Tag: Atlanta

For Martin Luther King Jr.’s Day

Sunday, the 94th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth and the day before the nation celebrates the civil rights leader, Joe Biden became the first U.S. president to deliver the Sunday sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.  Biden’s sermon came at the invitation of Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), the church’s senior pastor. 

“It’s still the task of our time to make that dream a reality because it’s not there yet,” Biden told the congregation (per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution). “To make Dr. King’s vision tangible, to match the words of the preachers and the poets with our deeds.

“On this day of commemoration, service and action, let us hold up a mirror to America and ask ourselves: What kind of country do we want to be? Will we honor Dr. King’s legacy by rising together – buttressed by each other’s successes, enriched by each other’s differences and made whole by each other’s compassion? I believe we can.”

Biden was to deliver the keynote address to the National Action Network at the civil rights group’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast Monday.

--TL

..meanwhile...

FRIDAY 1/13/23

Max Fine for Trump Organization – The Trump Organization has been fined $1.6 million over its conviction for tax fraud and other crimes involving off-the-books perquisites for top executives. A judge for the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan ordered the maximum fine, though “a pittance” to ex-President Trump’s real estate business, The New York Times reported Friday. On Tuesday, the Trump Organization’s CFO, Allen Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty in the case, was sentenced to serve five months at Rikers Island jail, which is by no means a country club prison.

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So Much for Touting Lowered CPI – President Biden tried to make Thursday about celebrating improving inflation numbers (graph above) but instead his administration spent the day playing defense over a sprawling scandal involving his holding on to government papers, some of them confidential, at his office between his vice presidency and presidency, and now his home about 100 miles northeast.

No One Messes with Biden’s Vette: And maybe that’s an explanation for why additional government documents, some of them confidential, were discovered in the car’s locked garage at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home in December, one month after about 10 confidential documents were found in the president’s office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.

No Mar-a-Lagogate … But: Biden turned over the documents to the National Archives after they were found and he did not “declassify” them with his mind. But the brewing scandal does give ex-President Trump some relief on one of his myriad scandals. 

And So, DOJ Investigation: Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland Thursday appointed former U.S. Attorney Robert K. Hur special counsel in the documents case, to investigate “extraordinary circumstances,” The Washington Post says. Hur, a Justice Department official in the Trump administration, will examine whether “any person or entity violated the law in connection with this matter,” and Garland is confident he will tackle the assignment “in an even handed and urgent matter.”

Investigation in the House: “I think Congress needs to investigate this,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), said Thursday (per PBS News Hour). “Here’s an individual that sat on 60 Minutes that was so concerned about President Trump’s documents, and now we find that this is a vice president keeping it for years out in the open in different locations.”

About That Timing: Confidential documents in the closet in Biden’s post-VP Washington office were discovered November 2, six days before the midterm elections, and the additional documents found in the garage next to his ‘67 Corvette were discovered about a month later.

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Ricketts to Senate – Republican Nebraska Gov. Jim Pullen has appointed the state’s former Republican governor, Pete Ricketts, to take retiring Sen. Ben Sasse’s seat. Sasse, a moderate Republican, left to become president of the University of Florida two years before the remainder of his term. Ricketts will have to run in 2024 if he seeks a full six-year Senate term.

--TL

...meanwhile...

THURSDAY 1/12/23

Still High, but Getting Better – The Consumer Price Index fell 0.1% in December over November, lowering the annual rate to 6.5%, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reports Thursday. New vehicle prices fell for the first time in years last month, down 0.1% for an annual rate below that of the entire CPI, at 5.9%. But gas price relief led the way, down 9.4% in December for a -1.5% annual price adjustment. 

“The index for gasoline was by far the largest contributor to the monthly all items decrease, more than offsetting increases in shelter indexes,” the BLS said. Shelter prices were up 0.8% for December, for a +7.5% annual rate.

Gas Prices Stall: The national average for unleaded regular gas was $3.272 per gallon Thursday, AAA says, still under the year-ago average of $3.301 per gallon. AAA says recent pump price spikes have stalled since the holidays.

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How About a Biopic? -- Armando Iannucci is creator-director of the television political satire Veep and the big-screen political satire The Death of Stalin. We sincerely hope he is already hard at work on a script for The George Santos Story. Wednesday New York Republican officials called on freshman Rep. George Santos (R-NY) to step down from office. Santos has declined, saying nothing he has done amounts to criminal behavior and newly gaveled House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who traded his support for Santos in exchange for Santos’ vote for speaker, told reporters that “A lot of people” including some of those in the Senate have fabricated parts of their resumes, (per the left-leaning Talking Points Memo).

