Senate Dems Vote with Republicans to Stop D.C. Crime Bill

Thirty-three Democratic senators joined Republicans in overturning a Washington, D.C. city council bill that would update the District’s criminal code for the first time in a century, according to The Hill. The vote was an overwhelming 81-74, with proponents including Sen. Krysten Sinema (I-AZ). 

President Biden already has said he will not veto the bill, angering many progressives in his party, even though D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a fellow Democrat did not support it.

The bill included a 26-year maximum sentence for carjacking cases, which supporters of the city council bill say is the typical sentence most judges impose. 

Upshot: This is the first time in about 30 years that Congress has imposed its will over Washington “home rule,” and is considered a blow to a long-time effort among Democrats to make the District of Columbia the 51st state.

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Williamson Declares, Again

MONDAY 3/7/23

Marianne Williamson, “one-time spiritual guru to Oprah Winfrey and others,” and one of more than two-dozen candidates for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 is running again, and this time she hopes voters take her seriously, The New York Times reports. Williamson, 70, who moved to Washington, D.C., after her first run three years ago sounds like a “Bernie Sanders-style liberal,” according to the Times, and emphasizes economic justice, corporate power and “intentional blindness” of federal government officials to poverty in the U.S.

Meanwhile: President Biden, who has yet to declare for 2024, is still attempting to get beyond conservative charges he is “weak on crime” over his support of police reform, which became branded three years ago as “defund the police.” Biden repeatedly insists he has never embraced such contentious verbiage. Now progressives are upset over reports Biden plans to sign a bill by Congress that would overturn Washington, D.C.’s new criminal justice law, according to The Washington Post. 

The bill would shorten penalties for certain crimes committed in the District – Biden singled out lowered penalties for carjacking – and was supported by D.C.’s council over the objections of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser. Biden had previously said he would support criminal justice reform. A statement by the White House a month ago said that Congress’ efforts to block it was an example of “how the District of Columbia continues to be denied true self-governance and why it deserves statehood.” 

•••

What do you think? Go to the Comments section in this column, or the one in the right column if that’s how you lean, or email editors@thehustings.news and type “for the left column” or “for the right column” in the subject line.

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…meanwhile…

FRIDAY 3/10/23

Strong Job Growth Persists – Though growth slowed in February from an unexpectedly strong January, and the unemployment rate ticked up from a 54-year low of 3.4% to 3.6%, the Labor Department counted 311,000 jobs added in February. Wall Street will be anxious about the Federal Reserve’s reaction to last month’s number, higher than the 225,000 new jobs economists expected though lower than January’s 517,000, which compounded concerns the Federal Reserve was losing its battle against high inflation. 

The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its latest Consumer Price Index next Tuesday.

Usual Suspects: Notable job gains were in leisure and hospitality, retail trade, government and health care. 

--TL

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THURSDAY 3/9/23

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to the Senate Banking Committee -- "Although inflation has been moderating in recent months, the process of getting inflation back down to 2% has a long way to go and is likely to be bumpy." Powell also warned; "Whatever else Congress does, we need to raise the debt ceiling. That's the only way out." Up next: The Labor Department's jobs report Friday, March 10 and the Consumer Price Index for February on Monday, March 13.

Biden Budget Bows– Reverse President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the rich with new taxes on billionaires earning more than $100 million per year and cut the deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade. Those are the headline features of President Biden’s fiscal year 2024 federal budget, which he introduces in Philadelphia Thursday, per NPR and AP.

White House budget proposals are typically “dead on arrival,” and this one will be no different, as far as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is concerned.

“You know the president’s budget is replete with what they would do if they could – thank goodness the House is Republican,” McConnell said earlier this week, perhaps somewhat ruefully – massive tax increases, more spending.”

Biden will use his event in Philadelphia to hit back and note that the Republican plan is to oppose without offering any alternative plan. The White House budget will propose $246 billion in savings by reversing a tax subsidy for cryptocurrency transactions. It is expected to include pay increases for federal workers and an $835 billion defense budget.

That last item is under pressure from MAGA House Republicans who want more scrutiny over military aid to Ukraine in its struggle against Russia.

