Tag: President Trump

War on Iran

THURSDAY 3/5/26

Trump to Noem: You’re Fired, More or Less – The answer to what do  we mean by “more or less”? is, “depends on what a special envoy for the Shield of America does, exactly.”

Yes, that is Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s next job – until now a nonexistent security position -- in the Trump administration, the president said in firing her, according to The New York Times. Trump also said he wants to replace Noem as Department of Homeland Security secretary with Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK).  

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) would not commit to voting for Mullin and Noem’s firing does not change Democrats’ demand for restructuring immigration enforcement in order to fund DHS.

Conversely, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said he would vote for Mullin, a “nice upgrade” from Noem, the NYT reports. Still, no one has called Fetterman a DINO (Democrat In Name Only). Yet. 

•••

Power Vacuum – The Senate rejected a war powers vote Wednesday, 47-53, that would have officially put a stop on President Trump’s war on Iran, (per NPR’s All Things Considered ). The vote was mostly along party lines, which means that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voted with most Democrats for the resolution and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) voted with most Republicans against it. 

In the House … The House was set to vote Thursday on a similar measure introduced by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA). Similar results were expected, though it would take just a couple of Republicans joining Massie to approve the resolution.

But Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) teed up the thin GOP majority against it, saying “It would put the country in serious harm, and it would certainly jeopardize the lives of our troops and all those who were involved in making these great sacrifices to defend us.”

Spreading through, and beyond, the region … With Iran controlling the Strait of Hormuz and reports of strikes on US ally Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan airport, the war has spread wide through and beyond the region. According to Azernews, an Iranian drone strike on Nakhchivan airport has left four dead so far. Meanwhile, Israel Defense Forces have struck Beirut after Iranian-controlled Hezbollah fired rockets and drones on the north of Israel, The Times of Israel reports. 

•••

Tariff Refunds Due – Federal Trade Court Judge Richard Eaton at the Manhattan-based Court of International Trade has issued a written order directing the Trump administration to begin the process of refunding more than $130 billion in import fees, The Wall Street Journal reports, following the Supreme Court’s ruling against the tariffs in its February 20 ruling on Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump. Such companies as Costco Wholesale, FedEx and Pandora jewelry are among more than 2,000 importers that have filed lawsuits seeking the refunds. –TL

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No Arms Shortages – The US has the means to carry out its air campaign on Iran “for as long as it wishes,” War/Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a press conference Wednesday morning (per The Wall Street Journal). That campaign could last up to eight weeks, he said – or also, Hegseth said in various points in the press conference, six weeks or less than four. 

“They are toast and they know it, or at least they soon will know it,” Hegseth said. 

Hegseth was tamping down concerns the war in Iran would deplete the US arsenal. He was accompanied at the Pentagon by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine.

Hegseth said that a US submarine sank an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean, the first such sinking by a sub since World War II. 

Caine said that Qatar shot down two Iranian bombers that were “inbound” and that the United Arab Emirates has intercepted multiple drones, while Iran has fired more than 500 missiles and launched 2,000 drones. 

All the President’s Explanations … The US with Israel struck Iran before Iran could get off a pre-emptive strike of its own, President Trump said Tuesday in yet another explanation for the war. The US-Israeli airstrikes brought an abrupt end to negotiations between Iranian diplomats and US special envoy Steve Witkoff and White House son-in-law Jared Kushner last week. 

Trying to straighten out the White House’s message, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said later Tuesday that Tehran was given “every single possible opportunity” to shutter its nuclear weapons program in negotiations with Witkoff/Kushner (per The Guardian).

Tehran “had no intention of actually negotiating a nuclear deal,” Rubio said. 

Rubio earlier had acknowledged that Iran wasn’t enriching uranium for weaponry following the US strike last June on the country’s three major nuclear facilities. 

•••

First Round of Primaries – Texas State Rep. James Talarico topped firebrand US Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic primary for John Cornyn’s (R-TX) US Senate seat, The Associated Press reports. Talarico took 52.8% of the vote to Crockett’s 45.9% in his quest to become the first Democrat elected statewide in 30 years.

On the GOP side, incumbent Cornyn, after spending $70 million on his campaign, edged state Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton, 41.9% to 40.7%, which means they’re both headed off to a May 26 runoff.

In North Carolina former Gov. Roy Cooper (D) faces former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Watley (R) to replace retiring Republican US Sen. Thom Tillis. 

Arkansas is the biggest climb for Democrats, with Hallie Shoffner winning the party’s primary to challenge Sen. Tom Cotton’s re-election bid. Democratic state Sen. Fred Love will challenge incumbent Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sander’s re-election bid. –TL

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TUESDAY 3/3/26

The Latest – The State Department has closed US embassies in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait after being hit by Iranian drone attacks and has advised ambassadors to immediately depart from 14 Middle Eastern countries, The New York Times reports. Meanwhile, Israel’s military said Tuesday it has seized an area of Lebanon in a conflict with Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia.

Death toll … Six US soldiers have been killed, USA Today reports, with 787 deaths counted in Iran, 11 in Israel and eight in Gulf states.

Munitions buildup … Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) says the case for supplemental funding for munitions was “brought up in discussions” Monday in a Gang of Eight closed door briefing with Trump officials and top lawmakers on the House Armed Services, Foreign Relations and Appropriations committees, Roll Call reports. 

“There are more details to be determined, of course, how long the operation goes and what the need is,” Rubio told reporters after the meeting.

Good questions … President Trump generally has been sticking with his four- to five-week timeline. Impetus for US involvement with Israel has been less clear.

Pre-emption … Israel’s determination to attack Iran would guarantee that Iran would strike back at both Israel and the US, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers in a closed meeting with CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine, The Guardian reports. Rubio & Co. held the meeting ahead of an expected House vote Thursday on a war powers resolution sponsored by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA). 

“It was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone – the United States or Israel or anyone – they were going to respond, and respond against the United States,” Rubio told reporters at the Capitol afterwards.

President says … “Our objectives are clear,” Trump said at a Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House Monday (pictured). “First, we’re destroying Iran’s missile capabilities and we see that happening on an hourly basis, and their capacity to produce brand new ones, and pretty good ones they make. Second, we’re annihilating their navy, already we’ve knocked out 10 ships. They’re at the bottom of the sea. Third, we’re insisting that the world’s number one sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon, they can never have a nuclear weapon. I’ve said that from the very beginning. They’re never gonna have a nuclear weapon. They were on the road to getting one, legitimately through a deal that was signed foolishly by our country. And finally, we’re insuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorists outside of their borders.”

