What pisses me off, and it has been said 1000 times. if kamala said the idiotic and demented things , that trump says, every news station, every republican would say she has a screw loose. There are a few MSM TV hosts that call him out. Most gloss over it, as that is just…
CNN's Jake Tapper asked/stated "Donald Trump saying that Kamala Harris has bigger cognitive problems than Joe Biden." Both tweeters slammed the CNN host for the question, with one stating "Tapper deserved it."
We know what "deserved it" means when a woman is the victim of sexual assault but here it is less clear. Pelosi's partial response was "Why would you even cover that? This is a person who is not on the level. He is the nominee for President. He is incompetent. Let's not even talk about the silliness of it all. We're not talking issues."
Of course, Republicans and news organs would say Harris "has a screw loose" if she said "idiotic and demented things." The media would do so because Republicans would slam her and the media would report the GOP criticism.
That's how it works. News organizations cover news and when the nominee of the two major parties says something worthwhile and/or outlandish, it's covered. The recipe for Trump's secret sauce includes remarks that are ridiculous to approximately 60% of the population His opponent's recipe includes an emphasis on joy and a claim that she is from and of the middle class, unlike the ostentatiously wealthy Republican nominee.
Trump knows how the game is played. Nancy Pelosi, despite whining "why would you even cover that" does also, including that attacking a journalist to his face rarely brings a rebuke. Kamala Harris, thus far running an excellent campaign, knows that the former House Speaker is more adept at deflecting charges from Donald Trump and turning questions against the interviewer than she herself does.
Jake Tapper's question was predictable and Nancy Pelosi's answer, reasonable. Harris does not say idiotic and demented things but, until she became Vice President, she did make comments that, if they were emphasized by the media, would be very controversial and probably fatal. We should be satisfied that she knew to retreat from those positions in the interest of defeating Donald Trump, a major reason that she has not done a solo interview with a journalist with a national platform.
If the Democratic candidate believed that Trump remains a viable candidate before Tapper and his colleagues gloss over his deceit, racism, rampant greed or cognitive ability, she would be out front slamming them for it. Given her carefully planned mercurial rise over the past six months, the relationship she has established and maintained with the media has been working just fine.
Nancy Pelosi has been down this road before, such as on November 14, 2012, when NPR reported
There was a bit of laughter but also a lot of seriousness,
when NBC's Luke Russert asked Rep. Nancy Pelosi if her decision to seek the
House minority leadership again prevents a younger leadership from taking her
place.
Pelosi was flanked by the Democratic female members of House
and as soon as the question flew out of Russert's mouth, groans filled the
room. "Age discrimination," one person was heard screaming.
"Oh, you've always asked that question except to Mitch
McConnell," Pelosi said with a laugh.
Russert, 27, pressed his case, saying that she, and Reps.
Steny Hoyer and James Clyburn, who round out the House leadership, were all
older than 70.
"Let's for a moment honor it as a legitimate question,
although it's quite offensive, but you don't realize that I guess," she
said. "The fact is that everything that I have done in my decade of
leadership is to elect younger and newer people to the Congress.
Age discrimination, my posterior. If she were concerned with that, Pelosi wouldn't have said "Oh, you've always asked that question except to Mitch McConnell." Pelosi's response had nothing to do with age. It was about gender, and gender alone.
And so it shouldn't have been surprising that Representative Pelosi on Thursday (video below) remarked
Senator Feinstein has been a champion for California for twenty years. I have been the leader or the Speaker of the House fighting for California and I have seen up close and firsthand her great leadership for our country but especially for our State of California. She deserves the respect to get well and be back on duty and, uh, I just, it's interesting to me. I don't know what political agendas are at work that are going after Senator Feinstein in that way. I've never seen them go after a man who was sick in the Senate that way.
It's just a guess but it may be because we've never had an 89-year-old absent Senator whose vote on the Judiciary Committee was pivotal, a vote without which the President (one of her own party) cannot gain approval of any of his judicial appointments. Since returning to California for surgery for shingles in early March, Feinstein has missed 58 votes and the worst is yet to come.
