Email your comments, pro-Trump or anti-Trump, in response to Stephen Macaulay’s column on the right on how the former president “saved” Christmas, to editors@thehustings.news, or click on the right column and call up the comments button. 

Scroll down the page to read Eric Blair’s comments on the left and Macaulay’s comments on the right regarding the GOP tiff between House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO). We welcome your comments, too, on the Supreme Court oral arguments on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, regarding Mississippi’s legislation prohibiting abortions at 15 weeks, and the question of whether Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey will be, or should be, overturned. 

Let us know whether you consider yourself “left” or “right” so we can post your comments in the appropriate column.

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FRI 12/17/21

•With restrictive abortion laws in Mississippi and Texas threatening to overturn Roe v. Wade,the FDA has eliminated key restrictions on abortion pills,WaPoreports. The pills now can be prescribed via telehealth consultation and mailed to the patients, but some states already ban sending and mailing the pills.

•’Trump’s Coup Must be Stopped’ posts in this space Friday afternoon, with comments from our contributing pundits in the left and right columns. To comment on this debate, please emaileditors@thehustings.news or click the “comments” button.

Build Back Later – The inevitable delay of President Biden’s $2.2-trillion social safety net, climate change and tax bill, Build Back Better, was finally confirmed Thursday after the Senate parliamentarian ruled the bill could not contain a section granting legal status for undocumented immigrants, The New York Times reports.

Work to pass BBB as a budget reconciliation package, which would require only the 51 votes of the Senate’s Democratic majority including Vice President Kamala Harris, will continue “over the days and weeks ahead,” Biden said Thursday, thus releasing the chamber for their holiday recess. “We will – we must – get Build Back Better passed, even in the face of Republican opposition.”

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-IL), who has been working for years to provide a path to citizenship for undocumented aliens, said “we’re not going to stop fighting for them.”

About that pricetag: No, the $2.2-trillion noted in the lead sentence is not inflation, exactly. The Congressional Budget Office last week “scored” BBB at that cost over its 10 years, but not including tax offsets, which is one of the issues over which Biden and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-WV) have been negotiating in earnest for weeks.

The figure we’ve used up to release of the CBO report is $1.75 trillion, including the tax offsets. Manchin’s own upper limit has been $1.5 trillion.

Note: The failure of the Senate to pass BBB this year became inevitable when Biden’s $1.2-trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill was passed earlier this fall. Now the pressure seems to be relieved a bit, and Democrats now can use the infrastructure bill as a weapon against Republican challengers fighting to regain control of the House and Senate next November.

•••

Trump Has Far Less GOP Support in the Senate, Report Says – Former President Donald J. Trump continues to attack Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for failing to join in on the “Big Lie” about the November 2020 presidential election, but the minority leader’s caucus is having none of it, according to a report in Politico.

“How this guy can stay as Leader is beyond comprehension,” Trump wrote Thursday. “This is coming not only from me, but from virtually everyone in the Republican Party. He is a disaster and should be replaced as ‘Leader’ ASAP.”

Trump’s efforts to “depose the Senate minority leader has resulted in firm pledges from just two Republican candidates, and no senators,” according to Politico, “and it has failed to turn up a formidable challenger to run against McConnell.”

Trump reportedly has the support of Fox News, including Tucker Carlson, who last week announced he would be regularly highlighting “problems” with McConnell, and called him an “instrument of the left.”

Note: Contrast this with House Republicans, where Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is acceding to Trump acolytes like Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, and Lauren Boebert, of Colorado as McCarthy tries to maintain position as minority leader ahead of becoming House speaker after next November’s mid-terms.

•••

Federal Judge Foils Sackers’ Escape – Legal releases shielding the Sackler family from civil opioid lawsuits are not permitted under the bankruptcy code, federal judge Colleen McMahon of the Southern District of New York, ruled late Thursday, according to The Wall Street Journal. Her ruling ices the Perdue Pharma Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan that would have protected the family that has controlled the company.

Prior to filing for bankruptcy, Perdue Pharma distributed more than $10 billion to key members of the Sackler family and set aside $4.5 billion to be distributed directly from the company to states with opioid addiction claims. The Sackler family thought their funds would be shielded from the lawsuits filed against the company.

Court appeals by Perdue Pharma, the Sackler family and groups representing opioid victims are expected, but the judge’s ruling could also affect other U.S. companies seeking to protect majority shareholders with Chapter 11.

•••

Note With Impending News -- In February 2020, in a courtroom in London where extradition hearings were underway, Julian Assange’s lawyer reportedly told the court that then-president Donald Trump would offer the WikiLeaks founder a pardon if, upon return to the U.S., he would agree to say that Russia was not involved in hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign during the 2016 election.

This is the same ex-president who said, during the 2016, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” referring to those allegedly on a missing server containing Hillary Clinton emails.

So let’s see: He was going to pardon someone who is charged with disclosing national defense information and he reached out to a national adversary.

Nothing like Making America Great Again through such methods.

In a piece earlier this week on MSNBC.com about a ruling from a U.K. Court that will allow Assange’s extradition to face charges in the U.S., Frank Figliuzzi, a former assistant director for counterintelligence for the FBI, posits that it is possible that the Justice Department could cut a deal with Assange to obtain his testimony.

Figliuzzi writes:

‘When questioned by Mueller’s investigators, Trump denied knowing anything about the Russian–WikiLeaks connection. At least 30 times in response to Mueller’s questions, he said he either had “no recollection” or he “didn’t know.” But if he was lying to Mueller about his knowledge of any role WikiLeaks or Russia had in assisting his campaign, then he was lying to federal agents and committing a felony. Trump’s lies would also have obstructed the special counsel investigation.’

Remember “WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks. I love WikiLeaks!”? Maybe if Assange flips that affection will change.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash

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THU 12/16/21

•The White House today will announce a plan to recruit more commercial truck drivers to help alleviate the supply chain bottleneck, WaPo reports. The American Trucking Association says the U.S. is 80,000 truckers short of what is needed. The Biden administration plans to help state departments of motor vehicles issue more commercial licenses, increase apprenticeships and recruit military veterans to drive trucks.

•Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pleaded guilty to federal charges that he violated George Floyd’s rights, and the rights of a 14-year-old in a separate case as part of a plea deal in which he will serve 25 years for the civil rights charges concurrently with his murder conviction (WaPo). 