“Is there a charge against him? You know, in America today, you’re innocent until proven guilty,” McCarthy added.

But Nassau County’s Republican county executive, Bruce Blakeman, counters, “I do not want to deal with someone who is a liar.” Speaking on NPR’s Morning Edition Blakeman, who is Nassau County’s first Jewish county exec said the most egregious lie Santos has told is that his parents were Holocaust survivors, which “trivializes everything the families went through.” Turns out Santos is not even Jewish, while 300,000 residents of Nassau County are. 

When NPR’s A Martinez asked Blakeman about the possibility Santos would be replaced by a Democrat if removed from office (and reduce the GOP’s already thin majority in the House), the county exec replied; “This has transcended politics. This is about good government.”

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Warnock Wins Georgia; 51-49 Senate Count

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Liz Cheney and The Great Task

(WED 8/17/22)

Expected defeat…Trump-endorsed House candidate Harriet Hageman beat incumbent Liz Cheney, 65.8% to 29.5% in Tuesday’s Wyoming GOP primary election. That’s 106,322 votes for Hageman to Cheney’s 47,615 in a state with about 580,000 residents. 

Cheney will continue to fight to keep former President Donald J. Trump from retaking the White House by running for the 2024 nomination for president, Politico, which reported those numbers above, speculates Wednesday. The three-term congresswoman, who now leaves the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection by January whether Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) becomes speaker and gets a chance to dismantle and investigate it or not, has launched The Great Task, a political action committee devoted to keeping Trump out of office, NPR reports. 

“Two years ago, I won this primary with 75% of the vote,” Cheney said in her concession speech Tuesday night (per The Guardian video). “I could easily have done the same again. The path was clear. But it would have required that I go along with President Trump’s lie about the 2020 election. …

“It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundation of our republic. That is a path I could not and would not take.

“No House seat, no office in this land is more important than the principles we were all sworn to protect and I well understood the political consequences of abiding by my duty. The primary election is over. But now the real work begins.”

Irony alert: Hageman, for her part, also nationalized the Wyoming primary for the House seat (as recorded by NBC News). 

“Wyoming has spoken on behalf of everyone across this great country who believes in the American Dream … who believes in liberty and recognizes that our natural rights; Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equal protection and due process come from God.” 

They do not come from politicians, she said, “and the government cannot take them away."

“Wyoming has spoken on behalf of everyone who is concerned that the game is becoming more and more rigged against them," she continued. "And what Wyoming has shown today is that while it cannot be easy, we can dislodge entrenched politicians who believe they have risen above the people they are supposed to represent.”

Meanwhile, in Georgia: Former Trump attorney and America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani is scheduled to testify Wednesday before a Fulton County grand jury investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results there. Giuliani is a target of the investigation.

Meanwhile, in New Hampshire: Attending a “Politics and Eggs” breakfast in the state holding the first presidential primary again in 2024, ex-Vice President Mike Pence said he would testify before the House Select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection, MSNBC’s Morning Joe reports Wednesday. His statement came in the form of an answer to a question posed at the event. 

The count, so far: Of 10 House Republicans who voted for then-President Trump’s second impeachment after the January 6 Capitol attacks, four have lost their primaries this season to pro-Trump candidates and two have won, according to the Associated Press. Three, including Cheney’s only fellow Republican on the House Select Committee, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, chose not to run for re-election. One primary race is still to be determined; Rep. John Katko’s New York seat.

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Alaska’s non-partisan ranked-preference primary … Preternatural MAGA politician and former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s shot at the state’s single, at-large House seat remains alive. Palin came in second with 32.2%, to Democrat Mary Peltola’s 34.5% and ahead of Republican Nicholas Begich’s 27.1%. A third Republican, Tara Sweeney, also advances to the general election, with her 3.2% of the vote.

Because of the ranked-preference vote, a candidate who gets more second-place votes could beat the first-place candidate. 

Alaska will determine the winner among these three for the special election to serve out the remainder of Republican Don Young’s seat, by the end of August, NPR says. (Young died in office earlier this year). Peltola, Palin, Begich and Sweeney face off in the ranked-preference general election November 8.

For U.S. Senate: Moderate Republican incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski edged Trump-endorsed Republican Kelly Tshibaka, 42.% to 41.8%, and Democrat Patricia Chesbro at 6.2%, and Republican Buzz Kelley at 2.3% to advance to the general election. The four beat 15 other candidates for the chance to compete in another ranked-preference race for the Senate seat November 8.

