Tag: Harris

…meanwhile…

(President Biden expressed doubts ex-President Trump would accept a loss, in an interview taped for CBS Sunday Morning. Scroll down the center column for details.)

Ukraine Takes Kursk – Although not officially connected to Ukraine’s invasion of the western Russian region of Kursk, a column of Russian military vehicles and personnel “was destroyed” there, The Kyiv Independent reports Friday, citing Suspilne and the independent Russian media outlet Agentstvo. Kursk Oblast is the location of the Ukrainian military’s incursion this week into Russia. 

The report was corroborated by pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Rybar, which said that a local resident who filmed the attack handed the video over to Ukrainian media but has been arrested by Russian authorities. In the BBC’s report on the incursion, a reporter says Russian media have been unusually frank in reporting on Ukraine’s success in the region.

•••

That Mar-a-Lago Presser – Ex-President Trump’s hour-long press conference at Mar-a-Lago Thursday was “rambling and chaotic” according to NPR’s Morning Edition and by now you’ve heard the highlights. 

This one stands out: “Nobody’s spoken to crowds bigger than me. If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours – same real estate, same everything, same number of people if not – we had more.”

That’s right, Donald J. Trump was comparing the peaceful 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom to his January 6, 2021, speech at the Ellipse leading up to the attack on the US Capitol. He described his White House departure in the presser as “peaceful.”

The country is in mortal danger if Trump does not win the November 5 presidential election, he said, predicting war and a depression on the level of the Great Depression of the 1930s. 

Asked about his remarks before the National Association of Black Journalists last week suggesting that his Democratic challenger, Vice President Kamala Harris changed her ethnicity, Trump called her “very disrespectful” of both her mother’s Indian heritage and her father’s Jamaican heritage. 

Describing Harris’ appeal, Trump said; “She’s a woman. She represents certain groups of people.” (Direct quotes per The New York Times.)

--TL

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THURSDAY 8/8/24

Trump Agrees to Three Debates -- Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump announced at a "rare" Mar-a-Lago press conference that he has agreed to three debates with Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris (per Politico). They are to be on Fox News September 4, ABC on September 10 and NBC on September 25.

•••

It’s About Cars? – President Biden is pretty sure Donald J. Trump will resist defeat in the November 5 presidential election. On CBS Sunday Morning Robert Costa asks Biden if he’s “confident there will be a peaceful transition of power in January of 2025?”

“If Trump loses, no I’m not,” the president responds. “I’m not confident at all. He means what he says. We don’t take him seriously. He means it. All this stuff about if we lose it’ll be a bloodbath … Look what they’re trying to do in the local election districts where the people count the votes … putting people in place where they’re going to count the votes.”

The full interview runs Sunday morning, August 11, between 9 am and 10:30 am Eastern time. 

Republican reaction: Trump defenders say his statement earlier this year that there “will be a bloodbath” was a warning about the US auto industry if Chinese automakers are allowed importation without serious tariffs (Biden has imposed a 102.5% tariff on Chinese-built EVs). The former president’s comments came after the United Auto Workers’ leadership endorsed the Democratic ticket. 

Flashback: In the Trump-Biden debate in late June, the one that led to Biden stepping down from his re-election campaign, CNN’s Dana Bash asked Trump three times whether he will accept the results of this November’s election.

After some evasion and downplaying of his role in the January 6th attack on the US Capitol, when Bash asked; “yes or no?” on that third attempt, Trump replied, “absolutely” he would accept results if the election was “fair and good.”

NOTE: Don’t miss Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s commentary, “Letter from the President” in the right column.

•••

Reports: Ukraine Pushes Into Russia – Ukraine forces launched on Tuesday “an ambitious operation” across Russia’s western border at Kursk Oblast in large numbers,” The Kyiv Independent reports, citing a mix of sources. Officials in Kyiv have so far been silent about the offensive.

But Russia’s defense ministry says the invasion involves a Ukrainian force likely involving 100s of troops and dozens of vehicles, according to the report. A “visibly frustrated” Vladimir Putin called the offensive a “large-scale provocation” and accused Ukrainian forces of shelling residential areas, in a short, televised address on Wednesday.

The Independent reports no official announcements from Kyiv. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has spoken to his commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, and said “details would follow later.”

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

(President Biden expressed doubts ex-President Trump would accept a loss, in an interview taped for CBS Sunday Morning. […]

Harris Has the Dem Nomination

Veep Harris has the Democratic nomination for president in hand [White House photo].

