(“Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy – completely annihilate it.” – President Biden. Scroll down for details.)

FRIDAY 10/20/23

Another Plea Deal in Election Interference Case -- Attorney Kenneth Chesebro became the second defendant this week to take a plea deal in the Fulton County, Georgia, election interference case for a trial in which jury selection was to begin today, suggesting further trouble for ex-President Trump's defense (per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution). In a deal similar to fellow attorney Sidney Powell, Chesebro will serve five years' probation, surrender $5,000 restitution to the state, serve 100 hours community service and write an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia. Chesebro also must "testify truthfully" as the case proceeds.

Let's note here that in his pre-speaker vote press conference Friday morning, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) was asked whether he still believes the 2020 presidential election was stolen. "Yeah, I think there were all kinds of problems with the 2020 election," he replied, without answering directly (per The Wall Street Journal). "I've been clear about that." See results of Friday's vote for House speaker directly below.

•••

UPDATE: Jordan Loses Three More -- Twenty-five Republicans blocked Rep. Jim Jordan's (R-OH) third attempt to become speaker of the House Friday morning, with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Tom Kean (R-NJ) and Marc Molinaro (R-NY) flipping from Wednesday's second try, when the Freedom Caucus founder lost 22 (per The Hill). Twenty Republicans voted against Jordan in the first vote early this week. He needs 217 votes and received 194 votes Friday, to Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries' (D-NY) 210. Interim Speaker Patrick McHenry (R-NC) got six votes, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) got eight and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) got two. Nine House Republicans voted for others. At this point Jordan will be down to about 167 Republicans by the time he catches McCarthy's 15-round clinching of the speaker's gavel.

•••

White House Requests $105b for Israel, Ukraine -- Republicans are more unified in their support for Israel’s defense against Hamas, while Democrats are more unified in their support for Ukraine’s defense against Russia. President Biden’s strategy is to bundle his request for $105 billion in aid to both. The greatest obstacle now is a powerless, speaker-less House of Representatives, as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) was set for his third attempt to claim the gavel Friday. 

“Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people,” Biden said Thursday in only his second Oval Office address since he took office. “Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, and innocent Palestinian families are suffering greatly because of them.

“Meanwhile, Putin denies Ukraine has or ever had real statehood. He claims the Soviet Union created Ukraine. And just two weeks ago, he told the world that if the United States and our allies withdraw – and if the United States withdraw, our allies as well – military support for Ukraine, it would have, quote, “a week left to live.” But we’re not withdrawing.”

Why does this matter to America? Biden asserted that “when terrorists don’t pay for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction. They keep going, and the costs and threats to America and to the world keep rising.”

Putin, the president said, “has already threatened to ‘remind’ – quote, ‘remind’ Poland that their western land was a gift from Russia.” A top Putin advisor, Biden said, calls Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – all NATO allies -- Russia’s “Baltic provinces.”

Biden also spoke of the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old just outside Chicago, last week. 

“His name was Wadea – Wadea – a proud American, a proud Palestinian American family.

“We can’t stand by and stand silent when this happens. We must, without equivocation, denounce antisemitism. We must also, without equivocation, denounce Islamophobia.”

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is dropping his bid for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination in exchange for an independent shot.

"I am here to declare myself an independent candidate for president of the United States," he announced at a campaign rally near Philadelphia, per Politico. "We declare independence from the cynical elites who betray our hope and who amplify our division. And finally, we declare independence from the two political parties."

Democrats -- except for Kennedy's siblings, who released a statement that "Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgement" -- have avoided comment. But Republicans are, because RFK Jr., an environmental lawyer turned anti-vaxxer would more likely take votes from ex-President Trump than from President Biden next year.

•••

Email your comments to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate whether you consider yourself “liberal” or “left” or “conservative” or “right” in the subject line.

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(The Consumer Price Index rose 0.4% in September, the Labor Department reported Thursday, maintaining an annual rate of 3.7%. Details below.)

FRIDAY 10/13/23

Scalise Takes Himself Out – Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, John Boehner and Kevin McCarthy were all stripped of their House speaker’s gavel by hardcore Republican forces. Now Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) has removed himself from the race to replace McCarthy, a day after he got just 113 votes (per NPR) in a private GOP House vote. 

