Alas, Midterm Mania Continues

By Ken Zino

Well, the first talking-head assumption that voter turnout was expected to be high for the midterm elections was right. However, the widespread narrative that the Republicans were going to get a Red Wave was wrong. A sufficient number of the Americans who voted -- not all, but enough -- choose to keep a constitutional democracy in place that eschews violence and insurrection.

Yes, inflation is a concern, but enough Americans realize more tax cuts for the wealthy is not a way to address it. I had once thought that the election was going to be the French Revolution played in reverse with tyrants and despots taking control of ordinary working people. There was no Red Wave, but there was no Blue Wave, either. Franklin Roosevelt in 1934, Bill Clinton in 1998, George W. Bush in 2002 had their parties pickup seats in the midterm elections – a very select group. 

As of Wednesday we have a divided, but not a lop-sided two-party system stumbling forward at local, state, and federal levels. There are still undetermined and far-reaching consequences about our struggling democracy’s future, though it could have been worse. The full picture will take days or weeks or longer to emerge. We are in the midst of economic and ecological crisis that will be difficult to address. There is no clear narrative outlining the complicated days ahead. 

Once again, this election was about Trump. His over-exposure in the media combined with the January 6 panel hearings allowed enough Americans to see him for what he is. Launching a political insurrection to retain power over an election he lost remains a bad idea. Republican election deniers were thumped in the Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin gubernatorial races. The AP called the Pennsylvania race for John Fetterman, the Democrat in a contested Senate race with television personality and snake oil salesman Mehmet Oz, early Wednesday morning. 

In his victory speech, Fetterman referenced the stroke he suffered just four days before his Democratic primary victory last May: “Health care is a fundamental right and it saved my life.” The Republicans tried for years to abolish the Affordable Care Act, but had no plan when voters continually supported it. Sound familiar? 

Facing a recession, international threats to the U.S. from hostile totalitarian states and people and planet destroying global warming, enough Americans realize that what Trumpism really means is the ex-president is only in it for himself. Trump rejects global warming and military alliances in favor of the autocratic Russian and North Korean governments, and this does nothing for solving problems that require thoughtful, progressive and collective action. Biden, with his experience and broader approaches to problems helped the Democrats in the midterms, after all. 

Now we need to tend to our knitting. We need to have an economy that works for all; one with equitable taxation. We need to ensure our planet’s future. We need to set an example of a working democracy for all the world to view. Not all of us, but as of last Tuesday, enough of us, are holding these truths to be self-evident.

_____
COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Trump Loses, Again

By Todd Lassa

As expected, on The Day After, the U.S. Senate is still up for grabs. With Democrat John Fetterman (pictured) beating Trump-backed Dr. Mehmet Oz and picking up the Pennsylvania Senate seat made open by the retirement of never-Trumper Republican John Toomey, Republicans must win at least two of three undecided races currently held by Democrats, among Nevada, Georgia and Arizona. The Georgia race between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Trump-backed challenger Herschel Walker is likely to go to a December 6 runoff.

Donald J. Trump’s Senate victories Tuesday came in Ohio, where J.D. Vance beat U.S. Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan for the seat of another retiring moderate Republican, Rob Portman, and in Wisconsin, where incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson held off Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes.

The House of Representatives is still up for grabs too, with the GOP having gained just two of the five seats needed to flip the majority. NPR’s Domenico Montenaro told Morning Edition Wednesday that Republicans are likely to end up with a seven- to nine-seat gain. The resulting slim majority could pose a problem for Republican Speaker-in-Waiting Kevin McCarthy, who bent a knee for ex-President Trump shortly after the Senate voted to acquit him after his impeachment for inciting the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

McCarthy’s own vague plans for impeaching President Biden may be tougher than he had expected.

One surprising race that could flip a House seat to the Democrats: In Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, pro-Trump Republican incumbent Lauren Boebert trails Democrat Adam Frisch in her re-election bid.

What the GOP had come to expect was this: Republicans lost 41 House seats in 2018 with Trump in the White House, and Democrats lost 63 seats in 2010 under President Barack Obama. 

It seems the same problem polling organizations had tracking Donald J. Trump v. Hillary Clinton in 2016 afflicted those organizations in 2022. Perhaps some of the intended voters who counted inflation and the economy as top concerns did not blame Biden for high inflation and the wobbly economy. 