Vice President Kamala Harris has secured pledges from a majority of Democratic National Convention delegates Monday night, The Washington Post reports, which means she can count on becoming her party's presidential nominee when it moves forward with a special process August 7, ahead of the convention. The DNC is scheduled to begin August 19. Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) had expressed interest in switching parties back to Democratic in order to challenge Harris, but he apparently abandoned the notion by Sunday night.

--TL

Biden Bows Out -- MONDAY 7/22/24

By Todd Lassa

The number of Democratic lawmakers who called on Joe Biden to drop his re-election campaign topped 30 on Saturday. By Sunday morning, The New York Times reported that the president, holed up in his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, summer house with what was described as a mild case of COVID would not likely make any announcement until after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington Wednesday to address Congress, “unwilling to give the premier the satisfaction given their strained relations lately over the Gaza war.”

But that speculation was old news by Sunday afternoon, when President Biden posted a letter on X-Twitter announcing his withdrawal and endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris, to lead the ticket.

Like a primary candidate running a distant second who hangs in the race too long, Biden insisted he was in it ‘till the end, until suddenly, he was not. 

Unlike the primary scenario, this leaves Harris and any potential challengers very little time to cut Biden’s name off campaign signs already printed up. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago is scheduled to begin August 19. CNN reports that the Democratic National Committee is expected to hold a “virtual” roll call between August 1 and August 7. 

Alternatively, there also has been much talk about a mini-primary process consisting of town halls, debates and other candidate forums, though this sounds rather time consuming particularly at the height of summer vacation season. The DNC could also hold either an open convention or a brokered convention August 19-22, according to Forbes.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), the first Democratic lawmaker to call on Biden to withdraw, told Wolf Blitzer on CNN Dems need to wait for other potential candidates and not rush to nominate Harris. 

Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) told Martha Raddatz on ABC News This Week Sunday morning that it was time for Biden to withdraw. After the president withdrew, Manchin told two ABC News sources he is considering re-registering as a Democrat in order to run against Harris for the nomination.

First of what will surely become one of many Republican talking points targeting the likely Harris nomination is that she essentially “lied” to the American people by not saying anything about Biden’s diminishing capabilities, which were detailed by Olivia Nuzzi in New York magazine’s Intelligencer. Suddenly, Biden’s smashing State of the Union performance last March feels like it happened ages ago

Obituary: Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee – The 15-term Democratic congresswoman serving Texas’ 18th District, including Houston, died Friday, age 74. Family did not list a cause of death, according to The New York Times, but last June Jackson Lee announced she had pancreatic cancer. Among her congressional accomplishments, Jackson Lee was the author and sponsor of legislation that in 2021 made Juneteenth a national holiday.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Trump Legal Scorecard

[CPI at 3.2% -- As some economists (and the Biden campaign) eagerly anticipate an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve sometime this year, the Consumer Price Index has ticked up to 3.2% in February, from an annual rate of 3.1% in January, the Labor Department reports. That’s the wrong direction from the Fed’s target 2% rate. The month-over-month increase was 0.4%, with shelter and gas accounting for 60% of the increase. Energy was up 2.3%, while food, and food at home, was unchanged.]

IDES OF MARCH 2024

Fulton County, Georgia – Atlanta Judge Scott McAfee ruled Friday morning that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can remain on the election interference case against Donald J. Trump, but only if her former romantic partner, Nathan Wade, withdraws from the case …

Mar-a-Lagogate – U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon appears to have handed prosecutors in the confidential documents case against Trump a win by ruling against the ex-president’s attorneys’ motion that the Espionage Act behind the indictments are “unconstitutionally vague.” However, Newsweek notes that Trump appointee Cannon instructed his attorneys in the ruling that they should bring up the “unconstitutionally vague” argument in “connection with the jury instruction briefing” …

Hush Money Case – New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg says his office is willing to delay Trump’s hush money case after receiving late evidence from the U.S. attorney’s office, to give defense attorneys sufficient time for review. The trial was scheduled to begin March 25, and may now be delayed by 30 days.

--TL

•••

The Schumer-Netanyahu Split – After Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called for new Israeli elections on π day Thursday in frustration over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intransigence on a ceasefire in Gaza, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) took to the Senate floor to “remind” Schumer that Israel is not an American colony, calling his remarks “grotesque” and “unprecedented” (per Punchbowl News).

But just as Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition continues to consider Palestinians and their Hamas “leadership” in Gaza one and the same, so too do the staunchest U.S. supporters of Netanyahu refuse to distinguish between the Israeli government and the Jewish people. This despite the fact that even before the vicious, horrible Hamas attack October 7, Netanyahu was long-resistant to a two-state solution with Palestinians in Gaza.

Meanwhile ...