The next speaker will have to get at least 217 House votes to grab the gavel.

“Our conference still has to come together and it’s not there,” Scalise said after a private Republican meeting in which he announced his withdrawl, per Punchbowl News. “There are still some people that have their own agendas. And I was very clear – we have to have everybody put their agendas on the side and focus on what this country needs. This country is counting on us to come back together. This House of Representatives needs a speaker and we need to open up the House again. But clearly, not everybody is there. And there’s still schisms that have to get resolved.”

Scalise told reporters he will stay on as majority leader. “I have a job I love,” he said. And apparently no one is trying to remove him from it.

But what about: Support for Israel following Hamas’ surprise invasion and attack. And the federal budget, which expired September 30 but was extended by continuing resolution, to November 17. None of this gets done without a House speaker. 

Who’s left?: Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is still in the running, we think, and in case that doesn’t work out for the GOP, there’s always the wacky scenario about how McCarthy gathers a sufficient number of increasingly panicked Democrats to vote for him with whatever number of Republicans still count themselves as moderates.

--TL

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THURSDAY 10/12/23

New Charges for Menendez -- The Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office issued additional charges to Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), his wife, Nadine and New Jersey businessman Wael Hawa Thursday. Prosecutors allege the three used Menendez's position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to benefit the government of Egypt, while failing to register as foreign agents (Politico).

•••

Inflation Rate is 3.7% -- The Consumer Price Index rose 0.4% in September, the Labor Department reported Thursday, for an annual inflation rate of 3.7%. That's still above the Federal Reserve's 2% target, of course, so do not expect interest rate relief soon. The CPI index for shelter accounted for more than half the increase, while the energy index was up 1.5%, food was up 0.2% and food away from home was up, for the third-straight month, by 0.3%. Used cars and trucks, and apparel were down for the month to partially offset the increases.

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WEDNESDAY 10/11/23

UPDATE -- House Republicans have nominated Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise over Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan. But Scalise now needs 218 votes on the House floor, or support from all but three Republicans or a combination of Republicans and Democrats.

Speaker Madness -- House Republicans scheduled 10 a.m. Wednesday to meet and choose the next speaker. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) is floating a proposal to raise the threshold to bring a candidate to the floor for a roll call vote, Punchbowl News reports. It would benefit Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who is in favor and not Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), who is not. Meanwhile, Kevin McCarthy appears to be on the sidelines with the hope that neither top candidate will gather enough Republican votes, leaving Democrats to decide the former speaker is their least-worst choice.

--TL

Israel and Ukraine

TUESDAY 10/10/23

Zelenskyy Equates Hamas Attacks with Russia – Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared solidarity with Israel Tuesday, equating Hamas’ attacks with Russia’s invasion of his own country, in posts on X-Twitter (per The Hill), saying “everyone who values life must stand in solidarity.”

“We in Ukraine have a special feeling about what has happened. Thousands of rockets in the Israeli sky… People killed just on the streets… Civilian cars shot through… Detainees being humiliated…Our position is crystal clear: anyone who causes terror and death anywhere on the planet must be held accountable. Today’s terrorist attack on Israel was well-planned, and the entire world knows which sponsors of terrorism could have endorsed and enabled its organization.”

Iran denies: Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei denied his country’s involvement in the Hamas attacks, according to NPR. Khamenei added, “We kiss the hands of those who planned the attack on the Zionist regime.”

Casualties: The Israeli military said it found “hundreds and hundreds” of bodies of Hamas militants who died fighting inside the country, as an indication of the size of the attack, NPR reports. There are no longer infiltrators coming over the Gaza border. More than 900 Israelis have been killed by Hamas attacks and rocket fire, Israel says. Palestinian officials say at least 680 people were killed in Gaza and by Israeli strikes. 

--TL

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War and Terrorism

MONDAY 10/9/23

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu immediately declared war after the Iranian-backed militant group Hamas launched terrorist attacks against his country, Saturday. Over the weekend, Hamas had pounded Israel with more than 4,000 missiles, according to CNN. By Monday morning Eastern time, Hamas had killed more than 1,000 Israelis, BBC reports, including 260 youth at a dance festival. Hamas had taken “dozens” of hostages, kidnapping men, women and children from the southern portion of the country into Gaza (NPR). Israel has shut off electricity, fuel and food to Gaza. About 500 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict (BBC).