Clearest indication that Trump is done as head of the GOP is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ trouncing of Democratic candidate Charlie Crist for re-election, by nearly 20 percentage points, a day after the ex-prez warned “DeSanctimonious” he could “hurt himself very badly” if he launches a run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Florida is now a deep-red state, with DeSantis having flipped formerly blue Miami-Dade Tuesday. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio also easily won re-election Tuesday.

Trump apparently still plans to make his “big announcement” next Tuesday to run again in 2024.

We have seen the GOP ready to “move on” before, from the time he lost the 2020 presidential election to the the January 6thCapitol insurrection and last August 8 when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago for confidential government files. Is it for real this time? An article on FoxNews.com Wednesday contained the whole story in the headline, “Conservatives point finger at Trump after GOP’s underwhelming election results: ‘He’s never been weaker.’ Many conservatives say Tuesday’s election results show it’s ‘time to move on’ from Trump.”

After two years enduring Trump’s Big Lie, we may have taken a step back toward democracy.

(WED 11/9/22)

_____
COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Trump In Context

By Stephen Macaulay

“As President Trump looks to the future, he will continue to champion his America First Agenda that won overwhelmingly at the ballot box.” — Taylor Budowich, Trump spokesman

Back in the late ‘60s to early ‘80s there was a literary school known as “Deconstructionism.” Although it was essentially limited to academia, and even there somewhat limited (the strongest proponents in the U.S. were labeled “the Yale School”), it became highly controversial. One of its tenets (a word its own practitioners would dispute) was that for a given text there is no indisputable meaning.

That meant that there was something of a potentially rampant relativism. This gravely upset many people who believe there are fixed rules, such as religious leaders who adhere to lists of right and wrong. If there is no fixed meaning, then those lists could be turned on their heads, inside out and otherwise made indefinite.

As Aristotle had it, A is A, a specific identity, not A is B, C, D, E, F, G. . . .

But the Deconstructionists would quibble in such a way that it would be incomprehensible to most people exactly what it is they were saying — or were trying to say, and if they were trying to say it, whether it meant what they, or the listener, thought it did.

So we had the midterm elections. Across the country candidates were elected who make the Deconstructionists look like pikers. Not as many as had been expected. But more than enough. One would think that in the 21st century there would be people of a certain level of intellect and probity who would run for office. 

Most people have what can be considered a shared vision or overall acceptance of reality.

Generally, if someone makes something up and there is no commonly accepted evidence that the thing exists, then that person is thought to be mistaken, perhaps inadvertently. And so it is explained to that person that talking trees don’t ride unicorns, or whatever it is they claim.

If the person, after patient explanation, continues to believe that talking trees ride unicorns, then that person isn’t considered particularly perceptive or reliable. To put it nicely.

But now there is a whole cadre of people, about to make up the House’s new majority, who will be taking on jobs in Washington that believe — or seem to believe — things that would otherwise be considered to be folly were these delusions not so pernicious.

It is one thing for academicians who are in schools of literature and art to go headlong into a rabbit hole. Arguably, there needs to be some of that outré thinking in places like that. However, if you are on a plane or you are the patient on an operating table, you’d want the pilot and the surgeon to have a grounded sense of reality.

Nowadays it seems as though seriousness doesn’t matter, with that term having a most basic meaning of having ideas that are predicated on reality as most of us know it.

What’s more, knowing things (real things, that is) and having plans for dealing with them (there was a lot of noise about inflation overall and the price of gas — will impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden for some yet-to-be-defined high crime or misdemeanor address those issues?), the basic competencies that we expect from a car mechanic (“You have a flat tire. I’ll change the oil”) are now irrelevant in wide swaths of the country.

Jacques Derrida, largely considered to be the father of Deconstruction, wrote:

“Every sign, linguistic or nonlinguistic, spoken or written (in the usual sense of this opposition), as a small or large unity, can be cited, put between quotation marks; thereby it can break with every given context, and engender infinitely new contexts in an absolutely nonsaturable fashion. This does not suppose that the mark is valid outside its context, but on the contrary that there are only contexts without any center of absolute anchoring.”

In the context that has been created by the 2022 midterms, in the context that another run for president by a man who has shown himself to have no truck with truth, “there are only contexts without any center of absolute anchoring.”

