(TUE 8/2/22)

Pelosi in Taiwan? … As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) heads to Taipei Tuesday after visiting Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan, China continues to warn against the diplomatic visit, with video of military airplanes and missiles flying to the sound of menacing music. The White House says it won’t respond to China's “saber rattling” The New York Times reports, but in Taiwan, the speaker has become something of a heroine, with one popular meme reimagining her as a powerful Taoist goddess.

American politicians have traveled for years to the country President Xi Jingping considers China’s own Ukraine. But Speaker Pelosi would mark the highest-level visit by an American official in 25 years, NYT says. 

Timing: While the CHIPS Act passed last week won’t cause local computer chip manufacturing to pop up overnight, it does send a message to China (as well as Taiwan) that the U.S. won’t be so dependent on its industry dominance anymore. This might be why the White House sees this as a good time to send China a message that the West won’t tolerate a Russia-Ukraine-like aggression against Taiwan.

•••

U.S. attack kills al-Zawahri… A drone strike precise enough to save his family nearby took out one of the world’s most-wanted terrorists, al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri, from the balcony of his Kabul, Afghanistan residence. A-Zawahri, 71, was “deeply involved” as the right-hand man to Osama bin Laden for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks NPR’s Morning Edition says. President Biden announced the successful attack Monday evening, described as delivering justice and, he hoped, “one more measure of closure” to families of the 9/11 victims (AP). 

Al-Zawahri and his family recently moved to the large, upscale home in the center of Kabul, a neighborhood favored by Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders, Morning Edition says.

Biden approved the drone attack last week and it was carried out Sunday by U.S “intelligence forces,” meaning, likely, CIA, NSA, or some combo of the two. The attack, taking place 11 months after Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan comes as his fortunes are on the rise after passage of the CHIPS Act and the introduction of the Manchin-backed Inflation Reduction Act. 

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

(MON 8/1/22)

Inflation Reduction Act this week … Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) (pictured) took to all the Sunday morning talk shows, including CBS News’ Face the Nation, NBC News’ Meet the Press, CNN’s State of the Union and Fox News Sunday to promote the attributes of the climate and tax provisions bill he and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sprung on Senate Republicans last week. By all punditry accounts, the Inflation Reduction Act, a decimation of Biden’s Build Back Better proposal, is a rare case – perhaps the first case – of Schumer getting the better of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). 

Manchin was above all that, naming fellow moderates, both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate as his good friends and claiming to be above the politics of it all – he declined to take a position on whether Inflation Reduction would boost his party’s midterm fortunes or whether he would support a Biden’s re-election in 2024. 

But there’s no question that the Manchin-Schumer deal has boosted Biden’s fortunes and the Democratic Party’s chances of holding on to more House and Senate seats than had been expected only a week or so ago. There is a lesson and warning for progressive Democrats, though, who have expressed anything from disappointment to outrage that the party’s wafer-thin majorities in Congress haven’t been enough to pass Build Back Better, or climate legislation and gun regulation.  

Before the White House proposed BBB with its initial pricetag of $3.5 trillion bartered down to $1.75 trillion by Manchin before Manchin rejected the whole thing altogether, Biden had in his April 2021 address to a joint session of Congress 

<https://thehustings.news/bidens-joint-lets-ditch-trickle-down-economics/> an agenda that would amount to the wholesale reversal of Reaganomics, which in turn was a reversal FDR’s New Deal. This was the Biden agenda that had prog-Dems momentarily, and naively enthusiastic. 

And so it goes. Schumer expects to bring the Inflation Reduction Act to the Senate floor this week, in time to get out of town by Friday for Congress’ summer recess. As part of budget reconciliation, the bill would need just 51 Senate votes to pass before being taken up in the House, though Sen. Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) has yet to sign off on it. 

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

(FRI 7/29/22)

CHIPS Act passes … The Senate has passed the $52 billion CHIPS Act to boost domestic computer chip production, NPR says. Despite an effort by Senate Republican leadership to “punish” Democrats over the surprise Manchin-Schumer agreement on the Inflation Reduction Act, the computer chips bill passed 74-26.

•••

Stewart slams GOP for blocking vets bill… The Sgt. 1^st Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our PACT Act that would compensate veterans exposed to burn pits did not fare quite so well. Comedian and former Daily Show host Jon Stewart slammed Republican senators who blocked its passage Thursday, according to The Hill. “Their constituents are dying,” he said of the 42 Republican senators who blocked the bill.

Among the Republicans denying cloture, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) voted claimed the PACT Act would set up $400 billion in discretionary spending, The Hill reports. Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) shot back, saying Toomey had a problem with spending money on veterans.

“If you have the guts to send someone to war, then you better have the guts to take care of them when they come home,” Tester said.

Stewart had more choice words in his press conference outside the Capitol Thursday. Watch them here: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/28/politics/pact-act-burn-pits-jon-stewart/index.html

•••

Three-hour call … Chinese President Xi Jingping warned U.S. President Joe Biden against meddling in China’s relationship to Taiwan, the Associated Press reports. There was no indication from the unusually long, three-hour call that Xi and Biden made any progress on trade, technology or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) tentative plans to visit democratic Taiwan, which has been in a decades-long struggle to maintain autonomy from mainland China. 

