package, The Hill reported Wednesday following the White House confab that included Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, and national security advisor Jake Sullivan. 

The White House has pointed to negotiations with Senate Republicans led by James Lankford (R-OK) as evidence of progress in the face of hardline MAGA oppo to a compromise, according to CQ Roll Call. But the GOP’s House majority is about to become thinnest in history, with just one vote to spare.

“I told the president what I had been saying for many months, and that is we must (have) change at the border, substantive policy change,” Johnson said.

“There was remarkable consensus in that room,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). “Just about every person in that room talked about the importance of adding Ukraine. And everyone in the room also talked about that we had to do something about the border.” (Roll Call again.)

Some lawmakers already have said they’re open to pulling a McCarthy on Johnson, according to Punchbowl News Thursday. The speaker had said in November he would not pass any more continuing resolutions, and now he will have to pass one before the end of the week. Republican hardliners also are angry he is pushing a deal with just $16 billion in cuts. 

Meanwhile, passing a CR on the federal budget will leave Johnson (assuming he still is speaker) seven days in March to fund the entire government, PN notes.

--TL

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WEDNESDAY 1/17/24

White House Rumble – The Big Four from Capitol Hill plan a White House confab with President Biden Wednesday so he could pitch them on the importance of aid to Ukraine and his national security supplemental, two days before a potential government shutdown as part of the federal budget becomes due. Punchbowl News gives the meeting little chance of success. 

The Big Four are Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). Last week, Mitchell urged Republican senators to support a border deal being negotiated between Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) and Democrats. But PN says Johnson will never pass such a Senate compromise. “True border security” will only come with Donald J. Trump back in the White House, Johnson has told House Republicans.

Told’ja so: This jibes with the scenario we laid out a couple of weeks ago; That Johnson can pass the budget his predecessor as speaker, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), reached with Democrats last year and yet avoid McCarthy’s ultimate fate by promising a more Trumpian outcome next year if the GOP has such success this November. However, Sen. Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) told Punchbowl News a Trumpian border policy would never get past a filibuster even if Republicans gain enough seats for a majority. 

•••

Here’s a Compromise – Meanwhile, Congress on Tuesday released a $78 billion compromise that features $33 billion to partly extend a major expansion of the child tax credit made popular by the 2021 pandemic aid law, plus $33 billion to reinstate a set of expired business tax benefits, The New York Times reports. Both would extend through 2025. 

Though the “rare bipartisan agreement” is the product of House Ways & Means Committee chair Jason Smith (R-MO) and Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden (D-OR), it is given scant chance of passage by both chambers.

•••

Why DeSantis is Still In It – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis beat expectations with his 21% from the Iowa Republican Caucuses, which “can create national momentum,” FiveThirtyEight says Wednesday. DeSantis’ number from Monday night was five points above his final polling average, equal to Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) Iowa bump in 2016. It worked better for John Kerry, who was 14 points above his final polling average in 2004, according to the site.

Kerry, of course, went on to win the ’04 Democratic nomination and then lose to George W. Bush. Bush’s father was 19.5 points above his final poll average in 1980 (he lost the GOP nomination to Ronald Reagan). Rev. Pat Robertson was 13.1 points above his polling average in the 1988 GOP caucuses before he lost the nomination to George H.W. Bush. 

Haley’s comet?: Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s New Hampshire polling average is about 30% to Trump’s 43.4%, according to FiveThirtyEight, with DeSantis at roughly 6%. But Trump is expected to get most, if not all, of Vivek Ramaswamy’s 5%, as he suspended his campaign after Iowa.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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DeSantis Edges Haley for Second in Iowa

TUESDAY 1/16/24

By Todd Lassa

It’s on to New Hampshire after Donald J. Trump’s inevitable trouncing of Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, who would have come within 10.7 points of the former president in Monday’s Iowa caucuses, had they been one candidate. The caucuses did manage to weed out Trumpian entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has suspended his campaign as he has apparently grown weary of spending his own money to convince young voters he is their Trump. 

Ryan Binkley, who co-founded Texas-based Create Church with his wife in 2014, according to Wikipedia, grabbed about 1% of the Iowa vote. No, we haven’t heard of him, either.

For the record, here are the Iowa caucus vote totals, according to the Associated Press:

•Trump        56,260         51.0%

•DeSantis     23,420         21.2%

•Haley         21,085         19.1%

With that, ex-President Trump earns 20 of 40 Iowa delegates to the GOP convention in Milwaukee this coming summer. Florida Gov. DeSantis earns 8 delegates and former South Carolina Gov. Haley earns 7 delegates. 