McConnell Hospitalized – McConnell, 81, was hospitalized Wednesday night after suffering a fall at a private dinner at the Washington area hotel, Politico reports. 

•••

Louisville PD Civil Rights Violations – The Justice Department says that after a “comprehensive investigation” the Louisville Metro Police Department and Louisville/Jefferson County metropolitan government “engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the U.S. Constitution and federal law.” 

Read the full DOJ report here: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-finds-civil-rights-violations-louisville-metro-police-department-and

--TL

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WEDNESDAY 3/8/23

More Fox News Emails from Dominion: Dominion Voting Systems has released more emails and other internal communications procured in discovery over its $1.6-billion lawsuit against Fox News for defamation connected to Donald J. Trump’s Big Lie. Here are a few juicy excerpts, as reported by The Washington Post:

•”We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait. I hate him personally.”… and “We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for [Trump’s four years in office], because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There really isn’t an upside to Trump.” –Tucker Carlson

•”Totally insane” and “just mind blowingly nuts.” –Fox News Senior Vice President Raj Shah in a November 21, 2020, email to producers describing Trump attorney Sidney Powell’s conspiracy theories involving Fox News and Dominion Voting System’s voting machines.

•Fox News Channel’s Prime Time net favorability of Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham fell from 70% before the election to less than 30%. Several emails show Fox was more concerned about competition from Newsmax and other hard-right outlets than it was CNN and MSNBC.

•”Dominion was used in Ohio and Florida. Trump won them. Did they forget to rig these or all part of the plan?” –Tucker Carlson Tonight producer Alex Pfeiffer. 

…meanwhile…

In part one of Tucker Carlson’s “documentary” from more than 40,000 hours of 1/6 video footage handed to him by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the Fox News host described the insurrection as “mostly peaceful chaos” and that the footage does not show an insurrection or riot in progress. 

Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger responded Tuesday saying Carlson pushed an “outrageous and false” allegation that officers acted as “tour guides,” and said the Fox News program “cherry-picked from the calmer moments.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY): “It was a mistake, in my view, for Fox News to depict this in a way that’s completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement officer here at the Capitol thinks.”

--TL

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TUESDAY 3/7/23

Even Higher Interest Rates? -- Chairman Jerome Powell (above) is expected to caution that the Federal Reserve is likely to raise interest rates more than expected to fight stubborn high inflation when he testifies beginning 10 a.m. Tuesday before the Senate Banking Committee Tuesday and again Wednesday before the House Committee on Financial Services, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Fed will consider its next move on interest rates, currently at 4.75% in its next meeting scheduled for March 21-22. Its pre-meeting quiet period begins Saturday.

•••

FY24 Budget – The White House will propose raising taxes for those earning more than $400,000 a year and allow the federal government to negotiate drug prices, in order to extend the Medicare trust fund’s solvency by 25 years, as part of President Biden’s forthcoming Fiscal Year 2024 budget, Semafor reports. Bi-partisan support is not expected from Congress.

•••

Bots for Trump – Remember when Elon Musk conducted a search for bots counted by Twitter management who figured they had an iron-clad deal to sell to the Tesla and SpaceX chief for $44 billion? It appears he missed a few. 

Thousands of them, or perhaps “hundreds of thousands” of bots the Associated Press reports were created in the past 11 months to offer “streams” of praise for Donald J. Trump. These Twitter bots also ridiculed Republican and Democratic critics of the former president alike and attacked Trump’s former UN ambassador and now challenger for the 2024 GOP nomination for president, Nikki Haley. Bots also said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis can’t beat Trump in the race, but would make a good running mate. (Haley may have thought that was her job.)

Double-irony alert: Last November with much fanfare Musk welcomed the ex-prez back on Twitter. But Trump declined and instead stuck with his own struggling social media network, Truth Social. Why tweet when hundreds of thousands of bots can do it for you?

--TL

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MONDAY 3/6/23

Biden in Selma -- On the anniversary Sunday of “Bloody Sunday,” when peaceful civil rights proponents met with a violent police response on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, President Biden made the following remarks (AP):

“Selma is a reckoning. The right to vote … to have your voted counted is the threshold of democracy and liberty. With it anything is possible.

