RNC Week Day 4

Veep candidate Sen. J.D. Vance introduced himself to an adoring RNC crowd Wednesday. Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump closes the convention in Milwaukee with his speech Thursday night. The New York Times has a transcript of Vance's speech here (subscription required).

THURSDAY 7/18/24

Vance Advances – From vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s point of view, traditional conservatives from the Bush/Romney wing of the GOP are RINOs. In his speech before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee Wednesday night where he formally accepted his veep nomination, Vance expressed his empathy for blue-collar workers, both non-union and union members, while showing disdain for Wall Street, for trade deals with Mexico and China, and for the US invasion of Iraq after 9/11. Vance also mentioned Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the key swing states in this year’s elections, as often as he could.

When Vance was in the fourth grade, Biden backed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) “that sent countless good jobs to Mexico,” he reminded the cheering RNC crowd. As a sophomore, he said, Biden backed a “sweetheart deal” with China, and while a high school senior, the current president supported the invasion of Iraq. You might have noticed these initiatives came largely from now-RINO’d Republicans.

“And somehow a real estate developer from New York City named Donald Trump was right in all these issues, and Joe Biden was wrong,” Vance said.

He decried “cheap Chinese goods” and low wages, and warned of China’s flow of fentanyl into the US (drug addiction was the villain of Vance’s 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy).

Vance, who left Appalachia to serve four years in the US Marines before attending The Ohio State University, then got a law degree at Yale University before becoming a tech venture capitalist, blamed Wall Street for “crashing” the economy, which led to American builders going out of business.

He didn’t point out that the resulting Great Recession stifled new construction for much of the ‘10s, but instead said Biden’s “inflation crisis is really an affordability crisis” for the costs of housing, groceries and gasoline.

“President Trump’s vision is so simple and yet so powerful,” Vance continued. “We’re done, ladies and gentlemen, catering to Wall Street. We’ll commit to the working man.”

The “we” in “we’re done” was meant to refer to American politicians, though it also refers to the traditional Republicans the MAGA GOP has effectively evicted from the party.

Of Ukraine … Vance is famous for being among the group of populist congressional Republicans who vehemently oppose continued military aid to Ukraine (and thus support for Vladimir Putin’s invasion), but he didn’t mention the country by name Wednesday night. He did say this: “Together, we will make sure our allies share in the burden of securing world peace. No more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer.”

Of Taiwan … Meanwhile on Wall Street, tech stocks took a dive Wednesday when Bloomberg Business Week released an earlier interview with Trump in which the presidential candidate said Taiwan “should pay” for US protection against Chinese military aggression.

“Taiwan is 9,500 miles away,” Trump said. “It’s 68 miles away from China. … I don’t think we’re any different from an insurance policy.”

No doubt the former president also jolted Taiwan’s newly elected President Lai Ching-te, who is dealing with a divided government.

Factoid… Punchbowl News notes that Trump is the first politician since Richard Nixon (1960, ’68 and ’72) to be nominated by his party three times and would be the first president since Grover Cleveland to serve non-consecutive terms.

•••

Biden Falls Ill – Joe Biden told Ed Gordon of BET News in an interview released Wednesday that “if a medical condition emerged” he would drop out of the presidential race. That evening, Biden returned to his Delaware beach house from a campaign stop in Las Vegas with a mild case of COVID, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. While “mild covid” would have to make a big leap to become a “medical condition” the virus whose treatment by then-President Trump helped lead to Biden’s 2020 election victory gives a bit more hope to Democrats already calling on him to step down.

Whether or not Biden and his close circle can use COVID as an excuse to hand over his campaign to Vice President Harris or another, younger, more vigorous candidate, it’s difficult to see any other path to victory by a severely divided Democratic Party.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

__________________________________________

Make America Strong -- …once again. That’s the Republican National Convention’s Wednesday theme, which might seem to play in Donald J. Trump’s post-assassination attempt fist-bump accompanying exhortation to his supporters to “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT.” But in Wednesday’s case “make America strong” means ending aid to Ukraine in its defense against Russia, withdrawing from NATO and isolating the US in general.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), passed over as Trump’s 2024 running mate in favor of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), previewed Wednesday in his Tuesday evening speech before the RNC, saying “There is nothing dangerous nor divisive when putting America first.”

ICYMI, Tuesday’s theme was “Make America Safe Once Again,” in which several speeches included variations of an erroneous assertion that crime and violent crime is booming under President Biden. The opposite is quite true, with crime statistics falling quickly since the pandemic.