Or to quote Donald Trump, “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

Who knew he was a Deconstructionist?

_____
COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Blue Waves Back

While a GOP takeover of the House still seemed likely early Wednesday morning and the Senate remained a tossup, the results do not look that bad for Democrats, so far. By 1:30 a.m. Eastern time, the count for the Senate stood at 47 Democrats to 47 Republicans, MSNBC’s Steve Kornacky reported. 

Comment in this column or the right column, or email editors@thehustings.news.

_____

Fetterman Wins, Luria Loses, Boebert is Behind

Early midterm returns for the Senate Tuesday …

Pennsylvania: Democrat John Fetterman held a narrow lead over MAGA-Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz all night before NBC News finally called it for Fetterman, with 49.4% of the vote. Still up for that “big announcement” next Tuesday, Mr. Ex-President?

Ohio: A rare Trump endorsement victory Tuesday for Senate candidate J.D. Vance over U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan to keep retiring Sen. Rob Portman’s seat on the Republican side of the aisle. 

New Hampshire: Incumbent Democrat Maggie Hassan beat Republican Don Bolduc in a race that had become surprisingly competitive in recent weeks. 

Givens: Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), John Thune (R-SD) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) easily won their re-elections Tuesday.

House races …

Virginia: Rep. Elaine Luria, a Democratic member of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, has lost her bid for re-election to Republican Jen Kiggans for the state’s District 2 seat. Luria was the first Democratic incumbent to fall Tuesday, the Associated Press says. The GOP needs to grab four more seats before it can make Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy the next House speaker. It won’t happen in Virginia’s 7th or its 10th, where Abigail Spanberger and Jennifer Wexton, respectively, beat Trumpian challengers Yesli Vega and Hung Cao, respectively. 

Colorado: Too early to call, but by 10 p.m. local time 3rd Congressional District pro-Trump Christian nationalist incumbent Lauren Boebert, with 46.3% of the vote counted, was trailing Democratic challenger Adam Frisch’s 53.7%, according to The Pueblo Chieftan.

Gubernatorial races…

Florida: Incumbent Republican Ron DeSantis trounced Democratic challenger Charlie Crist.

Georgia: Republican incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp, not a Trump endorsee, has defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams a second time. 

Maryland: Democrat Wes Moore defeats Republican Dan Cox and will become the state’s first Black governor.

Illinois: Democrat J.B. Pritzker handily won re-election.

Arkansas: Former Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will become the state’s next governor, an open seat.

California: Gavin Newsom, potential 2024 Democratic presidential candidate, won re-election.

Wisconsin: Gov. Tony Evers (D) defeated challenger Tim Michels, who had told supporters at a campaign event that if he were elected, Republicans “would never lose another election” in the state.

Michigan: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) handily defeated one more Trump endorsee, Tudor Dixon.

--Compiled by Todd Lassa

_____

No Red Wave

It’s still good news for the GOP, with the party leading House races 182 seats to 144 for the Democrats, according to The New York Times, leaving 89 seats to be determined. 

Early Wednesday, MSNBC called Utah’s Senate race for incumbent Republican Mike Lee over independent Evan McMullin, a former Republican candidate for president, who had said he would not caucus with either party if he had won. Turns out that odd math problem will not be an issue.

Comment in this column or the right column, or email editors@thehustings.news.

_____

What Does 40m Early Ballots Mean?

More than 40 million voters have cast their midterm election ballots early, CNN says. Conventional wisdom and the polls say the result will be an overwhelming win for the Republicans in the House, leading to the quick dismantling of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, and a slew of investigations into President Biden’s son, Hunter, as well as probably the impeachment of Joe Biden himself. 

The Senate comes down to three key races; Democrat Fetterman v. Republican Ozin in Pennsylavnia, Republican Laxalt v. Democrat Cortez Masto in Nevada and Republican Walker vs. Democrat Warnock in Georgia. That huge early turnout could push the vote a bit toward the Democrats, while Republicans are more likeluy to wait until Tuesday to vote. Because the early and mail-in ballots will be counted after the election-day ballots in most states, there is opportunity for MAGA-Republicans to attempt to deny this midterm election if they don’t prevail. 

Such analysis should not prevent you from voting, for either side, this Tuesday, and this punditry – including Stephen Macaulay’s right column – should entice you to lend us your own comments, in either the right or left Comments box, or by emailing editors@thehustings.news.