Expecting BBB Before Christmas Wouldn’t be Prudent – Two meetings between Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-WV) and President Biden over the $1.75-trillion Build Back Better social safety net plan “have gone poorly” according to Punchbowl News and now, finally, despite expiration of the Child Tax Credit, it’s clear there will be no vote before the end of the year. Last night Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) filed cloture to move on 22 stalled Biden administration nominations including Rahm Emanuel – former Chicago mayor and Obama White House chief of staff – for ambassador to Japan and former career Foreign Service officer Nicholas Burns for ambassador to China, with plans to fast-track their confirmations through the weekend. 

“Although Schumer has been hesitant to admit it publicly, the Senate wasn’t ever likely to pass BBB before Christmas,” Punchbowl News says. That conclusion had become apparent way back when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) had to ultimately separate the bipartisan infrastructure bill from BBB in September to get the infrastructure bill passed.

Schumer is reportedly working on a deal with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to push through the 22 Biden nominees over the next few days. The issue is a “blockade” by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) that has “left dozens of President Biden’s State Department nominees in limbo,” according to The Hill.

Note: Child Tax Credit backers are looking for workarounds “if” the BBB stalls, says Roll Call. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) is working on presenting a legislative fix before Congress leaves Washington for the holiday recess.

•••

Inflation is Not ‘Transitory’ Anymore – If Build Back Better by end-of-2021 needed one more stake in its heart, it was the Federal Reserve’s new policy signaled yesterday after a two-day meeting that it will wind down bond-buying more quickly next year. 

The Fed yesterday signaled it will raise rates by a quarter-point in each of three rate increases after it accelerates tapering of the bond-buying program, The Wall Street Journal reports. As recently as September, Fed officials indicated they would not need to increase rates until 2023, but Chairman Jerome Powell has removed the word “transitory” in describing pandemic-era inflation, which reached the annual rate of 6.8% last month, according to the Commerce Department. 

“Transitory” inflation was tied to supply-demand imbalance caused by the pandemic’s supply chain bottlenecks. Now the Fed clearly expects high inflation – generally considered more than 2% annually by most economists – to be a chronic problem as the supply chains open up. Elsewhere in The Wall Street Journal there are stories of those bottlenecks beginning to ease despite the tenacious grip of the omicron variant of COVID-19, of big banking projecting higher profits next year as they raise interest rates, and of Wall Street investors welcoming the results of the two-day Fed meeting with bullishness.

Note: The irony nobody is talking about is that inflation was considered too low after economic recovery of The Great Recession, which led to a 0% rate pushed on the Fed by the Trump administration.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Charles Dervarics

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WED 12/15/21

•The death toll from COVID-19 has breached another sad milestone. The Johns Hopkins University & Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center says U.S. deaths have reached 800,473. The carillons at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., will ring 800 times tonight. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now predicts there could be a surge of infections in January, WaPo says.

•The House of Representatives voted 221-209, along party lines, to send the $2.5 trillion debt-ceiling bill to President Biden’s desk in time to avoid a federal government shutdown. The issue now puts the government debt in good standing until 2023, when the post-midterm Congress must again deal with it.

•The child tax credit expires today unless Congress grants an extension, or the Senate quickly passes President Biden’s $1.75 trillion Build Back Better plan, WaPo says. The latter is unlikely, of course, before the end of the year.

Disappointing November Retail Sales – November’s retail sales rose a seasonally adjusted 0.3% to $639.8 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Wednesday morning. The modest increase compares with a 1.8% increase in October retail sales, to $638.2 billion, which indicates consumers started their Christmas shopping earlier than usual.

House Votes to Hold Meadows in Contempt of Congress – The House voted 222-208 to hold former President Trump’s last of four chiefs of staff and author of the recent book, Chief of Chiefs, Mark Meadows, in contempt of Congress over his refusal to appear before the select committee investigating 1/6. Meadows rescinded an earlier agreement to appear after an apparent Trump backlash against his book.

Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), the only two Republican members of the select committee were the only two Republicans to vote with 220 Democrats in favor of the contempt charges, Roll Call reports. It is now up to Attorney General Merrick Garland to indict Meadows, who has countered with a lawsuit against the select committee and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

“He’s willing to talk about it in his book,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), one of nine members of the select committee said. “He’s willing to talk about it in public, but he is unwilling to undergo the questioning of our committee despite having been subpoenaed to do so in deposition.”

“He tried to cooperate, but the select committee didn’t care,” said Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN). There’s your point-counterpoint on Meadows, who claims executive privilege, as Trump has always expected of witnesses to the January 6 Capitol insurrection. 

Note: Thanks largely to his book and his lawsuit, Meadows’ contempt of Congress charges seem to be overshadowing Steve Bannon’s. The select committee already has a lot of Meadows’ correspondence, but still doesn’t have his 38-page, January 5 PowerPoint laying out Trump’s bid for turning around the presidential election. This contempt case could end up at the Supreme Court, where the loyalty of Trump’s three justice appointees – who late last year ruled against him on “election fraud” claims – could be tested.

Bonus note: Politico reminds us that the two GOP votes to charge Meadows with contempt in the House is seven Republicans fewer than those who voted for contempt of Congress charges against Bannon.

•••

Hannity and Ingraham Explain it All – From Politico, which appears to have given up on trying to watch Fox News, as its piece on “personalities” Sean Hannity’s and Laura Ingraham’s explanations of their January 6 texts to Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, directs to CNN’s coverage …

Hannity: I have always been consistent on January 6, and on all riots. All riots are bad … ALL OF THEM. And, on this program, we strongly condemn the riots of January 6 …

Ingraham: Both publicly and privately, I’ve said what I believe. That the breach on the Capitol on January 6 was a terrible thing. Crimes were committed, some people were unfairly hounded, and persecuted and prosecuted, but it was NOT an insurrection.

Note: It was an insurrection.

•••

About Abortion — As the abortion issue continues to roil the courts — even though Justice Brett Kavanaugh said Roe v. Wadewas stare decisis, until he didn’t — a Morning Consult survey shows that getting an abortion in the U.S. isn’t as easy as one might think. The survey, taken among 2,200 adults, shows that only 30% say it is “easy” to access abortion care in their area. Not entirely surprising, while 35% of men think it is easy, only 25% of women do.

Note: Requiring licensed physicians perform abortions is one thing Democrats and Republicans agree on by 76% and 70%, respectively. One might argue that is what abortion rights activists want to have occur, rather than laws that will put women at the mercy of someone who hasn’t made it through the front door of a medical school.

--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods

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TUE 12/14/21

•Read “Dereliction of Duty,” Gary S. Vasilash’s in-depth News & Note on House of Representatives’ Select Committee Vice-Chairwoman Liz Cheney’s (R-WY) reading of texts begging Mark Meadows to call off Capitol insurrectionists, January 6. Go to https://thehustings.substack.com.