Former Trump challenger Nikki Haley was the keynote Tuesday, after having first been passed over for an invitation to the RNC.

“President Trump asked me to speak in the name of unity,” Haley told the crowd. Like Trump running mate J.D. Vance, though much more recently, she has done a 180 on her previous warnings about the ex-president’s fitness for the job. “Donald Trump has my strong endorsement. Period.”

A vote for Biden is a vote for Kamala Harris, Haley said, asserting Biden would not complete a full second term if re-elected.

“For the sake of our nation, we have to go with Donald Trump,” Haley continued. She noted that like her, there are Americans who “don’t agree with Donald Trump 100% of the time.”

Though a staunch pro-Ukrainian candidate earlier this year, Haley said the wars in Ukraine and Gaza belong to Biden, not Trump.

“A strong president doesn’t start wars. A strong president prevents wars.

•••

Meanwhile, on the Left – A group of Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Democratic National Committee to halt plans to hold a virtual roll call nomination vote for President Biden ahead of next month’s convention, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. The letter, which NPR obtained from two different sources, calls the virtual nomination a “terrible idea” that would sap party morale.

While the letter has been signed by Democrats who want Biden to remain their candidate, as well as Democrats who want him to step down and others who have not announced a position, all clearly want more time for the question to play out of whether Biden can indeed beat Donald J. Trump in November.

•••

Menendez Guilty – A federal jury found Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) guilty on all 16 counts in his corruption trial Tuesday (per Politico). Federal prosecutors had charged the senator with bribery, acting as a foreign agent for Egypt, obstruction of justice, extortion and conspiring to commit these crimes.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has called on Menendez to step down, though the New Jersey senator has been defiant all through the investigation and two-month trial.

“I am deeply disappointed by the jury’s decision,” Menendez said Tuesday. “I have every faith that the law and the facts did not sustain that decision and that we will be successful upon appeal.”

US District Judge Sidney Stein will sentence Menendez, 70, October 29. He faces decades in prison.

If Menendez does step down for the few remaining months of his term, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) will appoint a successor, likely to be Rep. Andy Kim, who is the Democratic nominee for the seat’s full term beginning next year.

--TL

__________________________________________

TUESDAY 7/16/24

Strike of the Tech Bros – (And a coal barron…) Elon Musk has formed a new Super PAC supporting Donald J. Trump’s candidacy with a commitment of about $45 million per month up to November 5, The Wall Street Journal reports, not coincidentally in tune with the ex-president’s pick of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) as his running mate.

Also joining in on America PAC are Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir Tech, the Winklevos Twins (once in dispute with Mark Zuckerberg over the founding of Facebook) and Joe Craft, CEO of coal producer Alliance Resource Partners whose wife, Kelly Craft, was ambassador to Canada.

This news, and not Trump’s announcement that Vance is his running mate, nor Trump showing up with a bandage around his right ear, was top news at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee Monday night.

About Winklevos v. Zuckerberg… Coincidentally (?) Trump last week Tuesday posted on his Truth Social he vowed to imprison “election fraudsters” including Zuckerberg, according to Business Insider. Or as capitalization enthusiast Trump wrote it; “All I can say is that if I’m elected President, we will pursue Election Fraudsters at levels never seen before, and they will be sent to prison for long periods of time!”

The take on Vance… Trump’s veep pick suggests a “break with the Republican orthodoxy of the last several decades on a range of policy issues, including unions, antitrust, trade and taxes,” according to The Washington Post. But Vance’s connection with X-Twitter owner and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk – somewhere at or near the top of the list of world’s richest men, depending on the day – suggests the Hillbilly Elegy author might be leaning libertarian-ward, with a reverence for such tech innovators/American oligarchs.

Probably a good time to list the other job on Vance’s CV: venture capitalist.

The union factor… Teamsters President Sean O’Brien became the first-ever union leader to address the Republican National Convention Monday, telling a cheering audience that Trump “has the backbone to open the doors to the Republican convention that’s unprecedented,” per The Washington Post. “You can have whatever opinion you want but one thing is clear: President Trump is a candidate who’s unafraid to hear from new, loud, and often critical voices.”

Oh, and ... Republicans also outlined their 2024 platform at the convention. Read details here.