The "political agendas" are obvious: gaining a recommendation by the committee for full Senate approval of federal judges. It has nothing to do with gender- nothing. If a man were in Feinstein's position, the pressure upon the Senator to resign would be as great; probably greater because Democrats would not then have to overcome their fear of being accused of sexism or misogyny.
Hopefully, Feinstein will recover fully from her bout with shingles, a disease striking primarily the aged. Nevertheless,, the clock can't be turned back, she will never recover from being 89 years old and is, as with many elderly people, someone who has exhibited signs of mental decline. It's deeply unfortunate, but it happens with a significant portion of the very elderly. She cannot do her job, which is more common than not for men and women of her age.
Senator Feinstein reportedly has asked Majority Leader Schumer to replace her temporarily on the Judiciary Committee, which Schumer has agreed to pursue. However, Republicans would have to agree and the price they would exact, if they are willing at all, would be enormous. California's Ro Khanna of California was justified in tweeting
It’s time for @SenFeinstein to resign. We need to
put the country ahead of personal loyalty. While she has had a lifetime of
public service, it is obvious she can no longer fulfill her duties. Not
speaking out undermines our credibility as elected representatives of the
people.
Khanna is a Democratic member of the House but unlike Nancy Pelosi, is uninterested in making life far more difficult for the Democratic Senate. There also is an element of California politics involved because, in the race to replace Feinstein (who already had announced her retirement), Khanna supports the bid of Representative Barbara Lee while Pelosi is partial to the less progressive wing of the state party.
Still, given the former Speaker's history, there is an arguably more odious motivation. That would be good old-fashioned bias or what might be called "reverse sexism" which, of course, is simply sexism.. Whether or not he was thinking of Nancy Pelosi, this MSNBC host is right:
I’m sorry but “it’s feminist to stay in a critically important job long past when you are capable of doing it” is a ludicrous argument. I can’t tell if people are really making it or just kinda trolling.
This is the Ingraham Angle from Washington tonight. Thank you for joining us.
They're desperate, I tell you, desperate! to find any edge on Republicans as midterms approach. In the aftermath of this hideous attack on Paul Pelosi in their San Francisco home, of course we hope and pray for his full recovery from this disgusting attack. The question is will Democrats attempt to use the attacks of lone lunatics to chill political speech.
Her (fallacious) answer is of course. Though the rest of Laura Ingraham's monologue had nothing to do with the apparent terrorist attack in San Francisco, her rant was a fine display of conservative grievance politics. But that is not what makes her remarks dangerous.
I may be going out on the limb here, but I have a hunch that, whatever her hope, Laura Ingraham is not praying for Paul Pelosi's full recovery.
Nor is the atrocious assault by David DePape an attack of a "lone lunatic." There are approximately 362,000 households in San Francisco. DePape decided to break into the home of the Speaker of the Untied States House of Representatives. There are approximately 888,000 people residing in San Francisco. The alleged perpetrator did not yell out "where's Janet" or "where's Michelle" or "where's Ashley." He yelled "where's Nancy" and, given that it was Mr. Paul Pelosi he was attacking, the betting here is he was targeting the most powerful and most hated woman in the USA.
We don't know whether the alleged culprit is mentally ill, although most mentally ill individuals don't take a hammer to the head of someone else, and the vast majority of violent offenders are not "crazy" or "lunatics." We can assume that DePape's choice of the Pelosi couple had something to do with Nancy's position as probably the second most powerful individual in the nation. Had the Speaker been home, it would have qualified as an assassination attempt.
"Mental illness" has been a dodge for decades, in and out of politics- here by a Putin sympathizer. For most of that time, it has been largely harmless. Of late, it has become the GOP excuse for avoiding gun safety legislation, and will increasingly be used to wave away political violence.
Eleven days before Election Day, the Fox News spin machine
is in high gear, even during discussion of the violent attack upon Paul Pelosi,
the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. As Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer cite
recent cases of election intimidation, the latter remarks "
point being, depending on how the circumstances of this
story work out here, crime hits everybody..... point being, this can happen
anywhere and that's why it's such a significant part of this election story
here.