•Antony Blinken began his first tour of Southeast Asia as U.S. secretary of state today, beginning with Indonesia. The tour is a strategic counterpoint to China’s economic expansion in the region.

Meadows’ Contempt – The select committee on the January 6 Capitol insurrection voted 9-0 to press contempt of Congress charges against President Trump’s fourth chief of staff, Mark Meadows, Roll Call reports. Today, the full House will vote to pass the charges on to the Justice Department for consideration. Meadows failed to show up for his deposition last week Wednesday, the day after his book on his year or so in the Trump White House, Chief of Chiefs, went on sale just in time for Christmas.

On November 26, Meadows provided documents from his personal email account and privilege log, according to the Roll Callreport, but withheld hundreds of other documents, under the “executive privilege” claim. Meadows’ attorney George Terwilliger III has countered the committee’s efforts with a suit against the panel and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), restating the executive privilege claims. The committee is especially eager to obtain a.) an email about appointing alternate electors as part of a “direct and collateral attack” after the presidential election, and b.) a January 5 e-mail of a 38-page Power Point whose title alone could serve as evidence; “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference and Options for 6JAN” that Meadows & Co. apparently wanted to present “on the Hill.” 

Oh, the Irony: Select committee chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) Monday brought up Meadows’ seven years as a Republican congressman from North Carolina, noting he briefly held the title of ranking member of the House Oversight & Reform Committee.

“It’s not hard to locate records of his time in the House and find a Mr. Meadows full of indignation because, at the time, a prior administration wasn’t co-operating with a congressional investigation to his satisfaction. Whatever legacy he thought he left in the House, this is his legacy now. His former colleagues singling him out for criminal prosecution because he wouldn’t answer questions about what he knows about a brutal attack on our democracy. That is his legacy.” 

(That was about Benghazi and Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.)

Fox and Friends: The committee’s vice chairwoman, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who with Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois are the only Republicans on the nine-member panel, and likely to be two of only a handful of Republicans who vote with the Democrats in sending contempt charges to the Justice Department, read urgent texts sent to Meadows January 6 from Fox News “personalities.” 

From Laura Ingraham: “Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.”

From Sean Hannity: “Can he make a statement, ask people to leave the Capitol?”

•••

Bye, Bye 0% Fed Interest Rate – Federal Reserve officials meet Tuesday and Wednesday to tackle the high inflation rate, currently running 6.8% annually in the U.S. amid wild supply and demand shifts related to the coronavirus pandemic, The Wall Street Journal reports. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell already has scrubbed the word “transitory” from his vocabulary, when describing the high inflation that is well above the target rate of 2%. 

From this two-day meeting, the Fed is expected to accelerate its “tapering” policy – which is a winddown of buying government bonds used to stimulate the economy. WSJ suggests the Fed will move to complete this tapering to March 2022 from the previous target of June. This completion will open the Fed to raising the Prime Rate from the current level of 0%.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Nic Woods

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MON 12/13/21

•Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-WV) meets with President Biden today to discuss the $1.75-trillion Build Back Better program and whether the Senate might pass it this year, according to Punchbowl News. Manchin is scheduled to meet with moderate Democrats Tuesday with hopes he can be convinced to carve out a special filibuster rule to pass voting rights legislation.              

Next Up on Contempt of Congress: Mark Meadows – The House has scheduled 7 p.m. Monday to consider contempt of Congress charges against Donald J. Trump’s last of four chiefs of staff, Mark Meadows, after he has flip-flopped on whether to testify before the Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection. 

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson’s (D-MS) is seeking the contempt charges because he wants to ask Meadows about a trove of communications from the chief of staff regarding the insurrection, including text messages offering guidance to a “Stop the Steal” rally organizer, and an email saying the National Guard would be present to “protect pro Trump people,” according to The Hill.

Last Friday, the House issued subpoenas to former Trump aides Robert “Bobby” Peede Jr., and Max Miller, whom the committee says met with Trump on January 4 to talk about the upcoming rally on the Ellipse to support the lame-duck president’s stolen election claims and to discuss people he had wanted to speak at the gathering, according to Roll Call. [Miller is the Trump-endorsed candidate for a House seat from Ohio, whose primary candidacy has been derailed by allegations he physically abused his former partner, Stephanie Grisham, another Trump aide. Someday, this will make either a Netflix movie or a Hallmark movie, depending on Trump’s political success going forward.]

Former Trump campaign official Katrina Pierson also was present at that meeting and was issued a subpoena last September. She is also a candidate for an Ohio seat in the U.S. House.

•••

About that CBO Report – Making the $1.75-trillion Build Back Better safety net programs -- in particular the Child Tax Credit -- permanent will add $3 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reported Friday, Roll Call says. Conversely, let the Child Tax Credit expire in one year, as in the version of the bill passed by the House and awaiting Senate approval, and the program costs $231 billion over 10 years.

Overall cost of the House bill is about $2.2 trillion before offsets, CBO says. 

“I’m urging the Democratic Party to stop the madness,” said South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, the Ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, who requested the CBO report with his House counterpart, Jason Smith, of Missouri.

Note: Democrats promote the child tax credit as one of the centerpieces of the BBB, making it unlikely they would let it expire in a year if or when the package becomes law.

•••

Person of the Year – Time magazine has named Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk its 2021 Person of the Year, calling him: “Visionary. Iconoclast. Troll.” He is also one of the richest people in the world, and in its Sunday Business section The New York Times describes Musk’s aversion to charitable donations, at least in any conventional way: In a “public spat with the director of the World Food Programme on Twitter,” Musk announced: “If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.”

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Charles Dervarics

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FRI 12/10/21

•President Biden attends a private funeral at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., today, for his longtime Senate colleague, Bob Dole, Republican of Kansas.

•WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appears bound for extradition to the U.S. after the High Court of London overturned a lower court ruling that his mental health was too fragile for the criminal justice system (AP). The U.S. extradition request has been sent to Britain’s interior minister for review.

No Build Back Better This Year – The Consumer Price Index rose 0.8% in November, for an annual rate of 6.8%, a number that ought to put the kabosh on the Senate moving forward the White House’s $1.75-trillion Build Back Better social infrastructure program at least for the remainder of the year. As in October, when the CPI rose 0.9%, for a 6.2% annual rate, gasoline, shelter, food and used cars and trucks led the high inflation rate, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its monthly report. Energy was up 3.5%, the gas index was up 6.1%, food was up 0.7% and food at home was up 0.8%.

Note: The White House may take just a bit of comfort with the fact that the November CPI “was the fastest pace since 1982,” according to The Wall Street Journal … President Ronald Reagan’s second full year in office.