Xi also warned Biden against splitting the world’s two largest economies, AP says. Business executives and economists have warned that splitting the U.S. and Chinese economies would slow investment and raise costs. 

Compare and contrast: Conversely, the $52-billion CHIP Act just passed by the Senate seeks to mitigate Chinese and Taiwanese chip production dominance, an issue that came to a head when the COVID-19 pandemic choked supply chains around the globe.

•••

Democrats propose police funding… The Congressional Black Caucus hopes to advance a pair of police funding bills that could counter Democrats’ image of being soft on crime going into the November midterm campaigns. CBC Chair Joyce Beatty (D-OH) reached preliminary agreement with Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) Thursday, Punchbowl Newsreports. The bills also would also provide for how police departments handle accusations of officer misconduct or improper behavior, necessary to get the Congressional Progressive Caucus to sign off as well. 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wants the House to take up the bills before leaving for August recess next Friday, and Democrats are hoping for a floor vote on the police funding bills, as well as an assault weapon ban, Punchbowl News says.

--Todd Lassa

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(THU 7/28/22)

GDP drops 0.9% … Real gross domestic product declined by 0.9% for the second quarter of 2022, compared with a 1.6% decrease in the first quarter, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis reports Thursday. The BEA’s report cited an upturn in exports and a smaller decrease in federal government spending for the smaller decrease in Q2 versus Q1. 

The politics: Republicans will be quick to describe two consecutive quarters of GDP decline as proof of a recession, while Democrats and the White House will say it is most definitely not a recession. Wednesday as the Federal Reserve announced another 0.75% interest rate hike, Chairman Jerome Powell said we’re not in a recession and that GDP rates are often revised later. Low unemployment versus high inflation seems to back the no-recession side though clearly we’re in an economic pickle that can’t easily be solved.

•••

Manchin is back on … Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has snatched the Biden agenda from the GOP’s jaws by agreeing with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on a climate and tax provisions bill. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 replaces the Build Back Better program that Manchin shot down last month, with $369.8 billion for clean energy and climate change programs and expanded health insurance subsidies for three years instead of two, according to Roll Call. Funding would come by closing tax loopholes on wealthy individuals and corporations.

The deal was announced Wednesday after the Senate passed the $54 billion “Chips Plus” package to promote U.S. computer chip production.

Timing: Schumer plans to get the Inflation Reduction Act through the Senate next week, ahead of Congress’ August recess. The bill is part of the Senate’s budget reconciliation, so it requires only 51 votes to pass. A spokesperson for Sen. Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) told Roll Call she will have no comment until she reads details of the bill.

On the House: Progressive Democrats will express some disappointment by the much pared-down bill, compared with Build Back Better. But the Manchin-Schumer deal represents a last-minute Democratic victory coming just in time for November midterm campaigns.

Read the bill here: https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/inflation_reduction_act_of_2022.pdf

 •••

No thanks, Mike, I’m good … One imagines that might be the response House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) gave Mike Pompeo, when ex-President Trump’s secretary of state  tweeted; “Nancy, I’ll go with you. I’m banned in China, but not in freedom-loving Taiwan. See you there!” This was in response to Pelosi’s plan to visit Taiwan as tension has been growing that China is looking at taking back the breakaway region that split away after the 1949 Chinese Communist Party revolution, The Guardian reports. 

Both China and the U.S. military have warned against the as-yet unscheduled Pelosi trip.

--Todd Lassa

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(WED 7/27/22)

Interest rates rise another 0.75% … The Federal Reserve has raised its benchmark interest rate by 0.75 points in its effort to slow inflation, which reached a stinging 9.1% in June. But the U.S. is not in a recession, Chairman Jerome Powell told reporters after Wednesday’s meeting of the Fed’s board, The Wall Street Journal reports. Wednesday’s hike marks the second consecutive three-quarter-percent increase for its benchmark rate. 

Powell said that “2.7 million people hired in the first half of the year, it doesn’t make sense the economy would be in a recession.” He said he hadn’t seen the second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) report due for release Thursday morning, but warned it would not be the final word on Q2 growth.

“Generally, the GDP numbers do have a tendency to be revised pretty significantly. You tend to take first GDP reports with a grain of salt.”

•••

SCOTUS retirement plan … Seven House Democrats have introduced a bill that would require Supreme Court justices to retire after 18 years on the court, with a bench of justices-in-waiting to be nominated every two years. The Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization Act would authorize a president to nominate a SCOTUS justice in the first and third years of his or her administration The Hill reports. 

Whenever SCOTUS drops below nine justices, due to a vacancy, disability or disqualification, the justice who most recently achieved senior status on this “back” bench of pre-nominated justices would become the ninth SCOTUS justice. 

Sponsors: Rep. Hank Johnson introduced the bill, with fellow Democrats Jerry Nadler (New York), David Cicilline (Rhode Island), Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Steve Cohen (Tennessee), Karen Bass (California) and Ro Khanna (California). 