-- TL

__________________________________________

MONDAY 7/15/24

Vance is Running Mate -- It's official, having appeared on Truth Social: J.D. Vance, 39, is Donald J. Trump's running mate for the November election (per The Washington Post). Vance, of Ohio, was elected to the Senate two years ago in the mid-terms. He is otherwise known for writing Hillbilly Elegy, published in 2016.

•••

Cannon Dismisses -- U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has dismissed the classified documents case against Donald J. Trump on grounds that special counsel Jack Smith was not constitutionally appointed and funded by US Congress, The Washington Post reports Monday. Other federal courts have rejected similar arguments. It is uncertain whether Smith will appeal to a higher court in the case.

•••

From Assassination Attempt to Unity? – Donald J. Trump has torn up his Republican National Convention speech to “preach unity,” the Washington Examiner reports Sunday in its exclusive first interview with the ex-president a day after Thomas Matthew Crooks’ attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania. After raising his fist in defiance when the Secret Service gathered him up, the “retribution” candidate now signals he is about to go soft this week at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.

“The speech I was going to give on Thursday was going to be a humdinger. Had this not happened, this would have been one of the most incredible speeches” reportedly aimed at criticizing President Biden’s policies. “Honestly, it’s going to be a whole different speech now.”

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), who appears to be a shaved beard away from becoming Trump’s running mate, will be in Milwaukee, too. But Vance apparently hopes to become a bulldog to Trump’s kinder, gentler populism, as the senator blames President Biden and his campaign for the assassination attempt. Never mind that Vance might not be a contender for running mate this year had Trump’s supporters not threatened to hang Vice President Mike Pence on January 6^,2021.

“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that Donald Trump is an American fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination,” Vance wrote on X-Twitter, per Politico.

Rep. Eric Swalwell responded on X, (also per Politico): “You called Trump ‘American Hitler’”, referring to Vance’s much earlier take on the once and current presidential candidate; “Now show yourself back to the kid’s table. … Violence will NEVER be the answer.”

Biden spent much of Sunday trying to be as cordial toward Trump as Trump has promised to be at the RNC. First, the president cancelled a Monday visit to the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, then gave both a short press conference (taking no reporter questions), and later Sunday evening speaking against political violence from the Oval Office.

“We cannot, we will not go down this road in America.” Biden said.

Former First Lady Melania Trump similarly called on America “to ascend above the hate in these times.”

Meanwhile…Biden has called for a review of the Secret Service’s actions surrounding the assassination attempt, in which one audience member was killed and two others were critically injured. But House Oversight Committee Republicans have been investigating the Secret Service for months, according to Real Clear Politics. A Secret Service agent fatally shot Crooks, 20, after the gunman fired eight rounds.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_____
COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

What’s Right

Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay can't stop thinking about the latest Gallup polls measuring President Biden's numbers against ex-President Trump's numbers.

Read "Does Character Count?", Macaulay's commentary on the Gallup Poll results, in The Gray Area.

Then scroll down and read Macaulay's "Build Back [Biden] Better," also in The Gray Area.

_____________________________________

Scroll down with the trackbar on the far-right to read these left-column news items and commentary:

•Former Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel was hired, then quickly fired, as a paid contributing commentator to NBC News.

•Former Vice President Mike Pence says he will not vote for Donald J. Trump this November.

•Conservative pundits comment on President Biden’s March 7 State of the Union address; RJ Caster’s “SOTU Meets Low Expectations” and Stephen Macaulay’s “Beautiful Bloviation.”

TIP> Use the trackbar in the left column to read the entire item or commentary.

Your civil comments are much welcome. Use the COMMENT section of this column, or the one on the left if you lean liberal. Or email editors@thehustings.news and indicate in the subject line whether you right or left.

_____

Indictment #71543-23

Ex-President Trump pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 34 counts in the case related to hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels (CNN). PICTURED: Trump with his defense team appears at his arraignment in Manhattan (AP Photo). The indictment is "all about election interference" according to CNN.

This Just In – Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Janet Protasiewicz trounced private attorney Dan Kelly for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat in an ostensibly non-partisan race (AP). Kelly was appointed in 2016 by then-Gov. Scott Waker (R) to the state Supreme Court to fulfill an unexpired term, but lost election for a full term in 2020.

Protasiewicz beat Kelly with 55.1% of the vote according to NBC News, and her tilting of the state Supreme Court to 4-3 liberal indicates a successful challenge to Republican-drawn redistricting maps that have made Wisconsin among the most gerrymandered states in the country, as well as the likely overturning of an 1849 abortion ban triggered by last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health that overturned the 49-year-old Roe v. Wade decision.

