What’s Left

What are your thoughts about Sen. Krysten Sinema’s (I-AZ) departure from the Democratic Party? Will the party find a strong candidate to run against her in 2024?  

Which criminal referrals with the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol recommend to the Justice Department after its Sunday, December 11, meeting? 

These news items and issues are up for discussion here and in the right-column Comments section, or by emailing editors@thehustings.news.

Also in the left column: Ken Zino on “Truth Social Tells the Seditionist Truth,” on this page, and “Oath Keepers Done – Trump Next?” on Page 2.

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…meanwhile…

Sinema Goes Indy – Sen. Krysten Sinema (pictured), formerly (D-AZ) is now Sen. Krysten Sinema (I-AZ) thus bringing the formal Democratic-to-Republican ratio down. Technically, the count is now 48 Democrats to 49 Republicans, with Sinema joining Sens. Angus King, of Maine, and Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, as registered independents. 

However … King and Sanders caucus with Democrats, which gave the president’s party a 51-49 majority after Sen. Raphael Warnock’s re-election victory in Georgia December 6, but before Sinema’s announcement. Sinema told CNN she will not caucus with the Republicans, though her shift will affect negotiations between Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Republicans over makeup of the committees. According to The Washington Post, Sinema has voted with President Biden 90% of the time.

Quote: “Registering as an independent and showing up to work with the title of independent is a reflection of who I’ve always been and it’s a reflection of who Arizona is. We don’t line up to do what we’re told. We do what’s right for our state and our country. I’m going to be the same person I’ve always been.” – Sinema in a video announcing her departure from the Democratic Party.

Assignments: Sinema sits on four Senate committees; Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs, Commerce, Science & Transportation, and Veterans’ Affairs.

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January 6 Panel’s Due Dates – Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-SC), says the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol will release its final report Wednesday, December 21. The panel has scheduled 1 p.m. Sunday, December 11, to discuss criminal referrals to the Department of Justice.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

What’s Right

Can the Republican Party retake the Senate through attrition? Will the GOP support Sen. Krysten Sinema’s (I-AZ) re-election attempt in two years? How long will West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin remain a Democrat?

Which criminal referrals with the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol recommend to the Justice Department after its Sunday, December 11, meeting? 

Is the GOP finally done with ex-President Trump?

These news items and issues are up for discussion here and in the left-column Comments section, or by emailing editors@thehustings.news.

Also in the right column: Stephen Macaulay on “Oath Keepers Done – Trump Next?” on this page, and “One of These Days …” on Page 2.

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Journalism Competition and Preservation Act This Month?

The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2022, S. 673, which would create a four-year safe harbor from antitrust trust laws for print, broadcast, or digital news companies to collectively negotiate with online contributors, is on-deck to be added to the National Defense Authorization Act this month. Meta, owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is “staunchly opposed” to S. 673, according to Punchbowl News, which notes that the NDAA, passed every year for six decades, is “a real mess at the moment.”

The $857.9-billion NDAA is expected to take a full week for a vote on the Senate floor. Other expected riders include the Electoral Count Reform Act and Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) permitting reform bill. The Safe Banking Act, which would allow financial institutions to handle cannabis-related businesses already has been removed from the NDAA, despite bipartisan support. 

Shameless Plug: As a media outlet, we support the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, and think it is time for print, broadcast and digital news to extricate themselves from social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. 

Voice your own Comment in the box in this column or the one on the right, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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Griner Released in Swap

WNBA star Brittney Griner, detained August 4 at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport and later charged with possession of cannabis, has been freed from a Russian penal colony in an apparent prisoner swap with the U.S., and is on her way home, NPR reports. 

“Moments ago I spoke to Brittney Griner,” President Biden announced in a tweet (above, with Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner and with Vice President Harris in the left photo). “She is safe. She is on a plane. She is on her way home.”

Griner is being swapped in a one-on-one for “notorious arms dealer” Viktor Bout, who has been held in a U.S. prison for 12 years, the BBC reports. The U.S State Department continues to negotiate for release of Paul Whelan, businessman and former Marine who has been held in a Russian prison for nearly four years. 