The U.S. Navy is sending a carrier strike group to the region, not as a symbolic move, but to show it’s “quite important” to keep Hamas from opening a second front, Jon Finer, White House deputy advisor to the White House told Morning Edition.

Senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and former Vice President Dick Cheney’s national security advisor, John Hannah, told The New York Times’ Peter Baker it seems “highly probable to me” that Saturday’s attack had origins in Iran and Hezbollah’s home base of Lebanon with the goal of “derailing the momentum toward peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” a key Biden administration diplomatic initiative to reach a deal “akin” to the Abraham Accords. 

President Biden quickly expressed U.S. support for Israel, but that did not stop accusations from the right that the recent White House hostage deal with Iran had prompted the attacks. 

“Sadly, American taxpayer dollars helped fund these attacks, which many reports are saying came from the Biden administration,” Trump said in a formal statement. 

No American taxpayer dollars were paid to Iran in the hostage deal, Baker writes. “The Biden administration signed off on the release of $6 billion of Iranian oil revenue frozen in South Korea and decreed that it be kept in a bank in Qatar available only for humanitarian proposes,” Baker reports, adding that officials said last Saturday that none of the money has been spent.

This war comes 50 years after an attack by an Arab coalition launched the Yom Kippur War and led to the end of Prime Minister Golda Meir’s leadership. Now questions are being raised over why Israel’s elite intelligence force were caught off-guard by the attacks, and what effect it will have on the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has been a hardliner on the issue of a Palestinian homeland. 

The war between Israel and Hamas also comes after circulation of a video from an Iranian subway station of another young woman apparently being attacked by authorities for wearing “improper” clothing, and days after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi. 

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

(House Republicans were to take a secret vote for speaker Tuesday, with a full chamber vote on Wednesday. Reps. Jim Jordan, Steve Scalise, and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, above, all are in the running.)

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said in an interview on Hugh Hewitt's syndicated radio show he is willing to resume his House speakership if enough Republicans who voted to boot him last week vote to reinstate him this week, The Washington Post reports. McCarthy repeated his interest in the job again, at a press conference largely centered on the Israel-Hamas war.

The whole damn process to choose a new speaker is expected to commence Tuesday. Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Steve Scalise (R-LA) are lead candidates.

•••

Email your comments to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate whether you consider yourself “conservative” or “right” or “liberal” or “left” in the subject line.

_____

(Laphonza Butler became the newest member of the U.S. Senate when California Gov. Gavin Newsom named her to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Scroll down for more.)

The Biden administration will expand by about 17 miles former President Trump’s wall on the Mexican border and begin to deport thousands of illegal Venezuelan immigrants, heretofore considered political and economic refugees, the White House announced Thursday (per The New York Times). Fueled by the likes of Fox News and other right-wing media outlets, President Biden has been under pressure to staunch an ever-growing surge of migrants at the border. 

Hard-line Republicans tied a border crackdown to funding for Ukraine’s war effort when the House passed a continuing resolution to fund the federal government to November 15. Passage of the CR ultimately led to Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) removal as speaker.

While Biden had denounced Trump’s border wall initiative during the 2020 presidential campaign, his administration announced it was waiving more than 20 federal laws and regulations to make way for construction of physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexican border in South Texas. 

The White House claims the administration’s hands are tied in the border wall issue, because Congress appropriated funds for its expansion in 2019. 

“The money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate, to redirect that money,” Biden said in a press conference Thursday. “They didn’t. They wouldn’t.”Asked whether he thought such walls work to stem illegal immigration, Biden replied, “no.”

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Newsom Names Feinstein's Replacement

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has chosen EMILY’s List President Laphonza Butler (above) to fill the seat of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) just two days after Feinstein died, Politico reports. The governor had promised to appoint a Black woman to fill the seat, after he appointed Alex Padilla to complete the Senate term of Kamala Harris when she became vice president in 2021, but the pledge has become a conundrum for Newsom and the Democratic Party. 