“This fundamental right remains under assault. The conservative Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act over the years. Since the 2020 election, a wave of states and dozens and dozens of anti-voting laws and the election deniers are now elected to office.” …

President Lyndon Baines Johnson introduced the Voting Rights Act eight days after “Bloody Sunday.”

•••

This Week – Monday, the Senate is in session, but the House is out. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, both the House and Senate are in session, and on Friday, the House only is in session.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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‘Mostly Peaceful Chaos,’ Carlson Says

The eponymous host of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight aired the first batch of 1/6 (above) footage handed to him by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) Monday and described the scene as “mostly peaceful chaos,” Semafor reports. 

Meanwhile, according to the report, Fox News appears to be “softening” on its “soft ban” on ex-President Trump. Does Donald J. Trump’s 62%-20% score over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in CPAC’s straw poll have anything to do with that?

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TPAC for Sure

Last week’s Conservative Political Action Conferenec (CPAC) was “all about former President Trump,” political reporter Mara Liasson said on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday. Everyone, she said, called it “TPAC.” 

In reporting Trump’s domination of TPAC’s – er, CPAC’s – straw poll of declared and undeclared 2024 Republican presidential hopefuls, Newsweek noted that attendees heckled declared candidate, Nikki Haley, former UN ambassador (in Trump’s administration) and former South Carolina governor. The straw poll:

•Trump (declared): 62%.

•Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (undeclared): 20%,

•Perry Johnson (businessman who declared last Thursday): 5%.

•Haley (declared): 3%.

•Vivek Ramaswamy (declared): 1%.

Elsewhere in the GOP: Larry Hogan, the two-term Republican governor of Maryland who had considered a run for president after he voluntarily stepped down last year says that after giving it “serious consideration” he will not seek the GOP nomination in 2024, The Hill reports. Hogan was among the vocal of not-Trump-supporters. He refused to back the candidate Trump endorsed last year for to replace him as Maryland governor, Dan Cox, who lost by a wide margin to Democrat Wes Moore.

"Right now you have, you know, Trump and DeSantis at the top of the field, they're soaking up all the oxygen, getting all the attention," Hogan told CBS News Face the Nation Sunday. "And then a whole lot of the rest of us in single digits, and the more of them you have the less chance you have for somebody rising up."

Upshot: Whether or not the GOP is Trump’s party, CPAC is now and for the foreseeable future a Trump party. Sure, CPAC’s founder, Matt Schlapp faces more than one accusation of recent sexual misconduct, but that sort of thing has never has never much dissuaded the MAGA wing of the party. 

•••

What do you think? Go to the Comments section in this column, or the one in the left column if that’s how you lean, or email editors@thehustings.news and type “for the right column” or “for the left column” in the subject line.

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How House Dems Plan to Retake Majority

House Democrats have approximately zero chance of advancing meaningful legislation in the 118th Congress, and instead will concentrate on how to retake the lower chamber’s majority in the 2024 elections by touting legislation President Biden signed in the 117th, including the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. They meet late this week in Baltimore to discuss the strategy, NPR’s Morning Edition reports.

“If we did nothing, nothing, but implement what we’ve already passed and let the people know who did it for them, we win,” Biden told the House Democrats Wednesday.

Though the GOP flipped the House by a much smaller margin than expected in the 2022 midterms, Republicans’ 222-213 majority is enough to control committees – and hold Democratic bills from reaching the floor – and to conduct investigations. Think “Hunter Biden’s laptop” vs. January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, of New York, is in discussions with fellow Democrats on how to counter the narrative expected from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson after he selectively sifts through 44,000 hours of January 6 Capitol surveillance footage from Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), according to The Hill. Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the chairman of last year’s Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, and Joe Morello of New York are to “play a central role in the response.”

•••

What do you think? Go to the Comments section in this column, or the one in the right column if that’s how you lean, or email editors@thehustings.news and type “for the left column” or “for the right column” in the subject line.

