Tag: President Biden

SOTU Meets Low Expectations

By RJ Caster

To play on Michael Gerson’s turn of phrase President Biden seems to be assisted by the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” This plays into his favor so long as he is able to string together more than a half dozen polysyllabic words during a speech. As a result the X-verse (formerly Twitter-verse) was alive with a buzz from the “progressive but not that progressive coalition trying to carry President Biden through the convention and onto the general election.” One Democratic operative celebrated on X, “The danger they had in setting expectations so low for President Biden’s #SOTU is that he’s not only exceeding all expectations, he’s giving the best speech I’ve heard from him in 20 years.” I always joke that I set the bar low for myself, because then I can only succeed from there. That joke becomes a little more tragic when we’re using it to reference the leader of the free world… 

Truth be told, this was not a typical policy-laden State of The Union. There were head nods to policy advancements and policy goals. The Democratic Party of old tried to poke through with his tip of the hard-hat to America’s workers and unions; but that came about halfway into his speech. The majority of last week’s State of the Union wasn’t an update to Congress or Americans as a whole. This was President Biden’s convention speech, because there is a lingering worry in Biden-world that he may not get one in August. 

'My predecessor'
President Biden laid the groundwork for the general election rematch between himself and former-President Trump; referring to Trump over a dozen times as “my predecessor” without saying his name. The speech started out with Democracy being under assault, which is a top polling issue for core Democratic supporters. He then was sure to hit on abortion and the Dobbs decision, an issue the Democrats have successfully tied to the IVF ruling out of Alabama. After mocking the Supreme Court justices to their face over the Dobbs ruling (moments after decrying the assault on Democracy’s institutions, ironically), only then did President Biden pivot to the issue of jobs and the economy. 

President Biden worked down the checklist of issues that were important to Democrats, and in that order. But polling from Echelon Insights shows the huge disconnect between Biden’s staunch supporters, versus what is essentially everyone else -- including people who tepidly support Biden. Even CNN has found that people have come out of President Biden’s State of the Union addresses with less and less positive outlook year-over-year, with this year being the lowest positive rating yet. 

In the end President Biden was successful in making the people who already supported him breathe a sigh of relief that he didn’t embarrass himself, and them by extension. He gave his convention speech as though he was auditioning to give the convention in August. And speaking of conventions in Chicago… if the Israeli/Gaza situation doesn’t work towards a solution, the Democrats might be able to look forward to reliving 1968 if last night’s protests in the streets of DC are any indication.

Caster is CEO of Jacksonville, Florida-based Techne Media.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

For Martin Luther King Jr.’s Day

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

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

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

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

--TL

..meanwhile...

FRIDAY 1/13/23

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

•••

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

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

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

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

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

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

•••

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

--TL

...meanwhile...

THURSDAY 1/12/23

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

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

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

•••

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

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

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

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

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Griner Released in Swap

WNBA star Brittney Griner, detained August 4 at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport and later charged with possession of cannabis, has been freed from a Russian penal colony in an apparent prisoner swap with the U.S., and is on her way home, NPR reports. 

“Moments ago I spoke to Brittney Griner,” President Biden announced in a tweet (above, with Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner and with Vice President Harris in the left photo). “She is safe. She is on a plane. She is on her way home.”

Griner is being swapped in a one-on-one for “notorious arms dealer” Viktor Bout, who has been held in a U.S. prison for 12 years, the BBC reports. The U.S State Department continues to negotiate for release of Paul Whelan, businessman and former Marine who has been held in a Russian prison for nearly four years. 

•••

German Government Contains its January 6 – German authorities arrested 25 people, including neo-Nazis and monarchists, suspected of planning to overthrow the government by storming the Bundestag in Berlin, Wednesday morning. Allegedly fueled by QAnon conspiracy theories, among those detained include “Prince Heinrich XIII”, a descendant of the German nobility that was abolished by the Weimar Republic after World War I, and active soldier and former members of police and elite special forces, The New York Times reports. A group known as the Reich Citizens Movement has pushed for reinstatement of the German monarchy for years. 