•••

Or, Does it Still Have a Chance? – Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) still hopes to get a vote on BBB before the Senate flies out of town for the holiday recess. Punchbowl News Friday outlines the Will it? Won’t it? arguments, and it’s worth a read, but the top reason for why it won’t get a vote is Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-WV), and if that’s not convincing enough, the website notes Senate Democrats haven’t written the bill, yet.

•••

Beat the Devil – New York State Attorney General Letitia James has suspended her campaign for governor and instead will run for re-election next November, meanwhile concentrating on pushing to depose ex-President Trump in January for the civil fraud investigation of the Trump Organization. This scoopage comes courtesy The Washington Post. 

The investigation is looking into whether the Trump Organization valued property it has held at low rates for tax purposes and at much-higher rates for banking and investment purposes. 

Note to Senate Democrats: This is what it takes to get business done by January – spend less time worrying about upcoming elections.

Note to Mark Meadows, Steve Bannon: Politico portrays the New York AG’s priorities as part of Trump’s bad day Thursday. A federal court of appeals rejected the ex-president’s claims of executive privilege to block the National Archives from turning over documents from his White House to the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection. Trump could still appeal to the Supreme Court for an emergency ruling.

•••

Schiff to House Republicans: Stop Fearing The Donald – The House Thursday passed along party lines Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) Protect Our Democracy Act to place new limits on executive branch power and subject presidential candidates to more disclosure (looking at you, Trump tax returns). Just one Republican joined all Democrats in its passage, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois (yes, he’s retiring next year). 

The bill is why it’s time for Democrats to “abandon their obsession with Donald Trump,” Rep. James R. Comer (R-KY), retorted in opposing the legislation, according to Roll Call’s report. Comer called it “bad policy that diminishes the power of the executive branch.”

Schiff said Republicans should support the bill, but they “live in utter fear” of ex-President Trump. 

Comer also warned of GOP retaliation after re-taking the House in next year’s mid-terms.

“I think that’s fair game. And I can promise the American people that very soon there will be this type of oversight for the Biden administration and the president’s son, Hunter,” he said.

Note: The Protect Our Democracy Act has no chance against a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Charles Dervarics

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THU 12/9/21

•Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-WV) and Jon Tester (D-MT) Thursday joined 50 Republicans to pass a resolution nullifying President Biden’s vaccine-or-test COVID-19 mandate for private employers. The resolution has a slim chance in the House of Representatives, where Republicans need the support of five Democrats for passage, Roll Call notes.

•The body of former Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS) lies in state in the Capitol today. Dole, a three-time presidential candidate and World War II army veteran who served the Senate from 1969-1996 died Sunday, age 98.

•The U.S. COVID-19 vaccination rate has breached 200 million people, or just over 60% of the population, WaPo reports. More good news is that last week, the average number of doses per day grew 35% over the previous week.

Biden Opens ‘First-Ever’ Summit for Democracy – President Biden announced a $424.4 million initiative to strengthen democracy globally Thursday in a teleconference summit attended by more than 100 national leaders, including Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, NPR reports, but not Russia’s Vladimir Putin, nor China’s Xi Jinping. Establishment of the Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal is a “landmark set of policy and foreign assistance initiatives that build upon the U.S. Government’s significant, ongoing work to bolster democracy and defend human rights globally,” the White House says.

The initiative includes “up to” $424.4 million to:

•Support a free and independent media.

•Fight corruption.

•Bolster democratic reformers.

•Advance technology for democracy.

•Defend free and fair elections and political processes.

Note: Biden might want to allocate a portion of those funds to the U.S., in lieu of passage of any significant voting rights legislation by Congress.

•••

No U.S. Troops in Ukraine – President Biden ruled out sending U.S. troops to help Ukraine fight off a potential Russian invasion, following his teleconference with Vladimir Putin yesterday.

“It would depend upon what the rest of NATO countries wanted to do as well,” Biden told reporters, per Reuters. “But the idea that the United States is going to unilaterally use force to confront Russia invading Ukraine is not in the cards right now.”

The Kremlin denies plans for intervention, despite Russia’s 2014 annex of Ukraine’s Crimea region, and says the troop buildup along its neighbor’s border is “defensive” in nature.

•••

McConnell to Raise Debt Limit – Yes, we know he is minority leader, but Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will deliver the 10 Republican votes Democrats need to raise the debt limit in a “contentious” cloture vote today. McConnell negotiated with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who has the title “majority leader” on his business cards, at least, an agreement for a one-time measure allowing Democrats to avoid filibuster and raise the debt limit by a simple majority vote, as Punchbowl News reports. 

The whip list of Republican senators who will vote for cloture consists of the usual suspects, according to Punchbowl News: John Thune of South Dakota, John Cornyn of Texas, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Shelly Moore Capito of West Virginia, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Susan Collins of Maine, Rob Portman of Ohio, and Thom Tillis and Richard Burr of North Carolina.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin has given Congress to next Wednesday before the federal government begins defaulting on debt.

•••

About Mark Meadows’ Book – Mark Meadows has a book coming out about his time as ex-President Trump’s chief of staff. He obviously expected Trump to like what he had to say, including a passage first reported by The Guardian in which Meadows recalled how his boss discovered he had COVID-19 just before leaving for his first debate against Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, in Cleveland in September 2020.

Perhaps Meadows wanted to become Trump’s 2024 running mate?

Whatever, doesn’t matter. On Wednesday Meadows’ attorney filed suit against the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection, after Meadows rescinded his agreement to testify before the panel. The committee has asked the Justice Department to file contempt of Congress charges against Meadows (who, by the way, represented North Carolina’s 11^thDistrict in the House from 2013 to 2020) when he failed to show up for testimony yesterday.

Committee member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) spent some time on CNN yesterday describing how Meadows’ reclamation of executive privilege does not matter, because his upcoming book already has made said executive privilege claims moot.

Note: As everybody from former “fixer” Michael Cohen to presumptive 2024 GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie knows, Trump expects absolute loyalty from his sycophants but will drop reciprocating loyalty when he feels any slight, and yet it appears Meadows will continue to grovel to his former boss for as long as he can.

•••

Primary Coloring Book – This bit of Capitol Hill gossip that has implications for Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) run for House speaker after next year’s midterms comes from Politico. It seems former Rep. Renee Ellmers tweeted Wednesday that she is running in the GOP primary for North Carolina’s 4^th District again next year, which she had lost in her party’s 2016 primary after allegations she had an affair with McCarthy.

Both Ellmers and McCarthy denied the allegations, which are thought to have also contributed to McCarthy’s loss in his bid for speaker in January 2017. Then-Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) was elected speaker, instead.

