Manchin’s Waterloo?

Nearly everybody (including us) named Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-WV) “most powerful person on Capitol Hill” after the November 2020 election. Now his primacy of the last 22 months could be his downfall. 

The Hill reports that Manchin’s “side-deal” with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) “to enact permitting reform by the end of the year” is on “life support” as Senate Republicans look to punish the West Virginia senator for supporting President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. 

What would Manchin’s predecessor, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) do?

In his deal with Schumer to pass the IRA, Machin was to get Democratic support for a permitting reform bill that would assure approval of West Virginia’s Mountain Valley Pipeline project, which would return a Byrdian victory to the three-term Democratic senator from West Virginia, where 68% of voters chose Donald J. Trump over Joe Biden in 2020. Because centrist Democrat Manchin delivered the crucial majority vote for the Inflation Reduction Act last August, the GOP is angling to kill the permitting reform bill (which needs 10 Republicans to pass without filibuster) to strengthen their chances of defeating his possible re-election bid in 2024. 

Upshot: “Permitting reform” is a traditionally Republican-friendly issue. But not in today’s national political climate.

Comment in the space below in this column or the one on the right, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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…meanwhile…

Lame Duck Session is… Monday, November 28 to Wednesday, December 21 for the Senate; Tuesday, November 29 to Thursday, December 15 for the House. What do you bet the House, at least, extends the session beyond that as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tries to get the most out of her majority before turning it over to the GOP next year? First and foremost on Congress’ to-do list is to pass a big spending bill in order to keep the federal government funded past Friday, December 16. 

There is also the issue of ex-President Trump's tax returns, just cleared by the Supreme Court for the House Ways & Means Committee to examine. That must be done before the Republicans take over, as well.

Senate Democrats, who will maintain their majority and possibly pick up an extra seat with the Georgia special election December 6, hopes to codify same-sex marriage, pass the Electoral Count Act to make it tougher to overturn a free and fair election, and maybe even codify abortion rights nationally. The latter faces an especially hard fight, as at least 10 Republicans will have to join all Democrats to make Roe v. Wade the law of the land, notes NPR’s Mara Liasson. 

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

About that Dinner at Mar-a-Lago…

Even Donald J. Trump’s own advisors refused to defend the former president’s dinner at Mar-a-Lago early last week with white supremacist and hard-right activist Nick Fuentes, with one describing it as “horrible” and another “totally awful” according to The Washington Post. Predictably, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a onetime advisor to Trump himself and now potential challenger for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination said the “attention hungry” ex-prez “showed lack of judgment,” Axiosreports.

Hip-hop artist Ye (formerly Kanye West) brought Fuentes to dinner with Trump before Thanksgiving. Trump said he had only planned to have dinner with (anti-semite) Ye according to WaPo.

Comment in the space below in this column or the one on the left, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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Civil Media v. Social Media

As Twitter’s filter moderation breaks down to a single man -- the richest in the world -- we would like to remind you that The Hustings is here to take your comments on the latest political news and analysis, whether you are left or right. Your written opinions will be reviewed and if necessary, edited for length and clarity by a human editor, not by an algorithm. 

Simply hit the Comment box in this column, or in the right column if that’s where you identify, or email editors@thehustings.news and tell us in the subject line whether you lean left or right. Remember, we are committed to becoming a space for safe, echo chamber-free civil discourse, so please stick to the facts when backing your opinions. 

Don’t miss contributing pundit and AutoInformed editor Ken Zino’s column, “Spies Close to Home? Chinese Government Intelligence Officer Suspended in the U.S.” Click on The Gray Area above.

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…meanwhile…

(FRI 11/25/22)

Murkowski Wins Re-Election – Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), among the most moderate of her party’s members of the U.S. Senate, won a third term before Thanksgiving by beating another Republican, Kelly Tshibaka in the state’s first ranked choice tabulation, 53.7% to 46.3% according to Alaska Public Media. The Alaska Republican Party and former President Trump had endorsed Tshibaka, who had accused Murkowski (pictured above) of being “functionally a Democrat,” citing her vote to support the Affordable Care Act in 2017 and her vote against Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, in 2018, according to Wikipedia.