--Todd Lassa

...meanwhile... (TUE 8/16/22)

Tuesday’s primaries… Wyoming’s and Alaska’s primaries are quite probably Donald J. Trump’s most important so far and coincide with a resurgence of support for the former president coming a week after the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. Politico calls the Wyoming primary “Liz Cheney’s day of reckoning” as she faces Trump-endorsed challenger Harriet Hageman for the state’s at-large House seat. Cheney is about 30 points behind in the polls thanks to her voting for ex-President Trump’s second impeachment and sitting as vice chairwoman of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection, though there has been some hope that she would make up that deficit with sympathetic Democratic and independent voters in the open primary. There will not be enough.

In Alaska, preternatural Trumpian Republican Sarah Palin faces Democrat Mary Petola and Republican scion of prominent state Democratic family Nicholas Begich in a special election to replace Don Young, who died in office earlier this year. Alaska has a new ranked-preference system, which means that if no candidate gets at least 50% of the vote for the at-large House seat, the second and third rounds are counted. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski also faces Democratic and Republican challengers in the non-partisan primary for her seat (per Ballotpedia).

Upshot: Cheney could flip Tuesday’s likely loss into a serious challenge to Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

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Biden to sign Inflation Reduction Act… President Biden is scheduled to sign the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the sweeping climate change, health care and tax bill at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday. While the Congressional Budget Office estimates no effect on inflation – why should it? – for 2022 and ’23, its scoring says the reconciliation bill will reduce the federal deficit by $300 billion, NPR reports.

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Giuliani a ‘target’ in Georgia probe… Prosecutors in Georgia have informed former America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani he is a ‘target’ in its “wide-ranging” criminal investigation into election interference involving his former client as attorney, ex-President Trump, in the 2020 presidential election, The New York Times reports. A federal judge in Atlanta also has rejected Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) efforts to avoid testifying in the investigation being led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis. Graham’s attorneys say the senator has been informed he is a witness, not a target.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

We Debate the Second Amendment and Guns

By Todd Lassa

Tighter gun regulation was on President Biden’s agenda even before two mass shootings — which occurred less than a week apart -- fueled familiar rhetoric from both sides of the argument. But “gun control,” a term The New York Times editorial columnist Frank Bruni suggests should be abolished from advocates’ vocabulary, is not at the top of Biden’s priorities. The president indicated in his first press conference, March 25, that he would have to take a pragmatic approach to his agenda while dealing with a Democratic majority in the Senate so slim that his party can’t afford to lose one of its members, let alone subject bills such as the two passed in the House (one on strengthening gun licensing, the other background checks) to filibuster. 

Following the March 16 deaths of eight people at Atlanta-area massage parlors, and the March 22 deaths of 10 people at a Boulder, Colorado, supermarket, pro-regulation Democrats and Second Amendment absolutist Republicans in the Senate took to familiar arguments. 

Politicians need to “offer more than thoughts and prayers” for survivors of the mass shootings, said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL; To which Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, responded that he will not apologize for “thoughts and prayers.” 

Standard arguments come down to a pro-gun regulation side that says that better licensing and background checks could stem fatalities in what is the most heavily armed first-world country in the world, while pro-Second Amendment advocates say the problem is lack of enforcement of existing laws, and that mental health issues, and not firearms, must be better-regulated. The “slippery slope” argument that a bit of gun regulation will eventually lead to full-on bans underlies Second Amendment absolutists’ point-of-view.

While gun regulation advocates point to the “outdated” wording that the Second Amendment allows firearms for a “well regulated militia,” the other side argues that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia settled the matter in writing the majority opinion in the District of Columbia vs. Heller, in which a Washington police officer challenged a District law that would have prohibited him from keeping a gun in his own home.

The amendment’s wording “in no way connotes participation in a structured military organization,” Scalia wrote for the 5-4 majority in the 2008 ruling. 

The National Rifle Association, which usually responds to events like those in Atlanta and Boulder with a full-throated support of gun ownership,  reacted to the uproar over the latest mass shootings only by repeating, on its official Twitter account, that “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, should not be infringed.”

This time, another favorite NRA argument, that “a good guy with a gun” is the best way to solve the problem of “a bad guy with a gun” was not raised. Among the 10 victims in the Boulder supermarket shooting was Officer Eric Talley.

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