NPR reporter Esme Nicholson describe on All Things Considered those detained as “not angry young men with shaved heads and black boots” but as doctors, lawyers and teachers – reminiscent of many of the 900+ arrested for the January 6 Capitol insurrection, including Yale Law School graduate and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes III, who was found guilty of seditious conspiracy last month. 

Organizers of the movement apparently contacted Vladimir Putin ahead of the attempted coup, but there is no indication the Russian president responded.

Meanwhile, in SCOTUS: The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday heard arguments over the “Independent State Legislature” theory, a controversial neo-republican (small “r” intended doctrine that would give individual state legislatures the right to set “all manner of election rules and laws without review by state courts,” according to NPR’s Nina Totenburg.

The case, brought to the highest court by North Carolina Republican legislators seeks to strike down a North Carolina ruling that the legislators violated the state’s Constitution with an “extreme partisan gerrymander” after the 2020 U.S. Census.

At its extreme, Totenburg said on All Things Considered, a ruling in favor of the theory and against the South Carolina Supreme Court could “eliminate not just state judicial powers over elections, but governors’ vetos. … and it might allow state legislators to certify electors who were not approved by the voters.” 

Sound Familiar?: That part about allowing state legislators to certify electors is what ex-President Trump attempted after his 2020 election loss. 

Court Count: SCOTUS is split into three camps, according to Totenburg: Justices Clarence Thomas, Thomas Alito and Neil Gorsuch, who favor the Independent State Legislature Theory; Justices Sonya Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who oppose it; and Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavenaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, who are somewhere in the middle. 

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Manchin’s Waterloo?

Nearly everybody (including us) named Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-WV) “most powerful person on Capitol Hill” after the November 2020 election. Now his primacy of the last 22 months could be his downfall. 

The Hill reports that Manchin’s “side-deal” with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) “to enact permitting reform by the end of the year” is on “life support” as Senate Republicans look to punish the West Virginia senator for supporting President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. 

What would Manchin’s predecessor, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) do?

In his deal with Schumer to pass the IRA, Machin was to get Democratic support for a permitting reform bill that would assure approval of West Virginia’s Mountain Valley Pipeline project, which would return a Byrdian victory to the three-term Democratic senator from West Virginia, where 68% of voters chose Donald J. Trump over Joe Biden in 2020. Because centrist Democrat Manchin delivered the crucial majority vote for the Inflation Reduction Act last August, the GOP is angling to kill the permitting reform bill (which needs 10 Republicans to pass without filibuster) to strengthen their chances of defeating his possible re-election bid in 2024. 

Upshot: “Permitting reform” is a traditionally Republican-friendly issue. But not in today’s national political climate.

Comment in the space below in this column or the one on the right, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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261K Jobs Added Last Month

The U.S. economy added 261,000 jobs in October, signaling a “softening” of the economy as the Federal Reserve continues to hike interest rates in order to ease inflation. The number is a bit higher than the low-200s number some economists had predicted. 

The jobs number was low enough to tick up the unemployment rate, to 3.7% from a 3.5% rate in August and September. But any unemployment number under 4% is still almost unnaturally low. The combo of a better-than-expected jobs increase and two-tenths uptick in the unemployment rate also is seen as a sign the Fed’s aggressive interest rate increases could result in a “soft landing” instead of a 2023 recession.

The Labor Department reported job gains in health care, professional and technical services, and manufacturing. 

•••

Trump Marks Calendar for November 14 – Donald J. Trump’s “inner circle” are targeting November 14 as the date the former president will announce his run for the 2024 GOP presidential election, Jonathan Swan scoops in Axios Friday. The potential date comes after the midterms and before Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis would announce his own candidacy and challenge Trump. Swan tells MSNBC’s Morning Joe that Trump’s team will use the date to schedule a series of rallies and appearances and take credit for the election victories by the ex-president’s endorsees. 

The date remains tentative, Swan emphasizes, as it is very likely control of the Senate will have not been determined six days after the midterms. If neither incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock nor Trump-endorsed Republican challenger Herschel Walker reach at least 50% of the vote in Georgia’s Senate race, for example, they will face each other again in a runoff scheduled for December 6.