Ramaswamy grabbed 8%, which otherwise would have gone to Trump, not DeSantis nor Haley. 

Anti-Trump Republican pollster Frank Luntz told NPR’s Morning Edition Tuesday he attended eight caucuses in one school auditorium in Iowa, which confirmed to him “how passionate and determined Trump voters are.” … The message keeping that passion and determination alive is that Trump is telling his supporters “They want to attack you, and I’m standing in their way.”

A much-less religious, less socially conservative New Hampshire holds its primary next week. Haley hopes to beat Trump, or at least come in a close second. Such a result won’t likely force DeSantis out of the race, as he has high hopes for the primary after that, in South Carolina, Haley’s home state.

If DeSantis beats Haley for second place there, will she drop out? Stay tuned.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

American Gothic

By Stephen Macaulay

There are approximately 3.2 million people who live in Iowa. The population of Los Angeles is bigger. The population density in Iowa is 57.1 people per square mile. In LA its 8,304.2. Of course, Los Angeles measure 469.69 square miles while Iowa is 55,853.42 square miles, so there’s more room to spread out. Of the people in Iowa, 89.8% are white. In LA it is 41.2%.

This is not to say that Los Angeles is America. 

But arguably Iowa is closer to the other 49 states than you might think.

As in, for the U.S. as a whole, the population density is 93.8 people, which is a whole lot closer to 57.1 than it is to 8,304.2. What’s more, the percentage of those who simply checked the box next to “White” on the U.S. Census Bureau form is 75.5%, which means a delta of 14.3% with Iowa and 34.3% with LA.

And while some liberal commentators and pundits would like us to believe that plenty of people in Iowa are hicks — as in awkward provincial people, not smooth urban sophisticates, as they fancy themselves — 93% of those in Iowa are high school graduates or higher. In LA the number is 78.7%. It is 89.1% for the U.S. as a whole.

Again, Iowa comes closer to the norm than LA in that context.

And a political fun fact: U.S. presidents were born in a total 21 states. Iowa is one of them. It gave us Herbert Hoover.

California was the birthplace of one president, too: Richard Nixon. 

But one of the things that is different about Iowa goes back to that comparatively low population density. A large percentage of its voters are rural, not suburban, and certainly not urban. They have a different perspective on things than those in large cities and its surroundings. 

States like Kansas, Nebraska and North Dakota have low population densities.

States like New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts have high population densities.

Clearly, that makes a difference in how people vote.

Is it a surprise that Trump dominated in Iowa?

Nope.

Odds are there is nothing that is going to happen that will derail the Trump train.

As Newton’s first law has it, a body in motion stays in motion unless a force acts against it and those two aren’t notable forces.

DeSantis and Haley are largely things that allow reporters to write about something else. They aren’t forces with serious momentum.

Going back to point-of-view, it is different in Cedar Rapids than Stamford, more pragmatic.

The Dem’s messaging about “an existential threat to freedom and democracy” plays bettter in New Haven than in Waterloo.

Iowa is the leading corn producing state in the country and while the word “corny” comes to mind with regard to “Bidenomics,” some people in Iowa would probably not use their state’s agricultural bounty in vain and simply consider it to be “bullshit.”

While it may seem absurd that a rich (well, perceived so) real estate businessman from New York City and now a tony part of Florida plays well in Iowa, it is the fact that he is being plain-spoken that undoubtedly resonates.

If Biden wants to win among large numbers of people who are more akin to the ethos of Middle America rather than the Coasts, then he basically has to become more fundamental:

  • “We need roads and bridges. I got the legislation that is making that happen. He kept announcing ‘infrastructure initiatives’ that was simply hot air.”
  • “We need more manufacturing in America. And were getting them. Remember the jobs at the Indianapolis Carrier plant that he ‘saved’? It simply cost a whole lot of tax-payer money and didn’t save a hell of a lot of jobs.”
  • “We need to keep politicians within check. He’s actually talking about running things the way he wants to, not necessarily the way you want. That’s not what America is about.”

Iowa’s results are inevitable. And they point to something far larger than what they’re talking about on MSNBC.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

The Courts Should Uphold the Constitution

By Ken Zino

Let me start by saying that all roads on the journey to the 2024 election lead toward the politicized U.S. Supreme Court. The State of Colorado has ruled that Mr. Trump should be taken off the 2024 Republican primary ballot because he is an insurrectionist. Four Republicans and two independents in the state brought the challenge. Colorado ruled for the ballot removal after a trial that based on evidence presented by eight witnesses -- and no defense from Trump himself -- that he provoked a violent uprising after losing the 2020 election. 