--TL

_____

VOTE!

Follow The Hustings beginning late Tuesday for the latest election returns and send us your comments on the midterms to editors@thehustings.news.

Midterm Madness

UPDATE: ICYMI, Donald J. Trump told his Monday night rally crowd in Dayton, Ohio, he will make a “big announcement” at Mar-a-Lago on November 15. This jibes with the Axios scoop last week that he was expected to announce for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination the week of November 14. We have been warned.

Trump Teaser Update – Donald J. Trump may announce his candidacy for the 2024 GOP nomination for president as early as Monday night, according to Semafor, warning there is nothing definitive in its report based on sources apparently among his advisors. Key word according to the new global news website is the ex-president is “considering” an announcement you may or may not have heard about by the time you read this. Last week Axios scooped that Trump had planned to announce somewhere in the November 14-16 time frame and crow about successful midterm endorsees.

Upshot: As always, the ex-prez likes to keep everybody guessing, from his advisors to his adoring MAGA hatters to almost everybody else – who fear he will run again.

•••

We Are All Not Elon Musk – Twitter’s new owner said the platform will permanently remove anyone using his name from the social media site without clearly marking the account as “parody” after a series of celebrities did just that. Comedian Kathy Griffith is banned, while actress Valerie Bertinelli changed her screen name to “Elon Musk” and posted a series of tweets supporting Democratic candidates before changing her name back, the Associated Press reports. 

Truthiness: Free speech absolutist Musk’s latest whim on how to improve Twitter is “to become by far the most accurate source of information in the world. That’s our mission.” Does that mean Donald J. Trump will not be welcomed back? The World’s Richest Man did not say.

He’s No Valerie Bertinelli: Musk took to his new toy Monday to address “independent-minded voters,” Forbes reports, to recommend “voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic … shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties.”

_____________________________________

Can This Be Right?>>>

By Todd Lassa

Some conservatives and most modern Republicans might be confused by the appearance of Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s column, “Something to Think About Before You Vote,” in our right column. Scroll down through the column and you’ll find a clear dissection of the arguments Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) and Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) make on why you should vote for their parties’ candidates in Tuesday’s midterm elecitons. 

Shouldn’t this column appear on the left? Well, no. Macaulay has always expressed center-right opinions, including his absolute belief in fighting for American democracy. Since 2016, the GOP and along with it the notion of American conservatism has been overtaken by Donald J. Trump’s specific brand of MAGA-populism. This is not conservatism in the classic sense. There is, in fact, plenty of evidence of authoritarianism. 

One Macaulay argument we can all agree with is to get out and vote this Tuesday (if you haven’t done so already). 

Hit the Comments box in the left or right columns, or email editors@thehustings.news to express your opinion. As always, please back your arguments with facts, and keep it civil.

_____

Something to Think About Before You Vote

By Stephen Macaulay

Maybe you’re not sure who you are going to vote for tomorrow.

If that’s the case, then perhaps what two guests on Meet the Press said on 11/6/22 might be helpful in coming to grips with how to handle your ballot.

These two guests were in sequence. First Representative Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), then Senator Rick Scott (R-FL). The sequence is important because the second person has the opportunity to hear what the first has said and thereby should be able to come up with some compelling responses.

Seems as though Scott didn’t take that into account.

When asked by host Chuck Todd about things like messaging and popularity and what the Democrats are going to do, Maloney, said things including:

“So with all due respect, what Democrats are going to do right now is going to go out and fight with everything we've got for seniors who need costs capped in Medicare, for people worried about gun violence in our schools, for people who want to have a real plan to go forward together without the anger and the fear and the hatred, fighting for women's reproductive freedom and voting rights. That's what we're going to do.”

And

“Well, let's look at the record. I mean, for one thing we passed the most important gun safety legislation in 28 years, stood up to the N.R.A., stood up to the big gun lobbies, and no Republicans, except a handful, were willing to help. That's really important. In addition to that, we passed the most important local police funding, $300 million over the next five years, out of the House.”