•••

Confirming the Obvious – United Nations inspectors have found no evidence of “dirty bombs” being developed by Ukraine, NPR reports. The UN inspection was made under dubious circumstances, as it was a claim made by Russia to divert attention from its own atrocities over its invasion of the country. With the UN report, only Vladimir Putin and his allies will continue to push the false dirty bomb story.

Meanwhile: Ukrainian officials have signaled an assault to take back its Kherson region “could be imminent,” The Washington Post reports, which could become the “best test” of whether Russia will hold any significant piece of territory after its February invasion.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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'Democracy on the Ballot' (THU 11/3/22)

President Biden called on voters to consider the future of our republic when casting ballots in the midterm elections, in an address Wednesday evening from Washington’s Union Station. His speech began with a detailed description of the attack the prior Friday on Paul Pelosi, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband. Biden blamed former President Trump for ongoing threat to American democracy in a speech that will be seen as political, especially by Fox News and media outlets to its right.

“Democracy is on the ballot” in the November 8 midterms, Biden said. “So today I appeal to all Americans regardless of party to meet this moment of national and generational importance. We must vote knowing what’s at stake and not just the policy of the moment.”

Recent polls have shown that while the future of American democracy is an underlying issue in the midterms it is not as important to most voters as inflation and the economy. The fear here is that the current 8.5% inflation rate will help propel election deniers into office and potentially give them power over the way future elections are conducted.

•••

Fed Rates Up Another ¾ Point – As every professional- and armchair economist had predicted, the Federal Reserve raised its “key policy rate” by 75 basis points for the fourth meeting in a row, indicating it is not done with its attempt to tighten the economy and lower inflation, the investment site Seeking Alpha reports. That brings it to the current rate of 3.75%, says Marketplace, which notes that Chairman Jerome Powell said the Fed may slow increases “very soon,” as early as its next meeting, or the meeting after that. 

Which does not amount to the much-expected “Fed pivot,” says Marketplace’s Kai Risdahl. The next Fed board meeting is December 13-14, Risdahl says, and there will be a “whole lot” of economic data out between now and then.

Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

On Crime and Our Border

Republican senatorial candidates are making gains in the polls for the coming midterm elections (four weeks from Tuesday, folks!) by slamming their Democratic rivals on crime and even the since-abandoned “defund the police” slogan, a counter to the gains Democrats had begun to make after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. 

But an underlying advantage the GOP has long had, poll-wise, versus Democratic candidates is the issue of controlling our southern border with Mexico. This issue has been a staple of Fox News pundits for years, beginning well before even ex-President Trump’s vow to “build the wall.” 

In a PBS Arizona debate last Thursday between Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly and Republican challenger Blake Masters (plus Libertarian Marc Victor) Masters accused Kelly and other Democrats of “surrendering our southern border.” [Masters is a venture capitalist who has co-authored a book with fellow Trump ally Peter Thiel.]

Kelly says he has privately disagreed with the White House’s border policy in conversations with President Biden. He and fellow Democratic Arizona Sen. Krysten Sinema have co-authored a bipartisan bill to increase pay and staffing for Border Patrol officers, and Kelly also supports physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to PBS Arizona’s Cronkite News.

“I’ve been focused on this since day one, and I brought more resources here to the state of Arizona to deal with the issue,” Kelly said.

Comments: Has the Democratic Party (and have most media outlets) improperly ignored what’s been happening at the border since the Biden administration? We want to hear from you on this issue – especially if you lean left. Go to the Comment box below (if you lean right, please use the comment box in the right column). Or email editors@thehustings.news.

Republican senatorial candidates are making gains in the polls for the coming midterm elections (four weeks from Tuesday, […]

DeSantis, Biden Pledge Cooperation

Hurricane Ian – Winds were clocked at 155 mph Wednesday morning, NPR reports, nearing Category 5 status as the storm headed from the coast of Cuba toward the Gulf Coast of Florida, and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and President Biden pledged “close cooperation,” Politico reports. More than 2 million residents were ordered to leave home.

“That doesn’t mean you need to go all across God’s creation to evacuate,” DeSantis said. “Just get to the higher ground and get into a safe structure.”