Those actions occurred before and after the election, and in fact continue to this day. Trump defense lawyer Scott Gessler said the connections the plaintiffs had drawn between Mr. Trump and groups such as the Proud Boys were incorrect because the insurrectionists had deluded themselves into thinking Trump was speaking to them. He said this was a political question. Well, it is in the sense that politics that led to the Civil War resulted in a constitutional amendment to prevent insurrectionists or their abettors from ever holding office again. 

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment: “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.” 

This will end up in the Supreme Court because this ballot eligibility question has not happened since the aftermath of our Civil War that led to the amendment. The question has therefore never been legally vetted. There are challenges to Trump ‘s ballot eligibility in dozens of states. Arguments that he is immune because he was president –- the equivalent of the divine right of kings –- are laughable. We fought The Revolution over such thinking and then wrote the Constitution to say that we will be governed differently. See the Federalist Papers. No president or any inhabitant of the United States is immune from or above the law. 

Tuesday’s hearing in Washington before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in my view settles the argument. Trump’s lawyer D. John Sauer argued Trump should not be prosecuted for actions he took while in the White House, Sauer claimed. This was a so-called qualified “yes” after he repeatedly tried to duck the central issue; Could a president assassinate a political rival using the military (one judge chose the Navy SEALS as the example) and be shielded from prosecution unless the Senate first convicted him at an impeachment proceeding? Suppose the president had all the members of opposing political views killed? No impeachment is possible. Absurd on the face of it and were not the issue so serious to a constitutional democracy, laughable. 

Moreover, Judge Karen L. Henderson, the only Republican appointee, dismissed Trump’s argument that his efforts to overturn his loss to the current president, Joe Biden, is immune from prosecution because presidents have a constitutional duty to ensure that election laws are upheld. “I think it’s paradoxical to say that his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed allows him to violate the criminal law,” Judge Henderson said. We await the final ruling.

In my own state of Michigan, Trump remains on the primary ballot (voting is February 27) after the highest Michigan court ruled that a party can put anyone it wants on the ballot. Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson noted in a statement that the state’s court had correctly ruled that she lacked the authority to prevent Mr. Trump from appearing on the primary ballot. However, Benson said the U.S. Supreme Court should take up the matter. “I continue to hope they do this sooner rather than later to ensure that we can move forward into 2024’s election season focused on ensuring all voters are fully informed and universally engaged in deciding the issues at stake,” the statement said. The ruling is here.

“We are disappointed by the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision,” said Ron Fein, legal director of Free Speech for People, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “The ruling conflicts with longstanding U.S. Supreme Court precedent that makes clear that when political parties use the election machinery of the state to select, via the primary process, their candidates for the general election, they must comply with all constitutional requirements in that process. However, the Michigan Supreme Court did not rule out that the question of Donald Trump’s disqualification for engaging in insurrection against the U.S. Constitution may be resolved at a later stage. The decision isn’t binding on any court outside Michigan and we continue our current and planned legal actions in other states to enforce Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment against Donald Trump.”

Michigan Justice Elizabeth M. Welch said that Colorado state law made clear that political parties could only put forward “qualified” candidates in a primary presidential ballot. Michigan election law includes no such requirement, she wrote. Michigan’s secretary of state “lacks the legal authority to remove a legally ineligible candidate from the ballot once their name has been put forward by a political party,” Justice Welch said.

Trump’s strategy is clear to me. Delay legal actions against him until after the election, which he thinks he can win, then misuse his power as president to make all the legal cases go away. On to the Supreme Court…

COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news — please indicate your left- or right-leanings in the subject line.

Supreme Court Joins Debate Over Trump’s Ballot Access

By Charles Dervarics

When it intervened in 2000 to tip the presidential contest to George W. Bush over Al Gore, the U.S. Supreme Court left an indelible mark on presidential politics. Now the high court has an opportunity to match that standard when it takes up an obscure amendment to the U.S. Constitution with enormous implications for former President Trump.

At issue for Trump is a post-Civil War addition to the Constitution designed at the time to bar former Confederates from holding office due to their participation in an insurrection against the United States. In December, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the “insurrection clause” of the 14th Amendment bars Trump from the state’s primary ballot, citing his involvement in the January 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump is appealing the Colorado decision to the nation’s highest court, which has agreed to take up arguments in the case, formally called Trump v. Anderson, on Feb. 8.