Gaza's health ministry has accused Israel's military of firing on Palestinians awaiting aid in Gaza, killing 20 and injuring 150, The Guardian reports. The Israeli military denies the reports.

Influencing our November election

In trying to save his own power, Netanyahu has helped to throw the November U.S. presidential election to Donald J. Trump, and he knows it. Biden has ceded substantial votes to “uncommitted” in the Michigan and Minnesota Democratic primaries as he tries to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza in vain. 

While Biden has known Netanyahu for a very long time, going back to his time in the Senate, Trump and Netanyahu had a closer relationship during the Trump administration – until Netanyahu congratulated Biden for his victory in 2020, which of course led Trump to criticize the Israeli prime minister for his “disloyalty.”

If Netanyahu continues to reject ceasefire in Gaza (it is necessary to note that Hamas has done very little to help, either) the Israeli prime minister might very well be able to make it up to Trump by congratulating him this November.

--Analysis by Todd Lassa

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THURSDAY π Day 2024

Schumer Calls for Israeli Elections -- Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), wants Israel to hold new elections, saying its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has "lost his way" (per The Hill). "As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me: The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7," Schumer continued. "The world has changed -- radically -- since then, and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past."

•••

VP to Abortion Clinic -- Vice President Kamala Harris visits a Twin Cities, Minnesota abortion clinic Thursday, Axios reports, a first-ever such appearance by a sitting veep according to the White House. 

•••

Meanwhile, in Ft. Pierce, Florida – Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon holds a hearing Thursday morning on two of the ex-president’s requests to dismiss his 40-count federal indictment in Mar-a-Lagogate. Donald J. Trump’s attorneys claim the section of the Espionage Act accusing him of mishandling classified documents and obstructing federal officials’ attempts to get them back to the National Archives Washington is “unconstitutionally vague as applied to President Trump,” The Washington Post reports. 

Meanwhile, in Fulton County, Georgia: Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee Wednesday dismissed three of 13 counts against Trump in the election interference case (per WaPo). Prosecutors may refile the charges, however.

•••

Schumer's Watch is Slow – The Senate may take its time in taking up the House bill passed Wednesday, 352-65, that would force ByteDance to sell its U.S. interest in TikTok, or face some sort of blockage or shutdown in the country. 

“The Senate will review the legislation when it comes over from the House,” CQ Roll Call quotes Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). 

This, despite obvious House urgency for the bill sponsored by Select China committee chair Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL). 

Not on Warner's watch: From its interview with Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Semafor has a much different take on the upper-chamber's timing on the TikTok bill. "We're going into a 24-hour election cycle, where literally millions of Americans get a lot of their news from this site," said the chairman of the Senate Select committee. "And if that can be manipulated against American interests -- I don't care whether you're Democrat or Republican, that is not in America's interests."

The Trump factor: Politico reports of worry that billionaire Jeff Yass, who has a 15% stake in TikTok, has influenced Trump’s flip-flop on the issue, as he has since objected to removing the social media platform from the nation. Former Trump administration Senior Counselor Kellyanne Conway has signed on with Club for Growth to counter the push to ban TikTok on national security concerns. 

Our take: Two things. A.) It’s a notable shift if the Senate, and not the House, takes up Trump’s cause. But after all, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is now a solid Trump backer. B.) If ByteDance is forced to sell TikTok to an American entity or face shutdown, wouldn’t Yass be in the catbird seat to buy up the 85% he doesn’t already own?

--TL

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Tick...Tick...Tick...

WEDNESDAY 3/13/24

Rrrrring -- The House passed HR 7521 Wednesday morning, 352-65, (per The Hill) that would force ByteDance to divest U.S. interest in TikTok within 165 days. That clock doesn't start ticking until the Senate passes the bill. President Biden, whose re-election campaign has used the social media platform to reach young voters, is in favor of the bill and presumably will sign it.

How to Stop a Clock – The House is expected to pass HR 7521 Wednesday, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which would force China’s ByteDance to divest its U.S. interest in TikTok within 165 days over national security concerns, or face shut-down here. This, even though the House needs two-thirds majority to fast-track suspension of rules procedures that the Republican leadership plans to use, Punchbowl News reports, and even though the leader of the GOP, Donald J. Trump, has reversed his position calling for the social media phenomenon’s removal.

TikTok flip-flop: Much has been speculated about Trump’s reversal on TikTok. He proposed a ban in 2020, but more recently said that its shut-down here will give more power to Facebook, which a 2022 “documentary” blames for Trump’s 2020 re-election loss. One theory that sticks out more than most is that billionaire Jeff Yass, who has a “huge financial stake” in ByteDance according to Axios, has invited Trump to a retreat by Club for Growth, a conservative group that also opposes the ban. Yass has previously contributed $4.9 million to Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign.

