Tag: Capitol Hill

Bipartisan Support, Except for MAGA

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s plea for continued financial and military aid for his country’s defense from Russia was met with complete bipartisan support on Capitol Hill – almost. Then there are the MAGA Republicans, whose blatant backing of Vladmir Putin underscores their leader Donald J. Trump’s allegiance to the Russian dictator. 

Retiring Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) called out two MAGA Republicans on Twitter: “I couldn’t imagine looking at myself in the mirror if I was @mattgaetz or @laurenboebert. Smugly sat on their hands while history was made and a real hero addressed us. Imagine caring more about performance art than real human issues.”

Conversely, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) tweeted, “No more blank checks to Ukraine,” echoing would-be future House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who repeated his opposition to “blank checks” after calling Zelenskyy’s address, “Good speech.” (Washington Examiner.)

New York’s Daily News reports that Twitter deleted a tweet by Donald Trump Jr. with a faked picture of a naked Hunter Biden and calling Zelenskyy a “welfare queen.” The irony of Donald Trump Sr. withholding aid to Ukraine three years ago after a “perfect phone call” from which Zelenskyy declined to “investigate” Hunter Biden apparently was lost on Jr. 

But in the Senate, Republican support appeared more solid, far-less MAGA, with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell backing the $45-billion package for Ukraine included in the omnibus budget passed Thursday. 

And Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) tweeted: “Gr8 to be present for historic Zelenskyy speech Americans & Ukrainians partners for democracy Zelenskyy made that very clear.”

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

_____

Impeach Biden?

Impeachment Talk – Bumper sticker began to appear on cars parked near Capitol Hill by January 21, 1993: “Impeach Clinton.” Yes, the bumper sticker referred to the newly inaugurated president, William Jefferson Clinton, who as it turned out would be impeached nearly six years later. 

Twenty-plus years earlier, “impeach” became a household word in this country -- a word that took on extra meaning during Donald J. Trump's two impeachments -- and so it’s not surprising that the word comes up from hardcore members of the opposition party to any president in his (or her, if/when that happens) first term. 

In his CNN newsletter, The Point! Thursday, Chris Cilizza writes, “Republicans are already talking about it.” This assumes, of course, that the GOP will gain the majority in the House next year, and maybe the Senate, which Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) admits could go four votes either way (and not enough to overcome filibusters). 

Cilizza says Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) made a little-noted statement on NBC News’ Meet the Press last Sunday that should get much more attention. 

“I believe there’s pressure on the Republicans to push that forward and have that vote,” she told Chuck Todd.

--TL

_____

An Appeal to Reason, and Reasonable Gun Control

By Andrew Boyd

First off, I’d like to suggest we set aside absolutism in order to have a meaningful discussion around gun rights. There are few if any ways in which appeal to absolute rights are useful. We have the right to free speech, but it has its limitations, most notably the incitement of violence. I have some problems with that one, in that speech of one does not equate to action of another, and people with agency (that is, people), are responsible for their actions as individuals, but I can understand the argument for such a constraint. Collectivism or socialism is another hot one. In reality, we practice collectivism in many areas of law, regulation and economic cooperation. The argument revolves around how much collectivism and at what cost to liberty.

Such is the debate around gun control. Few people will argue that the Second Amendment prevents the government, the collective, from placing constraints on the individual. You can’t own a tank, a missile, a bazooka, or a mortar. These are arms, but not something that, collectively, we feel would be of net benefit to the polity in the hands of private citizens. So, the right to bear arms does not appear to be absolute as we practice it today.

Second, let’s abolish terms that serve no purpose but to obfuscate, namely “military-style assault weapons.” No one has ever made a reasonable attempt to define these terms. An AR-15 is a military-style weapon in aesthetics only. It’s one of hundreds of types of semi-automatic long rifles that offer the same levels of lethality to the user, regardless of their appearance. It does not have selectable burst or fully-automatic fire, as does an M-14 military rifle. If you want to ban the AR-15 on any objective standard, you’re banning all semi-auto long rifles. If that’s your poison, so be it. A bolt-action rifle is plenty good for hunting. What about semi-automatic single action handguns, whose lethality is not so much different given a bullet of similar caliber? Yes, less velocity and long-range accuracy, but more easily concealed. 