People yelling "where's Nancy?" could strike any of us anytime, anywhere https://t.co/a1WoPzBU2C
By this reasoning, a random act of violence, which can hit
anybody, anywhere takes place when
According to a person briefed on the case, who spoke with
The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity to describe the details,
(alleged assailant David) DePape was searching for Speaker Pelosi when he
entered, shouting out, “Where is Nancy?”
Moreover
police were dispatched to the Pelosi home at about 2:30 in
the morning, where they found both DePape and Pelosi holding a hammer. DePape
allegedly pulled the hammer away from Pelosi and attacked him, before a police
officer tackled DePape. Both men were taken to a hospital, Scott said. The
motive behind the attack is still under investigation.
DePape is said to have shouted "Where is Nancy? Where
is Nancy?" before beating Paul Pelosi in an incident which Hemmer claims "can happen anywhere." It probably was an attack
planned and executed by a far-right conspiratorialist bent on killing
Speaker Pelosi and inspired by an ex-President who has long been publicly partial to violence enemies and others. Probably.
There are two other, less likely, possibilities, one that a
"secretly gay" Paul Pelosi was attacked by a crazy Grindr pickup, a
"grinder hookup gone terribly wrong," which combines the qualities of denying it was a MAGA-style assault with an assertion
that Nancy Pelosi's husband is gay, a jibe against the hated Speaker herself.
Less discussed, but at least a realistic (though improbable)
possibility:
Marjorie Taylor Greene previously said Nancy Pelosi was 'guilty of treason' and told her followers it was a 'crime punishable by death.' https://t.co/aoWfrWdGZo
Maybe Representative Greene would lie, as she has done before, and flawlessly. But it's at least a question worth asking,
especially when Trump TV will exploit the assault to reinforce their narrative
of apathy of Democrats to urban crime.
Nancy Pelosi has arrived in Taiwan. Anti-monopolist, anti-Beijing Matt Stoller notes "Pelosi should not have gone, but let's be completely clear that China is the aggressor here." Earlier:
Foreign policy via trolling China with dumb symbolism. This is entirely the wrong way to address the real threat from China, but it will inflame tensions and help the Chinese government make real progress against us. https://t.co/HLZWOT5wyU
No one is threatening China, China is threatening to invade Taiwan and launch a war with the U.S. The discussion about Pelosi going to Taiwan isn't about whether it's right for her to go, but whether it's wise for her to go.
Once Pelosi announced an intention to visit Taiwan, the die was cast. She had to go, as Stoller appears to recognize.
And there is not a prohibitive downside to Pelosi's escapade. Retaliation from Beijing, which may be immediately evident or not, will be tolerable. But let's be completely clear of two things- Mainland China is the aggressor, and there has been no concrete, definitive reason given for Pelosi's trip.
There are ways, such as increasing shipments of military hardware or strengthening tariffs on the mainland to bolster the regime in Taipei and/or to discourage China from invading Taiwan. Instead, Nancy Pelosi embarked on a vanity visit which will be of no material benefit to our ally. She did so despite the obvious displeasure of the the USA military, our State Department, or President Biden.
Once the Speaker of the House included Taiwan on her possible itinerary, Joe Biden suffered a political loss, whether Pelosi followed through (as she has) or decided not to go. Either way, the President, the leader of her party and engineer of the nation's foreign policy, would lose politically. He has been undermined and no one has explained how that aids the Democratic Party or our standing in the world.
There has been considerable speculation that two Americans,
Paul Whelan and Britney Griner, will be swapped for convicted Russian Viktor Bout, serving a 25-year sentence for arms dealing. Whelan has been incarcerated in Russia for over three years years and
Griner has been detained there after she entered the nation at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport with
vape cartridges containing hashish oil.
On the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show Friday, former
President Donald J. Trump remarked of Griner
She knew you don't go in there loaded up with drugs and she
admitted it. I assume she admitted it without too much force because it is
what it is. And it certainly doesn't seem like a very good trade, does it? He
is an absolute one of the worst in the world and he is going to be given his
freedom because a potentially spoiled person went to Russia loaded up with
drugs."