Bonus social media gossip: Trump last summer asked The World’s Second-Richest Man Elon Musk whether he wanted to buy Truth Social, The Washington Post scoops Wednesday morning, citing two people “with knowledge” of the matter. Musk apparently demurred, but the conversation indicates an even closer relationship between the 91-times indicted ex-president and the owner of X than previously known.

•••

It’s … Trump v. Biden – In sports terms, the 2020 race would be Biden v. Trump, but however you put it, November’s presidential election is a rerun of the last. Ex-President Trump and President Biden both clinched their parties’ nominations Tuesday, winning primaries in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington. In addition, Donald J. Trump took the Hawaii Republican primary (Biden earlier won the state). 

Georgia on my mind: Pundits point to Georgia, the state where Trump begged for 11,780 extra votes in ’20. While Biden took 95.2% of the Democratic vote (Marianne Williamson, 3%, Rep. Dean Phillips, 1.8%) Trump took 84.2% of the Republican vote, with 13.2% going to Nikki Haley and 1.3% to Ron DeSantis. 

Democrats shouldn’t get too excited, though: Republican voter turnout in Georgia was more than twice that for the Democratic Party.

History: November will mark the seventh time in U.S. history that the two major party candidates will be the same as in the previous election. For those of you who are about to be contestants on Jeopardy! here are the previous six, according to Pew Research:

1952 and 1956: Dwight D. Eisenhower v. Adlai Stevenson.

1896 and 1900: William McKinley v. William Jennings Bryan.

1888 and 1892: Grover Cleveland v. Benjamin Harrison.

1836 and 1840: Martin Van Buren v. William Henry Harrison.

1824 and 1828: John Quincy Adams v. Andrew Jackson.

1796 and 1800: John Adams v. Thomas Jefferson.

•••

Not With Hur --  Perhaps it’s a sign of how well Robert K. Hur, special counsel on President Biden’s documents case, did his job that both Democrats and Republicans took shots at him in a congressional hearing Tuesday. Hur argued that he did not “exonerate” Biden in his report, and he defended his questioning of Biden’s memory, according to The Washington Post.

“I did not exonerate him. The word does not appear in the report, congresswoman,” he told Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA).

Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) called him “part of the Praetorian Guard” preserving the Washington “swamp.”

Responding to a question by Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) on the federal documents case against Donald J. Trump; “Sir, I’m not here to express any opinion with respect to a pending case against another defendant.”

You can read Hur's full report for the U.S. Department of Justice here.

--TL

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TUESDAY 3/12/24

Buck Out -- Rep. Ken Buck (D-CO) said last year he would not run for rr-election this November. On Tuesday, he told reporters he can't wait that long to leave.

"This place just keeps going down, and I don't want to spend my time here," Buck said (per The Hill). The 65-year-old congressman often breaks from his party on various issues, and has criticized Trumpian election denial. With his unexpected early departure, the GOP now has 218 members to 213 House Democrats.

•••

Tuesday’s Primaries – Georgia is the big one for both Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald J. Trump. There are also primaries in Mississippi, Washington and the Northern Mariana Islands, with Hawaii holding GOP caucuses, per U.S. News & World Report. The organization Democrats Abroad also hosts a primary.

•••

Biden Budget v. House GOP – The Biden administration proposes a $7.3 trillion budget for fiscal year 2025, up 4.7% from this year, but with tax raises on corporations and the wealthiest Americans to cut the deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade (per USA Today). The proposal would restore the child tax credit from the American Rescue Plan, launch a program for affordable, high-quality childcare available from birth to kindergarten and provide new mortgage relief for home buyers. 

The White House’s budget is a wish list that will get lots of attention by both the Biden campaign and the Trump campaign between now and November (as Congress likely extends this fiscal year’s budget past its September 30 end), as will an alternate proposal just passed by the GOP-led House Budget Committee, according to the Huffpost. That “budget blueprint” for 2025 would shrink the deficit by $14 trillion over the next decade while extending the Trump tax cuts, which expire next year. HuffPost says “vulnerable” congressional Republicans are balking at taking a full House vote on what would be the first such Republican alt-budget to hit the floor since 2014.

--TL

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MONDAY 3/11/24

Orban Explains All -- Fresh back in Budapest from his visit to Mar-a-Lago, Hungary's authoritarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, explained how Donald J. Trump will end the war in Ukraine if he is returned to the White House.