Politico says that McCarthy met Wednesday with Bo Hines, a former football player and Trump favorite who plans to run for North Carolina’s 7^th District seat, but now is considering running in the 4^th instead.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Nic Woods

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Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news

By Stephen Macaulay

Although Christmas has been a federal holiday in the U.S. since 1870, it is encouraging to know that Donald Trump is to be thanked for his making the federal —and for many, a religious — holiday a continuing phenomenon. Wednesday on the Hugh Hewitt radio show, when asked about the subject, Trump answered, “You know, when I was running, 2016, Christmas was like you couldn’t say the word. I said the word. And I said we’re going to bring back Christmas, and we’re going to be saying Christmas. And you know, department stores weren’t using it in ads, little things like they’d show snow, and they’d show a red wall, but they wouldn’t say ‘Merry Christmas.’ And I think we brought it all the way back. And we can do it with other things. I look at what’s happening, and you know, this whole female athlete thing is a very big deal, too. I see that a record, a swimming record was broken by 18 seconds, another one was broken by 38 seconds, okay? You know what 38 seconds is, right?”

Let’s face it, it is good to see Trump’s short attention span is as robust as ever. “This whole female athlete thing” is a natural segue from Santa Claus. (Presumably Trump was talking about some transgender athletes, but that is never made clear.)

The continuing exchange shows the razor-sharpness of Trump and his interlocutor:

DJT: And we have to bring back the female athlete. This is just crazy what’s going on. These records, you know, one record held up for many, many years, and if they break it by one-eighth of a second, that’s a lot. You don’t break it by like 36 seconds and 18 seconds. It’s ridiculous what’s going on.

HH: Only Bob Beaman in the long jump, if you remember that.

DJT: That’s right.

HH: Bob Beaman shattered. That was a big one.

DJT: Yeah, he’s about it.

HH: Yeah.

DJT: But even that wasn’t relatively like this.

HH: No, it wasn’t.

DJT: This is crazy. I look forward to seeing what happens with respect to the weightlifting records. That’ll be interesting.”

Bob Beamon in the long jump? Beamon was not (and is not) a female athlete. He set a long jump record at the 1968 Summer Olympics, a distance record that stood for 23 years when Mike Powell jumped 8.95 meters, five centimeters more than Beamon. Powell is male. We are not certain whether either of them can swim, but odds are they can.

The two then moved on to Trump’s forthcoming book, Our Journey Together, which the always articulate Trump described as “a book of pictures, largely, with statements, but a book of pictures.”

Why did he do it? (Although let’s face it: he undoubtedly didn’t take the pictures, and one would be dubious about his penning of the statements.)

He responded (take a deep breath), “And I did it at the request of some, because we had a great presidency. Even though we were surrounded by maniacs that were looking to do damage, but we had a great presidency in terms of what we, we rebuilt the military. We cut taxes more than, you know, the biggest tax cut in history, as you know, biggest regulation cuts in history. What we’ve done was just amazing. And it was, you know, in many ways, it was a great time. It was a nasty time, because the Democrats are absolutely crazed – two impeachment hoaxes, you look at the Mueller witch hunt, we went through so much, and yet we got more done that virtually anybody. I mean, you just take a look at what we did. And we had a tremendous foreign policy. You didn’t have planes flying over Taiwan, and he understood that. You didn’t have planes, bombers flying over Taiwan. You didn’t have what’s happening on Ukraine. You didn’t have this. I mean, this looks like it’s very serious stuff. They don’t respect us anymore. And then when you add in the worst, in my opinion, the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country, which is the withdrawal from, the way they did the withdrawal from, I mean, Afghanistan, I’ve never, I’ve never seen anything, in all the years I’ve been doing this stuff, and I’ve been watching it just like you have, and I’ve been involved with it as you are, I’ve never seen anything worse than the, or more embarrassing, than what we did with Afghanistan. We lost soldiers, by the way, many, many very severely wounded that nobody even talks about, we left hostages. We left American citizens behind. We left $85 billion dollars’ worth of brand-new beautiful equipment, much of it behind. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. And I had that so perfect. Every screw, every nail, every bolt was going to be taken out. Every tank, we would have taken everything. We were even taking down the hangars. And we were keeping Bagram not because of Afghanistan. You know, it was billions of dollars to build it. We were keeping it because it’s one hour from the Chinese nuclear plant.”

Yes, a picture book. With such rhetorical prowess, it is a disappointment that there wouldn’t be more insights from our former dear leader.

Hewitt said to Trump: “I think you’re going to run again. I think you’re going to win.”

And this is after Trump made it clear how he views leadership: “I get along with him [Putin], and I got along with Xi great. I got along with all of them. I get along with Kim Jong-un. The ones I didn’t get along with were the weak ones. The weak ones, I didn’t get along with.”

MAGA?

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What should liberals make of the Capitol Hill tiff between House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO)? Pundit Eric Blair argues that Democrats shouldn’t count on the discord between Trump loyalists and traditional Republicans in “McCarthy’s Problems Are Not an Opportunity for Democrats.”

You’ll find Eric’s comments by scrolling down this page below Monday’s News & Notes.

We welcome your comments, too, on the Supreme Court oral arguments on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, regarding Mississippi’s legislation prohibiting abortions at 15 weeks, and the question of whether Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey will be, or should be, overturned. 

To submit your civil comments on these and other issues discussed in The Hustings please click the “comments” button, or email us at editors@thehustings.news. Help us create a new kind of social news media.

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WED 12/8/21

•A homeless man has been charged with arson for allegedly setting fire to the 50-foot “All-American Christmas Tree” on Fox News’ New York City headquarters early Wednesday, Politico says.

•After 16 years leading Germany, Angela Merkel has handed over control of the nation’s parliament to Olaf Scholz, who leads a three-party coalition.

•Pfizer says its two-shot vaccination appears to be less effective against the omicron variant of COVID-19, based on studies by South African scientists and Pfizer, but a third shot may be more effective (WaPo). Meanwhile, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, says the omicron variant may spread more quickly but is likely less severe.

•Instagram chief Adam Mosseri faces the Senate Commerce Committee’s consumer protection panel today over possible harm to teens from its photo-sharing social media app (NPR).

Convoluted Procedures Look to Avoid Federal Shutdown – Congress is on its way to a debt-limit increase over the current $28.9 trillion, to an amount to be determined later, presumably after a confusing set of procedures moves the legislation on to the Senate Thursday. This is from reports in The Hill as well as Roll Call. The procedural trick is that the Senate will be limited to 10 hours debate on raising the debt limit, thus allowing Democrats to pass the increase with a simple majority vote. 