What about capacity, then? We can decide on capacity limits as a function of lethality, which seems not all that intrusive to me. Six, eight, 10? Somewhere in there is fine with me. My line, as pertains to 2A, is my capacity to mount a defense against a home invader. My Glock 17 with single stack magazine, holding eight rounds, and the capacity to exchange magazines with relative alacrity is sufficient to me, as is my Remington 12-gauge shotgun with a seven-shell capacity. 

As to the rules for buying a gun, I’m all for criminal background checks and the closing of any loopholes that allow the avoidance of same. And if you want a federal gun registry, that also doesn’t seem all that unreasonable to me. I’ll go further and suggest it wouldn’t be a terrible thing for someone purchasing a gun to have demonstrated some level of proficiency in handling, safety and use, much like we require with a driver’s license. 

Will any of that substantially reduced incidents of gun violence? I don’t think so. Will it reduce the capacity of individuals to protect themselves and their property? Also, not substantially to my mind. So, will it have changed anything? I’m afraid not, but I’m prepared to accept these as reasonable constraints on my Second Amendment rights. Is that enough from the leftist perspective? I can’t really answer that definitively, but I suspect that what the left is really aiming for is the complete abolishment of guns held legally, and that I feel is only giving criminals greater freedom to steal, rape, maim and kill.

Add in defund or defang the police, unsubstantiated claims of systemic and widespread racial animus in policing, and the selective application of red-letter law, as I believe we’re seeing now in the investigative and prosecutorial actions of law enforcement with respect to the awful, terrible January 6 Capitol Hill incursion and the BLM/Antifa summer of mayhem, and you’re getting perilously close to a hill I’m prepared to die on.

Leftists must decide on what principals they stand, as must we all.

_____
Email comments to editors@thehustings.news

Biden to the Rescue?

By Todd Lassa

President-elect Biden is ready to test the mettle of his party’s wafer-thin majorities in the House and Senate with his $1.9-trillion coronavirus American Rescue Plan. Key feature of the plan is $1,400 in stimulus payments to complement the $600 mailed out late last year, thus matching the $2,000 President Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought. 

In campaigning for Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossof in their successful January 6 Georgia runoff races for U.S. Senate, Biden suggested that it would take their victories, which give the party a 50-50 count plus Vice President-elect Harris’ tiebreaker, to pass the additional $1,400 stimulus checks. The Trump administration 2017 tax cuts and last March’s $2.2-trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the largest stimulus package in U.S. history, pushed the federal deficit to record levels. Now Republicans on Capitol Hill are starting to move back to their more traditional model fiscal responsibility and opposing such large deficits. 

After details of The American Rescue Plan (or TARP, which recalls the Targeted Asset Relief Program of the Bush 43 and Obama administrations in response to the 2008 credit crisis) were released, The Wall Street Journal suggested in a Friday morning story that Biden’s proposal, along with a 0.7% drop in December retail sales, were to blame for a decrease in stock market averages. But the story quoted one analyst as suggesting that the market was expecting a larger dollar amount that would better stimulate the economy as vaccinations continued across the country and the economy started opening up. 

Conversely, critics of the CARES Act and the short-term extension passed by Congress just before the New Year say the stimulus funds, when distributed to Americans who need it most, were being saved rather than spent (the objective of the payments is to help generate commerce) as they feared for their future employment. 

In addition to direct payments for individuals, Biden’s TARP proposes an additional $400 per week in unemployment insurance supplement through September, expanded paid leave and increases in the child tax credit. About half the package would be claimed by household costs. 