_____

meanwhile…

FRIDAY 3/3/23

(Secretary of State Antony Blinken (above) reiterated U.S. support for Ukraine in his first meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov since Russia's invasion more than a year ago. Scroll down for the report.)

Trump Can be Sued – Former President Trump can be sued over his alleged incitement of the January 6th attack on ther U.S. Capitol, the Justice Department said in an amicus brief to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.. According to the brief, Donald J. Trump does not have absolute immunity from civil suits and so could be held liable for physical and psychological harm, The Guardian reports. Two U.S. Capitol police officers and 11 House Democrats have filed to hold the ex-president liable.

•••

Two NY Reps Investigated – Rep. George Santos (R-NY) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, according to The Washington Post, in two separate news reports. 

Santos: A House ethics subcommittee said in a statement it will determine whether the freshman “may have engaged in unlawful activity with respect to his 2022 congressional campaign; failed to properly disclose required information on statements filed with the House; violated federal conflict of interest laws in connection with his role in a firm providing fiduciary services; and/or engaged in sexual misconduct towards an individual seeking employment in his congressional office.”

Ocasio-Cortez: The Ethics Committee is “extending its investigation” into whether she violated House rules by accepting “impermissible gifts” at New York City’s Met Gala in September 2021. The Office of Congressional Ethics says she did not make required reimbursements for rental of a gown (with the words “Tax the Rich” in red on white) and goods and services AOC and her partner received in connection with the gala, until after the office contacted her.

“If Rep. Ocasio-Cortez accepted impermissible gifts, then she may have violated House rules, standards of conduct, and federal law,” the committee said in a written statement, according to WaPo.

•••

Texas GOP May Censure Gonzalez – The executive committee of the state’s Republican Party will consider censuring U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-TX) over rejection of a border security proposal, support of same-sex marriage protections and vote last year for a bipartisan gun law following the Uvalde school shooting in his district, according to The Texas Tribune. The border security proposal Gonzalez rejects is sponsored by his fellow Republican Congress member from Texas, Chip Roy. 

Unfazed: “What censure?” Gonzalez said to reporters Thursday. “Has a censure taken place? I think they’re gonna vote on it Saturday and we’ll see how that goes.”

--TL

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THURSDAY 3/2/23

Brief Encounter for Blinken, Lavrov – Big news Thursday out of the G20 summit of the 20 largest industrialized nations, in New Delhi, India is that Secretary of State Antony Blinken (above) had his first face-to-face encounter with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, since the invasion of Ukraine a year ago. The Washington Post quotes a senior State Department official stressing Washington’s support for a peaceful resolution to the war that maintains Ukraine’s “territorial integrity.”

•••

Conway Meets with Manhattan D.A. – Kellyanne Conway, who managed the final months of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign met with prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office Wednesday over the former president’s role in a $130,000 “hush money” payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, The New York Times reports. Daniels has said Trump had an affair with her, and Trump’s longtime “fixer” Michael Cohen wrote in his 2020 book, Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump that he had alerted Conway about the payment. 

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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Is the GOP Finally Moving On?

Presidential candidates Donald J. Trump and Nikki Haley are headliners in the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) underway through Saturday in Washington, D.C. Ex-President Trump headlines Saturday and former UN Ambassador (under Trump) Haley speaks Friday. 

Other attendees are former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, another yet-to-declare ’24 candidate, former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii Tulsi Gabbard, MyPillow guy Mike Lindell, Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, and usual suspect Reps. Matt Gaetz (FL), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), Elise Stefanik (NY) and Lauren Boebert (CO). 

But the list of no-shows is perhaps more impressive for what it says about the latest attempt to extricate the GOP from MAGA. Among them, according to Axios, are presumed and not-yet-declared 2024 presidential candidates Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence. 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel also are conspicuous by their absence. CPAC is receiving no RNC sponsorship money this year, Politico reports. 

Fox Nation, the network’s streaming outlet will skip CPAC, along with Fox News personalities Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham. 

Some of the no-shows may be attending the closed-to-press Club for Growth annual donor convention in Palm Beach, Florida – three miles from Mar-a-Lago – being held concurrently with CPAC. Club for Growth did not invite Trump, according to CBS News, prompting the ex-president to call it “Club for NO Growth” on his Truth Social.