And

“I think the president gets a bum rap. By the way, he's been a leader on public safety his whole career. He's also fixing our roads and our bridges. He's bringing jobs back from China. He's capping seniors' out-of-pocket costs in Medicare. He took on the big drug companies. If you want to know why all this dark money's coming into these races it's because we took on the big drug companies. He's helping our veterans with extraordinary health care, $250 billion. He's done gun safety legislation. And let's not forget the Rescue Plan that saved every small business and restaurant and live venue in the country. I think the guy gets a bum rap. I think he's working through the damage of the Trump years and the pandemic, and he's not getting enough credit for it. Now, we've got more to do, and he'll be the first one to tell you that.”

Sure, there’s plenty of partisan rhetoric in there, but there are also substantive things that affect individuals young and old. And how helping seniors with Medicare costs and putting some serious funding into police departments is “radical,” and one of the main themes of the Republicans on the trail is how the Democrats are destroying the country (fixing the roads?) because they are radical, is something I can’t suss.

But let’s move to Senator Scott.

Todd asked him what, if the Republicans get the majority in both chambers, “the first bill a Republican Congress sends to the president’s desk that you actually think he would sign?”

Scott answers:

“I think the issue is we've got to deal with inflation, so we've got to figure out how to spend our money wisely so we don't continue this inflation. I think we've got to do whatever we can to get this crime rate down. So I think we have to look at that. We've got to secure the border. I think we've got to get rid of the 87 IRS agents – 87,000 new IRS agents. So I think we have to address the issues that people are worried about right now, and they're worried about those issues, the fentanyl. So I think that's what we need to focus on. So we've got to make sure our military is focused on being lethal, not woke. So I think those are the things that we have to focus on.”

Is there a bill in there?

Or more to the point, is there a specific policy or plan described outside of eliminating the jobs of IRS agents (the vast majority of which have yet to be hired because the 87,000 relates to the number who could be hired by 2030)?

Todd followed that answer — and that is the complete answer given by Scott, not edited — `with this question:

“Well, let me ask you, inflation, you saw that's the biggest – that’s the number one issue people are dissatisfied with this economy. What's the first bill you guys can pass that you think can impact inflation?”

Scott:

“I think the thing we have to work on – on inflation, it's all tied to reckless government spending. We've got to get our budget in control, we've got to figure out how we're going to balance the budget. So that's the first thing we have to do.”

In other words, Scott doesn’t know the answer.

“We have to work on.” “We’ve got to figure out how.”

Wouldn’t it seem that a political party that sees nothing good on the landscape would have specific ideas of how they were going to change it?

Apparently that’s not the case for the Republicans.

To be sure, they’re all about going after Hunter Biden (if the guy is corrupt, then do we really need the U.S. Congress to concern itself with that?), stopping illegal immigration (how they’re going to do that is evidently something they need to think about), and making sure that Anthony Fauci pays for his trying to save Americans from what many of the people running for office as Republicans thought was a hoax (only 1.07-million people died from something that their dear leader said, more than 40 times, starting in March 2020; “It will just go away”).

Think about what needs to happen and who is, apparently, thinking about it.

And vote.

_____

‘Dead Heat’ for Senate Majority

With less than a week to go before the midterm elections and plenty of early ballots already cast, especially in Georgia, Texas and California according to NPR, the Republican vs. Democratic race for control of the Senate remains in a dead-heat, say the latest data from FiveThirtyEight. 

The GOP needs just one net seat to take control of the Senate. Most polls show the Democratic Party is in for a heavy Republican wave in the House of Representatives. Considering that inflation and the economy are at the top of most voter’s lists of concerns and throwing in the history of a sitting president’s party’s losses in midterms, the possibility of holding the Senate at 50-50 plus Vice President Harris would be considered a rare victory for the Democrats.

Still, the party seems to be holding out hope there is an upset in the works for the House majority if those early voters include a lot of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who are still upset about the Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health and its overturning of Roe v. Wade.

FiveThirtyEight says the GOP’s best chance of picking up Senate seats are in Nevada and Georgia, while Democrats are still holding out hope for Pennsylvania, even after John Fetterman’s shaky debate performance against Dr. Mehmet Oz last month. Meanwhile, Arizona and New Hampshire have strong Democratic incumbents while GOP-held seats in North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin are “close, but likely Republican.”

Two Wild Cards: Then there’s Utah and Iowa. Seven-term Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-IA), 89, is facing an unusually strong challenge from Democrat Michael Franken. Incumbent Mike Lee has failed to secure an endorsement from fellow Republican Utah Sen. Mitt Romney and leads the polls by only the margin of error, according to FiveThirtyEight, over former Republican presidential candidate Evan McMullen, who is running as an independent who says he will not caucus with either party, if elected.

