Tag: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

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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Does Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Have a Chance?

By Todd Lassa

Rebuilding infrastructure -- addressing the dangerous bridges and crumbling interstate highways -- was perhaps the only major issue with which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, and her caucus agreed with former President Trump. After nine Infrastructure Weeks (plus Trump’s August 2016 campaign pledge) the last possibility under a Republican president of fixing the broken itself crumbled under the weight of the more-immediate coronavirus pandemic – even if the former president’s critics said COVID-19 didn’t seem to be of much concern to him. 

It’s easy to forget that President Trump unveiled a $1.5-trillion proposal in February 2018, as The New York Times reminds us, but were overshadowed by a couple of White House scandals. In April 2019, with Pelosi re-installed as speaker after Democratic victories in the mid-terms, the White House and Capitol Hill Democrats announced they had reached agreement on a $2-trillion infrastructure package to upgrade highways, railroads, bridges and broadband. But Trump “stormed out” of a meeting to discuss how to pay for it, saying he would not return to negotiations until House Democrats stopped investigating him.

President Biden’s $2.3-trillion plan unveiled earlier this month isn’t much costlier. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said “there would be no Senate Republican votes for the infrastructure bill,” columnist Juan Williams wrote in The Hill.“Full stop.” Capitol Hill Republicans say the bill is full of Democratic social engineering dream programs, and they’re opposed to Biden’s proposal to raise the corporate tax rate from the 21% historic low set by President Trump, on up to 28%.

To the Bernie Sanders/Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wing of the Democratic Party, $2.3-trillion isn’t nearly enough. But the Biden administration has signaled it is willing to negotiate with Republicans in order to get at least some support. The White House met with congress members from both parties on Monday, April 12. Biden will need to convince 10 Republican senators to vote for the package to avoid using the arduous reconciliation procedure (the Senate parliamentarian has ruled it is allowed a second time this fiscal year). 

And even without the support of 10 Republicans to vote for cloture on a filibuster, Biden will have to convince fellow Democrat Joe Manchin III, senator from West Virginia, just to get to 51 votes, including Vice President Harris. 

Key infrastructure provisions up for negotiation, according to the AP:

•$115 billion to modernize bridges, highways and roads.

•$85 billion for public transit to shorten the repair backlog and expand services.

•$89 billion to modernize Amtrak’s popular Northeast Corridor line and address its repair.

•$174 billion to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging systems, electrify 20% of school buses and electrify the federal fleet, including U.S. Postal Service vehicles.

•$100 billion to build high-speed broadband in order to provide 100% coverage across the country – a sort of 21st Century Tennessee Valley Authority project.

•$100 billion to upgrade the nation’s power grid resilience, and move toward clean electricity, and related projects.

•$20 billion to redress communities whose neighborhoods were divided by those Eisenhower-spawned highway projects. This affects mostly non-white neighborhoods.

•$111 billion to replace lead water pipes and upgrade sewer systems.

•$50 billion to improve infrastructure resilience to counter natural disasters.

•$180 billion in research & development projects.

•$300 billion for manufacturing, including funds for the computer chip sector (it would be nice during a pandemic not to have to wait for ships full of them to arrive from China), improved access to capital, and clean energy investment. 

That’s $1.324 trillion, leaving nearly $976 billion for such programs as money to build, preserve and retrofit more than 2 million affordable houses and buildings and expansion of long-term services under Medicaid (at $400-billion, the single costliest line item). 

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The Final Steps to Trump’s Acquittal

By Todd Lassa

Once the votes were counted Saturday afternoon and Donald Trump was acquitted in his second Senate impeachment trial, both sides declared a victory. Because 10 Republicans joined 48 Democrats and the two independents who caucus with the latter party, lead House impeachment manager, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-MD, could lay claim to the “most bipartisan” trial vote ever (click on Forum to read Stephen Macaulay’s commentary on the impeachment trial, “The Long Con”). 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, had it both ways, too, having been among the 43 Republicans in the minority who nonetheless snagged an acquittal because the 57-43 vote was 10 “guilties” short of the two-thirds needed to convict. 

“They did this because they followed the wrong words of the most powerful man on earth,” McConnell said on the Senate floor after the vote, in what pundits were describing as the most critical excoriation of Trump made by either side. “There is no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.”

McConnell, who when he still was Senate majority leader before President Biden’s inauguration, told his caucus they could vote their conscious in the impeachment trial, said he voted “not guilty” Saturday because the trial of a president after leaving office is unconstitutional. Last Tuesday, the Senate voted 56-44 that trying an ex-president is indeed constitutional, in a decision that required only a majority decision. A major point in the House impeachment managers’ argument was that if an ex-president could not be tried thusly, it would risk the nation with a “January surprise,” with carte-blanche to commit high crimes and misdemeanors as a lame-duck. 

But McConnell forced delaying the trial until after the inauguration, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, said Saturday afternoon. The House voted for impeachment on January 15, while Trump was still in office.