The race reportedly became the most expensive ever for a state Supreme Court election, with both sides spending an estimated $40 million-plus.

•••

Meanwhile, in Chicago – Cook County commissioner and former teacher Brandon Johnson has won a runoff election for Chicago mayor, with 51% of the vote to Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas’ 49%, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Though both are Democrats, winner Johnson is a progressive contrast to law-and-order candidate Vallas, who is more of a Richard Daley Democrat.

--TL

_____________________________________________

It's Super Tuesday

TUESDAY 4/4/23

Donald J. Trump’s ‘defense fund’ raised $8 million in the three days since his indictment, senior campaign advisor, Jason Miller, tweeted Tuesday. Trump is on his way to a Manhattan court for his arraignment, expected about 2 p.m. local time Tuesday.

•••

Finland Joins NATO – Finland joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Tuesday, the alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg says. The country’s 800 miles border with to Russia nearly doubles the NATO border with the country. Russia has said it will bolster defenses along that border in response to Finland joining NATO, according to The Guardian.

Meanwhile: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has blocked Sweden’s efforts to join NATO, at least until Turkey’s May 14 elections. Challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu is leading Erdogan in NATO-member Turkey’s polls by 10 points, Reuters reports.

--TL

_______________________________________________

Super Tuesday Indications

MONDAY 4/3/23

Hush Money – Former President Donald J. Trump arrives in Manhattan Monday ahead of his Tuesday perp walk on a reported 34-count indictment connected to $130,000 in hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump’s indictment came after District Attorney Alvin Bragg reviewed a second payment, this one for $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, USA Today reports.

It is not known whether the alleged McDougal hush money ended up in the indictment which remains under seal until Trump appears in court Tuesday.

That hasn’t stopped Republican leaders … from criticizing Bragg’s indictment following the grand jury’s recommendation. This includes Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, “famous for being just Trumpy enough to woo MAGA Republicans without alienating more moderate voters,” according to The Washington Post.

“It is beyond belief that District Attorney Alvin Bragg has indicted a former president and current presidential candidate for pure political gain. Arresting a presidential candidate on a manufactured basis should not happen in America.”

Double-edged or circular argument?: Trump has warned that if he can be “indicated” (see tweet, above) any American can be, uh, indicted for the likes of hush-money payments. Right, say the Trump critics: No one is above the law, not even an ex-president.

Counterpoint: Undeclared 2024 presidential candidates Youngkin, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and ex-Veep Mike Pence have come to Trump’s defense over the Manhattan D.A.’s indictment. Anticipating a GOP implosion under the weight of the ex-prez’s considerable legal issues, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson says he will declare as an anti-Trump Republican.

“While the formal announcement will be later in April, in Bentonville (Arkansas),” Hutchinson told ABC News This Week co-anchor Jonathan Karl Sunday, “I want to make clear to you, Jonathan, I am going to be running. And the reason is, I’ve traveled the country for six months. I hear people talk about the leadership of our country. I’m convinced that people want leaders that appeal to the best of America, and not simply appeal to our worst instincts.”

•••

On Wisconsin’s Supreme Court – It’s the state Supreme Court race that “could change the political trajectory” of the Badger State, notes NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday. Though ostensibly non-partisan, the race between Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz and former state Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly is expected to affect abortion rights, Republican-drawn redistricting maps and former Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) law limiting union rights.

Protasiewicz says she favors women’s choice, indicating she will overturn a Wisconsin pre-Civil War abortion ban that triggered after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, while Kelly says politics would not determine how he would rule on the court. Then-Gov. Walker appointed Kelly, a private attorney, to fulfill the unexpired term of state Supreme Court Justice David Prosser Jr. in 2016, but lost election to a full term in 2020.

The Wisconsin race far exceeds the previous campaign spending record for a state Supreme Court race, which was $15.2 million for a 2004 Illinois election. The race between Protasiewicz and Kelly has cost nearly $29 million, and counting, says Wisconsin Public Radio, quoting the Brennan Center for Justice.

•••

Chicago’s Mayoral Runoff – Last, but not least, Democratic candidates Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson face off in Tuesday’s runoff election for mayor of Chicago, to replace single-term incumbent Lori Lightfoot, who came in a distant third in the February 28 general election amidst a spike in the Second City’s crime rate. Vallas is the former special emergency manager of the Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans public school systems who says he will lower crime and improve schools, according to The New York Times, thus conjuring the Richard Daley wing of the city’s Democratic Party.