Trump uncharacteristically took no reporters’ questions after just six minutes of remarks but characteristically pivoted to compliment himself about choosing new gold drapes and how he is building the biggest, best ballroom anywhere in place of what used to be the White House East Wing.

•••

The Clintons’ Recordings – The House Oversight Committee Monday released recordings of its questioning of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton regarding their connection to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, taken at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center in New York last week, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Hillary Clinton told the committee she did not know Epstein, only that Ghislaine Maxwell had attended daughter Chelsea’s wedding as a “plus-one” with another guest.

Bill Clinton told the committee he recalled seeing Donald J. Trump at a golf tournament about 2002-03 in which the future president told the former president he “had some great times together over the years” but fell out over a real estate deal.

“The president …” Bill Clinton said, “this is 20-something years ago, never said anything to make me think he was involved in anything improper with regard to Epstein, either. He just didn’t. He just said, ‘we were friends, and we had a falling out over a land deal.’ That’s all.” 

•••

Tuesday’s Primaries – Primary elections are held Tuesday in Texas, North Carolina and Arkansas. – Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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Regime Change? -- MONDAY 3/2/26

By Todd Lassa

Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei is dead, killed by Israeli and US military forces on sudden strikes announced by President Trump at 2 a.m. Saturday, Washington time.

“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History is dead,” Trump Truth Socialed. 

In a brief telephone interview from Mar-a-Lago Sunday told The New York Times he intends to keep the assault on Iran going for “four to five weeks.”

“It won’t be difficult. We have tremendous amounts of ammunition,” the president said in the interview. “You know, we have ammunition stored all over the world in different countries.”

The US military attack on Venezuela in which its president, Nicolás Maduro was arrested and brought to New York in January was “the perfect scenario” for regime change in Iran, Trump told the NYT. But Iranian protesters – an estimated 7,000, according to The Associated Press, of whom gave their lives trying to push back against the brutal totalitarian regime in the last month – do not have an organization backing them in order to take over, Middle Eastern analysts say.

“Anytime you start down this path, you don’t really know where it leads,” Daniel Shapiro, former US ambassador to Israel, told NPR’s Scott Simon on Weekend Edition Saturday, from Israel, as Iran counter-attacked that country with missiles. “Again, I hope to see the demise of this regime, and I hope the Iranian people have a better life. But what has been launched now could produce all kinds of outcomes, and it could produce a military dictatorship. It could produce a civil war. It could produce a splintering of the country itself.”

The US-Israeli attack comes after negotiations broke down last week between Iranian diplomats and US special envoy Steve Witkoff with White House son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump has said just before his State of the Union address that war on Iran could come within a couple of weeks if no accord was reached.

In another, earlier call, this one with The Atlantic’s Michael Scherer Sunday, Trump said of Iran’s post-Khamenei leadership; “They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them. They should have done it sooner.”

But attacks intensified on Sunday, the NYT reports, with Iran striking Israel and Gulf countries in the Middle East, killing three US troops. 

Having prepared for Trump’s apparent capriciousness, Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) have introduced a House resolution calling for a war powers vote on Trump’s military action in Iran.

Is the start of a new war with Iran a wag-the-dog situation? The week in which only congressional Republicans and the MAGA faithful had anything good to say about Tuesday’s State of the Union address ended with ex-President Bill Clinton testifying on his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein while deferring to the House Oversight Committee to determine whether the current president should do the same.

But any wag-the-dog theories must consider the other party involved in a “four or five week” war on Iran: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who fended off an impending trial into corruption charges against him by claiming it would divert too much necessary attention on the country’s war fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah in Gaza.

Last December, in a request suggested by Trump, Netanyahu asked Israeli President Isaac Herzog for a pardon. Netanyahu has called the three separate cases of bribery, breach of trust and fraud launched in 2019 a “witch hunt.”

Four years before that, Netanyahu vehemently opposed then-President Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action written to prevent Iran’s nuclear arms development. Trump killed Obama’s JCPA at the beginning of his first term in 2017.

Today, Netanyahu has yet another diversion from his impending trial, as Trump faces the possibility of another extended US war in the Middle East and the end of the lower gasoline prices at the pump he has claimed as a major part of his second term’s economic miracle. 

After the US-Israeli attacks, Iran notified ships in the region that it had closed the Strait of Hormuz, according to The Independent. By Sunday night, benchmark US crude futures were up by as much as 11% to $75 barrel, with Brent futures, the global price gauge, up 8% to about $79, The Wall Street Journal reports.

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MONDAY 3/2/26

Reality TV, Trump Edition

By Charles Dervarics

If you love reality television, President Trump’s State of the Union address was the place to be Tuesday night.

A man not known for much personal introspection, the president nonetheless likes to put on an entertaining show as he brought a litany of guests to illustrate his views on the economy, immigration, crime and foreign policy. By night’s end, he had awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom, two Medal of Honor awards, a Legion of Merit award and a Purple Heart.

Amid sagging poll numbers, Trump was at times optimistic about the nation’s economic outlook and confrontational with Democrats who oppose his policies.

On the economy, he blamed former President Joe Biden for high prices and said his administration had achieved a massive turnaround in just one year. “Our nation is back, bigger and richer and stronger than ever before,” he said. 

Large swaths of the public may disagree, as a new poll from ABC/Ipsos/Washington Post poll showed that 57% of respondents disagree with his handling of the economy.

Seeking to address such concerns, the president cited lower gas prices and mortgage rates, increased corporate investments in America, an end to tax on tips and overtime and lower tax burdens for many on Social Security. “The roaring economy is roaring like never before,” he said.

The president also promised a new policy that the federal government would match, up to $1,000, contributions to retirement plans for individuals who lack access to any corporate matching contributions. “A year ago we were a dead country. Now we are the hottest country in the world.”

While Trump’s immigration enforcement policies have drawn sharp criticism, he doubled down on that issue by citing incidents where American citizens were killed or injured by undocumented immigrants. His sharp remarks about how “unrestricted immigration and open borders” may contribute to US crime brought shouts from several Democrats.

Yet in a made-for-TV moment, the president asked his congressional audience where they stand on these issues. “If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support: The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”

Republicans stood and applauded at length while most Democrats stayed in their seats, to Trump’s dismay. 

Although foreign policy has occupied much of Trump’s attention in the past year, he spent comparatively little time on this issue other than noting that his administration continues to negotiate with Iran about its potential nuclear capacity. 