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German Government Contains its January 6 – German authorities arrested 25 people, including neo-Nazis and monarchists, suspected of planning to overthrow the government by storming the Bundestag in Berlin, Wednesday morning. Allegedly fueled by QAnon conspiracy theories, among those detained include “Prince Heinrich XIII”, a descendant of the German nobility that was abolished by the Weimar Republic after World War I, and active soldier and former members of police and elite special forces, The New York Times reports. A group known as the Reich Citizens Movement has pushed for reinstatement of the German monarchy for years. 

NPR reporter Esme Nicholson describe on All Things Considered those detained as “not angry young men with shaved heads and black boots” but as doctors, lawyers and teachers – reminiscent of many of the 900+ arrested for the January 6 Capitol insurrection, including Yale Law School graduate and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes III, who was found guilty of seditious conspiracy last month. 

Organizers of the movement apparently contacted Vladimir Putin ahead of the attempted coup, but there is no indication the Russian president responded.

Meanwhile, in SCOTUS: The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday heard arguments over the “Independent State Legislature” theory, a controversial neo-republican (small “r” intended doctrine that would give individual state legislatures the right to set “all manner of election rules and laws without review by state courts,” according to NPR’s Nina Totenburg.

The case, brought to the highest court by North Carolina Republican legislators seeks to strike down a North Carolina ruling that the legislators violated the state’s Constitution with an “extreme partisan gerrymander” after the 2020 U.S. Census.

At its extreme, Totenburg said on All Things Considered, a ruling in favor of the theory and against the South Carolina Supreme Court could “eliminate not just state judicial powers over elections, but governors’ vetos. … and it might allow state legislators to certify electors who were not approved by the voters.” 

Sound Familiar?: That part about allowing state legislators to certify electors is what ex-President Trump attempted after his 2020 election loss. 

Court Count: SCOTUS is split into three camps, according to Totenburg: Justices Clarence Thomas, Thomas Alito and Neil Gorsuch, who favor the Independent State Legislature Theory; Justices Sonya Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who oppose it; and Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavenaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, who are somewhere in the middle. 

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Bipartisan Support for S. 673

Despite “staunch opposition” by social media and Washington lobbying giant Meta (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, sponsored by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) has bipartisan co-sponsors, seven from each party. 

The co-sponsors are …

Republican Senators: John Kennedy (LA), Cynthia Lumis (WY), Susan Collins (ME), Lindsey Graham (SC), Bill Cassidy (LA), John Thune (SD) and Roger Wicker (MS). Sen. Paul Rand (KY) has withdrawn his support.

Democratic Senators: Cory Booker (NJ), Dianne Feinstein (CA), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Mazie Hirono (HI), Richard Blumenthal (CT), Richard Durbin (IL) and Joe Manchin (WV).

Shameless Plug: As a media outlet, we support S. 673, and think it is time for print, broadcast and digital news to extricate themselves from social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. 

Voice your own Comment in the box in this column or the one on the left, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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What’s Left?

Feeling good about incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock’s Tuesday night victory over MAGA-Republican challenger Herschel Walker? Is it enough to mitigate the GOP’s narrow majority in the House?

What do you think of prospects for President Biden’s agenda for the next two years? 

Also in This Column: Scroll down to read Ken Zino’s commentary on Donald J. Trump’s demand to suspend the Constitution so he can be re-instated as president; “Truth Social Tells the Seditious Truth.”

Whether you lean left or right, we want to hear from you. If you are liberal, please enter your Comments in the space provided below. If you lean right, please go to the Comment box in the right column. Or, in either case, you may email us at editors@thehustings.news.

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Warnock Wins Georgia; 51-49 Senate Count

Warnock Defeats Walker – With more than 95% of the vote counted late Tuesday, incumbent Democratic Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock defeated Trumpian Republican challenger Herschel Walker, as projected by the Associated Press. Warnock had 50.5% of the vote in the midterm runoff to Walker’s 49.5%. That’s 1,710,503 votes for Warnock to 1,675,030 for Walker – a margin of 35,473. 