Johnson is a county commissioner, former teacher and paid organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union who has campaigned on “sweeping new investments in neighborhood schools and social programs,” representing the party’s progressive wing.

Congressional Calendar -- This was to be a quiet two weeks on Capitol Hill. The Senate and House of Representatives are off for Easter/Passover break, returning Monday, April 17.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_____
COMMENTS: editors@thehusitngs.news

…meanwhile…

WORLD POETRY DAY TUESDAY, 3/21/23

(It's also the first full day of springtime for Trump, the day the former president had expected to be arrested by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's (pictured) over his investigation of possible financial crimes in connection with 45's payment of hush money to two women, including porn star Stormy Daniels. Though an indictment didn't look likely Tuesday, the New York Police Department Monday erected barricades around Manhattan's Criminal Court in anticipation of MAGA protesters.)

House Republicans … are attempting to counter Bragg’s next move with their demand the “George Soros-funded” DA turn over documents in the case and come in for a grilling/hearing.

•••

Kishida Counters Xi – Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made a surprise visit to Kyiv Tuesday for a “show of unity” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the second day of Chinese leader Xi Jingping’s three-day Kremlin sleepover with Russian dictator Vladmir Putin (AP).

Xi, who is said to be on a “peace mission” to Moscow, has invited Putin (charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court last week) to Beijing later this year.

Kishida, who also will meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda before returning to Tokyo Thursday, is chairman of the Group of Seven summit this May in Hiroshima. Can a country in the Pacific become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?

--TL

_______________________________________________

...meanwhile...

MONDAY 3/20/23

Weekend of Trump’s Discontent – This is what Donald J. Trump posted on his Truth Social media outlet Saturday: “The far and away leading Republican candidate and former President of the United States of America will be arrested on Tuesday of next week!” (Per The Guardian.)

Trump continues; “Protest, take our nation back!”

Which of His Myriad Cases?: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (pictured above) is expected to charge Trump under his investigation of $130,000 in "hush money" paid to porn star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 presidential election by then-Trump fixer Michael Cohen and whether the payments violated campaign finance laws.

Signals, Maybe, But Not Words: Bragg did not confirm speculation he will issue the charges. “As with all our investigations, we will continue to apply the law evenly and firmly and speak publicly only when appropriate,” he said in a private email to his office employees, according to Politico.

Meanwhile: A Trump spokesman “walked back” Trump’s Truth Social rant, saying there is no notification from the Manhattan DA that he has “decided to take his witch-hunt to the next level. President Trump is rightfully highlighting his innocence and the weaponization of our injustice system.” (Per ABC News.)

In the private email according to Politico, Bragg warned “we do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York.” His office has been coordinating protection with the New York Police Department and the Office of Court Administration.

Above the Law?: Former Vice President Mike Pence -- who a week earlier finally called out his ex-boss for being “wrong” about his ability to overturn the Electoral College count on January 6, 2021 -- told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl Saturday on This Week it would be a “politically charged” mistake for Bragg to have Trump arrested.

“I’m taken aback at the idea of indicting a former president of the United States, at a time when there’s a crime wave in New York City that – the fact that the Manhattan DA thinks that indicting President Trump is his top priority. I think is, just tells you everything you need to know about the radical left in this country.”

But Wait, There’s More: Cohen told MSNBC Sunday he has been re-called as a “rebuttal” witness to testify Monday in the hush-money case. Cohen’s former legal advisor, Robert Costello, also is expected to testify, and has signaled to a Trump attorney that he has information that counters Cohen’s previous testimony pinning the hush-money payment on Trump, and thus exonerates him, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press.

Mixed Signals?: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) called for calm in the face of potential arrest of the ex-president. “I don’t think people should protest this stuff,” he said at a House GOP issues retreat, The Hill reports. So as to not upset Trump too much, the speaker – who condemned Trump’s complicity in the January 6^th Capitol insurrection before visiting him at Mar-a-Lago in February 2021 – suggested that the ex-president was calling on others to “educate people about what’s going on.”

•••

Also This Week – The Federal Reserve meets Tuesday and Wednesday to set interest rate increases. There is speculation on Wall Street the Fed will hold off on another increase, otherwise expected to be 0.5% to fight inflation, because of the recent failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

Update: The Fed will hike interest rates by 0.25% this week, CNBC says.