About that Ranked Choice: In the final ranked-choice ballot, Murkowski had 135,972 votes to Tshibaka’s 117,299. Yet it took Alaska election officials more than two weeks to declare winners from the midterms.

And Palin Loses: Meanwhile, former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin lost her bid to unseat Rep. Mary Petola (D) for the state’s at-large House district seat. Petola had won an August special election to replace the late Rep. Don Young (R) who died while in office last Spring.

Is Alaska Stepping Back… from the Tea and/or MAGA parties? In 2006, incumbent Gov. Frank Murkowski (R), father of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, lost re-election when he came in third in the state’s Republican primary, behind second-place John Binkley and winner Sarah Palin, who two years later was Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) running mate in the presidential election.

House Count: Republicans now have 220 seats of 435 in the House of Representatives, to the Democratic Party’s 213, with two seats yet to be determined.

What’s Left: Make that “Which House elections remain?” because neither of the two Democrats are likely to prevail in the last two un-called races. In California’s 13th, Republican John Duarte leads former state assembly member Adam Gray (D) by fewer than 600 votes, with 99% of ballots counted, according to The Hill. The district seat is currently held by Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee, who ran November 8 for California’s new 12th District. 

Colorado’s District 3 House race hasn’t been officially counted, The Hill reports, though Democrat Adam Frisch has already conceded to Rep. Lauren Boebert (R). Assuming California 13 and Colorado 3 will finish as expected, the 222-213 House of the 118th Congress will be the mirror-opposite of the 222-213 Democratic majority of the 117th. 

--Combined and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Not A-Twitter with Trump

New owner Elon Musk has re-opened Twitter to Donald J. Trump (and reportedly a good number of racists and conspiracy theorists as well), though the former president hasn’t bitten so far. As the Justice Department closes in on Trump over his alleged instigation of the January 6th Capitol insurrection, and hoarding top-secret government documents seized by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago, Trump instead is sticking with his own struggling social media platform run by ex-Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA). 

Unlike Twitter, The Hustings will not repeat anything Trump says or writes without calling out any inaccuracies, outright lies or “dog whistles” contained within.

Whatever your political opinions are, whether pro-MAGA right, never-Trump conservative, moderate liberal or progressive, you are invited and encouraged to Comment here or in the box below, or in the one in the left column if that’s how you lean. Or email us at editors@thehustings.news, where it will be monitored for civility and edited by a human for length and clarity. We are your safe space for civil political discourse.

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Chinese Intel Officer Guilty of Espionage

It’s not just Donald J. Trump and his actions surrounding the January 6th Capitol insurrection and the confidential government documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago home and private club that has been keeping the Justice Department busy. A federal grand jury in Cincinnati found Yanjun Xu guilty November 5 on all counts brought by Justice Department prosecutors in a case of industrial espionage in which Xu attempted to steal secrets from General Electric Aviation, left-column pundit Ken Zino writes. See “Spies Close to Home? Chinese Government Intelligence Officer Sentenced in the U.S.” in The Gray Area. Go to Zino’s website, AutoInformed for full details.

Tell us your thoughts and opinions in the Comment box in this column or the right column, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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…meanwhile…

(WED 11/23/22)

( NASA Artemis I program's Orion un-manned/womanned spacecraft entered the lunar sphere of influence Sunday, Nov. 20, and took this photo of the far side of the Moon Monday the 21st, before moving into distant retrograde orbit. The Artemis mission will continue with humans, including at least one woman, to return to the Moon’s surface in 2024.)

Finally, Trump “Audit” is Over -- The Supreme Court declined a request from Donald J. Trump to halt an opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to allow House Ways & Means Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-MA) to view six years of the former president’s tax records. Remember Trump telling voters he would release his income taxes as soon as an IRS audit was completed?

Never happened. In this case, Neal’s Ways & Means will get access to Trump’s personal returns and that of some of his businesses, Roll Call reports. SCOTUS issued an unsigned order with no explanation and no noted dissents. Neal requested the IRS records in 2019 under a law that allows the committee’s chairman to review any tax record. Ways & Means told SCOTUS that any delays could keep Neal from getting his hands on the records before the House of Representatives flips to Republican control in January.