Remaining votes to be counted are largely from Democratic-leaning Cobb and DeKalb counties surrounding Atlanta. 

A Real Democratic Majority: The 118th Congress’ Senate now consists of 51 Democrats and 49 Republicans, which means that the chamber’s president pro-tem, Vice President Kamala Harris, will not be called in to break ties on party lines, at least in the case of filibuster-proof budget bills. The plus-one Senate Democrat from last November’s midterm election – John Fetterman of Pennsylvania – means that committee membership numbers will not be split evenly, but rather Democrats will have a slight majority, making it a bit easier to move legislation through to the full Senate and to confirm President Biden’s federal judge nominees.

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Trump Organization Guilty of Tax Fraud – A jury found ex-President Trump’s business guilty of all 17 counts of tax fraud and other financial crimes Tuesday (per The New York Times). Prosecutors had charged the Trump Organization of providing off-the-book benefits to executives, including Mercedes-Benzes, expensive apartments and private school tuition for their children and relatives. 

Testimony of Chief Financial Officer Alan Weisselberg proved key to the case. The Trump Organization kept Weisselberg as CFO even as the case was being heard in New York’s state Supreme Court in Manhattan.

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Officers Defending Capitol on 1/6 Awarded Medals – Law enforcement officers from the Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., who responded to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in a ceremony held in the Capitol Rotunda Tuesday. Medals will be displayed at the U.S. Capitol Police, the Metropolitan Police Department, the Capitol and the Smithsonian Institution, Axios reports. Congress passed legislation last year, signed by President Biden, to award the medals. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): “Exactly 23 months ago, our nation suffered the most staggering assault on democracy since the Civil War. January 6 was a day of horror and heartbreak. It is also a moment of extraordinary heroism.”

Handshakes Refused: Family of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died of a stroke after helping defend the Capitol, refused to shake the hands of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

What’s Right?

Is Herschel Walker’s defeat in the Georgia Senate runoff race yet another opportunity for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to move his party past declared 2024 presidential candidate Donald J. Trump? 

If/when that doesn’t happen, how will Trump blame Walker’s loss on McConnell, or some of if not all the rest of the remaining traditional conservative Republicans? 

Also in This Column: Scroll down to read Stephen Macaulay’s commentary on Donald J. Trump’s demand to suspend the Constitution so he can be re-instated as president; “Angels & Delirium.”

Whether you lean right or left – even if you’re a defender of ex-President Trump, we want to hear from you. If you are conservative or pro-MAGA, please enter your Comments in the space provided below. If you lean left, please go to the Comment box in the left column. Or, in either case, you may email us at editors@thehustings.news. 

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Truth Social Tells the Seditionist Truth

By Ken Zino

So much for upholding the Constitution. Sore-loser sociopath Donald Trump has dishonestly asserted the thoroughly disproven claim that massive fraud during the 2020 election he clearly lost "allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution." (See center column.)

Three Sunday Morning political blather shows, ABC’s This Week, CBS’ Face the Nation and CNN’s State of the Union, were hijacked by Trump’s desperate gambit to remain in the running for the next presidential nomination as his suburban base  (see his mid-term results) and the Republican party (so far silent publicly) are increasing appalled by his behavior. The truth at long last comes directly from Trump himself: He is unfit for the office he once held. 

Trump announced his third presidential run last month and in some propaganda-oriented bubbles is thought to be the certain Republican nominee in 2024. I say his behavior reveals he is less of a sure thing than some think -- or rather, thought. Past tense.

Biden again outfoxed Republicans by ignoring their serial loser’s anti-Constitution rant. In the president’s place, Deputy White House Press Secretary Andrew Bates actively joined the fox hunt on Twitter (@AndrewJBates46  https://twitter.com/AndrewJBates46) where he said; “The American Constitution is a sacrosanct document that for over 200 years has guaranteed that freedom and the rule of law prevail in our great country. Attacking the Constitution and all it stands for is anathema to the soul of our nation.” 

“The Constitution brings the American people together -- regardless of party -- and elected leaders swear to uphold it. It’s the ultimate monument to all of the Americans who have given their lives to defeat self-serving despots that abused their power and trampled on fundamental rights,” Bates said.