Senate: The full Senate is in session Tuesday through Friday.

House: The full House of Representatives is in session Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

•••

USB Merges with Credit Suisse – USB is calling it a merger, though it looks more like a takeover of troubled fellow Swiss bank Credit Suisse. According to USB, the two entered into a merger agreement Sunday after intervention of the Swiss Federal Department of Finance, Swiss National Bank and Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Committee. Shareholders of the failing bank will receive one USB share for every 22.48 shares of Credit Suisse. USB will write off 16-billion Swiss francs (US $17.28-billion) of Credit Suisse debt and will appoint “key personnel” to Credit Suisse. USB hopes to complete the merger by the end of this year.

The "merger" will cost USB $3 billion to take over Credit Suisse, The Wall Street Journal reports.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_____
COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

CPAC Returns to D.C.

The Conservative Political Action Conference returns to Washington, D.C., Wednesday, where announced 2024 presidential candidates Donald J. Trump and Nikki Haley are highlighted speakers.

But CPAC and its chief, Matt Schlapp – widely credited for Trump’s rise as a presidential candidate in 2016 – are under a cloud as Schlapp was accused in early January of sexual misconduct. CPAC’s parent organization, the American Conservative Union has “denounced the claim as a political attack,” according to The Washington Post. The otherwise anonymous accuser is a former staff member to Herschel Walker in his 2022 midterm campaign for a U.S. Senate seat from Georgia.

CPAC runs through Saturday.

Meanwhile: Trump topped Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has yet to declare, in a Fox News poll of 2024 Republican presidential candidates Monday, 43% to 28%, with Haley (the only other declared candidate beside Trump) tied with former Vice President Mike Pence at 7%, according to The Hill. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott grabbed 2%. In earlier polls pitting Trump against DeSantis alone, DeSantis dominated with no dilution by other potential candidates.

What do you think? Go to the Comments section in this column, or the one in the left column if that’s how you lean, or email editors@thehustings.news and type “for the right column” or “for the left column” in the subject line.

_____

…meanwhile…

TUESDAY 1/24/23

Pence Gets Ahead of the Story – Show of hands. Who among ex-presidents and ex-veeps did not take classified documents home? An attorney for Mike Pence says a search instigated by the former vice president found “a small number” of documents in his Indiana home bearing classified markings, The Washington Post reports. Pence is a likely candidate for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

WaPo’s story quotes a letter to the National Archives by Gregory Jacobs, a designated representative for Pence’s vice-presidential records, who said the FBI collected the classified documents from his home last Thursday, January 19. In the letter, Jacobs said he would deliver the documents to the National Archives on Monday, June 23.

•••

Ex-FBI Agent Indicted – Former FBI spy hunter Charles McGonigal was indicted in a Manhattan federal court Monday of taking $225,000 to try to get Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska off a U.S. sanctions list, while he was investigating the close confidant of Vladimir Putin, The Washington Post reports. McGonigal, now 54, retired from the FBI in September 2018. He was indicted on charges of money laundering and violating U.S. sanctions, and other counts from his alleged ties to Deripaska, whose indictment of sanction violations was unsealed last September.

•••

All the Best Golf Buddies – How well does Donald J. Trump know Philadelphia mob boss Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino? The former president’s 2024 presidential campaign won’t say in response to a photo that turned up in The Philadelphia Inquirer showing Trump and “Skinny Joey” giving the thumbs-up, along with an unidentified friend of Merlino. The newspaper published a “slightly blurry” photo from an unidentified source showing a hatless Merlino posing for the camera with Trump and the unidentified friend, both wearing red MAGA hats, early in January at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.

One of the three, “Skinny Joey,” has served a decade in prison for a 2001 racketeering conviction and reportedly works as a maitre d’ in a Boca Raton Italian restaurant named for him, according to the Inquirer.

--TL

MONDAY 1/23/23

Gallego to Challenge Sinema in ’24 – Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) has announced he will run against incumbent Sen. Krysten Sinema in 2024 (per The Guardian). Progressive Democrat Gallego, who has served his Phoenix-area district since 2015, had been hinting at the run at least since Sinema left the party to become an independent after Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) won a runoff last December for a full term resulting in a Democratic Party net gain of one Senate seat after the midterms.

•••

Zients to Replace Klain as Chief of Staff -- Jeff Zients, who led the Biden administration’s pandemic response until last April, will replace Ron Klain as the White House chief of staff, likely after the president’s February 7 State of the Union address, according to multiple news outlets. The White House has not confirmed the reports, which were backed by statements from unnamed sources.