Congress has until December 15, one week from today, to raise the debt limit in order to avoid a government shutdown, based on Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin’s estimates. 

Republicans, remember, are resistant to taking on additional federal debt (see the next item on the 2022 defense bill, which will reach the Senate $25 billion higher than President Biden’s budget request). Under this compromise on the debt limit, 10 Republican senators will help advance a bill that blocks Medicare cuts.

•••

House Passes Defense Bill – The House passed a compromise version of the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act Tuesday with a price tag of $768.1 billion, $25 billion more than President Biden had proposed, according to The Hill. As a result, 51 Democrats joined 19 Republicans in voting against the bill, with 363 House members from both parties voting in favor. The defense bill, which is expected to head to the Senate next week, includes a $740 billion base budget, $27.8 billion for nuclear weaponry and $368 million for defense-related spending in other federal departments. 

Note: Now go home for the holidays. Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-WV) does not want to take up Build Back Better legislation until next year, so there’s no reason for Democrats to insist on lingering around the Capitol until the Senate takes it up again.

•••

Biden in Video Faceoff with Putin – President Biden spent more than two hours in a video conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday, warning him of economic and political sanctions if his military’s troops continue to move aggressively on Ukraine. Putin says the Russian troops are assembling on his country’s own land, and he wants to prevent NATO from moving east and recruiting Ukraine as a member. Some experts doubt Putin is being so obvious as to signal moves to repeat Russia’s invasion of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.

•••

As the Insurrection Turns – Latest on the House select committee’s investigation into the January 6 Capitol insurrection is that Roger Stone, former political consultant to Donald J. Trump, plans to plead the 5^th Amendment in his testimony, while fellow former Trump associate Stephen K. Bannon’s contempt of Congress trial is set for July.

Prosecutors had proposed “swift justice” in the form of a one-day trial in April for Bannon’s two contempt charges. Bannon’s defense attorneys countered by asking for a 10-day trial in October, just in time for the provocateur to rally pro-Trump voters for the November mid-terms.

Note: Bannon’s antics and Stone’s unusual choice not to talk about himself may be moot. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), as one of nine Congress members on the committee, says the panel has amassed a lot of useful written material to move forward (per MSNBC’s The Eleventh Hour).

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Charles Dervarics

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TUE 12/7/21

•Former President Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has rescinded his decision to cooperate with the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection. Meadows’ attorney, George Terwilliger, objected to the committee’s issuing of “wide ranging subpoenas of information from a third party communications provider,” in a letter to the panel obtained by CNN.

•President Biden will warn President Vladimir Putin in a special videoconference between the two leaders today that if Russia moves to invade Ukraine it will face serious sanctions (NPR).

•The U.S. will hold a diplomatic boycott against China over human rights violations, for the Beijing Winter Olympics in February. American athletes will be permitted to attend the games (WaPo).

•New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has issued a strict COVID-19 vaccine mandate affecting all employers in Manhattan. But the mandate does not take effect until December 27, four days before Mayor-elect Eric Adams replaces de Blasio. A spokesperson for Adams says he “would evaluate the measure once he is mayor.” (NYT)

•Former Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS), who died Sunday, will lie in state Thursday in the Capitol Rotunda (Roll Call). Further funeral arrangements are yet to be announced.

Tweet This: Nunes to Leave House – Donald J. Trump acolyte Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) is retiring from the House of Representatives next month, leaving a whole year on his current term to become CEO of the former president’s new SPAC-funded media and technology group, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. The Trump Media & Technology Group plans a rival to social media such as Twitter – from which Trump has been banned since before he left the White House – thus allowing him to spew out various covfefe on an hourly basis again, but this time without critical responses from Democrats and never-Trumper conservatives.

Note:  The former president has allegedly raised more than $1 billion for his new venture through a “special purpose acquisition company” publicly created to merge with another company for a quicker stock exchange listing versus an IPO. The Securities & Exchange Commission is looking into whether the SPAC’s managers had any material discussions with Trump Media, which is a no-no, according to public radio’s Marketplace.

Comment of the Day: In his statement about leaving Congress (suddenly, it seems), a place he’s been since 2002, Nunes wrote:

“The time has come to reopen the Internet and allow for the free flow of ideas and expression without censorship.” (Per Politico.)

Apparently Nunes is referring to the fact that Trump had his social media privileges lifted by the like of Twitter and Facebook for, well, lying.

There are some 221.6 million U.S. Facebook users. There are some 77.75 million Twitter users.

Seems like (a) the Internet isn’t closed (didn’t we just all shop on CyberMonday?) and (b) there is a hell of a lot of flow coursing through the cloud.

Nunes continued, “The United States of American made the dream of the Internet a reality and it will be an American company that restores the dream.”

While we know he is referring to TM&TG, given the former president’s epic fails social-media-wise since being banned, Nunes may be dreaming.

•••

Justice Dept. to Texas: About Those Electoral Maps – The Justice Department is suing Texas over electoral maps that were drawn in the wake of the 2020 U.S. Census, in which the state gains two Congressional districts, but with no consideration of Black or Latino voters, minorities that account for 95% of Texas’ population growth in the last decade (per The Guardian). 

Vanita Gupta, the third-ranking official in the U.S. Department of Justice, says some of Texas’ districts were drawn with “discriminatory intent.”

That’s important because the Justice Department must show such intent in striking down the new maps. Gerrymandering is allowed, so such intent won’t do. The new maps give the GOP hold on 25 of 38 U.S. Congressional districts and on a majority of the state legislature’s seats, The Guardian says. 

•••

Tesla CEO Slams Biden EV Incentives – Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, criticized President Biden’s plans to spur electric vehicle adoption, including provisions in the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better plan providing incentives for consumers’ purchases of EVs, in a video interview for The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit Monday. Musk also said federal funding in the bipartisan infrastructure bill for EV infrastructure recharging is “unnecessary.”

“Do we need support for gas stations? We don’t. Delete it,” Musk said.

Note: Not enough time to get into how much the federal government has done for Big Oil over the last 125 years or so, but Musk has some interest in EV recharging, as Tesla has dotted the North American landscape with Super Chargers, which are recharging stations with connectors that work on its own cars, but not any other brand of EV. Tesla also has made much of its revenue over the last decade from selling California zero-emissions vehicle credits to major automakers in exchange for selling internal combustion-powered vehicles in the state.

--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods

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MON 12/6/21

•Congress is scheduled to take up the budget for national defense, and the debt limit this week (Punchbowl News). Treasury Sec. Janet Yellin says the government has until next week Wednesday to lift the debt limit to avoid default, but if all goes right (heh) both chambers are scheduled to begin holiday recess after Friday.