Colorado also is just one of several flashpoints in the debate on whether the former president is ineligible for election.  Maine has removed the former president from its ballot, and more than a dozen states also are considering similar challenges. 

At a recent rally in Iowa, Trump decried these actions. “I just hope we get fair treatment. Because if we don’t, our country’s in big, big trouble. Does everybody understand what I’m saying?”

The 14th Amendment states that no person shall serve as a U.S. senator, representative or presidential elector if they took an oath to uphold the Constitution only to then participate in an insurrection or rebellion against it. While the amendment does not specifically name the president, it suggests a broad approach by including “an officer of the United States” as someone subject to the amendment.

Among other issues, the justices will be asked to determine whether the president is formally covered by the amendment and if a state itself can enforce this provision.

In their own legal filings, lawyers for Trump argue that the events of January 6, 2021 were “not insurrection,” noting that the U.S. “has a long history of political protests that have turned violent.” 

For example, the brief claims, violent protesters in summer 2020 in Portland, Oregon, “repeatedly assaulted federal officers and set fire to the courthouse, all in support of a purposed political agenda opposed to the authority of the United States.”

Moreover, Trump’s lawyers say, the former president has not been convicted of insurrection and did not encourage supporters to enter the Capitol.


But Maine’s secretary of state, who wants to remove Trump from that state’s ballot, maintained that the former president actively supported insurrection.

“Mr. Trump’s occasional requests that rioters be peaceful and support law enforcement do not immunize his actions,” Shenna Bellows said. “A brief call to obey the law does not erase conduct over the course of months … The weight of the evidence makes clear that Mr. Trump was aware of the tinder laid by his multi-month effort to delegitimize a democratic election, and then chose to light a match.”

Trump critics are also asking Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from the case because of his wife’s involvement in efforts to question the 2020 election. Thomas’ refusal to recuse himself “raises questions about the integrity of the judicial process and the influence of political bias,” according to Christina Harvey, executive director of Stand Up America.

The former president appointed three members to the Supreme Court during his term in office, and the justices have built a solidly conservative record since that time.

Once the high court hears oral arguments, a ruling may come quickly as the Colorado presidential primary is scheduled for March 5. 

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MLK WEEKEND Fri-Mon 1/12-15/24

Disqualification Made Simple

By Stephen Macaulay

This isn’t hard, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment:

“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.”

Let’s break down some aspects of this that ought to make even the most textualist members of the Supreme Court not need reach for their copy of Black’s:

  • “any office, civil or military …” The presidency is an office. It has civil powers. The president is the Commander in Chief (per Article II, Section 2). Seems like it checks both boxes.
  • “having previously taken an oath. . .to support the Constitution of the United States.” On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump took that oath.
  • “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same …” With “the same” being the Constitution. While there could be some quibbling about whether Trump’s exhortation to the mob constituted an insurrection against the government in the form of Congress doing its job of certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, given what was revealed by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Trump’s efforts not to leave office that began before the election on November 3, 2020, it is clear he was knowingly violating Article II, Section 1: “The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President.” While he probably didn’t know that precise passage, he knew what he was doing.
  • “given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”… This is Trump’s final tweet of the day on January 6, 2021: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!” Sounds like he was giving comfort to what he describes as “great patriots” who stormed the Capitol and participated in what Matthew Graves, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, recently described as “likely the largest single-day, mass assault of law enforcement officers in our nation’s history.”

Hard to imagine a strict constructionist not concluding that Trump is disqualified from holding the presidency, and if that is the case, then allowing him to run for that position is simply absurd.

COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news …Please indicate your political leanings in the subject line .

Left’s Turn

Our first debate in The Hustings posted September 30, 2020, with a center-column covering the first presidential debate between Donald J. Trump and Joe Biden. You can read that here: https://thehustings.news/page/71/

Contributing pundit Michelle Naranjo wrote the left-column commentary on that debate. (Re-)read that here: https://thehustings.news/reality-tv-producers-will-be-jealous-of-this-first-debate/

Will this fall’s presidential race be a mirror-image repeat of 2020? Email your comments to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings in the subject line.

•••

Email your COMMENTS to editors@thehustings.news and please list your political leanings (left-right, or liberal-conservative) in the subject line.

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CPI Edges Up to 3.4%

Driven largely by increased gasoline and electricity prices, the Consumer Price Index rose to 3.4% in December, up from a 3.1% annual rate in November, the Labor Department reported Thursday. December’s monthly increase was 0.3% compared with +0.1% in November. 