Please direct comments on the latest news in the right or left columns, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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Where’s the Beef? 1/6 Hearing Curtain Raiser

By Ken Zino

With the republic facing another public hearing by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol Wednesday, let’s take a look at the fast-breaking developments last week of Donald J. Trump versus the United States of America. Part of the committees’ remit is “to strengthen the security and resilience of the United States and American democratic institutions against violence, domestic terrorism, and domestic violent extremism.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta in a stinging rebuke of Judge Aileen Cannon’s contrary decision, agreed with the Justice Department to let the FBI reclaim access and use 100 classified documents (and “papers physically attached to them”) taken from Trump’s residence in Florida while conducting a legal search. The Trump-appointed (just after the 2020 election) Cannon had ruled that DOJ was not to present “the seized materials to a grand jury and (use) the content of the documents to conduct witness interviews as part of a criminal investigation.” 

Trump’s preposterous argument that he de-classified the documents, either verbally or non-verbally was not addressed by his attorneys (mindful of their own futures if they advised Trump otherwise since there are clear procedures for de-classification?) was rejected completely in the appellate court ruling that said the law should not give Trump special treatment no matter what he was or is. So damaging was the ruling apparently to Cannon’s future career that she cancelled her stay against the use of the documents on the very evening the Court of Appeals issued the reproach.

Then came the special master that the Cannon ruling specified … as part of her egregious opinion in favor of the legally imperiled Trump and his attorneys. Enter special master Raymond J. Dearie, semi-retired judge from the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York. He was proposed by Trump’s attorneys and DOJ agreed that he read and sort through 11,000 records or documents that left the White House and turned up in the long-delayed August 8 search of Mar-a-Lago, after more than a year of DOJ maneuvering to get the National Security documents returned.

Dearie, who clearly is tired of all the lies and false arguments floating about in Trump-land in effect said, “Where’s the beef?” Dearie issued an order after the appellate court ruling asking Trump’s lawyers to let him know if there were any discrepancies between the documents that were kept at Mar-a-Lago and those the FBI said it had hauled away. He was countering false allegations that the FBI planted documents. Where’s your evidence, Trump? 

This whole sordid affair would be farce if it solely existed on a Broadway stage: Mari Lago Magic Wand Madness Review and the Art of the Steal. The absurd jokes and steady laughter start as the curtain rises. A president can declassify simply by thinking about it, Trump told Sean Hannity. Guffaw. And the FBI in its legal search was really looking for the deleted e-mails of Hillary Clinton. Guffaw, guffaw. If they are deleted how would Trump have possession of them? Guffaw, guffaw, guffaw. If Trump had them, he certainly would have used them during the last 18 months when he illegally removed presidential records from the White House. Right? Guffaw. Guffaw, guffaw, guffaw. 

Enter stage left, the New York attorney general with fraud charges, looking to fine Trump $250 million and stop him from doing business ever again in the state. Another “witch hunt” claim is not enough. Trump counters by appearing at his own rallies as a QAnon true believer and booster. Wait, there’s a last-minute script change. It’s Trump and company who are the Satan-worshipping pedophiles in our midst sucking the blood of our children so they won’t live to defend our democracy. 

Curtain for the Mari Lago Magic Wand Madness Review and Art of the Steal?

As grim as Trump’s legal prospects look, there’s also the prospect of conspiracy charges over the 1/6 mob’s effort to have Mike Pence hanged, and ongoing election interference charges in Georgia. Perhaps now, finally, the GOP establishment has had enough. Nonetheless, all the investigations and potential charges haven’t significantly changed people’s views of him, a New York Times/Siena College poll found.

I’m not looking forward to a sequel. Let’s hope the backers -- the institutions and people who support American democracy -- turn off the money and shut Trump and the Art of the Steal down. The show’s over. 

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…meanwhile…

(THU 9/15/22)

Economy Back on Track? – After 20 straight hours of negotiations with labor leaders for freight rail engineers, conductors and other workers, the White House has announced a tentative agreement to preclude a strike set for midnight Friday. The tentative agreement potentially averts another supply chain crisis that could have stopped 30% of cargo shipments in the U.S., NPR reports.