After the president’s speech — the longest in State of the Union history — Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger delivered the Democrats’ response. The state’s first female governor, Spanberger sharply criticized the president on immigration enforcement. 

"Our president has sent poorly trained federal agents into our cities where they have arrested and detained American citizens and people who aspire to be Americans," she said. "And they have done it without a warrant."

She also sharply criticized the president’s tariffs, saying these “reckless trade policies” are causing massive price increases. With a nod to the midterm congressional elections fast approaching, she added, “Democrats across the country are laser-focused on affordability” this year.

POSTED WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY 2/25-28/2026

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WEDNESDAY 2/25/26

…meanwhile…

President Trump at the signing ceremony in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Monday evening. Trump left the ceremony early to return to Washington in time to posthumously present Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom on what would have been his 32nd birthday* Tuesday.

WEDNESDAY 10/15/25

Bill VIII Fails – Senate Democrats blocked Republicans’ eighth attempt to pass a stopgap funding bill to reopen the federal government late Tuesday night, NPR reports. 

President Trump renewed his threat Tuesday to strip funding away from programs with “Democratic priorities” if the government remains closed, per The New York Times. Trump said he would spare “Republican programs” and will release his kill list on Friday. 

“Their intimidation tactics are not working and will continue to fail,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said in response, as his party apparently continues to succeed in painting the shutdown as the GOP’s fault despite the Trump administration’s efforts to turn the tables, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s video distributed to the nation’s airports declaring such. 

US Airports have generally refused to show Noem’s blatant violation of the Hatch Act. 

What are ‘Democratic’ programs? … It would be an educated guess to say that Trump will announce Friday the killing of programs within the Health and Human Services and/or Housing and Urban Development departments, or perhaps the Environmental Protection Agency (established by President Nixon in December 1970) as among “Democratic priorities.”

Republican priorities? Maybe the War Department, as the administration likes to call the de-DEI-ified Defense Department?

Speaking of the Pentagon … Dozens of reporters have turned in their Pentagon press passes in rejecting War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s new policy that bans disclosure in news reports of information not authorized by the Pentagon for public release – even if it’s not classified information. Only one news organization, the hard-MAGA One America News network has signed on.

Reporters for The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Reuters, The Atlantic, Fox News, CNN, NPR, Newsmax and The Washington Times are among those who will lose their Pentagon credentials for not signing Hegseth’s policy. 

“It turns us into stenographers, not reporters,” NPR’s credentialed Pentagon reporter of 28 years, Tom Bowman, told All Things Considered Tuesday.

The Pentagon Press Association released this statement Monday: “The Pentagon certainly has the right to make its own policies, within the constraints of the law. There is no need or justification, however, for it to require reporters to affirm their understanding of vague, likely unconstitutional policies as a precondition to reporting from Pentagon facilities.”

*Mediaite notes President Trump chuckled over this anecdote Tuesday at the White House ceremony in which Turning Point USA co-founder and CEO Charlie Kirk was posthumously presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom:

“They have the devil’s ideology and they’re failing and they know it. They feel it and they become violent. They seem to become very violent on the left.

“They’ve rammed vehicles into federal law enforcement, fired sniper rifles at ICE agents– and me.

“You know, I made a turn at a good time. I made a turn at a good time. I turned to the right.

“Charlie couldn’t believe it. Actually, he said, “How the hell did you make that turn?

“I said, ‘I don’t know.’” –TL

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TUESDAY 10/14/25

Signing the Peace Deal – President Trump showed off his distinctive signature on the peace deal between Israel and Hamas ending the war in Gaza and sending 20 surviving Israeli hostages and the first of nearly 2,000 Palestinian political prisoners and detainees free Monday. Since then, Hamas has returned the first four of 28 deceased hostages to Israel (per NPR). 

Trump led a signing ceremony in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where he said the world is witnessing the “historic dawn of a new Middle East,” after addressing the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem late Monday. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan added their signatures to Trump’s document, Egyptian Streets reports.

“This took 3,000 years to get to this point, can you believe it?” Trump said. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not attend. He said a previous engagement related to the Jewish holiday conflicted with the ceremony in Sharm el-Sheikh. 

But during Trump’s earlier address to the Knesset, he surprised the Israeli cabinet when he told President Isaac Herzog that Netanyahu should be pardoned before his trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, Politico reports. 

“Give him a pardon, come on,” Trump told Herzog, calling Netanyahu, who earlier this year said he had nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, “one of the greatest” wartime leaders.

In addition to legal maneuvers by his attorneys, Netanyahu has successfully delayed his trial by citing the need not to be distracted from the two-year-old war on Hamas in Gaza. –TL

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MONDAY 10/13/25

Hamas Releases Living Hostages – President Trump addressed Israel’s Knesset Monday afternoon local time after Hamas released 20 remaining Israeli hostages from its attack two years ago, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Trump later will travel to Egypt to commemorate the peace deal with other world leaders.

“Mr. President, you are committed to this peace,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “I am committed to this peace and together we will achieve this peace.”

Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner had arrived days earlier. Kushner, considered key negotiator for the Abraham Accords at the end of Trump’s first term, has been given a lot of credit for the latest peace deal.

“Everybody is happy,” Trump said upon arrival Monday. “Whether it’s Jewish or Muslim or Arab countries. Every country is dancing in the streets.”

Though Trump touts the ceasefire as the beginning of a permanent peace, Netanyahu is more circumspect. Israel will maintain about 200 of its defense force in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government was to begin handing over nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees later Monday. Hundreds of aid trucks began heading to Gaza from Egypt Sunday. 

•••

More Federal Layoffs – Vice President JD Vance warned on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures that the Trump administration will look for “deeper cuts” as the shutdown begins its third week Wednesday. Last Friday layoff notices were sent to about 4,200 employees across eight agencies, Forbes reports, citing an Office of Management and Budget response to a lawsuit seeking those numbers, by the 800,000-member American Federation of Government Employees. 

That number includes nearly 1,500 Treasury Department employees -- of which about 1,300 are Internal Revenue Service workers -- Bloomberg reported, as well as another 1,200 Health and Human Services workers.

•••

Today’s Front Page -- …is not a debate, but rather, Contributing Pundit Jerry Lanson’s claiming of an abandoned Washington Post slogan to warn of Trump administration tactics being used to track down and arrest alleged undocumented aliens, in the left column, and Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s critical look at the administration’s record of government debt v. services, in the right column. 