•Anyone traveling to the U.S. beginning today, including American citizens, must show a negative coronavirus test taken within a day of travel to enter the country (WaPo).

•Scroll down to read our home page debate on Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), and their fight with Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and his campaign to become House speaker after the 2022 midterms. Send your comments to editors@thehustings.news.

Georgia’s Political Mind – Much has been made about the political divide between blue cities and red countryside in Texas and California, but for the November 2022 elections, Georgia will be front and center again. Former President Trump is “primarying” incumbent Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, R, with former senator David Perdue -- cousin of the former president’s Agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue -- who has announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. If Perdue beats Kemp, he likely will face Stacey Abrams, who late last week announced her candidacy for the governor’s race as a Democrat – consider her a shoo-in for her party’s nod next year.

Abrams narrowly lost the 2018 race against Kemp – he’s the incumbent, remember – and went on to lead the runoff campaigns of Georgia Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, who won in January to give the party its veep-tie-breaker-thin majority over the GOP in the Senate. Ossoff, in fact, beat David Perdue in part because Trump, defeated two months earlier in his re-election bid, told his MAGA followers not to bother with a “fixed” runoff anyway.

Last February David Perdue filed papers to run against Sen. Warnock in 2022, as his seat filled in the final two years of Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson’s term. Isakson stepped down due to health issues. Gov. Kemp appointed Kelly Loeffler, former owner of the Atlanta Dream, of the Women’s National Basketball Association, as Isakson’s replacement. Loeffler claimed a “100%” pro-Trump voting record for the year she served as Georgia’s junior senator. 

Anyway, after filing paperwork to challenge Warnock, the first Black U.S. senator from Georgia, he decided not to run for the seat. Trump’s man for that midterm primary is 1982 Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker. Still with us?

Challenging All the Best People: What seems like a golden opportunity for Abrams and the Democratic Party also is yet the latest, probably biggest, test of Trump v. what remains of the traditional wing of the GOP. It’s also a test of strict new state voters’ laws implemented by the state’s legislatures over trumped-up allegations of “voter irregularities” after the ex-president’s loss of Georgia’s Electoral College votes to Joe Biden. 

Could come down to 11,780 votes, again.

•••

Rising Inflation Fears Push Fed Policy – Federal Reserve officials are making plans to accelerate the wind-down of its bond-buying stimulus program to begin raising interest rates by next spring, The Wall Street Journal reports. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell had previously indicated bond-buying would end next June, but the supply v. demand balance clearly isn’t balancing out as delta and omicron variants of the coronavirus rage on.

•••

Predictable Outcome – Counties in the U.S. in which a majority voted for Donald J. Trump for president last November are nearly three-times as likely to die from COVID-19 than counties that voted for Joe Biden, NPR reports in an investigation based on election data. The bigger the margin for ex-president Trump, the higher the death rate, according to NPR’s Morning Edition.

•••

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole Has Died – Former Sen. Bob Dole, Republican from Kansas who became the only candidate to lose campaigns for both president, in 1996, and vice president, in 1976, has died, age 98. Dole served as both majority leader, and minority leader of the Senate for 11 years combined, until his retirement in 1996 following his loss to Bill Clinton. 

Dole was the last presidential candidate who was a World War II veteran. He was “left for dead” on a WWII battlefield, and lost the use of his right arm as an Army soldier, according to The New York Times’ obituary. 

President Biden, whose senate career overlapped Dole’s over 23 years, called him “An American statesman like few in our history. A war hero and among the greatest of the Greatest Generation.”

Known for bi-partisan comity, though with a fierce and sometimes cutting sense of humor, Dole served in the House from 1961 to 1969, and the Senate from 1969 to 1996. He became a Capitol Hill lobbyist following his Senate retirement.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash

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What should conservatives make of the Capitol Hill tiff between House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO)? Pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay dissects the minority leader’s curriculum vitae and his political character in “The Authentic Shallowness of Kevin McCarthy." 

You’ll find Stephen’s comments by scrolling down this page below Monday’s News & Notes.

We welcome your comments, too, on the Supreme Court oral arguments on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, regarding Mississippi’s legislation prohibiting abortions at 15 weeks, and the question of whether Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey will be, or should be, overturned.

To submit your civil comments on these and other issues discussed in The Hustings please click the “comments” button, or email us at editors@thehustings.news. Help us create a new kind of social news media.

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By Eric Blair

The current internal turmoil plaguing the Republican Party on the House side of the U.S. Capitol is as entertaining as a symphony played on a chalkboard by fingernails as the orchestra. Democrats would be wise to keep the popcorn in the pantry and resist any reflexive schadenfreude or hopes of redemption from what will be a brutal, toxic gauntlet to the midterms next November.

At first blush, the word indiscipline, would appear an apt description for the House GOP Caucus. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has supplanted her equally media thirsty colleague, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) for this week’s outrageous GOP’er. Boebert, whose non-apology to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for Islamophobic remarks based on an incident inside a House office building elevator, escaped any public condemnation or rebuke from most of her party peers, and certainly met a similar silence from House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

Ever ready to twiddle her thumbs on Twitter, Greene demonstrated an unflinching, unsurprising allegiance to fellow zealot Boebert by endorsing her defiance in apologizing for Boebert’s anti-Muslim comments, and even found time to throw under the bus a fellow Republican sister, Rep. Nancy Mace. The latter’s crime? Daring to criticize Boebert’s blatant bigotry. Greene, too, has stayed clear of McCarthy’s reproval, despite the now cannibalistic display of Republican-on-Republican crime. Perhaps Oscar Wilde would comment by saying that to ignore slurs against a Dem would be seen as forgivable; to ignore slurs against one’s own party member would be sheer cowardice. But why the fear for the man who aspires to be speaker of the House?

Ronald Reagan is attributed with the GOP’s 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican. But Bonzo has been put to bed, and the 12th Commandment is now: Thou Shalt Worship at the Altar of Mar-a-Lago.

McCarthy realizes that former President Donald Trump is the Republican Party, and all roads lead through West Palm Beach. Thus, his frequent sojourns to kiss the ring – and body parts -- of 45. All hope that Kevin McCarthy had experienced an epiphany on January 6, 2021, when he emphatically blamed Trump for encouraging and instigating the treasonous insurrection is long gone. The Svengali in silk tie holds the strings over McCarthy in ways Don Corleone could only fantasize. Could the House minority leader be kowtowing to Trump to do his bidding if 45 tries for 47 in 2024? Or is he worried Trump might run for speaker himself, an idea intimated by some of Trump’s staunchest Stygians in claiming that McCarthy lacks the votes to be Speaker if the Republicans retake the House in 2022?