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...meanwhile...

WEDNESDAY 1/10/24

Trump’s Powers – If we gain nothing else from Donald J. Trump’s “Big Lie” and the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, we will get a ruling on the limits of presidential power, heretofore largely untested for more than two centuries. On Tuesday a panel of three federal appellate judges signaled skepticism that Trump – who attended the hearing though not required to do so -- could claim immunity from prosecution for the insurrection.

“A president could sell pardons, could sell military secrets, could order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Would such a president be subject to criminal prosecution if he’s not impeached?” said Judge Florence V. Pan, one of the two appointed by Democrats. 

The third, Republican appointee Judge Karen L. Henderson, said “it was paradoxical to say that [the ex-president’s] constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed allows him to violate criminal laws.” (This report via The Washington Post.)

Shooting someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue in broad daylight, indeed.

Trump attorney D. John Sauer said that any crime connected to a president’s “official duties” requires the “political process” of impeachment and a conviction by the Senate would have to come before any prosecution. He predicted speedy impeachment for a president involved in a murder. Trump and his attorneys argue this case – the one for his alleged involvement in the January 6thinsurrection among four against him – would open a “Pandora’s box” for future presidents to be charged with all sorts of crimes and fear of charges after leaving office.

“It’ll be bedlam in the country,” Trump said in an appearance at the Waldorf Astoria hotel near the federal courthouse – the old federal post office building that was owned by Trump’s company while he was president. Trump took no questions from reporters.

If the three-judge panel does indeed rule against Trump’s claim of immunity in the case, the former president’s legal team will certainly appeal to the full federal appellate court in Washington and then to the U.S. Supreme Court, thus very likely delaying the trial’s March starting date. 

--TL

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TUESDAY 1/9/24

Washington is Not Iowa – Former President Trump was expected to step aside from Iowa rallies where he is campaigning to keep his lead in next week’s Iowa caucuses, to return to the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. in a voluntary appearance to argue he is immune from prosecution (The Washington Post). Trump was arraigned in federal court last August on charges of interfering with the 2020 election results.

Crashing the soft landing: Donald J. Trump said this in an interview with former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, according to The Hill: “And when there’s a crash – I hope it’s going to be during the next 12 months because I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover. The one president I just don’t want to be, Herbert Hoover.”

The Biden administration is enjoying a “soft landing” (though not in the polls) from the Federal Reserve’s steep interest rate hikes to bring down pandemic-era inflation, which was caused largely by economic forces outside either Biden’s or Trump’s control. Biden, whose Bidenomics is a sort of revival of FDR’s economic policy has previously compared Trump with Hoover. 

Meanwhile, the Biden campaign posted this on X: “Donald Trump’s campaign is about him. Not America. Not you.”

--TL

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MONDAY 1/8/24

Another Budget Deal – House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have reached an agreement on Fiscal Year 2024 spending to keep the government open. The deal makes minor changes to the Fiscal Responsibility Act and last spring’s debt-limit agreement between (then-) Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and President Biden, “the beginning of the end” for McCarthy, Punchbowl News reports. After being ousted as speaker, McCarthy left the House at the end of 2023. 

The deal keeps Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and a $696-billion Biden-McCarthy “side-deal” in place and accelerates a $10-billion IRS cut to FY24 from FY25, and cuts $6.1-billion in COVID relief funds. The $1.6-trillion budget allocates $886 billion for defense and $773 for non-defense spending, according to PN. Four spending bills, for Veterans Affairs, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, and Energy and Water expire Friday, January 19 and the rest expire February 2.

Note: Conventional Pundit Wisdom warns that signing on to pretty much the same deal that McCarthy struck last year puts Johnson on the hot seat. The difference, however, is that Johnson is a House Freedom Caucus member who can take a harder line in 2025 if Trump and the House GOP win this November.

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Another Warning – Ex-President Trump has refused to sign an optional oath by the Illinois State Board of Elections that he will not “advocate for the overthrow of the government,” ahead of the state’s March 19 primary and November general election, WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times reported Saturday. Trump did sign the pledge in 2016 and 2020. Illinois imposed the oath as an anti-communist measure in the 1950s and made it optional in the 1970s.

Meanwhile… Former Republican representative from Illinois and member of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Adam Kinzinger, says that Trump is in trouble with the revelation that Trump’s former chief of staff, Dan Scavino, appears to have spoken with special counsel Jack Smith. According to a report by ABC News, Scavino told Smith’s team that Trump “was just not interested” in trying to stop the January 6, 2021 insurrection and did not write the tweet that went out from his Twitter account posted about 2:38 p.m. that day calling on the mob to “stay peaceful.”