To comment on either or both of these commentaries, and/or on news/aggregate/analysis in the center column, email editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings (right v. left, conservative v. liberal, or however you describe it, so long as we can publish your comments in the proper column) in the subject line. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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MONDAY 10/13/25

The Art of No Deal

Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald J. Trump took no questions during their brief press conference Friday [from a White House video].

UPDATE III: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will not be alone in his White House meeting with President Trump and his aides (likely Secretary of State Marco Rubio, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Vice President JD Vance) Monday, NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday reports. Zelenskyy will be joined by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron, NATO Secretary Gen. Mark Rutte and other European allies.

UPDATE II: How is President Trump’s political alliance/friendship with Russian dictator/President Vladimir Putin holding up? Pretty well. 

Trump on Saturday told key European leaders he backs Putin’s plan for a “sweeping” peace agreement in which Ukraine would cede territory it still controls over to Russia, The New York Times reports. The urgent ceasefire Trump had wanted before the meeting is now a Liberation Day-like memory. 

This news comes hours after the NYT reported that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had praised Trump for “creating the opportunity to end Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine” and provide security guarantees to Ukraine after a peace deal.

No word on how this affects Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s planned visit to the White House Monday, especially with February’s “you have no cards” set-up a lingering memory.

UPDATE: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says President Trump invited him to Washington Monday to discuss “the end of the killings, the end of the war” with Russia in his country, The Kyiv Independent reports. The invite came in a call from Trump Saturday, Zelenskyy said.

Sometimes Predictions Do Come True – Despite absence of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the nearly three hours of discussion between President Trump and Russian dictator/President Vladimir Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska Friday the two principals could not reach an agreement that would lead to ending the war in Ukraine. A Nobel Peace Prize for Trump will have to wait.

So will Zelenskyy and leaders from Europe, whom Trump has promised he will meet, though not, it seems, with Putin present. 

The New York Times reports that Trump and Putin made “vague statements” about their progress in a press conference after the talks, and took no reporters’ questions.

The Wall Street Journal put it similarly, noting Trump said he and Putin made “some headway” after Trump “rolled out the red carpet” with a military flyover and a ride in the Beast, aka the POTUS limo. Trump and Putin (and presumably a driver) were alone in their ride in the Beast, according to the NYT. For all his efforts to be nice, Trump got little in return, the WSJ reports.

The Kyiv Independent relayed more detailed quotes from the two old friends. Putin began the press conference by reiterating the Kremlin’s key demands; To bar Ukraine from NATO permanently and for Kyiv to withdraw from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

“We are convinced that for a settlement in Ukraine to be stable and long-lasting,” Putin continued, “all root causes of the crisis – of which we have spoken many times – must be eliminated, all of Russia’s legitimate concerns taken into account, and a fair balance in the field of security in Europe and in the world as a whole established. I agree with President Trump – he spoke about this today – that the security of Ukraine must certainly be assured. Of course, we are ready to work on this. I hope that the understanding we have reached will help us get closer to that goal and open the road to peace in Ukraine.

Sounds like a non-starter to Zelenskyy. But perhaps not to Trump.

“We had an extremely productive meeting and many points were agreed to. There are just a very few that are left – some are not that significant – one is probably the most significant (Putin’s refusal to withdraw from those four regions –Ed). We didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there. A couple of big ones that we haven’t quite gotten there, but we’ve made some headway. So there’s no deal until there’s a deal.

“I will call NATO in a little while. I will call the various people that I think are appropriate. And I’ll, of course, call up President Zelenskyy and tell him about today’s meeting. It’s ultimately up to them.

Clear? – Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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Trump-Putin Confab in Alaska

FRIDAY 8/15/25

Flattery Will Get You Trump – Perhaps. Russian dictator/President Vladimir Putin praised President Trump’s “energetic and sincere efforts” to end the war in Ukraine, Bloomberg reports, ahead of their summit Friday at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson on the north side of Anchorage, Alaska. The summit is scheduled to begin 11 am local time/3 pm Eastern time. 

Meeting for the first time since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 – indeed, for the first time in person since their infamous Helsinki summit in 2018, though the two have had many phone calls since – the two leaders have very different goals going into Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, The Wall Street Journal notes: Trump is seeking a partnership with Putin to end the war in Ukraine, while Putin wants to repair his relationship with Trump as he tries to “reassert his dominance” over Kyiv.

Trump has consistently lowered expectations since announcing the hastily assembled confab while ignoring criticism over the notion of hosting Putin on US (formerly Russian) soil. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as it flew toward Alaska he would let Kyiv decide whether to swap land with Russia after Friday’s summit, BBC One reports. Trump’s top aides have been lowering expectations for the summit, according to The New York Times, by calling the two presidents’ meeting little more than a “listening exercise.”

Conversely, The Associated Press reports that Trump, who has not been shy about his interest in being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, is out to prove to the world “he is both a master dealmaker and a global peacemaker.” 

Trump is supposed to pass on any deal he makes with Putin on to Ukraine for approval. Ukrainians are not so confident the summit will lead to any ceasefire, let alone Nobel Peace Prize for the American president, and have adapted the slogan; “Not about us without us,” according to NPR.

Meanwhile, a noteworthy satirical ‘headline’ … ‘Fun Getaway with Murderous Dictator Just What Exhausted Trump Needed.’ – The Onion. –TL

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...meanwhile...

THURSDAY 8/14/25

What Does Putin Want? Alask Him – The answer has everyone but President Trump scared. Trump is ready to walk away with no deal if dictator/President Vladimir Putin doesn’t budge on demands Russia gets the one-fifth of eastern Ukraine its military is more-or-less controlling. Putin also wants guarantees Ukraine will never join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and that a Kremlin puppet regime replaces Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government. 

Zelenskyy has not been invited to this hastily arranged meeting at Joint Base Elmendorf, on the northern section of Anchorage, but Trump has indicated that if he and Trump do reach some sort of deal, Zelenskyy will be let in on it with some sort of follow-up. 

Consensus among leaders and media of the free world, both going into Wednesday’s NATO web chat with Zelenskyy and Trump and coming out of it is that Putin plans to concede nada. Or as Jonathan Lemire’s piece in The Atlantic is headlined; “Vladimir Putin Could Be Laying a Trap.”

That “trap” is rather obvious: Putin convinces Trump in Alaska that it is Zelenskyy who is being unreasonable and is responsible for all the war and bloodshed. 

On the other hand, Trump reportedly told European and Ukrainian leaders at German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s web chat Wednesday that the US is willing to contribute some security guarantees for Ukraine, according to Politico. Citing a European diplomat, a UK official and a person briefed on the virtual call, all three of them anonymous, Trump indicated the US was “willing to play some sort of role in providing Kyiv with a means to defer future Russian aggression if a ceasefire is reached.”