Though the strike deadline forcing the non-stop negotiations was announced just this week, the labor dispute over work schedules as much as pay has been ongoing for years, according to NPR’s Morning Edition. The agreement still faces a vote by labor union members.

Note: The same week Republicans have hit President Biden for touting his programs’ effects on the U.S. economy in the face of disappointing inflation news, the White House has a new “win” to take to the midterms, though consumers-voters will know of this tentative victory only by what would not happen to the economy.

•••

DeSantis Sends Migrants to Martha’s Vineyard – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sent two full airplanes full of migrants from his state to Martha’s Vineyard, the New York Post reports. Florida’s Department of Transportation has $12 million set aside for such flights by the state legislature. 

Wednesday’s flights transported about 50 migrants, most of them from Venezuela, according to NPR, and some of whom were apparently not completely aware of what was happening. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (like DeSantis, a Republican) said the arrivals were provided short-term shelter, according to Fox News Digital. 

DeSantis’ communications director, Taryn Fenske, released this statement: “States like Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the case of those individuals who they have invited to our country by incentivizing illegal immigration through their designation as ‘sanctuary states’ and support the Biden administration’s open border policies.”

Note: DeSantis clearly has scored a high-profile victory in his effort to grab the 2024 GOP presidential nomination ahead of fellow Floridian Donald J. Trump. Wouldn't it have been cheaper to simply bus them to another favorite target of DeSantis' Culture War, Walt Disney World?

--Edited by Todd Lassa

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TUESDAY’S PRIMARIES (WED 9/14/22)

New Hampshire: Incumbent Republican Gov. Chris Sununu easily won his party’s primary, and is heavily favored over the Democratic candidate, Tom Sherman, who won his primary unchallenged. Earlier this year, GOP officials urged Sununu to pack up the governor’s mansion and run for U.S. Senate instead, to offer a strong challenge to incumbent Democrat Maggie Hassan, who is seen as highly vulnerable. 

Hassan instead will defend her seat against an election denier, Don Bolduc, who beat establishment candidate Chuck Morse in the GOP primary. 

Rhode Island: Incumbent Democratic Gov. Dan McKee narrowly beat ex-CVS executive Helena Foulkes, who earned a last-minute endorsement from The Boston Globe, the AP reports. McKee became governor in early 2021, replacing two-term Gov. Gina Raimondo, when she was tapped by the Biden administration for Commerce secretary. McKee’s Republican challenger is Ashley Kalus, who moved from Illinois to Rhode Island after a dispute over a cancelled contract with her COVID-19-testing firm, the AP reports. 

In the race for Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District, where Democratic Rep. Jim Langevin is retiring after more than 20 years, his endorsee, state treasurer Seth Magaziner won a crowded primary and faces unchallenged Republican Allan Fung, former mayor of Cranston. 

For the 1st Congressional District, six-term Rep. David Cicilline ran unopposed in the Democratic primary, as did his Republican challenger for the midterm election, Allan Waters, the AP reports.

Delaware: Republican Lee Murphy challenges incumbent Democratic Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester for the state’s at-large Congressional District November 8.

•••

Another Trumper’s Phone Seized: MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell told his podcast audience that FBI agents approached him at a Mankato, Minnesota Hardee’s restaurant and seized his smartphone after questioning him about Mesa County (Colorado) Clerk Tina Peters, Dominion Voting Systems and Ohio educator Doug Frank, who claims voting machines have been manipulated, the AP reports. The MyPillow Guy, as he’s best-known, showed his audience in the video version of The Lindell Report, a letter signed by a U.S. attorney in Colorado that said prosecutors were conducting an “official criminal investigation of a suspected felony,” and mentioned a grand jury. 

The Justice Department did not respond to the AP about the investigation, though an FBI spokeswoman confirmed via email that a warrant had been served at the Hardee’s. 

•••

Kenneth Starr Dies: Kenneth Starr, the “widely respected appeals court judge and solicitor general” (per The New York Times' obituary) who was appointed special counsel in the investigation of President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal, died Tuesday at a Houston hospital from complications of surgery related to an undisclosed illness. He was 76. 