The vape cartridges containing hashish oil seized by
authorities when Britney Griner entered Russia evidently contained only a small
amount of the prohibited substance. So Messrs. Scarborough and Sharpton were
correct that the WNBA star wasn't "loaded up with drugs." But their
central point is invalid.
With Sharpton as a guest, as he frequently is on "Morning
Joe," Scarborough went on full pander mode, remarking of Trump "and you
cannot help but wonder if he's saying that because she's a black basketball
player."
Scarborough and Sharpton have made a cottage industry of
pandering to one another on the show. And of course the charge that Trump
wouldn't have made the comment if Griner weren't a black basketball player met
with Sharpton's approval because "RevAl"- as the cool cat,
disrespectful host typically calls the minister- has always been about race. He
was a race hustler in his early days in New York City, and still is.
When a young man is shot and killed by police, Al Sharpton
will be practically the first on the scene. However, not always: his outrage is
reserved for black victims of police violence while the others are invisible to him.
You cannot help but wonder- as Scarborough would put it-
that after more than six years as a congressman and 16 years as a news show
host, if one could be so naive as to believe that Donald Trump is criticizing a
possible deal for Britney Griner primarily because she is a black basketball player.
On CNN's "New Day" Monday morning, Bout attorney Steve Zissou strongly implied that a deal releasing his client will be
consummated. Donald Trump agrees. The ex-President is anticipating running a
presidential campaign asserting that the Biden Administration is characterized
by weakness. He will charge, as he did
in the 2016 campaign, that America's enemies are taking advantage of the nation
and making us a laughingstock around the world.
As luck (for him) would have it, the clusterf_ _ _ that is
the threatened visit of the Democratic Speaker of the House to Taiwan fits into
this narrative. The USA military, the State Department, and the President of the
United States of America all are displeased that Nancy Pelosi has suggested
that she will visit Taipei. The speculation has angered mainland China, but the trip may accomplish..... we don't know. Whatever the response- now or delayed, overt or
covert- from Beijing, it's not a good look for the Democratic leader in the
House of Representatives to defy the wishes of the President from the same
party.
I don't think we lose anything if Pelosi refuses to go to Taiwan any more than we lost anything by withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.
Wisdom and prudence is strength, not weakness. And acting out of ego and pride is weakness, not strength.
Donald Trump is complaining about Britney Griner
because he will present any agreement as proof of the weakness of Washington
Democrats. Sure, the ex-President could complain about the white guy, Paul Whelan- but
practically no one knows who Paul Whelan is. The media, traditional and social,
including Scarborough's show itself have made sure of that as they have
repeatedly invoked Griner's name, emphasized the plight of the basketball
star, and virtually ignored Whelan.
Nonetheless, Scarborough will attribute Trump's attack to
race because that's how Al Sharpton wants to frame it. Returning the favor,
Sharpton actually referred to Joe's assistant and sort-of co-host as
"Mika Brzezinski, our civil rights leader in that area." Mika Brzezinski, Mrs. Joe Scarborough: our
new civil rights hero!
It's no surprise that Donald Trump is taking the side of the
Russian government over the American government and lying about the amount of drugs involved. It should be no surprise,
also, that lifetime right-winger Joe Scarborough continues to evoke race to
establish liberal bona fides.
Shamefully, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is lying to the
American people.
.@HouseDemocrats passed bipartisan and bicameral legislation to enshrine into law a fundamental freedom: the right to marry whomever you choose. Shamefully, 157 Republicans do not believe marriage equality should be the law of the land.
In her speech (video below) on the House floor prior to
passage in the chamber of the Respect for Marriage Act, the Speaker noted the
legislation would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and (at 5:24) maintained
This legislation also guarantees that no married couple can
be denied equal protection under federal law. This is really very important-
from tax provisions, to social security benefits, and more, even if the Court
were to erase marriage freedom, God forbid. Finally, this legislation bars states
from denying recognition to valid out-of-state marriages even if a state were
to enact heinous restrictions.
It would indeed accomplish the latter. However, as the ACLU explains
While the bill and bipartisan vote are important, the bill
is quite limited.