•••

Austin Out? – There is growing pressure for heads – or at least, a head – to roll over Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s failure to report he was at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center with complications from an undisclosed surgical procedure, Politico reports. For days, the Pentagon failed to inform the White House and the National Security Council that Austin was indisposed. Could the defense secretary’s head be among the first to roll?

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Christie Out

Weeks after some never-Trumper pundits urged former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to drop out of the GOP presidential race to give surging candidate Nikki Haley a chance to challenge Donald J. Trump in New Hampshire and five days before the Iowa caucuses, Christie has dropped out of the GOP presidential race, The Wall Street Journal reports. He declined to endorse another candidate, though Christie's withdrawal almost certainly will be a boon to Haley, the former UN ambassador to Trump and ex-governor of South Carolina who has narrowed Trump's lead in New Hampshire to a single-digit number in some polls.

"It's clear to me tonight that there isn't a path for me to win the nomination," Christie said Wednesday night. "I want to promise you this, I am going to make sure that in no way do I enable Donald Trump to ever be president of the United States again."

•••

Right of Way-- As "(j)udges seem skeptical of Trump's January 6 immunity claim," according to The Washington Post, it's a good time to re-read -- or read for the first time -- our pundit at-large for the right column, Stephen Macaulay's August 10, 2023 column on United States of America v. Donald J. Trump. Read "Trump's Tinkerbell Defense" here: <https://thehustings.news/trumps-tinkerbell-defense/ >

Read our first debate in The Hustings, covering and commenting on the first presidential debate between Donald J. Trump and Joe Biden here: https://thehustings.news/page/71/.

Contributing pundit Bryan Williams wrote the right-column commentary on that debate. (Re-)read that here: https://thehustings.news/reality-tv-producers-will-be-jealous-of-this-first-debate/

Will this fall’s presidential race be a mirror-image repeat of 2020? Email your comments to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings in the subject line.

•••

Email your COMMENTS to editors@thehustings.news and please list your political leanings (right-left or conservative-liberal) in the subject line.

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For Left and Right

At The Hustings, we strive to give readers an outlet to consider opinions on politics and news that may confirm their opinions and challenge them at the same time. All readers have immediate access to three columns at the same time, with no echo-chambers. 

The middle column offers up news and news aggregate with fair-minded interpretation and analysis to make it accessible to the politically curious and political experts alike. 

Our best, most relevant content consists of “debates” in which liberals and conservatives offer opinion on the latest political news and issues on the same page. Some examples of left-leaning commentary…

Contributing pundit Ken Zino on ex-President Trump’s claim of immunity from indictments related to his Big Lie and whether he is responsible for the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, from April 5, 2023:

<https://thehustings.news/the-law-is-king-not-trump/>

Zino, again, May 8, 2022, on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol …

<https://thehustings.news/zino-on-the-1-6-investigation/>

Guest pundit Timothy Magrath, April 27, 2022, on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “culture wars on his state’s public schools.  

<https://thehustings.news/dont-say-gay/>

Please be sure to read the right column for links to corresponding commentary from conservative pundits on the same issues. To submit your Comments email editors@thehustings.news and indicate your political leanings in the subject line.

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…meanwhile…

SAT-SUN 1/6-7/24

Hiring remains strong, with 216,000 new jobs added to the economy in December, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate was unchanged from November at 3.7%, with notable job gains for local and federal government, health care, social assistance and construction. Job openings declined for transportation and warehousing.

January 6 -- Upon the third anniversary of the attack on the United States Capitol, we're asking for your COMMENTS on whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment should be used to keep Donald J. Trump off states' ballots this year. Please send your comments to editors@thehustings.news and indicated in the subject line whether you identify with the left or right.

•••

Trump’s Ballot Status – All anti-Trumpers and Democrats do not want to remove Donald J. Trump from states’ primary ballots under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Take Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, who told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel he fears doing so would fire up his supporters and make them feel the deck is stacked against them. 

There’s also the question of whether both Democrats and Republicans could amp up reliance on Section 3 on a quadrennial basis, much in the same way impeachment has become almost normal in the 25 years since President Clinton was impeached.

Colorado and Maine already have removed Trump from their primaries’ ballots, pending appeals up to the U.S. Supreme Court, of course. 

Pending lawsuits: In addition to Wisconsin, lawsuits citing Section 3 seek to remove Trump from the ballots in Arizona, Alaska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming, according to Lawfare.