Zients returned to the White House last autumn to help Klain prepare for staff turnover following the midterms, according to The Washington Post, which notes that few staff members have left the administration. Klain, who will be the first of Biden’s inner circle to leave, assigned Zients various projects to prepare him for the chief of staff job, sources told WaPo.

•••

This Week – The Senate is in session Monday through Friday. The House is in session Tuesday through Friday.

•••

ICYMI, More Confidential Docs – It’s not easy to keep track of the number of separate searches for confidential documents found in President Biden’s possession, but we’ll try. Last Friday, the FBI conducted a search of Biden’s sprawling Wilmington, Delaware home to find additional confidential documents dating back to his vice presidency (2009-2017), and even earlier, when he was senior senator from the state. NPR’s Morning Edition referred to this as the “drip, drip” of such documents discovered, and it marks the fourth time since November that classified documents have been found at one of Biden’s properties, CNBC says.

The Difference, Again … Between Biden’s mishandling of confidential government documents and ex-President Trump’s stash at Mar-a-Lago is that Trump appears to have absconded with a stash of papers from Biden’s inauguration day, and he continuously told the Justice Department and National Archives he had returned everything. This culminated in a search warrant allowing the FBI to comb through Mar-a-Lago some 18 months after Biden’s inauguration. The FBI’s 13-hour search of Biden’s home last Friday reportedly was “consensual.”

But: Revelations of the initial discovery, just before last November’s midterms but not revealed until CBS News reported on the confidential papers earlier this month has exposed Biden to criticism from Republicans and right-wing media, while at least partially deflating the case against Trump. --Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

______
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.

•••

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.

•••

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.

•••

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

_____
COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Lake v. Taylor Robson

Tuesday’s GOP primary race for governor of Arizona is not over, despite Trump-endorsed candidate Kari Lake’s claims to have won, NBC News reports. Early Thursday, Lake led Mike Pence-endorsed candidate Karrin Taylor Robson, though within a two-point margin.

Lake told reporters she had evidence of voter fraud that were delaying her definitive win, which has not been officially called.

Comment on the Arizona primaries or any other political issues we’ve covered via the box in this column, or the one on the left, or email editors@thehustings.news.

Scroll further to read about Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, New York Post and Fox News stepping away from Donald J. Trump.

Coverage, analysis and commentary on the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection are on Pages 2-6.

_____

Pundits on the Left Are Split on the Need for Another Debate

Liberal pundits’ comments …

Record numbers of early voters have already placed ballots. Minds are not being changed. Heels are dug. Further debate evenings are fodder for more reality TV: people have had enough of supporting the networks in the last four years. Advertising stands to lose the most by canceling all debates going forward. Late-to-work election teams are all focused on ballot education, and bracing voters for a probable drawn out result season -- an entirely new version of reality TV.

--Michelle Naranjo

If the Commission on Presidential Debates cancelled the remaining two presidential debates, the majority of Americans would not be phased out and it would do nothing to change the Nov. 3 result. America is a country in crisis right now and most voters are focused on one thing: surviving the crisis. Not just the public health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but also the crisis surrounding racial justice that is facing the millions of members of the Black community, the climate change crisis that’s facing the planet and is currently causing disaster-level weather events around the nation, and the economic crisis facing the millions of unemployed Americans that are struggling to pay rent and are facing eviction. Donald J. Trump and Mike Pence showed us everything we needed to see in the first two debates. They offered no substantive or meaningful answers to any of the questions, no specific plans or proposals for addressing these crises, constant lies and misinformation, a refusal to condemn white supremacy, and a refusal to show any serious remorse, or take any personal accountability or ownership, for the administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Unless Donald Trump intends to correct these blunders and outright failures in a future debate, they aren’t worth being had.

--Chase Wheaton

Do we need another debate? That very question presupposes that we had one. We didn’t. What we did was have an embarrassing spectacle of the President of the United States behaving like a petulant, churlish, loud individual and his opponent, a former Vice President of the United States trying to talk over the President and calling him a “clown.” Neither individual would make it out of a high school debate without being removed. Biden was ready to do it again, virtually. Trump wanted no part of it. A claim is that Biden would be “fed” the answers. If you look at the transcripts of the last “debate” you’d see that Trump needed an answer. Or many. His answers were logorrheic covfefe. Trump said he believes that the moderator would cut him off. And that would be bad, why? Forget the side show. It can do nothing but further make people—the world over—shake their head in sad disbelief that this is what the presidency has come to.