The replacement was not supposed to run for re-election next November, but according to the Politico item, Butler is to take the seat with no pre-conditions. Vice President Harris was expected to swear Butler in on Wednesday.

Just one of the three Democratic candidates who announced she would run for the seat after Feinstein earlier this year said this would be her last term, Rep. Barbara Lee, is a Black woman. The other two Democratic candidates for the party’s nomination, Rep. Adam Schiff and Rep. Katie Porter, are leading in a September poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, according to the poll’s co-sponsor, the Los Angeles Times. 

Schiff has 20% and Porter has 17%, to Lee’s 7%.

If Butler does indeed enter the ’24 race, Newsom’s choice will get him in even more hot water with the Democratic Party as he prepares a 2028 run for the White House.

On the Republican side, businessman James Bradley has 7% to attorney Eric Earley’s 5%. Retired Los Angeles Dodger and San Diego Padre Steve Garvey also is considering a run for the Senate.

•••

Should Laphonza Butler run for Senate in 2024? Email us at editors@thehustings.news.

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Surprising Employment Gains – The U.S. economy added 336,000 jobs in September, the Labor Department reports, which is about twice the level economic analysts had predicted. The unemployment level remained unchanged at 3.8%. Gains were reported in the usual places; leisure and hospitality, government, health care, professional, scientific and technical services, and social assistance.

-- Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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Conservative and Conservativer – House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) (above), co-founder of the Freedom Caucus, are lead candidates to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as speaker of the House, expected to come up for vote next Wednesday. 

Scalise is ostensibly slightly the more moderate of the two, a well-liked, good-humored lawmaker who was severely wounded at a congressional softball game a few years ago. He is currently undergoing chemotherapy for blood cancer. Though the number-two Republican under McCarthy, Scalise is not the former speaker’s choice.

A rift between the two goes back to 2018, when Scalise expressed interest in stepping over McCarthy to replace Paul Ryan (R-WI) as speaker before that year’s midterms turned the House over to the Democrats and Rep. Nancy Pelosi. Semafor scoops that McCarthy aides have been calling lawmakers on behalf of Jim Jordan, who in his role as chairman of the Judiciary Committee is in charge of the impeachment inquiry into President Biden. 

“It’s unclear if McCarthy himself has sanctioned their work,” Semafor’s Kadia Goba reports, describing the former speaker’s aides as “consulting and providing guidance” to Jordan.

Meanwhile, many Republicans are pushing to remove the “motion to vacate” rule that did McCarthy in.

“That needs to go,” said Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), one of more than 70 members of the Main Street Caucus. He calls it a “chokehold on this body,” (per Semafor). Lawler’s district voted for Joe Biden in 2020.

Ukraine v. Mexican border: Jordan says he opposes any additional financial aid to Ukraine in its defense against Russia, while the Pentagon says that aid will soon run out, NPR reports. President Biden soon will address the nation to present his case for the need for an additional $24 billion the White House says is crucial to Ukraine’s continuing offensive against Russian forces.

Just asking: Is Jordan’s opposition to continuing aid to Ukraine simply good old-fashioned conservatism, or does it have anything to do with former President Trump’s admiration for, and connections to, dictator Vladimir Putin?

It must be noted that a majority of House and Senate Republicans favor continued support for Ukraine. On this particular matter, Jordan's ascendance to speaker would further the chamber's minority rule.

Meanwhile, in Spain: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Spain Thursday for a summit of European leaders at Alhamnbra Palace to plead for continued support of Ukraine’s defense.

--TL

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Speaker Blown Out

TUESDAY 10/3/23

The New York Times called it a “far-right revolt.” The Washington Post referred to the removal of Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) Tuesday afternoon as a “vote led by hard-right Republicans,” and The Wall Street Journal called the Rep. Matt Gaetz-led (R-FL) group “party dissidents.” 

CQ Roll Call simply called them a “Republican bloc,” but along with Democrats who had no trust in McCarthy nor interest in saving him – as they might have – they made up the 216 votes necessary to make him the first House speaker, ever, to be removed from office, with 210 congress members voting “nay.” The Capitol Hill newsletter helpfully added that “(t)he only previous vote to oust a speaker using a ‘motion to vacate’ came in 1910, when Republican Speaker Joseph G. Cannon of Illinois easily survived.”