Dismissed: Lawsuits seeking to remove Trump from the ballots of Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Rhode Island have been dismissed, Newsweek reports.

Your thoughts?: Should Trump be removed from the ballot in your state’s primary? Let us know with an email to editors@thehustings.news and please, list your political leanings in the subject line.

--Todd Lassa

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For Right and Left

We are a pro-democracy political news website that strives to encourage fair, open and civil political discourse among voters and writers along both sides of the political spectrum. After the January 6th attack on the U.S. capitol, our regular conservative contributors joined never-Trumper conservative pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay in condemning the clearly violent attack and Donald J. Trump’s contributing sparks. 

However, we invite reader comments from all points on the right and left so long as they maintain civility and avoid personal attacks and stick to the facts of their subject matter. This includes readers who remain pro-Trump.

Unlike other political news websites, we do not cover ourselves with Section 238. Like traditional newspapers, we do choose to post reader comments that conform with our standards of civility and veracity. 

Here are three examples from various points along the conservative side of the political “horseshoe”… 

Pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay on ex-President Trump’s claim of immunity from indictments related to his Big Lie and whether he is responsible for the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, from April 5, 2023:

<https://thehustings.news/committing-absurd-acts-in-public/>

Commentary by guest pundit RJ Caster and pundit-at-large Macaulay, May 8, 2022, on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol …

<https://thehustings.news/divergent-opinions-from-caster-macaulay/>

Caster, April 27, 2022, on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “culture wars on his state’s public schools.  

<https://thehustings.news/desantis-education-push-back/>

Please be sure to read the left column for links to corresponding commentary from conservative pundits on the same issues. To submit your Comments email editors@thehustings.news and indicate your political leanings in the subject line.

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Civil Media for the Left and the Right

New to The Hustings, or maybe you haven’t visited in a while? During U.S. Congress’ winter recess, we are undergoing something of a reset, though we are still committed to providing a media platform for the free exchange of comments and ideas from all points of America’s political horseshoe. 

For a good look at a Hustings-style debate, go to page 36 https://thehustings.news/page/36/ for “Debating the 1/6 House Committee”, which appears about halfway down the page. Use the trackbar on the far-right to read the civil discussion, which features pundit Ken Zino in the left column and “Two Divergent Opinions from the Right” by contributor R.J. Caster and pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay in the right column.  

Use the scroll bars to the immediate right of any of these columns to read the entire piece. 

We hope to use commentary like this to foster civil, respectful reader comments from across the political spectrum and counter the echo-chambers of such social media sites as Facebook, Truth Social and X. 

To become part of our civil discourse, enter your thoughts in the Comment section of this column or the one on the right, or email editors@thehustings.news and indicate in the subject line whether you identify as “liberal” or “conservative.” You also may use this email address to send comments and suggestions about The Hustings.

--Todd Lassa

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Phillips on Threats to Democracy

Who? Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) is the sole Democratic candidate – so far – challenging President Biden’s re-nomination bid now that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has gone indy. On NBC’s Meet the Press NOW last Thursday, Phillips softened criticism from a week earlier when he told an NBC News reporter that Biden is a “threat” to American democracy.

“The president is not a threat to democracy,” he said in his claw-back last week, “but running and suppressing other candidates is a threat, when you are behind in the polls, like he is.

“I just want to make it clear he is not a threat,” Phillips said.

What do you think?: Hit the Comment section in this column or the one on the right, depending how you lean politically. Or email editors@thehustings.news and please let us know in the subject line whether you lean left/liberal or right/conservative.

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…meanwhile…

HOLIDAY RECESS 2023-24

Rocky Mountain Bye – Now the presidential race is getting interesting. All those pundits who say Donald J. Trump has all but won the GOP presidential primary will have to discount Colorado, where the state’s supreme court has ruled 4-3 to remove the former president from its March 5 primary under an 1868 provision of the Fourteenth Amendment preventing insurrectionists for running for the office (The Washington Post). Next and final stop for the case is the U.S. Supreme Court, though many scholars say SCOTUS can only resolve the insurrection issue for all states. 

Of course, Trump already has ridden his 91 indictment counts to new highs in the polls, but Colorado may have done nothing less than lead other states with similar cases pending in their courts. 

Other voices: Republican challengers Nikki Haley and Chris Christie already have criticized Colorado’s supreme court for weighing in on a decision they say belongs only to the voters, according to MSNBC’s The Eleventh Hour.