"He will not give a penny in the Ukraine-Russian war," Orban told Hungary's M1 TV channel, according to the BBC. "That is why the war will end. ... If the Americans don't give money and weapons, along with the Europeans, then this war is over. And if the Americans don't give money, the Europeans alone are unable to finance this war. And then the war is over."

We have been warned.

•••

Sweden became NATO's 31st member nation Monday morning, NPR reports, after decades resisting joining the Western military alliance. Sweden and Finland applied for membership in May 2022. Finland joined last year, but Sweden had faced opposition from Turkey and Hungary.

•••

Trump Mocks Biden’s Stutter – After generally favorable reviews of his State of the Union address last Thursday for its display of the president’s energy if nothing else, Joe Biden’s stutter has become the subject of Donald J. Trump’s ridicule beginning with a rally in Georgia Sunday. Trump infamously mocked a New York Times reporter for his upper-body disability back in 2015, but this is his first such attack on Biden’s lifelong speech impediment. 

What stands out about this to John Hendrickson, himself a stutterer, writes in The Atlantic is, “the sound of Trump’s supporters laughing right along with him. This is a building block of Trumpism. The man at the top gives his followers to be the worst version of themselves.”

•••

Oscar Speech – Mystyslav Chernov, one of three filmmakers of 20 Days in Mariupol to win the Academy Award for Documentary Feature Film Sunday night said in his acceptance speech he wishes he could exchange his Oscar statue for “Russia never Invading Ukraine.” At last year’s Academy Award ceremony Navalny took home the Oscar for the same category. Its subject, Aleksei Navalny, who died under suspicious circumstances at a Russian prison last month, led the Oscar broadcast “death reel.”

Pope chimes in on Ukraine: Pope Francis "sparked anger" last weekend after he said Ukraine should have the "courage of the white flag" and negotiate the end of the war with Russia, CNN reports. On X, Business Ukraine magazine responded with the post that the Pope "might want to consider the famous words of South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu on, "neutrality"; "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."

•••

ICYMI – After all the hand wringing and folderol about the current fiscal year budget, its can having been kicked by continuing resolutions several times since last October, the Senate passed a $460 billion bill, 75-22 last Friday to avert a partial government shutdown (per The New York Times). Congress now has to March 22 to pass the other half of the federal budget. On Monday, President Biden unveiled his federal budget proposal for the coming fiscal year, which begins October 1.

•••

Up on the Hill – Both the full House and the full Senate are in session Monday through Wednesday. The Senate only is in session Thursday.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

A New Hat For America

By Jim McCraw

While it is maddening to know that President-elect Biden couldn’t get a really good start on 2021 between President Trump’s recalcitrance and COVID-19, there will eventually be a Biden administration, and it will be in trouble up to its hips from Day One.

Herewith, a suggestion for Biden/Harris I believe is important, and eminently doable. As Congress fights over both short- and long-term follow-up bills to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES), which ends the day after Christmas, I think it might be time for something as ambitious (though relatively easy, considering the big funding levels already proposed) and quick to do as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), circa 1933. Let’s call the new one the American Reconstruction Corps (ARC).

Lord knows there are plenty of skilled and unskilled people out of work.  And there are plenty of American infrastructure projects, largely ignored by the previous administration, that need doing.

Biden is not FDR, and we do not have a modern Robert Moses, the mid-20th Century “master builder” of New York, Long Island, Rochester and Westchester counties (it’s certainly not Donald J. Trump).

We are not Frank Lloyd Wright, the Ford Motor Company Whiz Kids, nor the first seven astronauts. We are just Americans who recognize a need to get a lot of things done by a mass of people willing to work. There has got to be a way to do this.

With widespread distribution of COVID-19 vaccines likely coming with warmer weather next summer, why couldn’t we dispatch squadrons of out-of-work Americans to do road, tunnel and bridge repairs that have been waiting years for funding and final approvals?  And not just men, which is how the original CCC operated. Skilled and unskilled women need work, too. At, say, $20 per hour.

Why not send platoons of the willing into every one of the national parks to do repairs and cleaning?

While the original CCC troops had uniforms, meals and housing, I humbly suggest self-provided work clothing, bring-your-own meals, work near home, and ARC baseball caps in red, white and blue.

There will be periodic need for FEMA supplies and equipment after summer storms, so why not divert some FEMA funding, vehicles and materiel to help Americans fix the things that are already broken?

Yes, men and women working and sweating in close quarters for eight-hour days may be problematic from a health standpoint, but with masks, distancing and frequent washing and spraying, I think it could work. Let’s get some guys from Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Ford, Google and Tesla to volunteer, put them in a room and see if they can figure this out while Biden and Harris get on with the rest of the recovery.

—–