Also, Trump said in a press conference after the virtual meeting Wednesday; “There will be some sort of very severe consequences” for Russia if Putin doesn’t agree to concessions (per NPR).

Therein lies the rub. How will a ceasefire be reached if Putin remains steadfast with the demands he has made for at least the last three years and Zelenskyy – who after all holds no cards -- turns it down when Trump’s people convey it to him? Whose fault would it be if Zelenskyy refuses to give up land already under pressure from the Kremlin’s arms? 

Putin appears to hold all the cards in Friday’s meeting. The fear is that Zelenskyy is being set up to take all the blame for extending the war.  

Now, about the art of that $7.2-million deal 158 years ago to sell Alaska to the US …

•••

President, Host – President Trump got himself appointed chairman of the Kennedy Center earlier this year, and Wednesday announced he will host the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors in December. Honorees (per Time) are “King of Country” George Strait, KISS, Sylvester “Rocky” Stallone, The Phantom of the Opera Broadway star Michael Crawford and singer Gloria Gaynor, whose signature song I Will Survive has become iconic in the Gay Community.

Trump in a press conference insisted it was not his idea to host the Kennedy Center Honors … but, “I used to host The Apprentice finals, and we did rather well with that.” –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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THURSDAY 8/14/25

…meanwhile…

TUESDAY 8/5/25

House Arrest for Bolsonaro – Brazil’s supreme court has ordered house arrest for the country’s Trumpy ex-President Jair Bolsonaro, who is on trial for an alleged coup plot to remain in office after his 2022 re-election defeat, The Associated Press reports. Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is overseeing the case, said Bolsonaro had spread content through his three lawmaker sons, thus violating precautionary measures imposed on the former president.

Coffee talk … Thanks to the simpatico between President Trump and Bolsonaro, Trump has set the tariff on Brazil – which imports most of the coffee beans the US consumes – at 50%. The US already has a trade surplus with Brazil.

•••

Will Israel Annex Parts of Gaza? – As Canada, the UK and France prepare to recognize a Palestinian state in September amidst piling evidence that the Israeli Defense Force is starving citizens in Gaza in its fight against Hamas, the Israeli government has “floated” the possibility of extending its military offensive and annexing parts of the strip, The Guardian reports. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to convene Israel’s security cabinet in the coming days to discuss options.

This follows collapse of indirect ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas led by US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff last Saturday.

•••

Harm Reduction Redacted – The Trump administration is quickly phasing out “harm reduction,” the key method for states, localities and communities to respond to the drug overdose epidemic, according to Roll Call. In the past week, the administration began removing educational materials from government websites, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration told states that harm reduction is used to “advocate for policies that are incompatible with federal laws and inconsistent with this administration’s policies.”

Trump in July issued an executive order targeting homeless people that criticizes “harm reduction” and “safe consumption” efforts. --TL

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MONDAY 8/4/25

Messing With Texas – President Trump called on the Texas legislature, which consists of 88 Republicans and 62 Democrats, to redraw US House districts in order to add five Republicans to the House of Representatives after the 2026 midterms. State House Republicans obeyed and were to begin voting on a new map Monday in a special session that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called in order to take up measures regarding the deadly Independence Day Hill Country floods, stiffer regulations for hemp and other GOP-leaning issues. 

On Sunday, at least 51 of those 62 state House Democrats fled Texas, mostly for Chicago (where Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has been one of the more effective Democrats pushing back against Trump’s politics and policies), as well as New York, NPR and Houston Public Media reports on Morning Edition. 

The Texas House does not have a quorum and thus cannot conduct business if fewer than 100 of its members are present, according to The Texas Tribune. 

“This is not a decision we make lightly, but it is one we make with absolute moral clarity,” state Rep. Gene Wu, chair of the House Democratic Caucus said in a statement. Wu, according to the Tribune, accused Abbott of “using an intentionally racist map to steal the voice of millions of Black and Latino Texans, all to execute a corrupt political deal.”

Abbott issued an ominous statement of his own.

“The truancy ends now,” the Texas governor said. “The derelict Democratic House members must return to Texas and be in attendance when the House reconvenes at 3:00 PM on Monday, August 4, 2025. For any member who fails to do so, I will invoke Texas Attorney General Opinion No. KP-0382 to remove the missing Democrats from membership in the Texas House.”

Abbott would then appoint his own Republican replacements for the missing Democrats, HPM reports.

As of Monday, two weeks remain in Abbott’s special session.

•••

Drowning the Numbers – The Trump Camp including such supporters as our own right-column contributing pundit Rich Corbett were caught in celebration over a “booming” economy unhurt by White House tariff negotiations when, inconveniently, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest numbers showing just 73,000 jobs added to the economy in July. What’s worse, the BLS revised heavily downward by 258,000 jobs combined its earlier reports for May and June, to just 19,000 and 14,000 jobs added, respectively.

The unemployment rate remains low, at 4.2%.

It must be noted here that the BLS often makes such revisions upward as well as downward. The May and June revisions indicate a lag in counting the effects of the “Liberation Day” tariffs, April 2, which Trump delayed numerous times as he reportedly negotiated deals. These are ongoing. 

Trump took it out on BLS administrator Erika McEntarfer, a Biden appointee.

“I believe the numbers were phony, just like before the election. And there were other times” President Trump Truth Socialed Friday, according to RealClear Politics.

The BLS reported the US economy added just 114,000 jobs in July 2024 and a healthier 142,000 for that August. September 2024’s job report was stronger, with 254,000 added, but for October 2024, the US economy added just 12,000 jobs according to a report issued that November 4 – the day before election day.

“So you know what I did?” Trump continued on Truth Social. “I fired her. And you know what? I did the right thing.

“She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, and they can’t be manipulated for political purposes,” Trump said.

Ironically … These poor employment growth numbers would have given Trump appointees to the Federal Open Market Committee, Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, a better argument for lowering interest rates at the Federal Reserve’s regular confab two days earlier. Both dissented against the 10 others on the FOMC by calling for a quarter-point cut in interest rates, in line with Trump’s criticism of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s reluctance to do so.