There is $20-billion for national vaccination centers across the U.S., open to anyone living here regardless of immigration status, with the goal of reopening public shools by May 1, within Biden’s first 100 days. Most of the rest of the remaining $950-billion or so would pay for relief to state and local governments, which have suffered severe tax revenue declines due to small business failures and higher unemployment, and to vaccine distribution, including the national centers. 

“If we invest now boldly, smartly and with unwavering focus on American workers and families, we will strengthen our economy, reduce inequity and put our nation’s long-term finances on the most sustainable course,” Biden said Thursday evening (AP). 

Deaths globally from the coronavirus pandemic topped 2 million on Friday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. death toll accounts for nearly one-fifth of that, now close to 400,000.

—–
Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

GOP faces Faustian bargain with Trump supporters

By Todd Lassa

Before the presidential inauguration of Joseph R. Biden, the party structure and big business supporters of the Republican candidate who earned the most votes in U.S. election history are rather suddenly fleeing their erstwhile party leader, President Donald J. Trump. The answer to the question of whether Trump and his family maintain at least some control over the GOP through 2024, when the president has indicated he may run for a second term, appears to have shifted quickly in the days following the pro-Trump insurrection on Capitol Hill. 

It has affected the future of the Trump family’s businesses. On Tuesday, The Trump Organization’s biggest lender, Deutsche Bank, announced it was cutting ties with both the outgoing president and his business interests, Politico reports, quoting “a person familiar with the matter.” Trump owes the bank more than $300 million, Politico says.

In addition, the political news website reports that New York Signature Bank is closing Trump’s personal accounts and has called for his resignation ahead of January 20. The bank plans to “no longer do business” with members who voted against Congress’ certification of President-elect Biden’s Electoral College victory of 306 to 232.

Meanwhile, at least 10 big businesses say they will withhold contributions to those same Republican senators and members of the House of Representatives, including health insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield, which has contributed more to Republicans than Democrats in every election since 1996, according to reports. Others withholding GOP contributions include American Express, MasterCard, Dow Chemical Company and Hallmark. 

BlackHawk, Goldman Sachs, Facebook and Google all will pause political contributions to both parties. 

On Monday, John R. Bolton, Trump’s national security advisor from April 2018 to September 2019, in an interview with MSNBC’s Katy Tur called on the GOP to “purge the taint of Trumpism.” 

Also Monday, Trump’s approval rating fell to a record low for presidential approval ratings, of 33% in the Quinnipiac poll, with 56% of respondents holding him responsible for the Capitol insurrection. This raises the question of what portion of the 74.3 million Americans who voted for Trump last November 3 still support the president after the Capitol Hill riots – and what portion are the type of supporters who would participate in such riots. 

Before the House’s vote on Trump's second impeachment Wednesday, a report in The New York Times and from other outlets said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, would leave it up to his fellow Senate Republicans whether or not to vote for Trump’s conviction. McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, resigned her cabinet post as Trump’s Transportation secretary early in the month.

This slippage in support counters conventional wisdom that Trump-style populism will continue to dominate the Republican Party, which, after Mitt Romney’s loss to incumbent President Obama in 2012, conducted an election “autopsy” to figure out how to adapt a big-tent constituency as the white majority continued to shrink below 50% of the nation’s voting population. 

Even if Trump and his family, especially son Donald Jr. and daughter Ivanka, fade from GOP favor between now and the 2022 midterm elections, several pro-Trump Republicans are poised to make a run for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri face potential discipline for their votes against the Electoral College certification, but Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is still in the running. Moderate Republicans considered 2024 candidates include Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Maryland Governor Larry Hogan. 

No matter what happens, the traditional Republican issues of tax cuts, small government and minimal regulation will thrive, just as they did under President Trump.

So … what’s next for the GOP? Can it, and should it, purge the Trump family and undermine the power of Trump’s acolytes on Capitol Hill, or should the Republican Party embrace his hard-boiled populism to build on his loyal base?