Forced retirement: Clarence Thomas will have served 21 years when SCOTUS begins its October term. 

The bubble: Chief Justice John Roberts is going on 17 years, and Justice Samuel Alito has 16 years on the court. Justice Sonia Sotomayor has 13 years in, and Justice Elana Kagan has 12 years on the court.

•••

Justice Department breakthrough … Federal prosecutors have been questioning witnesses directly about ex-President Trump’s responsibility in trying to flip Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in his favor, The New York Times reports, citing a source familiar with the testimony. Well duh? The report notes the Justice Department under Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland has been quiet about whether it has been pursuing the connection between Donald J. Trump and the electors’ plot (which Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis appears to have under control) and/or the January 6 Capitol attack.

--T.L.

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(PM TUE 7/26/22)

Step aside, I.G. … from your investigation into “erased” Secret Service texts from January 5 and 6, 2021, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee requested in a letter to Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari (per The Hill). The House Select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol Insurrection, which Thompson also chairs, had requested the Secret Service texts but were told they were lost in a phone equipment replacement program.

Upshot: Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), said last week he “smelled a rat” on the alleged erasures. There has been some discussion among the punditocracy that former President Trump had remade the Secret Service in his image.

•••

It’s happening again … Speaking of Number 45, Donald J. Trump told the America First Institute in his first appearance in Washington since he left the White House that a Red Wave in the November midterms is about “rescuing” the country. 

“I’m here before you to begin to talk about what we must do to achieve that future when we win a triumphant victory in 2022 and when a Republican president takes back the White House in 2024, which I strongly believe will happen” (per The Hill). 

In a gimme to historians and pundits who have been warning that January 6 was “dress rehearsal” for a full-on 2024 coup, Trump repeated, again, his claim that he won a second time; “That’s going to be a story for a long time, what a disgrace it was, but we may just have to do it again. We have to straighten out our country.”

Among his proposals: Impose the death penalty on drug dealers, relocate scores of homeless Americans and block transgender athletes from competing in women’s athletics, according to The Hill.

Among his audience: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Trump senior counselor Kellyanne Conway.

Trump’s timing: Some Republican leaders have been urging Trump to wait until after the midterms to officially announce. On the one hand, he can simply keep hinting strongly and obviously for another three months. On the other hand, it would be interesting to see if his support falls assuming Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, New York Post and The Wall Street Journal do actually move on to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and perhaps even ex-Veep Mike Pence.

•••

Chips fall toward Biden … The current White House appears to be well on its way to a much-needed victory with impending Senate passage of the $54 billion “Chips Plus” competitiveness package. The Senate passed cloture on the bill Tuesday, 64-32, Roll Call reports. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) plans a floor vote Wednesday after voting on a budget point of order raised by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). 

Final Senate vote:  Is11:30 a.m. Wednesday. The bill could get to President Biden’s desk before Congress’ late-summer recess starts August 1. 

What’s in the bill: Five-year grants for semiconductor manufacturing and research, 5G WiFi deployment, a 25% tax credit for investment in semiconductor manufacturing through 2026, and funding authorization for the National Science Foundation.

T.L.

(TUE 7/26/22)

Making something of Biden’s agenda … Congress is rushing toward its August 1 summer break with two weeks for Democrats to pass same-sex marriage protections, the first major prescription drug legislation in more than 20 years, and funding for U.S. chip manufacturing, The Washington Post notes. The outlook …

Same-sex marriage: If Democrats cannot find 10 Republicans necessary to avoid a Senate filibuster, the bill protecting same-sex marriage rights becomes a major issue in the November midterms. 

Medicare-negotiated drug prices: Very popular legislation that WaPo expects to easily pass (even as the prescription drug industry bombards Washington with lobbying and advertising in opposition).

Support for domestic semi-conductor production: This legislation has strong bi-partisan support, with $52 billion to boost U.S. development and production, while undercutting China’s dominance. A much-needed likely victory for the Biden White House.

•••

Marc Short appeared before the U.S. Justice Department’s grand jury investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection, the chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence told ABC News Monday.

“I was subpoenaed and I complied with that subpoena,” Short told Linsey Davis, making him the highest ranking Trump White House official to testify. Short declined to elaborate on the testimony, though he did comment on the House Select committee’s hearings.

“If the mob had gotten closer to the vice president I think there would have been a massacre in the Capitol that day.” He seemed to suggest the Secret Service protecting Pence would have prevailed; “I’m not so sure the Secret Services’ lives were the lives in danger… .”

Lock up the Electoral College: Donald J. Trump makes his first appearance today in Washington, D.C., since he left office January 20, 2021, The Guardian reports. He will give a keynote address before the America First Policy Institute, a thinktank formed by some of his former policy advisors. Trump is expected to speak about Republicans’ agenda on how to combat inflation and improve the U.S. immigration system, but there’s no chance he won’t raise his Big Lie regarding the outcome of the 2020 election.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news