Waller, who has made clear his interest in replacing Powell as Fed chair when Powell’s term ends next May said on July 17, according to the New York Post, “the economy is still growing, but its momentum has slowed significantly, and the risks to the FOMC’s employment market have increased.”  --Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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MONDAY 8/4/25

Fed Resists Trump Economy’s Charms

By Todd Lassa

After he announced interest rates would remain unchanged at 4.25% to 4.5% Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in the traditional post-meeting press conference called the policy “moderately restrictive.” The Fed will be surveying the effects of President Trump’s tariffs on inflation and unemployment closely for the next two months on the way to the Federal Open Market Committee’s next review of interest rates in September.

“We’re seeing now substantial amounts of tariff revenue” coming into the federal government, of $30 billion per month, Powell said. While that would mitigate a small amount of the deficit hike from the One Big Beautiful tax and spending bill for the coming fiscal year, consumers and business are paying for it. 

Powell offered the Trump administration no appeasement here. Pushed by reporters whether the FOMC was planning, expecting the cut in rates that the president has been demanding pretty much since his first administration, the Fed chair replied that the committee does not make decisions in advance.

After all, Powell, whom Trump calls “Too Late,” the president’s kindest epithet for the Fed chair, leads a committee of 12 who set rates. This dozen determined to keep inflation low and employment high consists of seven governors on the central bank’s board and five of 12 regional bank presidents who vote on a rotating business.

On Wednesday, 10 committee members voted to keep interest rates unchanged while two on the board of governors voted for a quarter-point reduction (to 4%-4.5%). This was the first time since 1993 that two members of the board of governors dissented. They are Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, The Wall Street Journal reports, both appointed by Trump 45 and both now the lead candidates to replace Powell when his term ends next May.

Waller has been open publicly about his desire to become Trump’s choice for the next Fed chair, NPR’s Morning Edition reports.

Powell told the press conference economic fundamentals look good, with moderate growth, low unemployment but with wage growth moderation, and eased inflation. But there has been a slowdown in consumer spending, the housing market remains weak and that inflation rate remains “somewhat elevated.”

The Fed had been raising interest rates through much of the Biden administration to bring down inflation elevated from the COVID pandemic. The Fed had managed a “soft landing” by reducing inflation while maintaining good hiring levels.

Now it’s Trump’s economy again and he wants to credibly claim the best in the nation’s history. 

But the inflation rate had remained stubbornly above the Fed’s 2% target by about 0.4 points before ticking up to 2.7% last month, largely attributable to the tariffs. Real Gross Domestic Product rose 3% year-over-year in the second quarter after an 0.5% drop in the first quarter, but that was largely because of a shift from a trade deficit to a trade surplus. 

If President Trump wants the Fed to consider a rate cut when the FOMC meets again in September, he may want to settle final tariff rates for all the trade partners. We are still far from knowing where the tariffs will settle down, Powell said, with “many uncertainties left to resolve.”

NOTE on this debate: We have but three columns. Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay writes most often from a conservative perspective for the right column. This time, his column is on the left, in response to contributing pundit Rich Corbett’s column in support for President Trump’s economy.

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THURSDAY 7/31/25

…meanwhile…

Queen Elizabeth II: 1926-2022

(FRI 9/9/22)

Justice Department appeals… Amid widespread criticism from the legal community of Federal District Judge Aileen Cannon’s order to appoint a special master in the case of classified documents the FBI uncovered at Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound August 8, the Justice Department Thursday asked the judge to allow prosecutors to further review and use the materials seized, reports CQ Roll Call. The DOJ was expected to appeal Cannon’s ruling in favor of ex-President Trump for a special master. 

The judge ordered the DOJ and Trump attorneys lists of acceptable special master candidates by Friday.

In its filing, the Justice Department argues that the injunction on reviewing the seized materials “could impede efforts to identify the existence of any additional classified records that were not being properly stored …” potentially posing an ongoing risk to national security.

Note: The likelihood of a successful appeal to the controversial ruling by a judge President Trump appointed to the Southern District of Florida after he lost the election to Joe Biden seems positive, though as usual, Trump is successful at creating delays.

•••

Queen Elizabeth II … has overseen 15 British prime ministers in her 70 years on the throne. The Queen had met Prime Minister Winston Churchill, born in 1874, and on Tuesday appointed Prime Minister Liz Truss, born in 1974, according to Jane Hartley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, interviewed on NPR’s Morning Edition Friday. Queen Elizabeth died two days after meeting with Truss at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. The longest-reigning British monarch (her great-great grandmother, Queen Victoria, served for 63 years and seven months) is succeeded by her son, King Charles III, who was scheduled to address his nation later Friday.

--Todd Lassa

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...meanwhile... (THU 9/8/22)

Bannon charged … Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon was charged in a Manhattan court Thursday on money laundering and conspiracy charges in connection with the WeBuildTheWall Inc. fundraiser, the Associated Press reports. New York State prosecutors allege Bannon funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to two others with money collected from supporters of then-President Trump who wanted to help fund a wall on the southern border with Mexico. 

Prosecutors did not name the two others in the alleged fraud, though Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato pleaded guilty to federal charges last April, AP says. Bannon also faced federal charges, though Trump pardoned him on the last day of his administration, before Bannon’s court date. 

That last fact is likely to negate any defense of double jeopardy. State charges are not covered by presidential pardons.

Federal agents arrested Bannon on a yacht off the coast of Connecticut in 2020 and charged him with pocketing more than $1 million in WeBuildTheWall donations. 

•••

Kyiv, Ukraine … Secretary of State Antony Blinken became the highest-ranking official to visit Ukraine Thursday with an unannounced visit to the National Specialized Children’s Hospital Ohmatdyt, where he met with children from the eastern part of the country and with the famous bomb-sniffing dog, Patron, NPR reports. He was scheduled to meet with Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba later Thursday. Blinken announced $2 billion in long-term investments in security for Ukraine and neighbors potentially threatened by Russia. 

Military aid: Meanwhile, from a meeting with counterparts in Germany, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced an additional $675 million in military aid to Ukraine. The State Department said this is set to include more High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), as well as additional munitions and armed vehicles, NPR reports. 

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Does Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Have a Chance?

By Todd Lassa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

•$180 billion in research & development projects.

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

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

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CPAC is Bargain Basement Wholesale Politics

By Andrew Boyd

The only thing more stomach-churning, to me, than retail politics is wholesale politics, and CPAC is bargain basement in every respect, with a double dose of bombast and the gross absence of humility or measured speech that infects every corner of the body politic today. Giving it as much ink as I’m about to do here is a thoroughly detestable exercise, but that’s the assignment.