—–
Please address comments to editors@thehustings.news

Trump Must Resign

By Bryan Williams

Since the release of the smart phone upon the world in the latter half of the first decade of the 21st Century, our collective societal will to have patience has been nearly eliminated. These Internet connected devices have allowed for instantaneous communication, instantaneous transfer of money across the world, and food delivered to our door within an hour. Our political and governmental machinations have not caught up. They are still painstakingly slow. That it takes two and half months between a presidential election and the inauguration of the next president is enough to make us tear our hair out (and have enough time to order a wig on Amazon to be delivered within two days).

Let me be clear: Any admiration I had for President Trump is now gone. He must go. But how? It is agonizing to think he has (as of my writing this) 291 hours left in his presidency before Joe Biden is sworn in. How do we wait that long?

Many have said Vice President Pence and the Cabinet should invoke the 25th Amendment. Cabinet secretaries are dropping like flies with resignations over Wednesday's chaos, so soon there may not even be enough of a Cabinet left to invoke the 25th. But even if there were, in my opinion, this would be the wrong course of action. The 25th Amendment is to be used when the president is physically or mentally incapacitated. Working in the mental health field as I do, I can tell you it would be a stretch to declare Trump mentally incapacitated. Trump is mentally capable of doing many things. He is of sound mind. The problem is, he just won't do what is right. We should not degrade the 25th Amendment even though it would be tempting to do so, and I believe, could be up to legal challenge in this case.

How about impeachment by Congress? This is most attractive and should be undertaken even if there is not enough time considering how slow this process is. At the very least Congress should censure Trump.

What should happen is for Trump to resign and let Pence be our President for the balance of the remaining 291 hours. But we all know he won't. Trump is going to ride this horse until its time is up on January 20th at 11:59AM EST.

So the rest of us here in America have to be adults and have a little patience - 291 hours isn't so bad, is it?

—–

Democrats Take the Senate and Manchin Becomes Big Man on Capitol Hill

By Todd Lassa

Democrat Joe Manchin III of West Virginia was trending on Twitter late Tuesday night as the most important Senator, even before urban precinct ballot counts in Georgia’s Senate runoff elections had begun to flip the fortunes of Democratic challengers Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff as cable news networks eagerly awaited results after polls closed. Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and Ossoff decisively beat two Republican incumbents, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. 

Manchin is a Democrat who has served deep red West Virginia in the Senate for 10 years and now has the potential to become to his party what Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, has been to the GOP, although more so. Sitting in the late centrist-Democrat Robert C. Byrd’s seat, Manchin becomes a true swing vote, likely to defeat along with 50 Republican Senate bills that come from the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren wing of the Senate as well as those that come up from “The Squad” wing of the House. 

The Democrats’ victories push their party to a 50-50 Senate count, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaker on votes to give the party an effective majority over Republicans. Lame duck President Trump and GOP leaders tried to paint Democratic control of the House, Senate, and White House as the road to socialist damnation. But Georgia Democrats, led by likely 2022 Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacy Abrams and aided by such groups as Black Votes Matter, turned out about 4.5 million voters total by Tuesday, many of them using mail-in ballots. Meanwhile, President Trump’s unfounded claims of voter fraud in each of the swing states he lost apparently stifled Republican turnout, and his attack specifically on Georgia’s preference for Biden almost certainly prompted many supporters to stay at home.

The Reverend Raphael Warnock says he will remain leader of the Atlanta church once pastored by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and becomes the first Black senator from Georgia, the 11th Black senator in the history of the nation and one of three in the 117th Congress, with Democrat Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Republican Tim Scott of South Carolina, as Kamala Harris moves from the Senate to the vice presidency. 

Manchin’s power on Capitol Hill ultimately depends on where the GOP goes from here, what with Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., about to be demoted to minority leader and already distancing himself from the Trump administration while attempting to warn fellow Republican senators against challenging Electoral College votes for President-elect Biden Wednesday. So far, 12 Republican senators have indicated they plan to defy McConnell and challenge the results from their respective states, including lame-duck Senator Loeffler of Georgia.