--TL

_____
COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

261K Jobs Added Last Month

The U.S. economy added 261,000 jobs in October, signaling a “softening” of the economy as the Federal Reserve continues to hike interest rates in order to ease inflation. The number is a bit higher than the low-200s number some economists had predicted. 

The jobs number was low enough to tick up the unemployment rate, to 3.7% from a 3.5% rate in August and September. But any unemployment number under 4% is still almost unnaturally low. The combo of a better-than-expected jobs increase and two-tenths uptick in the unemployment rate also is seen as a sign the Fed’s aggressive interest rate increases could result in a “soft landing” instead of a 2023 recession.

The Labor Department reported job gains in health care, professional and technical services, and manufacturing. 

•••

Trump Marks Calendar for November 14 – Donald J. Trump’s “inner circle” are targeting November 14 as the date the former president will announce his run for the 2024 GOP presidential election, Jonathan Swan scoops in Axios Friday. The potential date comes after the midterms and before Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis would announce his own candidacy and challenge Trump. Swan tells MSNBC’s Morning Joe that Trump’s team will use the date to schedule a series of rallies and appearances and take credit for the election victories by the ex-president’s endorsees. 

The date remains tentative, Swan emphasizes, as it is very likely control of the Senate will have not been determined six days after the midterms. If neither incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock nor Trump-endorsed Republican challenger Herschel Walker reach at least 50% of the vote in Georgia’s Senate race, for example, they will face each other again in a runoff scheduled for December 6.

•••

Confirming the Obvious – United Nations inspectors have found no evidence of “dirty bombs” being developed by Ukraine, NPR reports. The UN inspection was made under dubious circumstances, as it was a claim made by Russia to divert attention from its own atrocities over its invasion of the country. With the UN report, only Vladimir Putin and his allies will continue to push the false dirty bomb story.

Meanwhile: Ukrainian officials have signaled an assault to take back its Kherson region “could be imminent,” The Washington Post reports, which could become the “best test” of whether Russia will hold any significant piece of territory after its February invasion.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_____________________________________

'Democracy on the Ballot' (THU 11/3/22)

President Biden called on voters to consider the future of our republic when casting ballots in the midterm elections, in an address Wednesday evening from Washington’s Union Station. His speech began with a detailed description of the attack the prior Friday on Paul Pelosi, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband. Biden blamed former President Trump for ongoing threat to American democracy in a speech that will be seen as political, especially by Fox News and media outlets to its right.

“Democracy is on the ballot” in the November 8 midterms, Biden said. “So today I appeal to all Americans regardless of party to meet this moment of national and generational importance. We must vote knowing what’s at stake and not just the policy of the moment.”

Recent polls have shown that while the future of American democracy is an underlying issue in the midterms it is not as important to most voters as inflation and the economy. The fear here is that the current 8.5% inflation rate will help propel election deniers into office and potentially give them power over the way future elections are conducted.

•••

Fed Rates Up Another ¾ Point – As every professional- and armchair economist had predicted, the Federal Reserve raised its “key policy rate” by 75 basis points for the fourth meeting in a row, indicating it is not done with its attempt to tighten the economy and lower inflation, the investment site Seeking Alpha reports. That brings it to the current rate of 3.75%, says Marketplace, which notes that Chairman Jerome Powell said the Fed may slow increases “very soon,” as early as its next meeting, or the meeting after that. 

Which does not amount to the much-expected “Fed pivot,” says Marketplace’s Kai Risdahl. The next Fed board meeting is December 13-14, Risdahl says, and there will be a “whole lot” of economic data out between now and then.

Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_____
COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Kinzinger, Cheney No Heroes

ICYMI, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) was asked on MSNBC’s Morning Joe the other day why it is “so hard for Republicans to speak out” against the attempted murder of Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), allegedly by apparent QAnon fan David DePape last weekend. [DePape has pleaded ‘not guilty’ to all charges related to the attack.]

“Because we are close to election,” he replied, “and the new view is, you never admit defeat, you never back off …”

Referring to himself and fellow Republican on the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Rep. Liz Cheney, Kinzinger continued; “By the way, Liz and I are not courageous. There’s no strength in this. We’re just surrounded by cowards. … It looks like courage when it’s barely your duty.”