--Stephen Macaulay

Please address comments to editors@thehustings.news

——

Our Pundits Debate Whether There Should be Another Presidential Debate

The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) has officially called off the Oct. 15 debate between Donald J. Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden, originally set to take place in Miami. After Trump was diagnosed with the coronavirus, spent last weekend at Walter Reed Medical Center and then declared his victory over COVID-19 from the Truman Balcony of the White House, the CPD said it would hold a virtual debate in place of the live event. The president declined, claiming the former vice president and U.S. senator would take answer prompts off-camera, from where such action could not be detected.

The Biden campaign accepted the CPD’s change, but Trump announced he instead would hold one of his famous public rallies in Miami.

With the CPD’s full cancelation of the Oct. 15 debate, that leaves the possibility Trump and Biden will meet for only a second time, after their Sept. 30 debate, on Oct. 22 in Nashville, Tennessee – if at all. Meanwhile, the president spoke to a crowd of supporters Saturday from a stand on the South Lawn of the White House.

The supporters wore masks, by and large, NPR reports, but generally were not socially distancing. “I know you were praying,” Trump said of his weekend at Walter Reed, “and I was watching down on all those people.”

Before the CPD’s cancelation of the Oct. 15 debate, The Hustings asked editors and contributing pundits for their opinions on whether two more debates were necessary, considering public reaction to the presidential shout-fest already in the books, and the vice-presidential debate Oct. 7 that appears to have not advanced understanding of either the Trump/Pence or the Biden/Harris platforms.

From the center, The Hustings Deputy Editor Nic Woods says “I wish they’d do one more just so we can gauge an average of the two performances.” She doesn’t expect the president’s performance would be any different than in the first debate, she says, and “a performance improvement would involve intense preparation that’s literally dangerous at the moment he should be in quarantine.”

Contributing Editor Charles Dervarics agrees. “Call me old school, but I think debates are still useful. To the general public that may tune in and out of a presidential campaign, they offer a rare chance to see (relatively) unfiltered candidates responding to questions they did not see in advance.

“The main problem right now is the format, specifically the single moderator. Having questioners outnumber the two candidates might be a start. Then allow follow-ups so reporters can press their case to those who deliberately ignore a question. Shutting off the mic once candidates go 10 seconds too long might be good, too.”

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

—–

Pence Attempts to Overtake Debate Rules, but Harris Drives Home the Democratic Message

By Michelle Naranjo

The debate between Vice President Pence and Senator Harris in Salt Lake City was distinctive for many reasons. Both are the running mates to the oldest presidential candidates in history. Separated by protective plastic panels designed to provide a COVID-safe distance, Harris, and Pence remained seated, instead of standing per the usual.

But these contrasts were the least notable aspects of Utah.

What became clear is that the traditional debate format voters have long expected has dissolved into a spectacle and proved itself outdated. Sure, this disruptive format has been coming for several election cycles now, but the structure in which candidates respect the debate rules while making their political distinctions clear has dissolved into a chaotic rumble.

A friend wondered pre-debate if we would see the politician-side of Harris or the fighter version.

What we got was a well-prepared, self-assured candidate who wasn’t about to allow her opponent to walk over her words, dismiss her professional record, or steal her appointed speaking times. And, while she brought her politician side to the dais, she also began with a statement that was an apparent slight to Pence, the czar of COVID-19, without being a direct, personal attack.

Harris set the fighting words tone in her response to moderator Susan Page’s opening question about the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. She declared it ”the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.”

What followed was Pence never directly answering any of Page’s remaining questions. Instead, he repeatedly spoke over both Harris and the moderator. Would this have been Candidate Pence speaking for any other election and not one led by Trump, he might have been perceived as extremely inconsiderate and even dishonest. But Pence’s slights failed to faze the former prosecutor, who drove home the Biden/Harris platform of raising up all Americans. She confidently topped off her arguments with the expert voice of a woman acclimated to facing male authority that talks over and steals her air time.

It is 2020. Racism, women’s rights, the economy, and the ever-present pandemic are at the forefront of this presidential election. Harris showed what led Biden to choose her as a running mate who can speak with confidence to all of these issues -- and even have a plan to address them.

Pence brought a fly.

Naranjo is a freelance writer based in rural Pennsylvania.

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

—–