What now? That was a question shouted out by one of the House members after the roll call vote revealed McCarthy’s stunning six-vote loss, NPR’s All Things Considered reported. For now, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) will preside over the election of a new speaker, and House Democrats have about 44 days to enjoy the GOP’s disarray, before the continuing resolution extending the fiscal 2023 budget expires, again. Perhaps it's time for McCarthy to pull a John Boehner?

--TL

____________________________________________

...meanwhile...

TUESDAY 10/2/23

Gaetz Goes After McCarthy – MAGA Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida introduced a resolution late Monday evening to strip Speaker Kevin McCarthy of his gavel. A vote to depose McCarthy is likely within 48 hours, according to The Washington Post. Gaetz has criticized McCarthy for working with Democrats to raise the debt ceiling earlier this year and for reaching a deal to avert a government shutdown late last Saturday. He says he and his House cohorts want less government spending and a return to the budget process. 

Asked who he would like to see replace McCarthy, Gaetz pointed to “our number two, Steve Scalise,” Republican from Louisiana. 

In an earlier presser before his motion to remove, however, Gaetz reminded the press that one does not have to be a member of Congress to serve as speaker of the House. Voila! Donald J. Trump returns to Capitol Hill.

Trump Towering Inferno … Except … a couple of hours earlier than that, ex-President Trump turned up at the first day of New York Attorney Gen. Letitia James’ civil trial accusing Trump, the Trump Organization and Eric and Don Jr. of a yearslong pattern of financial fraud.

Trump, who did not have to appear in court for this civil case turned it into a campaign stop, CNN notes, saying he showed up “because I wanted to watch the witch hunt myself.” He called Justice Arthur Engoron “deranged” and accused him of being a Democratic operative. Engoron last week found Trump, his organization and his sons liable in the case last week but commenced with the trial to establish damages.

AG James wants to see a $250 million fine and a five-year ban on Trump & org and sons from doing business in New York State. Licenses have already been revoked for such flagship properties as Trump Tower and Trump International Hotel.

--TL

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Shutdown Averted

Monday 10/2/23

Donald J. Trump and his MAGA-band minority of House Republicans were defeated hours before the fiscal year’s pressing deadline Saturday night when the Senate cleared a House bill keeping the lights on for another 46 days. The House bill did not have the $6 billion for Ukraine included in the Senate bill.

“Democrats and Republicans have come to an agreement the government will remain open,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced before the 88-9 vote. “We will have avoided a shutdown.” 

Prior to the vote, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said his caucus would avoid cloture to let the vote go through.

“We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted,” President Biden said in a statement Saturday night, CQ Roll Call reports. “I fully expect the Speaker will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment.” 

And the Republican minority’s provision for strict border control provisions also went missing, first in the House’s 335-91 vote for the bill that went to the Senate. 

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) said he “made very clear that I wouldn’t support any short-term funding bill that didn’t include serious border measurements to help put an end to the Biden Border crisis,” per The Hill. 

The other eight senators who voted against the bill Saturday were Republicans Marsha Blacburn (TN), Mike Braun (IN), Ted Cruz (TX), Bill Hagerty (TN), Mike Lee (UT), Roger Marshall (KS), Rand Paul (KY), Eric Scmitt (MO) and J.D. Vance (OH).

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Quelle Surprise – Former President Trump called Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, a “star” on Truth Social, Semafor reports, and endorsed him to be the next speaker. This gives Jordan a distinct edge over Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), who was the number-two House GOP leader before Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was removed as speaker last Tuesday. 

Jordan, a key ally of the former president, told CNN that Trump remains the GOP’s leader, will be its presidential nominee next year, and expects he will become the 47^th president.

Meanwhile: Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK), chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee and at 39, youngest of the three, is a third, dark horse candidate for House speaker after Jordan and Scalise but has received very scant media attention. 

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The Anti-McCarthy Eight

Minority Rule -- The eight House Republicans who joined all the House Democrats to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as speaker are ...