Upshot: But if the GOP truly is ready to brush aside Trump for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, they might be ready to get their hands on the returns after all.

•••

Is GOP Leadership (Finally) Done with Trump? – Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is the only U.S. senator The Hill could find who is willing to support Donald J. Trump’s third run for the presidency. Tuberville, a rare beneficiary of Trump’s 2020 election coattails, called the ex-president “the leader America needs in 2024,” and has praised his administration’s track record. Trump’s otherwise most prominent Senate supporter, Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, has yet to endorse the ex-president’s ’24 run, but says he will be “hard to beat,” according to The Hill.

•••

Thanksgiving Week – Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelinskyy, addresses the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Monday, Politico Playback reports. 

Other than presidential turkey pardons and the like, the only big date in the U.S. is Saturday, the 26th, when early voting begins in some Georgia counties for the runoff election between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: In the box below, or email editors@thehustings.news

Trump Tweeting?

Did you vote in Twitter owner Elon Musk’s Twitter poll on whether ex-President Trump should be let back on the social media network? Neither did we, but then, @NewsHustings is not a bot. Musk says 51% of “respondents” in his Twitter poll voted to reinstate Donald J. Trump, but it remains to be seen whether #45 can drag himself away from his own struggling social media platform … well, you know what it’s called.

If you’re a real person and you want to comment on these or other current political issues in a safe, echo chamber-free civil discourse site edited by real people, hit the Comment box below or in the left column, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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House Count

UPDATE: Adam Frisch, Democratic challenger to Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) has conceded the race for Colorado’s 3rd House District seat, The Hill reports late Friday, even though the margin was small enough to trigger an automatic recount.

“The likelihood of the recount changing more than a handful of votes is very small,” Frisch said in his concession.

The GOP now has 219 House seats to the Democratic Party’s 212, with four races remaining to be determined.

•••

After the GOP clinched the House after incumbent Rep. Mike Garcia of California was declared the winner earlier this week, five seats remain up for grabs. As of Friday morning the Republican count was still at 218 and Democrats have 212 seats, according to The Guardian. 

One race that appears to be headed to an automatically triggered recount is for Colorado’s 3rd District. With 95% of ballots counted, incumbent MAGA firebrand Lauren Boebert was leading Democratic challenger Adam Frisch by 551 votes, or 50.08% to 49.92%, according to The New York Times. 

Scroll -- Read pundit Ken Zino’s left-column commentary, “Alas, Midterm Mania Continues,” below.

Comment – Add your opinion to the Comment box by clicking on the headline above, or the headline in the right column if that’s how you lean, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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…meanwhile…

(FRI 11/18/22)

(Nancy Pelosi steps down as House Democratic leader. Scroll down for details.)

Special Counsel to Investigate Trump – Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland has appointed veteran prosecutor Jack Smith as special counsel to oversee the Justice Department’s investigation of ex-President Trump’s involvement in the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and his alleged mishandling of classified government documents, per NPR’s All Things Considered.

After Donald J. Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election last Tuesday, and because of the “current president’s intention” to run for re-election in two years, “I have concluded it is in the public’s best interest to appoint a special counsel,” Garland said in his announcement. 

Potential charges against Trump still will be up to the AG, Georgetown University Law Center Prof. Paul Butler told NPR. Butler has worked with Smith and calls him a “prosecutor’s prosecutor.” Smith currently is prosecuting war crimes from Kosovo at The Hague. 

Too Late?: Trump’s remaining allies on Capitol Hill and in right-wing media have been slamming “President Biden’s attorney general” for months as a sort of pre-emptive strike. But critics on both the left and right of Trump’s involvement in January 6, and his storing of top secret documents at Mar-a-Lago have been calling for a more aggressive Justice Department investigation for nearly as long. 

Upshot: There is pretty much nothing Garland could do to stop Fox News pundits from criticizing his “politicizing” of the Justice Department, and even attempts by Trump’s acolytes in the Republican-majority 118th Congress from threatening impeachment of the AG. For those concerned about our democracy and our government records the special counsel has been a long-time coming.