It is doubtful that the Greenes and Boeberts can hold hostage enough seats to prevent McCarthy from becoming Speaker, as no GOPer would ever want to give Pelosi another two years with the gavel. But the anxiety that McCarthy has in upsetting Trump or his Congressional peons is real and reified by an ironic lack of leadership and concern for the integrity of the institution.

As the GOP lurches further and further toward fascism and the cult of Trump, Dems cannot rely upon disillusioned Republicans staying home or coming over to the Blue Side come November. A party that professes inclusiveness is having enough of a time securing its own purported big tent, as recent debates around the infrastructure bill have indicated. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wishes to stay Speaker, she needs to tighten the messaging, both of her own caucus as well as what the Democratic Party really represents and how that could appeal to Republicans who are soft on party affiliation and strong on good policy and platform. 

No one respects a cuckold, especially one who aspires to be the speaker of the House of Representatives, third in line of succession to the presidency of the most powerful country in the world. But McCarthy is playing with fire and Democrats would be deluded into thinking they have the extinguisher in their hands. His apparent impotence is not enough for the House Dems to think they can stay in power beyond 2022. They must be prepared for, and driven by the fear of, two doomsday scenarios: Trump as House speaker himself or McCarthy as speaker geisha beholden to the man from Mar-a-Lago.

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Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news

By Stephen Macaulay

In the center of the homepage for Kevin McCarthy (“Representing California’s 23^rd District”) there is text reading “Constituent Services” and five hot-linked buttons below it.  And the central button, arguably one of the most important positions on the page, underscores what the House Minority Leader is all about.

The other four are “Agency Help” (a laudable service that a Congress member should perform for his constituents, which he deftly deflects, “My staff is dedicated to helping you with matters relating to federal pensions, immigration problems, federal income taxes, military benefits, Social Security claims, Medicare, veterans benefits and other matters.” — yes, let the underlings do it); “Flag Services” (which bizarrely includes a photo of “Congressman McCarthy at the top of Mt. Whitney, 2013”; admittedly Mt. Whitney is the tallest peak in California, but it is a three-hour drive from Bakersfield, where McCarthy is ostensibly based. He is holding a flag in the photo.); “Veterans Services” (which should be one of the most important services as all for those who have served, but oddly there is a bulleted list of 10 items, five of which are links to the sites of the branches of the military, one a link to a news release on the IRS website, another a link to military.com, which is a site owned by Monster (yes, the job-search company)); and just three that are links to deeper pages in the McCarthy site; and “Contact Me” (“Regrettably, I am unable to reply to any email from constituents outside of the district.” Perhaps busy making calls to sad excuses for Republican House members).

The one in the middle: “Tours and Tickets.”

That’s right: looking for a little entertainment? McCarthy is your guy. He offers “tours of the U.S. Capitol, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the National Cathedral, Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House. 

McCarthy is the kind of guy who he would seem to be against: Life-long pol. The graduate of California State University, Bakersfield (BS, marketing, 1989; MBA, 1994), McCarthy began his career as an aide to a congressman, from 1987 to 2002. In 2000 he was elected a trustee of the Kern Community College District. In 2002 he was elected to the California State Assembly. Then he was elected to the U.S. House in 2006.

He hasn’t looked back, since.

What he has done is apparently whatever it takes to advance his political standing, even if this means seeming not to believe in things like truth, honor, fidelity.

Bakersfield is the home of a genre of music that’s known as the “Bakersfield Sound,” a type of country music with raw authenticity.

Hard to imagine that Kevin McCarthy could come from there as he’s the opposite of authentic.

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Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news

We welcome your comments on the Supreme Court oral arguments on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, regarding Mississippi’s legislation prohibiting abortions at 15 weeks, and the question of whether Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey will be, or should be, overturned.

We understand that not all liberals and pro-choice, and not all conservatives are pro-life. No matter your position on abortion, please include a note indicating whether you want your comments to appear in the left column, or the right column.

To submit your civil comments, please click the “comments” button, or email us at editors@thehustings.news. Help us create a new kind of social news media.

_____

We welcome your comments on the Supreme Court oral arguments on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, regarding Mississippi’s legislation prohibiting abortions at 15 weeks, and the question of whether Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey will be, or should be, overturned.

We understand that not all liberals and pro-choice, and not all conservatives are pro-life. No matter your position on abortion, please include a note indicating whether you want your comments to appear in the left column, or the right column.

To submit your civil comments, please click the “comments” button, or email us at editors@thehustings.news. Help us create a new kind of social news media.

_____

First the delta variant of COVID-19 disrupted President Biden’s progress in trying to get Americans vaccinated and fully re-open the economy, which he ran on as his chief priority. Now there’s the omicron variant that threatens yet another severe setback against ending the pandemic. Considering how politicized vaccinations, masking and social distancing already is, can the White House develop any policy that will work?

We want to hear from you, for comments in this column if you identify as a liberal. Click on the comments tab to enter your opinion or email us at editors@thehustings.news.

Also in this column …

•The $1.75 trillion Build Back Better social infrastructure bill, HR 5376, passed by the House of Representatives just before the chamber took its Thanksgiving week recess, now proceeds to the Senate, where West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin III wants to hold off on a vote until January. 

•Our flash debate on the question of whether the January 6 Capitol insurrection was “dress rehearsal” for the 2024 presidential election.

•Observations by Stephen Macaulay and Bryan Williams on Republican Glenn Youngkin’s Virginia gubernatorial election victory.

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Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news

Personal responsibility to the greater social need and common sense toward public health issues trump personal liberties, as far as traditional conservatives who are not part of the current GOP power structure, are concerned. What are these conservatives in for now that the omicron strain of the COVID-19 virus threatens a return to business shutdowns, international travel restrictions and other social considerations that had seemed to be “behind us”?

We want to hear from you, for comments in this column if you identify as a conservative. Click on the comments tab to enter your opinion, or email us at editors@thehustings.news.

Also in this column …

 •The $1.75 trillion Build Back Better social infrastructure bill, HR 5376, passed by the House of Representatives just before the chamber took its Thanksgiving week recess. The bill now proceeds to the Senate, which could vote on it as early as December, but more likely January. The bill now proceeds to the Senate, where West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin III wants to hold off on a vote until January. 

•Our flash debate on the question of whether the January 6 Capitol insurrection was “dress rehearsal” for the 2024 presidential election.

•Observations by Stephen Macaulay and Bryan Williams on Republican Glenn Youngkin’s Virginia gubernatorial election victory.

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Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news