--TL

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UPDATE: "Lots of talk, but no border deal," Punchbowl News says regarding Senate border control talks this past weekend. Sources told the newsletter that James Lankford, who is leading the GOP side of negotiations called up fellow Republican senators to tell them the talks likely won't be resolved until January. The full Senate is scheduled to return Monday, January 8, with the House returning that Tuesday.

Still Time for Ukraine? – The ups and downs of the $110-billion aid package to Ukraine are on the upswing again, sort of. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has kept the Senate in town through the weekend, blowing past its scheduled holiday break scheduled to begin Friday evening (the House left Washington a day earlier). Sens. Krysten Sinema (I-AZ), Chris Murphy (D-CT) and James Lankford (R-OK) are leading negotiations with Biden administration officials, including Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas, to trade aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan in exchange for a strict border control package (per Politico). The level of progress in the talks seems to vary from news report to news report.

•••

Trump Goes All-In on Authoritarianism – At the beginning of his first presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump infamously said, “I could stand in the middle of 5th  Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” At his rally in Durham, New Hampshire last weekend, he proved he could go all-in on authoritarianism and racism without losing his core support (the rally crowd was big), repeating the Hitlerian phrase; “They’re poisoning the blood of our country. They’ve poisoned mental institutions and prisons all around the world…” 

Piling on to the racism, he added, “Not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world they’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia.” (per Politico). 

Quotes Putin: In psychology, it’s called transference. Works in politics, too. Trump said “even Putin” sees President Biden as a threat to democracy, quoting the Russian dictator’s four-hour “interview” last week. Our former president also repeated Putin’s criticism of Trump’s prosecution: “It shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach ethics about democracy.” 

Trump added, “They’re all laughing at us.” (per The Washington Post). 

Trump also aligned himself with Viktor Orban, prime minister of Hungary, who is single-handedly quashing the European Union’s 50-billion euro aid package to Ukraine.  

Christie reacts: “He’s becoming crazier,” GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie said of Trump on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday. 

White House reacts: “Echoing the grotesque rhetoric of fascists and violent white supremacists and threatening to oppress those who disagree with the government are dangerous attacks on the dignity and rights of all Americans, on our democracy, and our public safety,” Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said of Trump’s comments (per The Guardian).

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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Trump’s Reading Habits

By Stephen Macaulay

The Colorado Supreme Court ruling that Donald Trump is disqualified from appearing on the state’s primary ballot because he violated section three of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which reads--

“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.”

--might seem to be the biggest story of the day in Trumpworld. It wasn’t.

Consider, judges in the Centennial State discerned that a former president of the United States violated the U.S. Constitution.

And for those who may recall the day he gave the “American carnage” speech, they may also recall it was the day he stated:

"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Presumably he might plead that his performance since then really has been to the best of his ability so you can’t criticize a guy for trying.

No, what was bigger was what he said at a speech in Iowa, reported by The New York Times, on the subject of undocumented immigrants, who he maintains are “destroying the blood of our country.”

The Times reports Trump said, “They”—presumably those who have criticized Trump since he started on that line of rhetoric on Saturday—“don’t like it when I said that. And I never read ‘Mein Kampf.’ They said, ‘Oh, Hitler said that.’”

Here is a former president of the United States, who has never been known to be a big reader, justifying his racist rant by claiming not to have read the autobiography of one of the most despicable human beings of all time.

Siding with the ideas of Hitler makes insurrection look minor.

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Haley Gaining in New Hampshire

While many pundits continue to predict the GOP presidential race will be over in a month if former President Trump maintains his lead in the polls, a CBS News/YouGov poll out Sunday says former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is gaining on him in New Hampshire.

Donald J. Trump still leads with 44% of Republican voters, but Haley has 29%, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 11%, just one point ahead of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Vivek Ramaswamy polled at 5% and Asa Hutchinson got 1%. Just last week, popular Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (once hoped for as a potential candidate by anti-Trump Republicans) endorsed Haley over his buddy, Christie. There have been calls for Christie to drop out of the race in order to shore up support for Haley.

In Iowa, first in the nation with its caucuses, Trump is at 58% to DeSantis’ 22%. Haley has 13%, Ramaswamy 4%, Christie 3% and Hutchinson less than 1% in the CBS News/YouGov poll. DeSantis had earlier picked up the endorsement of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds. 

What do you think?: Hit the Comment section in this column or the one on the left, depending how you lean politically. Or email editors@thehustings.news and please let us know in the subject line whether you lean right/conservative or left/liberal.

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