•Matt Gaetz, Florida

•Andy Biggs, Arizona

•Ken Buck, Colorado

•Tim Burchett, Tennessee

•Eli Crane, Arizona

•Bob Good, Virginia

•Nancy Mace, South Carolina

•Matt Rosendale, Montana

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MAGA-right Republicans in the House were – still are – ready to shut down the federal government at any cost because that’s what Donald J. Trump wants. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) figured that out in time to pass a bipartisan bill extending the current fiscal year’s spending to mid-November despite threat of a motion to vacate if he dared work with Democrats. There was no way for McCarthy to pass a spending bill -- even a short-term one -- without this threat.

Those MAGA House Republicans are led by Rep. Max Gaetz (R-FL), who said McCarthy’s speakership is now on “tenuous ground” (per The New York Times). A motion to vacate means a single House member may challenge McCarthy’s position. It’s a threat that has been held over his head since it took 15 rounds for Republicans to elect him speaker earlier this year. 

After Saturday night’s vote, McCarthy said (per Punchbowl News); “If someone wants to bring a motion against me, bring it. There has to be an adult in the room.”

Before the Saturday vote, one pundit on MSNBC’s The 11^th Hour Friday said that Trump wants the government to shut down because he (mistakenly) thinks it will halt Justice Department cases against him for alleged involvement in the January 6^th Capitol insurrection and for classified documents found in his possession after leaving office. 

That’s too obvious. Forever the pro-chaos politician, Trump wants to shut down the federal government as an extension of his Big Lie, the January 6^th attack and his ongoing assault on American democracy.

•••

Agree? Disagree? Email your comments to editors@thehustings.news.

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WEDNESDAY 9/25/23

Trump Organization Committed Fraud -- New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ruled that Donald J. Trump and his Trump Organization committed fraud by inflating his net worth in business transactions, and has ordered cancellation of Trump business certificates, making the burden of proof much easier for the state's attorney general in a $250 million civil lawsuit (The Washington Post). The ruling also imposes sanctions on attorneys representing Trump, two of his adult children, two other company executives and the business for repeating failed arguments the judge called "borderline frivolous."

•••

Is Trump Winning the Shutdown Showdown?

Republican hard-liners almost certainly will shut down the federal government after midnight Friday because Donald J. Trump called for it on his Truth Social media network last week. Can Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) coalesce a sufficient number of moderate Republicans and Democrats to pass a continuing resolution kicking the can down to December before he loses his gavel to a motion to vacate?

That mouthful seems unlikely, with all the inter-party in-fighting going on. New York magazine’s Intelligencer chalks this up to Trump’s taste for chaos – political and otherwise – and his identifying with those five or 10 hardliners who remain upset by McCarthy’s debt-limit deal with President Biden earlier this year. But really, the impetus for the coming shutdown is far greater than Trump’s taste for chaos or “empathy” with his loyal hardliners. 

To justify his call for a shutdown, Trump told NBC’s Meet the Press a week ago; “We have $35 trillion in debt. We have to save our country.”

Trump was rounding up from $32.99 trillion, $7 trillion of which was added during his administration (according to these numbers, reported by Newsweek the Biden administration has contributed about $6- to $6.1 trillion of that, so far). 

This is the latest chapter in Trump’s ongoing coup attempt. Biden will blame the shutdown and the short-term chaos it causes when certain checks do not get mailed. But the longer the government remains closed the deeper the economic chaos goes into the 2024 presidential campaign, and as we all know, the current president ultimately owns the state of the U.S. economy.

According to Intelligencer the “vast majority” of House Republicans want deep budget cuts, “draconian” immigration rules and to cut off assistance to Ukraine, all “decisively unacceptable” to most Democratic senators and some Republican senators. Most Republican senators and at least a significant number of Republicans in the House also support continuing aid to Ukraine.

“I think all of you know I’m not a fan of government shutdowns,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told reporters last week (per USA Today). "I’ve seen a few of them over the years, they never have produced a policy change and they’ve always been a loser for Republicans, politically,” he told reporters.

But McConnell has never seen a government shutdown led by a four-times indicted former president. 

•••

Up on the Hill -- Monday is Yom Kippur. Both the House and Senate are scheduled to be in session Tuesday through Friday, but you can bet on them putting in long hours on Saturday.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news