Prior to the final Senate vote, Raskin moved to call a witness to give a video deposition in the case. Trump attorney Michael van der Veen objected, and Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-SC, threatened to call many witnesses for the defense, including House Speaker Pelosi, and draw out the trial to disrupt Biden’s agenda for weeks or even months to come.

In the end, the two sides agreed that the statement of Raskin’s intended witness, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-WA, would be admitted as evidence and that defense would stipulate to its veracity. 

Herrera Beutler’s statement is that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, had called Trump during the siege urging him to call off the violent protesters. Trump had replied that the violent protesters were Antifa and Black Lives Matter, not pro-MAGA. 

“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump replied, according to Herrera Beutler. CNN reported her description of the call Friday night, but according to various news reports, Herrera Beutler told about overhearing the conversation to a local Washington state newspaper and to constituents. 

In his closing arguments, van der Veen said the defense was not admitting to the statement’s truthfulness, though the House impeachment managers apparently were satisfied with the outcome.

The trial itself came down to House impeachment managers building a case that then-President Trump called for his supporters to rally on the Capitol January 6 to “Stop the Steal” of his November 3 “landslide victory,” a.k.a., “the Big Lie,” and did nothing to prevent members of Congress and vice president Mike Pence, from the danger of the mob. Trump’s defense attorneys argued that the impeachment was a continuation of Democratic and mainstream Republican “hatred” since before he took office January 20, 2017, and that the trial was unconstitutional.

But the nine House impeachment managers appear satisfied that the trial and its bipartisan verdict achieved their goal overall and are looking forward to investigations in New York for Trump’s business practices, and especially in Fulton County, Georgia, for his phone call with secretary of state Ben Raffensperger. In the meantime, however, Trump continues to maintain control of the GOP, especially on state and local levels. Rep. Herrera Beutler, for example, faces potential censure from Washington state’s GOP and a Trump PAC-funded primary challenger next year for her statement in the impeachment trial.

•Click on Forum to read Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s take on Trump’s impeachment trial.
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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.

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Trump Signs $900-billion COVID Relief Package

By Todd Lassa

President Trump signed the $900-billion COVID-19 emergency relief Sunday night while enjoying an extended Christmas weekend at Mar-a-Lago. He had left Washington last week while erstwhile Senate Republican allies fumed because he wanted $2,000 checks to taxpayers, calling the $600 checks in the bill, and items he considers excessive “a disgrace.”

The president’s signing of the bill also averts a federal government shutdown Monday night, with $1.4-trillion to fund the government through fall of 2021. In addition, the bill provides eviction protection for millions of people, who would have otherwise faced potential homelessness. 

“I will sign the omnibus and COVID package with a strong message that wasteful items need to be removed,” Trump said, according to Politico. He said he planned to send back to Congress a “redlined” version with items to be removed from the bill, which has no effect on its passage.

Last week Trump vetoed a $740.5-billion defense spending bill for the coming fiscal year, because it contained a provision to rename military bases named for Confederate leaders, and online liability protections. Like the COVID relief bill, the defense spending legislation was passed by veto-proof Senate majorities. The Senate is scheduled to return to the Capitol Tuesday. 

For one Coronapocalipse weekend, Trump and Pelosi appeared to be on the same political page, as Pelosi was eager to take up the president’s demand for bigger relief checks, even after months of negotiations between her and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin landed on the $600 figure. The House will vote on a separate bill Monday that would increase the payments to $2,000.

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Dangerous Fiction

By Stephen Macaulay

“We’re going to win this election in a landslide.”

Yes, you know who said that. But you probably don’t know when he said it: Not before November 3. Not November 3. Not the following several days.

No, Donald Trump said that December 10, 2020, at a Hanukkah event at the White House. 

A landslide.

If that doesn’t scare the hell out of all of the people who continue to carry his water, then there is something wrong with them. Doesn’t reason matter?

This absurdity really needs to stop.

This is dangerous. Dangerous to our democracy. Although House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in a letter to her Democratic peers that the 126 House Republicans who signed on to the Texas attorney general-led effort to have the Supreme Court reverse the results of the election—which the Court rejected--an action that is tantamount to “subverting the Constitution,” this isn’t something that just Democrats need to take to heart: Anyone who has an American flag flying from their porches need to understand that these efforts to undermine what has been part of the fabric of this country since 1789, when the first presidential election was completed (the election was held from December 15, 1788 to January 10, 1789: were those House Republicans around back then, one wonders how apoplectic they would have been about that) are unacceptable.

Meanwhile, Trump is purportedly working harder than ever on what I would call a Quixotic quest except that it would besmirch Cervantes.

But there are other things going on. For example, on December 10 unemployment numbers for the previous week came in: new claims of 853,000.

And as for the big picture, there were some 19-million unemployment claims (week ending November 21, the most recent figures).

What’s more, what’s worse, is that on December 10 the CDC Tweeted: “As of December 7, national forecasts predict that 12,600 to 23,400 new #COVID19 deaths will be reported during the week ending January 2. These forecasts predict 332,000 to 362,000 total COVID-19 deaths in the United States by January 2.”