•••

What do you think? Go to the Comments section in this column, or the one in the left column if that’s how you lean, or email editors@thehustings.news and type “for the right column” or “for the left column” in the subject line.

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Lightfoot Out in Chicago

Incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot (above) lost her bid for re-election Tuesday, finishing third out of nine Democratic candidates. She is the first openly gay Chicago mayor and would have been the city's first female mayor to win a second term.

Former Chicago Public Schools chief executive Paul Vallas led the election with 33.8%, to Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson’s 20.3%, according to the Chicago Tribune. They will face each other in an April 4 runoff. Lightfoot, who is Black, was criticized for crime and overpolicing in Black neighborhoods and scored 17.1% of the vote.

•••

What do you think? Go to the Comments section in this column, or the one in the right column if that’s how you lean, or email editors@thehustings.news

What do you think? Go to the Comments section in this column, or the one in the right column if that’s how you lean, or email editors@thehustings.news and type “for the left column” or “for the right column” in the subject line.

_____

Republicans, Democrats Agree on Chinese Threat

WEDNESDAY 3/1/23

By Todd Lassa

In the refreshingly bipartisan House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party’s first public hearing Tuesday evening Republicans and Democrats pretty much agreed that U.S. acquiescence to China is boosting its economy and global prominence at the cost of our own. 

“We may call this a strategic competition, but it is not a polite tennis match,” Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) said in his opening statement. “This is an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st Century.”

At times, Democrats used their cross-exam time to promote Democratic policy, while Republicans used their time on the mic to promote Republican ideals. Even then, the committee’s three hours of testimony was almost unnaturally civil, with a panel consisting mostly of moderates from both sides of the aisle. Unlike an earlier House committee hearing earlier Tuesday on oversight of U.S. funding for Ukraine, there was no Matt Gaetz (R-FL). 

There was Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY), who warned the federal government “should not embrace Chinese-style central planning.

“We should not try to counter China by being more like China.”

Barr followed Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH), whose questions prompted witness Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, to say that public investment was needed – including infrastructure spending -- for local manufacturing of computer chips and other products currently dominated by Chinese industry. 

Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ) warned that Congress’ potential failure to raise the federal debt ceiling this year would show weakness in our democracy to the Chinese. 

“Democracies that reach high don’t always reach the skies,” responded witness Matt Pottinger, who served as deputy national security advisor under the Trump administration. “People understand that it’s not always going to look pretty.”

Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) .

“I believe fentanyl is committing diplomatic blackmail,” he said, and Pottinger cited FBI Director Christopher Wray’s assessment that a lab in Wuhan, China “most likely” released COVID-19 to result in the pandemic. (An Energy Department assessment leaked to The Wall Street Journal last week says it has “low confidence” in that conclusion.)

Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) noted that China has increased its holdings in farmland outside its own borders by 1,000% in recent years. While Chinese entities, mostly governmental have purchased relatively little farmland in the U.S., it’s mostly close to military system installations, replied witness H.R. McMaster, Trump administration national security advisor in 2017 and 2018.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) suggested then-President Trump’s withdrawal from an Asian trade pact with China was a boon to the Chinese president’s plans for world domination. 

“January 6, 2021 was Xi Jinping’s best day in office,” Auchincloss said. He suggested negotiation of a new trade agreement involving the U.S. and Taiwan.

The hearing’s fourth witness, Chinese dissident Tong Yi (above), said tech experts here should “research how to bring down the great firewall,” China’s blocking of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google. “The truth is powerful on its own,” she said, and journalists and rights lawyers are “heavily repressed” inside China. 

The U.S. must watch not only the social media site TikTok, but also WeChat, Tong said, “a must-have inside China, but also a must have” for Chinese-Americans to communicate with their relatives inside China who must self-repress what they convey to those relatives to keep from being blocked by Xi’s government.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

CPAC Returns to D.C.

The Conservative Political Action Conference returns to Washington, D.C., Wednesday, where announced 2024 presidential candidates Donald J. Trump and Nikki Haley are highlighted speakers.