By Todd Lassa Democrat Joe Manchin III of West Virginia was trending on Twitter late Tuesday night as […]

House, Senate Stumble Toward Interim Relief

By Todd Lassa

House and Senate Republicans and Democrats are hard at work negotiating an interim, $908-billion relief package that would extend the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act past its December 26 expiration, through March 2021. Holding back Capitol Hill passage, which both chambers want as quickly as possible so everyone can go home for the Holidays, are issues of employee liability and aid to state and local governments. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., seeks a moratorium on covid-related lawsuits through 2024 and wants to drop local and state aid for governments suffering severe shortages of tax revenues, while Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, has proposed a liability shield for the current year, and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., has countered with a six-month liability moratorium for employers, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. 

As it currently stands, the bill as originated by the bi-partisan, bi-cameral Capitol Hill Problem Solvers caucus, would send $600 in relief checks to certain Americans and would supplement unemployment checks with an additional $300 per week, according to the Journal. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is fighting to double the relief checks to $1,200. 

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has proposed a $916-billion bill that would include $320 billion for small businesses and $160 billion for state and local governments. No matter what happens, combined with the CARES Act from earlier this year, the federal government has suspended, if not reversed, nearly 40 years of supply-side economics with demand-side economics.

The Problem Solvers caucus, whose leaders include Sens. Romney, Joe Manchin III, D-WVa., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, developed the short-term package after the Nov. 3 election. Reps. Tom Reed, R-N.Y., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., are co-chairs. Their bill includes $300 billion for small businesses, $180 billion for the additional unemployment benefits, $82 billion for schools, $16 billion for vaccine development, $10 billion for child care providers, a 15-percent boost in food stamp benefits, and $25 billion for rent assistance, with a moratorium on evictions through January 2021, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Please address comments to editors@thehustings.news

—–

Can Biden Work with The Squad and Centrist Republicans?

By Todd Lassa

As moderates and traditionalists continue to wrestle the Republican Party from the hands of President Trump and his most faithful populist followers, the Democratic Party is mirroring its cross-aisle rivals with a similar struggle. President-elect Joe Biden and his transition team, though hobbled by Trump’s aversion to conceding the election, are working hard to take the middle road and avoid concessions to The Squad led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., as well as voters who would rather have voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., as the Democratic Party’s nominee. 

Democrats this election season have been uncharacteristically low-key compared with the GOP about infighting between centrists and their respective hardline wings. Biden’s record 79-million-plus votes Nov. 3 certainly includes both an unknown number of centrist Republicans who never would have voted for Sanders, or for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), for that matter, as well as young Democrats who would have preferred Sanders.

But the 2020 “Blue Wave” never happened. Biden must govern from the White House with Republicans increasing their minority in the House of Representatives by at least six seats and with Senate leadership depending on Georgia’s special January runoff elections for both of its seats. Democratic candidates must win both runoffs for a 50-50 count in the Senate, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to serve as the tie-breaker. Even if that long-shot happens, Biden will face a recalcitrant Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who infamously vowed 12 years ago to make Barack Obama a one-term president and will undoubtedly lead his fellow Republican senators in key filibusters. 

Already, Capitol Hills pundits are talking about how Biden will have to rule by executive order, where he can, to reverse some of the policies that Trump is rushing to implement in his waning time as president, including efforts to begin the final process of leasing parts of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil companies. 

The future of the fossil fuel industry and potential for alternatives to gain prominence is central to both sides, of course, including traditional pro-business Republicans and Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez, who with Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., unveiled the Green New Deal shortly after she took office in early 2019. 

At presstime, President-elect Biden’s cabinet picks were beginning to emerge and they are largely considered centrists. Anthony Blinken will be nominated for secretary of state according to Bloomberg, Linda Greenfield-Thomas will be tapped for United Nations ambassador and Jake Sullivan, former aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, will be national security advisor. The Biden transition team already has confirmed that longtime advisor Ron Klain will be the 46th president’s chief of staff.

Please address comments to editors@thehustings.news

—–