Bate’s best full-gallop call occurred when he said that Trump should be "universally condemned," which I take to mean that once again Republican leaders are now the hunted foxes. Running away in silence, barely in front of the hounds of Democracy -- We the People -- will eventually fail as they fatigue. 

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Elsewhere on the Left

(MON 12/5/22)

President Biden signed a bi-partisan Congressional resolution last week forcing rail workers to accept a labor agreement signed by union leaders and freight companies last September to avoid an impending strike. 

Contributing pundit Ken Zino scores the resolution as another economic victory for the White House in Biden Out-Foxes Republicans on the Economy. Click on The Gray Area (tab above) to read his commentary.

Comment on Zino’s column, on Donald J. Trump’s demands to ditch the Constitution and install him as president, or on other recent issues covered here, in the box in this column below, or the one on the right, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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Trump to Constitution: Drop Dead

By Todd Lassa

Donald J. Trump last weekend claimed the United States as his very own banana republic by calling for suspension of the Constitution so he could be reinstated as president, because, you know … the Big Lie. 

In case you missed it, this is what he said (via Politico) on his Truth Social site (as Elon Musk awaits his return to Twitter): “A massive fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

Wonder whether it was one of Trump’s star attorneys who suggested it was within his right to call for ditching the Constitution? Or perhaps the advice came from antisemite Ye, white supremacist Nick Fuentes and/or far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopolis (who has just departed Ye’s 2024 presidential bid according to the Daily Beast – the campaign for which the artist formerly known as Kanye West wants Trump to be his running mate).

“Republicans are going to have to work out their issues with the former president and decide whether they’re going to break from him and return to some semblance of reasonableness,” said incoming House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY), “or continue to lean into the extremism, not just of Trump, but Trumpism.” (PBS News Hour.)

One might also wonder what constitutional originalists on the right think of Trump’s call for “termination” of rules, regulations and articles found in the Constitution. 

GOP lack of reaction to Trump’s latest comments so far rival the party leadership's lack of their reaction to his dinner with Ye, Fuentes and Yiannopolis. ABC News This Week host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday had to press Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH) for his comments on the Truth Social post. 

Joyce, chairman of the Republican Governance Group said, “It’s early. I think there’s going to be a lot of people in the primary … I will support whoever the Republican nominee is.”

At first glance, the defeat of many Trump-backed candidates in the midterms, and then the notorious Mar-a-Lago dinner two weeks later have been hailed as a voter affirmation of American democracy. Even the New York Post was ready to write the obituary for Trump’s political career as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis emerged as the new darling of the hard-right wing. But the inability of such GOP leaders as Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Mitch McConnell, topped by Joyce’s comments on This Weekhave kept Trump’s future alive and well. According to Politico, latest polls show the ex-president remains the most likely 2024 GOP nominee.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Angels & Delirium

By Stephen Macaulay

In a paper published in AI & Society, Natasha Lushetich writes, in part, “Apart from shedding light on the rift between the realm of ideality and materiality and corporeality, characteristic of the two-world theory derived from Western metaphysics (Nishitani 1991), this paradox also sheds light on human inability to process complexity as multiplicity, collapsed orders of magnitude, virtuality and/or vertiginous speed.” Lushetich is referring to Medieval thinkers facing the paradox of “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.”

While you might begin to wonder whether you’ve happened to stumble upon a page that isn’t The Hustings as you thought it was or that somehow I’ve managed to, well, stumble, a moment of patience.

The angels paradox generated, as it were, lots of heat and very little light. Aquinas et. al disputed and debated what the answer is. Or could be. Or should be. Or might be. 

Or. . . .

Arguably this scholastic exercise was something that we might consider to be not much more than quibbling — the status of the Medieval thinkers involved in trying to answer it. It was a place where there was an intersection of belief and intellectual precision. (Given that Lushetich’s paper was published in 2021, it is clear this is still something that is relevant in certain intellectual niches.)

Donald Trump posts on the ironically named “Truth Social”:

"So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great 'Founders' did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!"