•••

Pelosi Steps Down – The House’s first female speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) steps down after two decades as the lower chamber’s Democratic leader to make way for a younger generation but will not retire altogether. Pelosi was first elected to the House of Representatives serving the San Francisco district in a 1987 special election.

Reps. Steny Hoyer (MD) and Jim Clyburn (SC) also are retiring from the second and third House Democratic leadership positions, respectively, though Clyburn, who was key in Joe Biden winning the party’s 2020 nomination for president, will remain in an assistant position to the new leaders, according to The Hill.

New Democratic Leaders: Lead candidates are Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, to take Pelosi’s position under a Republican House majority as minority leader, Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, in Hoyer’s number-two position and Pete Aguilar of California, in Clyburn’s spot. 

Upshot: More than a fierce opponent to the Republicans, Pelosi has been demonized particularly by the hard- and MAGA-right. She has proven to be as effective a leader of House Democrats as Mitch McConnell is for Senate Republicans. 

The Hill’s shortlist of Pelosi accomplishments include her securing of Congressional response to the Great Recession in 2008, guiding passage of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act and securing trillions of dollars in COVID-19 pandemic relief funds. Pelosi led impeachment of then-President Trump and launched the House Select Committee’s special investigation into the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Pelosi was the first woman to become House Speaker in 2007, and became Speaker again in 2019.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENT: editors@thehustings.news

GOP House to Probe Biden Family

Rep. James Comer (R-KY), incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), incoming chair of the Oversight Committee announced Thursday their first order of business will be investigation of the Biden family, the New York Post reports. 

“Our investigation is about Joe Biden,” Comer said. “Was Joe Biden directly involved with Hunter Biden’s business deals and is he compromised? That’s our investigation.”

Meanwhile: Senate Republicans are not so unified, where “tensions” between Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Donald J. Trump’s closest ally, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham are “boiling over,” according to The Hill. Graham is reported to have “sharply criticized” McConnell’s leadership in a private meeting, and voted to replace McConnell as leader of the GOP in the Senate with Florida’s Rick Scott.

Scroll – Read Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s commentary, “Trump in Context” below.

Comment – Add your opinion to the Comment box by clicking on the headline above, or the headline in the left column if that’s how you lean, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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Left or Right …

We want to hear from you on Donald J. Trump’s announcement he will run again in 2024 and his likely coming clash with presumed primary race opponent Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) likely ascendance to House Speaker, and the escalation of Russia’s war against Ukraine, after Ukraine reclaimed the city of Kherson late last week. It will be interesting to see whether the MAGA-leading side of the GOP tries to make a point of resisting signing a “blank check” for military and economic aid to Ukraine.

Become a citizen pundit: If you lean conservative, please use the Comment box in the right column. If you lean liberal, the Comment box in this column works best. Or email us at editors@thehustings.news and list your political leanings in the subject line.

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…meanwhile…

(WED 11/16/22)

It’s Official: GOP Wins House – Republican Mike Garcia defeated Democratic challenger Christy Smith to win California’s 27th District House seat Wednesday, the AP reports, to finally give the GOP the majority in the lower chamber it had expected to come much more easily a week earlier. Garcia’s victory puts the House count at 218 Republicans and 211 Democrats, per The New York Times, with six more seats to call. 

Reddish Trickle: The GOP House margin, which will be anywhere from one to 14 seats -- though more likely between five and seven -- is good enough for the party’s first declared 2024 presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump. The jury was still out 24 hours after Trump’s Mar-a-Lago announcement on whether his fall from party leadership finally is over. Rupert Murdoch’s news empire is sticking to its guns so far – Sean Hannity even broke away from the drone of Trump’s “low energy” speech, and ABC News’ Jonathan Karl reported that Mar-a-Lago security had to keep several in the gaga-for-MAGA crowd from leaving his speech early. 

Why would GOP leadership break up with Donald J. Trump this time, and not after three election losses – the House in 2018, the presidency and Senate in 2020 and essentially both chambers this year (and his only win was by electoral count, not popular vote) – as well as two impeachments, one insurrection, and an FBI seizure of top secret documents? 