Cheney may be no hero, but Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay singles out the former as among the rare “Respectable Republicans” in his column below. Scroll down with the trackbar on the far-right to read Macaulay’s latest column.

Comment in the box below or in the left column – whichever is most appropriate to your political leaning – or email editors@thehustings.news.

--TL

_____

Free-For-All Hellscape is On

Days after Elon Musk purchased Twitter and claimed it would not become a “free-for-all hellscape” under his watch, the World’s Richest Man/Tesla and SpaceX CEO/free-speech absolutist took to his new media toy to counter a tweet by Hillary Clinton that blasts the Republican Party for “creating a toxic environment that lays the groundwork for violence against politicians” (per theDaily Beast). The 2016 Democratic presidential candidate was commenting on last Friday’s attack of Paul Pelosi, 82, husband to the House speaker, at their San Francisco home. 

San Francisco Police Chief William Scott told reporters last Friday that Bay Area resident David DePape, 42, would be charged with attempted homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, burglary and “several other additional felonies.” DePape, who has spread right-wing and QAnon conspiracy theories online according to the Daily Beast, allegedly shouted “Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy?” during the attack (Rep. Pelosi (D) was in Washington, DC at the time). 

But that didn’t stop Twitter’s new owner from tweeting a response to Clinton’s tweet: “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.” He then repeated a conspiracy theory completely devoid of any facts that involve Paul Pelosi and a male sex worker, which first appeared in a Santa Monica-based far-right “news” website whose name we won’t repeat here. 

Musk deleted his tweet “more than six hours” after it first appeared, according to Daily Beast, though not before it had been retweeted “thousands and thousands of times.” 

Threat to Both Parties: Congress members last week issued new warnings about their personal security last week. 

“Somebody is going to die,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) told Axios. But the threats, which have affected local election officials across the country as well as state and federal officials from both major parties. In 2017, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) suffered life-threatening injuries from a gunman during practice for a congressional softball game and last June an armed man was arrested near Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home in the Washington, D.C. metro area.

COMMENT: We’re on Twitter, still, @NewsHustings. Send us your examples of how Twitter has changed since Elon Musk’s takeover, my emailing editors@thehustings.news.

_____

Of Brazil and Israel

(PHOTO: Brazil's president-elect, Lula da Silva)

Transition Without Concession – President Jair Bolsonaro indicated he would hand over Brazil’s reins to the leftist candidate who defeated him in last Sunday’s runoff elections, NPR’s All Things Considered reports. In a news conference in Brasilia that lasted less than two minutes, Bolsonaro said “As a president and as a citizen I will continue to follow all the commandments of our constitution.”

Bolsonaro did not mention the name of Brazil’s president-elect, Luiz Inåcio Lula da Silva. 

Eager for Victory Speech – Meanwhile in Israel, Benyamin Netanyahu, prime minister from 1996-99 and again from 2009-21, “holds an edge” in the country’s election, based on exit polls, The New York Times reports, and his Likud party already is celebrating ahead of the final count. If his lead holds, Netanyahu will reclaim power and preside over “one of the most right-wing governments in Israel’s history,” even as he is on trial for corruption charges related to his previous term as PM, according to the Times. 

Netanyahu has at least one thing in common with Brazil’s defeated presidential candidate, Bolsonaro: A fondness for former U.S. President Donald Trump.

--TL

_____________________________________

Da Silva Wins Brazil; Will Bolsonaro Trump Him? (MON 11/1/22)

Leftist Luiz Inåcio da Silva (above) defeated first-term incumbent Jair Bolsonaro for president of the world’s fourth-largest democracy in Brazil’s run-off elections Sunday with 50.9% of the vote, the Associated Press reports. With 99.9% of the ballots counted, Brazil’s election authority proclaimed da Silva’s victory a mathematical certainty. 

By 10 p.m. local time, three hours after the results were tabulated, the lights went out in the presidential palace in Sao Paolo without any hint of a concession from Bolsonaro, AP says. Before the run-off forced when da Silva led the October 2 election but was short of the 50% necessary for an outright win, Bolsonaro had made repeated and unproven Trumpian claims of potential electoral manipulation, and it remains uncertain whether he will concede without further fight. 