•••

CORRECTION: An earlier version of "Another Trumper's Phone Seized" incorrectly stated the state from which Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters works and resides.

--Edited by Todd Lassa

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“Not Normal”

By Stephen Macaulay

“At 12 a.m. Thursday, President Trump retweeted a video in which a supporter says, ‘The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.’

“At 12:53 a.m. Friday, he followed this up by referring to riots in Minneapolis and saying, ‘When the looting starts, the shooting starts.’ — The Washington Post, May 29, 2020

As you may recall, Donald Trump was the president then.

Let that marinate as you think about these comments that were made by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) prior to President Joe Biden’s speech last night: 

•“President Biden has chosen to divide, demean, and disparage his fellow Americans.”

•"When the President speaks tonight at Independence Hall, the first lines out of his mouth should be to apologize for slandering tens of millions of Americans as 'fascists.’”

•"In the past two years, Joe Biden has launched an assault on the soul of America, on its people, on its laws, on its most sacred values. He has launched an assault on our democracy. His policies have severely wounded America's soul, diminished America's spirit and betrayed America's trust."

Let’s unpack that a little bit.

Thursday night Biden said:

“Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.

“Now, I want to be very clear, very clear up front. Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology. I know, because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans.

“But there’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. And that is a threat to this country.”

And:

“And here, in my view, is what is true: MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election, and they’re working right now as I speak in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.”

Are these so-called “MAGA Republicans” Americas? Yes. Are these people who seem to live in a world of alternative facts Biden’s “fellow Americans.” Well, in the sense that they are probably American citizens, the answer to that is yes.

But in terms of the ideology that they espouse, no.

Did Biden slander “tens of millions of Americans as 'fascists’”?

No.

Rather, Biden said to a group of Democrats in a private home: "It's not just Trump, it's the entire philosophy that underpins the -- I'm going to say something: It's like semi-fascism."

In other words, Biden was criticizing an ideology that is held by some people, probably not tens of millions, but it seems that ever since Trump lied about the number of people who attended his inauguration, many Republicans have trouble with math.

What’s more, Biden’s actual word was “semi-fascism.” The prefix means “somewhat.” But things like quoting accurately is also something that many Republicans have trouble with, too.

Should the president apologize to people who espouse support for what runs counter to the Constitution? Perhaps McCarthy ought to spend a little more time with that document.

McCarthy claimed that Biden has conducted some sort of assault?

Read, again, the opening passage regarding Trump’s tweets. Did Biden say anything about violence? Did McCarthy and any of his cohorts suggest that Trump apologize—ever?

“The Democrats are hopeless — they never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don't need any of our help. We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.

“So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.” — Donald Trump, January 6, 2021

“Take back our country.” From whom?

Americans who voted?

What about that, Kevin?

-30-

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

EV Incentives and Requirements

Pundit-on-the-left Ken Zino makes his case in the column on the other side (full commentary in The Gray Area) for Canada’s effective public-private partnership intending to foster a quick move from gas- and diesel-powered vehicles to electric cars and trucks. Zino compares Canada’s initiative with the Inflation Reduction Act recently signed by President Biden, and argues that congressional Republicans will oppose it at any cost.  

This comes as the California Air Resources Board releases the state's plan to ban sales of gas- and diesel-powered cars and trucks by 2035. Sixteen other states, mostly on the East and West Coasts, are expected to comply with the latest incarnation of the California Waiver to EPA rules, which would result in electric vehicle market share of roughly 40% in 13 years.

Agree or disagree. Right or left. Here’s your chance to voice your opinion. Hit the Comment box in this column below or email us at editors@thehustings.news.

We are also following the Justice Department’s affidavit for the FBI’s search of former President Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on August 8 (48th anniversary of President Nixon’s resignation). A federal magistrate has ordered the Justice Department to release its heavily redacted affidavit on Friday, same day another judge has ordered Trump’s attorneys to explain his request for a “special master” to oversee the official explanation of the search.