First off, CPAC polls are not terribly predictive of real outcomes, so proceed with caution. Yes, Trump pulled 55% of voters in the straw polling, twice that of second-place finisher Ron DeSantis and 13 times that of third-place Kristi Noem. Trump made it clear that a third-party candidacy is not the offing, for him at least. Blessed be he who refuses to commit political suicide. Trump, being transactional by nature, knows better. 

It’s still Trump’s party, as I’ve previously argued, though one might wonder in what kind of shape Trump will be, physically and psychologically, four years hence, when his likely opponent would be Kamala Harris, who never saw a lie she didn’t consider first in terms of its political utility, which makes her just another D.C. bed bug. 

More likely, to my mind, is a Ron DeSantis-Kristi Neom ticket. Other front runners might include Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. Challenges from the anti-Trump pseudo-conservative wing of the party would include Nikki Haley and Liz Cheney. As of today, however, I’d say, there is no path to nomination that doesn’t run through Trump. Even swampy swamperton, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, has tacitly acknowledged as much.

More interesting to my mind is the ranking of issues in said polling, with election integrity (62%) running well ahead of more traditional kitchen-table conservative pain points like border security (35%), the economy (32%), gun rights (26%), taxes (22%), national security (20%) and abortion policy (16%). 

For my left-leaning friends, this probably reads as the triumph of misinformation and QAnon-style conspiracy theories. I’m not of the belief that Trump was necessarily denied a landslide victory, but I am not afraid to assert that our election process is a shit show, systemically not up to the standards set forth by the likes of post-war Iraq. Maybe that purple dot thing isn’t a bad way to go, kind of the club stamp of democracy.

Four years may seem a long way off, but it’s really not, and I fear that we’re marching toward a political abyss; that the failure of our politicians to address well-founded concerns surrounding mass mail-in voting, error-riddled voter rolls, the death of voter ID, and the plainly extra-legal actions of state election officials and absence of legal remedy for same (thanks for nothing, SCOTUS) represents an existential threat to democracy and our peaceful co-existence; for if a plurality of the voting population does not believe in the essential propriety of national electoral outcomes, in a country so politically and cultural polarized, the cancer of political violence and mass social unrest will metastasize.

It’s high time that the adults in the room, if they exist, take a step back from the uber-cynical, morally bereft trench warfare of institutional party politics and mainstream media shout fests (yes, I’m including Newsmax and Fox News) and consider how we work together to keep this thing from going altogether off the rails. And don’t look to CPAC or its leftist equivalent for answers. You won’t find any.

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Read the full list of CPAC’s presidential candidate straw poll — click on Forum.

Kill the Legislative Filibuster?

By Todd Lassa

Before last November’s election, Joseph R. Biden punted on the question of whether he supports killing the Senate legislative filibuster. It’s a move Senate Democrats have been considering at least since it won a majority by the slimmest of margins, with Vice President Harris the tie-breaker for when legislation is split down party lines 

The issue is not the first priority with Senate Democrats, who are moving President Biden’s $1.9-trillion coronavirus relief package via the arcane reconciliation process, which requires a simple majority vote rather than the 60 votes – including 10 Republican senators – necessary when the potential of a filibuster is involved. 

The question is, how much legislation can Biden’s Democratic allies in the Senate pass in the next two years without eliminating the legislative filibuster, which means most bills will require those 10 Republican votes? After January 2023, Democrats either will lose their wafer-thin Senate majority, or will build on it, though it is unlikely either party will gain at least 10 senators in the November 8, 2022 mid-terms. 

Filibuster reformation seems to come up every four years with the presidential election, if not every two years. 

In 2013, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, rallied Democrats to end the filibuster for federal judicial nominees and executive office appointments. Spiking the filibuster, called “the nuclear option,” requires only a simple majority vote. 

Republicans warned that triggering the nuclear option on appointing federal judges would come back to bite Democrats whenever they inevitably lost the Senate majority. 

And they were right. In 2017, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, led a majority of his party to end the judicial filibuster for U.S. Supreme Court nominees, paving the way for President Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch as replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Adding hard-core partisanship to injury, Gorsuch’s Senate approval came the year after McConnell prevented a vote on Obama’s nominee late in his term to replace Scalia, Merrick Garland, who now is Biden’s nominee for attorney general.

In the end, Trump saw his three Supreme Court associate justice nominees get Senate approval in his four years in office, compared with Obama’s two associate justices in eight years. 

The question for Democratic senators now is, how much more of Biden’s agenda could the Senate pass in the next 23 months if just 51 votes were needed? And would it be worth weathering the inevitable Senate and White House flip somewhere off in the future?

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Click on Forum for a new commentary by Stephen Macaulay
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Same as the Old Boss — Obama

By Andrew Boyd

President Biden’s slew of executive orders and proclamations are less practical and effective than they are an apparent attempt to enhance the Democratic Party’s image. Biden is particularly bent on reversing former President Trump’s immigration policy without proposing the sort of permanent policy that has evaded both parties for decades. 

Counting non-citizens in U.S. Census is a nakedly political effort to disenfranchise American citizens through reapportionment leveraged against illegals (sorry, non-citizens) by executive fiat. DACA part deux. Halftime show brought to you by SCOTUS and their denial of Trump’s authority to overturn part one. Farcical. 

There is one executive order I can support, to stop building The Wall. I’ve always been dubious on the efficacy of The Wall. On that basis, I’m good. As to walls being immoral, which was the rallying cry like 20 minutes ago, I’d call that complete trash thinking. Look no further than Wednesday’s inauguration ceremony. I await some reasoned argument from anyone on how to effectively manage and monitor inflows and outflows of peeps as do all other sovereign nations. See beloved progressive Canada.

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My take on the other major executive orders …

•Masking challenge and creation of a directorate for global health security and biodefense. What the hell is a directorate? Sound like something we can neither afford nor effectively contain. Watch to see the swell of SJW agenda items that get smuggled in through this baby. A ministry of funny walks would be more to my liking. It’s at least good for a laugh. [Note: SWJ is “social justice warrior” –Ed.]

•Rejoin the World Health Organization. The WHO proved itself utterly unreliable as an honest broker of information in this pandemic, which is putting it kindly. Lapdogs of the Chinese communist party is more on the nose. You can pretend this is a nod to the primacy of science and the critical importance of global coordination, but I suspect it’s more about the Dems unrelenting desire to be loved by their EU counterparts, which is most easily achieved by kneeling to a global bureaucratic hegemony that has anything but the best interests of the American people in mind.

•Extend eviction and foreclosure moratoriums. It’s easy to be humane when you’re doing it with other people’s money. It’s also, inconveniently, immoral. In principle, no different than “stimulus” via the accumulation of public debt, a.k.a. stealing from the future, only this one is on a shorter time frame and more directly tied to a specific group of people in the present, a.k.a. property holders. It’s all theft.