But CPAC and its chief, Matt Schlapp – widely credited for Trump’s rise as a presidential candidate in 2016 – are under a cloud as Schlapp was accused in early January of sexual misconduct. CPAC’s parent organization, the American Conservative Union has “denounced the claim as a political attack,” according to The Washington Post. The otherwise anonymous accuser is a former staff member to Herschel Walker in his 2022 midterm campaign for a U.S. Senate seat from Georgia.

CPAC runs through Saturday.

Meanwhile: Trump topped Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has yet to declare, in a Fox News poll of 2024 Republican presidential candidates Monday, 43% to 28%, with Haley (the only other declared candidate beside Trump) tied with former Vice President Mike Pence at 7%, according to The Hill. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott grabbed 2%. In earlier polls pitting Trump against DeSantis alone, DeSantis dominated with no dilution by other potential candidates.

What do you think? Go to the Comments section in this column, or the one in the left column if that’s how you lean, or email editors@thehustings.news and type “for the right column” or “for the left column” in the subject line.

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Slotkin to Run for Stabenow’s Seat

Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan announced Monday she is running for fellow Democrat Debbie Stabenow’s Senate seat next year. Stabenow, 72, announced in February she would not seek a fifth term. 

The race for the purple state’s Senate seat so far is marked by the prominent Democratics who say they will not run for Stabenow’s seat, according to Bridge Michigan, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer – often mentioned as a potential presidential candidate if President Biden were to step down after one term – and Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist. U.S. Rep. John James, a Republican, also has said he will not run for Senate. 

Two Republicans already have registered with the federal Election Committee, Bridge Michigan says; Nikki Synder, a member of the state Board of Education, and small business owner Michael Hoover.

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Schiff Leads in Race for Feinstein's Seat

Rep. Adam Schiff of Burbank leads Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine among Democratic candidates vying for retiring Sen. Diane Feinstein’s (D-CA) seat in the 2024 elections, according to a poll of Democratic voters by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. Among declared candidates, Schiff leads Porter by a narrow margin, 22% to 20%, with Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland, in third with 6%. Rep. Ro Khanna, serving Fremont, has not yet declared his candidacy, but earned 4%, the LAT reports.

But it’s early, with just four in 10 of the Democrats surveyed saying they had already made up their minds.

•••

What do you think? Go to the Comments section in this column, or the one in the right column if that’s how you lean, or email editors@thehustings.news and type “for the left column” or “for the right column” in the subject line.

_____

…meanwhile…

TUESDAY 2/28/23

(Rupert Murdoch said some Fox News commentators endorsed false allegations of the Big Lie pushed by Donald J. Trump and allies that the 2020 election was stolen, and did not stop the personalities from promoting these claims, according to excerpts of a deposition in the Dominion Systems’ $1.6-billion lawsuit against the network, AP reports.)

House Committee Challenges China – The newly formed House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party holds its first hearing in prime time, 7 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday night, with four witnesses expected. They are former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and former Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger, both from the Trump administration, and human rights activist Tong Yi and Alliance for American Manufacturing President Scott Paul. 

Chairman is Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), with Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) vice-chair of the refreshingly bi-partisan committee. Ahead of the hearing, Gallagher told NPR’s Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition; “A Chinese spy balloon drifting over the country and circling our nuclear ICBM facilities has a way of sort of bringing the threat close to home.”

•••

SCOTUS Takes Up Student Loan Forgiveness – Can six Republican-led states put the kibosh on President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program? The Supreme Court hears arguments for two hours Tuesday over whether the Education Department under Biden has authority to eliminate college student debt. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the White House program will cost $300 billion, NPR’s Nina Totenburg reports on Morning Edition. 

Missouri, Nebraska, Arkansas, Kansas, South Carolina and Iowa have challenged the loan forgiveness program, which would offer up to $10,000 relief for students with family income of up to $125,000 annually, and up to $20,000 for low-income students. 

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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...meanwhile...

DOE Says COVID Likely from a Chinese Lab – The U.S. Energy Department now agrees with an FBI assessment that the COVID-19 pandemic was likely the result of a leak from a Chinese laboratory, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, citing an update to a 2021 document by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. The classified report was provided to the White House and key members of Congress (the latter of which explains how the WSJ got it).