--TL

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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

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

House Passes Inflation Reduction Act

The vote … in the House of Representatives was 220-207 Friday with unanimous Republican opposition to the bill. Approximately $370 billion for curbing harmful emissions and subsidizing green technology counts as the federal government’s “largest-ever investment” in climate change mitigation, according to The Washington Post, and relies on tax law revisions, including a 15% minimum tax on billion-dollar corporations that now pay nothing, plus a new tax on corporate tax buybacks and new funding for the Internal Revenue Service. Democrats claim a $300-billion reduction in the federal deficit, although the fiscal analysis is not yet final, according to WaPo. 

The Senate passed the bill last weekend along party lines, 51-50, with Vice President Harris breaking the tie.

Upshot: Though progressive Democrats will have to get over, or hide, their disappointment that their party’s majority in Congress could not pass the much larger Build Back Better bill, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 now stands as the latest and best argument for stanching a Republican wave in November 8th’s midterm elections. Republican candidates are countering with arguments that small businesses and the middle class will be subject to greater harassment by the IRS and inflationary effects from the federal spending.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Enduring Immigration Issue: Can it be Fixed?

By Todd Lassa

Four-and-a-half years ago, candidate Donald J. Trump promised that if he were elected president, he would “build the wall” on the Southern border, and “make Mexico pay for it.” President Trump ended his single term in office with about 365 miles of new fence that replaced existing dilapidated and outdated fencing, about 40 miles of new primary wall, plus 33 miles of secondary wall where there was none before, factcheck.org reports, quoting the Customs & Border Protection service. This means 73 miles new build. The price tag is an estimated $15-billion. Mexico paid for none of it.

Now President Biden is actually negotiating a own border deal with Mexico. The U.S. is offering excess supply of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in exchange for Mexico “moving to help the U.S. contain a migration surge along its southern border,” The Washington Post says, citing “senior officials” from both countries. (The U.S. also will extend the vaccine deal to Canada, though obviously without any quid pro quo on help with border security.)

The deal is being negotiated as the Biden administration tries to stem the flow of children and teenagers trying to cross the U.S. border from Mexico and other points south. Biden signed numerous executive orders his first few days in office to reverse President Trump’s strict border control measures.

Republicans are quick to connect this latest crisis to Biden’s laissez-faire immigration policy and reversal of Trump executive orders. Immigrant children are arriving at the southern border without their parents. Under the Trump administration, more than 600 children and teenagers were separated from their families as their parents were thrown out of the U.S. in 2018, explicitly to deter illegal immigration.

On Monday, March 15, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, led a bi-partisan delegation to the border at El Paso, Texas, to call attention to the latest flood of illegal immigrants trying to cross the border, a scene that Democrats criticized as a “photo op.”

The numbers of immigrants amassing at the border has, indeed, reached its highest monthly level, NPR reports, since 2019. Immigrants are flowing north primarily from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, NPR reporter Carrie Kahn said, fleeing “high levels” of violence, gangs and poverty, with promises made by human smugglers, while relatives already in the U.S. advise on whether they can find jobs here. The Biden administration seeks $4 billion in aid for these countries to spend on police training and judicial reform.

Proponents of a comprehensive immigration and asylum plan lament legislation proposed during George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s administrations, neither of which had a chance to make it through the Senate. Obama’s proposal was essentially an updated variation of the Bush plan. 

Now, following an administration that sought to heavily restrict immigration via executive orders and to appease American workers fearful for their jobs, instead of the traditional Republican constituency of farms and businesses seeking low-cost labor, the Biden administration is working on a new asylum process.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, and Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-CA, have introduced bills that seek …

•An eight-year path for undocumented immigrants to become citizens.

•Increases in the number of visas issued to immigrants per-country.

•Changing the term “alien” to “non-citizen.”

The House of Representatives began to take up this proposed legislation March 18. A bill offering legal status to “Dreamers” and migrants admitted for humanitarian reasons, Politico reports, passed by 228-197 vote. A bill offering similar protection to about 1 million farm workers -- estimated to be about half the nation’s agricultural workers – who have entered the U.S. illegally passed 247-174. The Senate will be a steeper climb. Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-SC, introduced a bi-partisan immigration bill in early February, but has more recently told Politico he won’t support “legalizing one person until you’re in control of the border.”

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