•Pause student loan payments through Sept 30. Why are we so focused on the particular slice of consumer debt that applies to college? It’s regressive in many respects, and again, stealing. Then, of course, there’s the moral hazard behind the notion that the government should have the power to step in and abrogate a legally constructed agreement between two private parties. But that’s just a matter of principle, so whatever.

•Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement. An agreement without teeth, and mostly another means of smuggling in global economic wealth transfers. Among first world nations, who reduced their total CO2 emissions the most, on an absolute basis, in 2019?. That would be the U.S., courtesy of technological innovation driven by the big, bad free market. Meanwhile, 80% of increases in global CO2 emissions in the same time period came from China, Asia and India, and future forecasts see the U.S. remaining relative stable while China, India and other developing economies will fuel their growth with ongoing increases in greenhouse gas emissions.  

•End Keystone XL Pipeline. The environmental impacts of a pipeline are minimal and, to my mind, substantially outweighed by the economic and national security benefits of America’s energy independence. I know, I hate polar bears and seals and life in general. Shame on me. Oh, and Canada is not so pleased either.

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Biden to the Rescue?

By Todd Lassa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Follow the Money

By Stephen Macaulay

Jesse—Big Daddy—Unruh, California politician during the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s and, yes, ‘80s, famously said: “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.”

He also said regarding lobbyists, “"If you can't eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women and then vote against them you've got no business being up here.”

So the question is whether Unruh was a cynic or a realist. I’ll go for the second choice.

Even in cases where there is what is generally accepted “normal” behavior by the men and women who hold higher office, in point of fact their insatiable need for money to keep the wheels of their careers well oiled often puts them in positions wherein temptation is at an intensity that most of us will never experience.

And when you have the Trump Family, things are really off the rails.

What is surprising is the number of individuals and corporations Team Trump have, to put it indelicately, screwed. Whether it was contractors who didn’t get paid or hotels that had to send invoices to a collection agency, the Trumps, led by the paterfamilias, have had a thing for other people’s money. Getting into the Oval Office was hitting the jackpot. Presidents don’t need to carry wallets.

One reason why we have heard ad nauseum about how the election was stolen, rigged, etc., about how he “won in a landslide,” probably has more than a little something to do with dead presidents—and I don’t mean Bush 41, Reagan, Johnson, etc.—than any concern with the well-being of the polity.

Remember those tax returns we’ve only seen by fits and starts? Or the return that showed Trump paid $750 in taxes in 2017?

Odds are good that Trump is going to realize that he’s going to make more money being out of office than would back in office (remember that he is 74 and although his parents lived long lives — his father to 93 and his mother to 88 — according to the Social Security actuarial table he has an average 11.76 years left, so he might as well optimize his earnings, such as they may be). What about the kids? Don Jr., Eric, Ivanka? Might they try a run? Anything is possible, but fealty seems to be to Senior, and there is less likelihood that they could pull it off with the bold bluster of the Old Man. And if there is a — and I use this term technically — a shit-storm of lawsuits that come raining down on Trump, the brand is going to be largely besmirched for all but the most dedicated, so the money won’t come raining with it.

So if not Trump, then who? Marco Rubio — a.k.a., “Lil’ Marco” — will probably give it another run. And Mike Pence hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory during his tenure in the White House, nor endeared himself to the Base, so there doesn’t seem to be a path for him to take, so odds aren’t good there. (And that second Unruh quote would undoubtedly be too upsetting to him to contemplate.)

It could be that the Republicans try to do a bit of a reset and go for a more “normal” Ben Sasse — although it should be noted that while Nebraska has been a reliably Republican state, in the last presidential, for only the second time in its history, it awarded one of its five electoral votes to someone else, in this case, Joe Biden.

It should not be forgotten that before the chairman and CEO — then, as now — of The Trump Organization won the Republican nomination, there were Rubio, John Kasich, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, Jim Gilmore, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Rick Santorum, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, George Pataki, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, and Rick Perry all in the game at one point.

Politics is a nasty game and corporations play hard ball. Make no mistake: they’re not going to put their efforts behind people supported by grown-ups who wear Viking garb — and I don’t mean the Minnesota team — when it isn’t Halloween.

Follow the money.

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GOP faces Faustian bargain with Trump supporters

By Todd Lassa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Trump Still Leads the Movement, if Not the Party

By Andrew Boyd

Efforts at predicting the future, particular in things as non-mechanistic as politics, is a fool’s errand, but here we go!

First, we must ask ourselves what is Trumpism?  Your guess is probably as good as mine.  Well, no, I necessarily believe my guess is better, and my guess is that Trump gives voice to a deeply seated distrust of our political institutions on the part of something approaching half or more of the voting public, and the belief of same that the whole game, top to bottom, is rigged.

These same people witnessed the hollowing out of our manufacturing economy in service to free and fair trade that was neither.  They watched as same elites, under the pretext of environmental conservation, sought to enable both the destruction and transfer of wealth on a global scale.  Same game, different rationale.  And most critically, they saw in their own party leaders a cowardice and cynicism that left them feeling altogether betrayed. 

Onto that fertile ground stepped an extraordinarily charismatic man. I won’t pretend to know his motives. Such things are very hard to discern.  Given Trump’s history, one might be forgiven for thinking he is, first and foremost, an opportunist and a narcissist in the same league with most of the men who’ve held our nation’s highest office.  Politics on a national scale is the domain of such people, which is among the main reasons I appreciate the checks on power provided by our constitutional system.

The momentum of Trumpism is Trump himself, and I suspect he will find ways to take the movement with him, and the harder the left pushes back by censorship or other bullish, un-American means, the stronger he will become, like Obi Wan Kenobi. That is not a comparison of character, but of the dynamics of ideological movements, and it carries a warning to those who would seek to make Trump a martyr for the cause.  Bad move.  Really, really bad move. 

I despise the cult of personality that surrounds Trump, as I do all charismatic movements, theological, political or social.  Bad things grow in that ground, such as all reasonable people witnessed with horror in the halls of the Capitol last week.  

I hope, naively, that whomever next reaches for the brass ring is more principled in character and measured in tone, for all our sakes. But the gravitational pull of Trump is not soon to be diminished, I’m afraid, and I don’t see anyone on the national political stage today with the power to achieve escape velocity.

For now, the movement, if not the party, is the fiefdom of Donald. God help us all. 

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