•••

NATO Deal to Offer Kyiv Arms for Peace Talks? – British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has outlined a plan to give Ukraine “much broader access” to advanced military equipment, weapons and ammunition as an incentive for Kyiv reaching out to Moscow to begin peace talks, The Wall Street Journal reports. Germany and France have joined Britain in supporting the deal, which falls short of full-on NATO membership for Ukraine. 

Sunak last Friday said such arms would give Ukraine a “decisive advantage,” including war planes, on the battlefield. But according to the WSJ, the developing deal masks growing private doubts among political leaders in the United Kingdom, France and Germany that Ukraine will be able to push Russian aggressors out of its eastern regions and Crimea, which Russia has controlled since 2014.

Upshot: This is a decidedly sober attitude from Europe’s lead NATO members, coming after a year in which Ukraine has fought a Russian army many thought would have captured Kyiv by March 2022, and deposed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who last week said his country will prevail and push out Russia by the end of this year.

This Week – Both the House and Senate are in session Monday through Wednesday. The Senate only is in session Thursday and Friday.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Who’s On First at CPAC This Week

Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and her former boss, ex-President Trump, are scheduled to give dueling addresses at the Conservative Political Action Conference this week in Washington, D.C., The Hill reports. CPAC is scheduled for Wednesday through Saturday.

Meanwhile, former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) says he will not attend the 2024 Republican National Conference in Milwaukee – yes, his home state – if Donald J. Trump is the GOP’s nominee for president. Ryan made his remarks on Milwaukee’s WISN-TV, according to The Hill.

•••

What do you think? Go to the Comments section in this column, or the one in the left column if that’s how you lean, or email editors@thehustings.news and type “for the right column” or “for the left column” in the subject line.

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Democracy Lives!

FRIDAY 2/24/23

By Todd Lassa

One year after Russia invaded Ukraine, democracy lives. In Ukraine. 

President Biden said so in his surprise visit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday. 

“One year later, Kyiv stands. Ukraine stands. And democracy stands,” Biden said Monday. On Friday, the White House announced additional sanctions on Vladimir Putin’s Russia, targeting banks and tech industries, NPR reports.

“We endured. We were not defeated,” Zelenskyy said in his address to Ukraine Friday (BBC News translation). “Let us not forget how many gave their lives for Ukraine and the freedom of our people.”

Zelenskyy pledged that Ukraine would defeat Russia before the end of this year.

One year ago, Russia was expected to quickly capture Kyiv and depose Zelenskyy, replacing him with a Putin puppet. With Biden having already warned of the Russian invasion ahead of Russia’s invasion, the U.S. responded with military and humanitarian aid. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians escaped across the western border into Poland, while many Ukrainian men and women under 62 stayed or returned to fight back the Russians.

Ukraine pushed back and recaptured some of its eastern regions, while ill-equipped and ill-prepared Russian troops, later backed by the mercenary Wagner Group, launched missiles into schools and hospitals and apartment buildings, killing many civilians. In Russia the struggling anti-war movement reportedly is dead as Putin continues to tell lies about the invasion and his reasons for the attack. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Friday that Russia should push Ukraine back to the Polish border, the BBC reports.

With more, and better NATO and U.S. arms and equipment on the way, polls in Ukraine show that 80% of the people believe their country will eventually regain all its land, including the Crimea, lost to Russia in 2014, according to NPR’s Morning Edition.

Protecting democracy demands constant vigilance, and here in the United States, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has handed over 44,000 hours of Capitol security video from 1/6 to Tucker Carlson, presumably so the Fox News host, a fan of authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbån of Hungary – himself a Putin ally – can advance his conspiracy theories and alternative history of the attack. 

But the vociferous MAGA forces in the U.S. House who are calling an end to “Ukraine Fatigue” appear to be a small minority, including among the chamber’s Republicans. After Biden’s Monday visit, a small delegation of House Republicans, led by Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, of Texas, met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv and pledging continuing U.S. support and even offering more military equipment. 

Democracy lives.

Slava Ukraine!

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news