Da Silva had served as Brazil’s president from 2003-10, but his imprisonment for corruption sidelined him in his 2018 bid for the presidency. He beat Bolsonaro by fewer than 2 million votes, the slimmest margin since Brazil’s return to democracy in 1985, according to AP. The country tabulates ballots electronically; thus the quick results Sunday.

Upshot: After September’s election of Giorgi Meloni’s far-right, nationalist Brothers of Italy party in that country, da Silva’s victory over nationalist Bolsonaro is considered a much-needed win for the future of liberal democracy around the world. 

Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_____
COMMENT: editors@thehustings.news

Reasonable Republicans?

By Stephen Macaulay

The political TV ads in southeastern Michigan are relentless, excessively negative, and/or empty.

It is rather bizarre when an ad touting the virtues of Candidate A is immediately followed by an ad from the opposing side listing the deficiencies of Candidate A, something that in the advertising business is ordinarily considered a no-no: You will never see a Coke ad immediately followed by one for Pepsi because that would make neither soft drink purveyor very happy with the placement.

For example, Tudor Dixon (R) who is running for governor of Michigan, has made up ground against incumbent Gretchen Whitmer by running ads with high production values that mainly say she’ll do things like make sure children can attend school — and it seems she’s talking elementary school — without being exposed to books that might be disturbing (isn’t this something that local school boards decide, not governors?) or make sure that the problem of a fictitious job loss under the Whitmer administration will be remedied: When she took office in January 2019 the unemployment rate in Michigan was 4.2% and presently it is . . . 4.1%.

That is an example of the empty.

As for the excessively negative, the ads against Elissa Slotkin (D), who is running for reelection in Michigan’s 7th District against state Sen. Tom Barrett (R), make it seem as though she has escaped from Bedlam or is masterfully corrupt: the lunacy and larceny simply don’t track. But one must not actually think about this stuff, right?

Meanwhile, Slotkin is running ads about family values and job creation — things that Republicans used to promote.

What makes the Slotkin-Barrett matchup more than parochially interesting is because Slotkin is the first Democrat that Liz Cheney (R) has officially endorsed.

According to a statement that was first received from Cheney by the Detroit Free Press, Cheney wrote:

•"I have come to know Elissa as a good and honorable public servant who works hard for the people she represents, wants what's best for the country, and is in this for the right reasons."

•"While Elissa and I have our policy disagreements, at a time when our nation is facing threats at home and abroad, we need serious, responsible, substantive members like Elissa in Congress."

“Good and honorable public servant.”

“Elissa and I have our policy disagreements.”

Cheney, with those observations, is proving herself to be a Rational Republican, someone who understands that the nature of politics is to have policy disagreements but that those disagreements don’t need to devolve into making things up, and into rhetoric more than tinctured with bile.

Once upon a time the GOP could have been considered the party of responsibility. They were not just the adults in the room, but the adults who were well into their careers and who dressed for dinner. (Sometimes younger adults, a.k.a., the Democrats, would have to upset the elders with some fresh ideas.)

The documented end of Responsible Republicans is the Republican National Committee’s “Resolution Regarding the Republican Party Platform,” adopted prior to the 2020 Republican National Convention.

It concludes:

RESOLVED, That the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda; 

RESOVLVED, That the 2020 Republican National Convention will adjourn without adopting a new platform until the 2024 Republican National Convention;

RESOLVED, That the 2020 Republican National Convention calls on the media to engage in accurate and unbiased reporting, especially as it relates to the strong support of the RNC for President Trump and his Administration; and

RESOLVED, That any motion to amend the 2016 Platform or to adopt a new platform, including any motion to suspend the procedures that will allow doing so, will be ruled out of order.

So it comes down to an intellectual exercise that is about as taxing as eating a bag of potato chips.

I wonder what Cheney’s effect will be on Slotkin’s fortune. Thanks to her work on the January 6 Committee Cheney is widely respected by Democrats who will also acknowledge that they may have “policy disagreements” with her. But Slotkin will get the Democrats’ votes, anyway.

Those who “continue to enthusiastically support the [ex-] President’s America-first agenda” — and I dare say that outside of “U.S.A.” rally chants with pumped firsts, precisely what that “agenda” was isn’t exactly clear — will vote Barrett.

Which leaves independents and those who used to think they were Republicans. How does Cheney influence them?

_____
COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news