One could quibble. One could note his bizarre syntax. One could point out that he continues to maintain something for which there is no evidence (on Truth Social, no less).

There are far too many people who continue to attempt to dance on the head of a pin when it comes to chastising Trump while simultaneously staying in his favor.

“No, he shouldn’t have had a dinner date with a Nazi sympathizer and a white supremacist, but damn, doesn’t he look good?”

Let’s not try to be too clever by half, to be delicately epistemological about all this.

The former president of the United States is saying there should be the ending of the Constitution because he is the “RIGHTFUL WINNER” of an election he didn’t win.

This is the Presidential Oath:

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

Protect and defend, not end.

Anyone who believes in the idea and ideal of America can no longer support Donald Trump. Sure there are people who like some of his ideas or some of his accomplishments, but the individual who is publicly taking this decision is clearly not playing by the rules that have been the guiding principles of this country.

It doesn’t take a Medieval philosopher to attempt to figure this out. There is no complexity. No multiplicity. No several things to hold in one’s mind simultaneously.

It is plain and simple, not in the least bit paradoxical. Trump wrote it. Clearly he believes it. And a man who wants to overthrow the Constitution of the United States is someone who clearly does not have the best interests of the commonweal in mind.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Senate Forces Rail Worker Agreement

A bi-partisan Senate passed a resolution to force rail workers to accept a labor agreement hammered out – to use the standard news cliché – between unions and railroads by the White House last September. President Biden Friday signed the bill, which passed 80-15, Roll Call reports, to avert a strike set for December 9 that would have devastated a slowly recovering economy just ahead of the holidays.

The Senate rejected a measure provided in the House version that would have provided seven days of paid sick leave to rail workers, with a 52-43 vote falling short of the 60-vote threshold necessary to avert a filibuster. Rail workers get one day per year of sick leave in the labor agreement reached in December. While labor unions had approved the September agreement, it was rejected by rank-and-file members in several rail unions. 

Scroll down this column to left-column pundit Ken Zino’s commentary on how a Justice Department indictment of ex-President Trump for the January 6 Capitol insurrection could be next, after the late-December conviction of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes III for seditious conspiracy. 

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

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263,000 Jobs Added in November

(FRI 12/2/22)

The U.S. economy added 263,000 jobs in November and maintained a 3.7% unemployment rate, the Labor Department reports, with biggest gains in the usual places; leisure and hospitality, health care and government. The gain is seen as evidence of economic “resilience” to massive tech-sector layoffs, Marketplace reports, citing a Dow Jones survey of economists who had expected the number to be about 200,000. The sunny numbers are tamping down worries that the U.S. economy is entering a recession. 

Meanwhile: Chairman Jerome Powell signaled the Federal Reserve would begin to slow interest rate hikes beginning in December as a sign the Fed has seen some progress in slowing inflation.

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Iowa Caucuses to Lose Poll Position for 2024? – President Biden proposes to make South Carolina the first Democratic primary in 2024, (The Washington Post) followed by New Hampshire and Nevada, then Georgia and Michigan, thus finally knocking the Iowa caucuses out of poll – er, pole – position. Iowa’s caucus has been under fire for years for the state’s lack of racial/ethnic diversity, and a New Hampshire state law requires its primary to be first in the nation. Biden lost the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire and Nevada primaries in 2020 before an endorsement by Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) helped him win that South Carolina’s primary. 

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

No Special Master for Mar-a-Lagogate

No more “special master” to slow the FBI’s investigation of nearly 3,000 government documents seized from Mar-a-Lago last August. A federal appeals court has rejected a lawsuit filed by ex-President Trump’s attorneys and shut down the special master’s review, Politico reports.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Atlanta, ruled unanimously that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon erred when she granted Trump’s request to block the investigation and appoint a special master to assess whether some of documents are protected by executive privilege. Aside from the likelihood Trump’s attorneys will appeal to the Supreme Court, the ruling gives the Justice Department full access to the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.

Scroll down this column to read pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay’s commentary on whether a Justice Department indictment of Donald J. Trump will soon follow the conviction of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes III for seditious conspiracy in the January 6 Capitol insurrection. 

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

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