So what is the current occupant of the White House doing? Is he talking about the economy? Is he laying out a plan to help reduce the massive unemployment that has been a consequence of COVID-19, the virus that was supposed to have “just disappear[ed]” months ago?

Is he providing the sort of spiritual leadership that has been the role of presidents, to provide solace for the loss of life? Know that on December 10, there were 290,000 Americans who were lost to COVID-19. By December 14, the count had topped 300,000.

And he treats himself like a victim.

There is a lot of talk about the 74-million people who voted for Trump. There is less discussion of the 290,000+ who have died and their families. What has he done, or is he doing, for them?

What seems to be forgotten in all this is that he is operating on our dime. He is working for us. If you were working and spent all of your time pissing and moaning about how you were being overlooked and underappreciated, you’d probably find yourself in the category of the aforementioned unemployed statistics.

You are paid to do your job. If you don’t do it, well, in the words of you know who: “You’re fired!”

He’s not doing his job. He might as well leave right now. Pence hasn’t exactly been overworked the last four years, unless one counts trying to come up with tortured excuses for his boss. And this would provide the opportunity to give Trump a presidential pardon.

Funny thing about all of the talk of pardons. According to "Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary," the definition of pardon is: “To use the executive power of a governor or president to forgive a person charged with a crime or convicted of a crime, thus preventing any prosecution and removing any remaining penalties or punishments.”

Seems like he’s not just doing his job, but perhaps there is more to it. Or maybe that’s less.

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Texas AG’s Case was Legitimate

By Bryan Williams

I have always found the selective amnesia of people a curious thing. My wife will be the first to tell you I have selective amnesia (though I swear I don't recall she said this or that!), but I do remember big things. My high school band teacher was one of my favorites. He was fond of saying, “A short pencil is better than a long memory."  The news is not written in pencil, but it is written online.

I still find it curious that Nancy Pelosi is outraged by the GOP signing on to the Texas Attorney General's (very creative) suit as subverting the Constitution. I hate to break it to the Speaker, but the whole purpose of sending lawsuits to the Supreme Court is to determine if they stand constitutional muster. Everyone has a right to her or his day in court no matter how specious or far-fetched the lawsuit may be. You gotta give Texas AG Paxton some points for creativity though. He had a point, whether or not voting in each state and the District of Columbia was conducted November 3 in a clean, legal manner. The Supreme Court said, "Nice try, but nope." What would have subverted the Constitution is not giving Paxton and 126 GOP members of Congress their day in court.

And here comes the "short pencil" part: Remember about four years ago when people within Barack Obama's government were spying on Trump and his incoming team using dubious legal means? Was that not a subversion of the Constitution? What about all the executive orders President Obama signed? Is that not a subversion of the Constitution, and even of the very power Pelosi wields in the House? 

I don’t think the most die-hard liberal, or Joe Biden supporter would assume there could be absolutely no election fraud in 2020, considering the unprecedented number of mail-in ballots in such an atypical year. Rules for signature verification on ballots varies widely from county to county, and the United States has over 3,000 counties. 

Do I wish Mr. Paxton had tried a different tactic? Yes. I’m not a lawyer, but I think he should have asked the Supremes to rule on signature verification consistency, and how the lack of such consistency affected his state’s voters’ rights. 

Was he trying to subvert the Constitution? I don't think he believes he was, nor do I think the GOP House members who signed on believe they were. I wish people would be more careful with their language. Pelosi's subversion comment was hyperbole. But what else would we expect in a year like this? Keep those pencils sharp, and short.

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To Lead or Not to Lead: Do We Need a Mask Mandate to Fight the Pandemic?

By Todd Lassa

Until either Donald J. Trump or Joe Biden pulls a political rabbit with bigger teeth out of his hat, this election season’s October Surprise, so far, has been news that the president contracted the virus that causes COVID-19 around the time of the first, and probably only, debate between the incumbent and his Democratic challenger. 

Yes, it’s always about the economy, stupid, but as the Trump administration shifts on efforts to enact another federal aid package for corporations, individuals, and state and local governments in time for the Nov. 3 election, the future of our economy, especially over the next year or two, remains closely tied to the global health crisis.

A second economic relief package appears to be in limbo, for now, as Senate Judiciary Committee hearings over the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court takes political precedent over whatever the status of negotiations between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Amid it all, wearing masks in public and the question of how and when to re-open the economy to save what’s left of the restaurant, tavern, airline, and shopping mall industries remain the two related, underlying issues behind next month’s elections. These issues drill to the core of our nation’s much-discussed widened political gulf. Each side sees the other’s position on these issues as evidence of ruthless authoritarianism. 

But while our pundits to left and right appear irresolvably far apart, and while this center column strives to be as objective on such matters as possible, it is a relief that Stephen Macaulay and Bryan Williams see eye-to-eye on one important fact – wearing masks in public should not be a political issue. They agree that It is good citizenship and an important weapon in fighting the pandemic.

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