Consider that when Mitt Romney lost, miserably, in his bid to unseat President Obama in 2012, the GOP conducted an “autopsy” on the party’s apparent lack of popularity.

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in Florida’s winds, where Gov. Ron DeSantis offers the party sanctuary, and he won’t fly you on a chartered airplane to get there.

Meanwhile, McConnell Holds: SCOTUS- and federal court-crusher Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) won over his party’s caucus to remain minority leader, with 37 votes to Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) 10 votes. One Republican voted “present” in the secret ballot held in the Old Senate Chamber according to Politico, which adds that Scott sent out a memo during the vote accusing the outgoing National Republican Senatorial Committee, led by Indiana’s Todd Young, for distributing “hundreds of thousands of dollars of unauthorized and improper bonuses to staff.”

McConnell has been GOP leader for nearly 16 years, and when asked whether he might soon consider stepping down, he told reporters “I’m not going anywhere” (Politico again). 

•••

Senate Moves to Codify Same-Sex Marriage – The Senate Wednesday passed a procedural provision, 62-37, to advance a same-sex marriage bill that could reach its final vote this week, per Roll Call. The bill would repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which was ruled largely unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in a 2013 decision. The bill “will not take away or alter any religious liberty,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), chief negotiator and the first openly gay U.S. senator. 

Among the 12 Republican senators voting to advance the bill was its primary GOP sponsor, Susan Collins, of Maine. It is the first among several bills the lame duck Congress will take up in a rush to beat the end of its 117th session.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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Trump Trumps, Again

(WED 11/16/22)

It’s 2015 again, with the fabulosity of Mar-a-Lago – where FBI agents seized top secret government documents just three months ago -- substituting for Trump Tower’s Golden Elevator. Some 20 minutes after beginning his speech – which came off sounding like a low-key MAGA-hat rally in which he described the magnificent success of his administration and the dismal failures of his successor -- Donald J. Trump announced his third bid for president of the United States. 

“In order to make America great and glorious again tonight I am announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.” Though Trump did not conjure up his Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him, he did suggest China had somehow meddled in the 2022 midterms. And the GOP did win the midterms thanks to Trump’s involvement, he suggested, but Republican leaders had overblown expectations they would win 40 House seats. 

Trump threw in this statement, devoid of any irony or self-awareness: “This will not be my campaign. This will be our campaign.”

Biden on Strike on Poland: Before Trump in his very big announcement could blame on the current president a missile that struck Poland – he perversely suggested that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine had he still been in office – Biden spoke at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, telling reporters “there is preliminary information that contests that … it’s unlikely given the trajectory that it was launched from Russia.“ It has been identified as a Russian missile, however, and it killed two people in rural Poland. In discussions with Polish President Andrej Duda and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Biden says the U.S. has offered support to Poland’s investigation “and we need to determine exactly what happened.”

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

McCarthy Wins Speaker Nomination

House Republicans have nominated Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for Speaker of the House, with 188 votes to Rep. Andy Biggs’ (R-AZ) 31 votes, per The Hill. McCarthy will need at least 218 of all 435 House members to become the next speaker.

As of late Tuesday, ahead of Donald J. Trump’s “very big announcement” at Mar-a-Lago, Republicans had clinched 217 House seats to the Democrats’ 206 for the 118th Congress, leaving 12 contests yet to be determined.  

McConnell Under Pressure: Meanwhile in the Senate, Florida Republican Rick Scott is challenging Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky for the minority leadership and is one of “several conservative senators who have called on McConnell to delay” the vote, Axios reports, until after the December 6 Georgia runoff election between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) and Trump-backed challenger Herschel Walker. 

McConnell and Scott, Axios says, have been feuding for months over midterm campaign strategy. No matter what happens, the Democratic Party already has clinched control of the Senate. If Warnock wins re-election, Democrats will have 51 seats to the GOP’s 49.

Question: Axios uses the term “conservative” to describe Scott and other senators calling on McConnell to delay the vote for minority leader. What does the news outlet consider McConnell?

--TL

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