Here’s why: The Respect for Marriage Act repeals the 1996
Defense of Marriage Act, which in turn did two things: DOMA barred the federal
government from respecting the marriages of same-sex couples who were married
under state law, excluding them from federal recognition in over 1,000
contexts, from Social Security survivor benefits to the ability to sponsor a
spouse for citizenship to equitable tax treatment. It also said that the Full
Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution doesn’t require states to respect
the marriages of same-sex couples performed by other states.
The Supreme Court struck down the federal recognition
portion of DOMA in the 2013 United States v. Windsor decision. After Dobbs,
people fear that Windsor could be overturned, so the Respect for Marriage Act
fully repeals the federal respect portion of DOMA and replaces it with a
requirement of respect by the federal government. It also repeals the Full
Faith and Credit portion of DOMA, replacing it with a statement that Full Faith
and Credit requires inter-state recognition. Those would both be significant
advances that would backstop the Supreme Court’s ruling in Windsor and the
inter-state recognition portion of its ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges should
they be overturned.
The Respect for Marriage Act would not require any state to
allow same-sex couples to marry.
If the Supreme Court overturns Obergefell v. Hodges, which
established that the fundamental right to marry covers same-sex couples, the
Respect for Marriage Act would not stop any state from once again refusing to
issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The federal government would still
be required to respect same-sex couples’ already-existing marriages, as would
other states in many circumstances. But a state that wanted to get out of the
business of issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples would not violate the
Respect for Marriage Act.
Nancy Pelosi wants to make it clear that the Respect for
Marriage Act (which pertains also to interracial marriage) codifies Hodges v.
Obergefell, thereby ensuring that "marriage equality" is "the
law of the land." But it does no
such thing. It is less ambitious, significantly more limited in scope, although members of her caucus are claiming otherwise.
It's possible, though highly unlikely, that Pelosi herself has been misled by
aides into believing the legislation is all that. However, that's unlikely
because there is no one in the chamber who needs to know what is in a bill more
than does the Speaker of the House.
The Speaker instead may have lied to her caucus but she
would have realized that most members would read this relatively short bill. Alternatively- and most likely- she and her caucus have determined to
represent the bill as something that it is not. The media hasn't confronted party leadership over the misrepresentation, Republicans have ignored it, and it's clear that major Democrats aren't going to let the public in on their motive.
Some center-left Democrats are enthralled with Mayor Eric
Adams of New York City and Politico has reported
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney
(D-N.Y.), the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, just had
Adams speak at the DCCC’s Chairman’s Issues Conference and Weekend in the city
on Saturday. Adams suggested the following talking points to attack the GOP:
“Let’s force them to explain why they oppose common sense
gun laws but support the violence claiming innocent lives.”
“Why murder rates are the highest in red states.”
“Why they won’t stop the flow of illegal firearms or ban
ghost guns, but they will allow police officers to be shot with them.”
“Let’s force them to explain how they are for law and order
and against funding law enforcement.”
Gun safety legislation is necessary and Democrats should
inform voters that GOP states are murder havens and that Republicans accept
police officers being shot with ghost guns and other firearms. That should be
easy to do. However, Politico adds, Adams
also reinforced a moderate path for the party in rebuke of
the more progressive actors who’ve supported the movement to defund the police
and attack corporations.
“If we do not have the courage to admit public safety needs
police, prosperity needs the private sector, and this country needs big
changes, then we will not have the credibility to lead,” Adams said.
Right, because capitalism has worked so well for people in
the 21st century. If you don't count the dot-com crash, the painfully slow
recovery from the Great Recession, the current wave of inflation, and the
decades-long decline in the share of national wealth that goes to the non-rich,
capitalism seems awesome!....
As for capitalism, who apart from the Masters of the
Universe themselves, and the politicians who desperately want their money,
actually likes it anymore? Even Republicans know now that they get loud rounds
of applause when they attack big corporations (although they don't really want
to change their overall approach to the rich, as long as the rich defer to them
politically).
He concedes
I think Defund the Police was an off-putting message, a
terrible way to frame what was a popular idea two years ago: that there's
serious police abuse that needs to stop. It's true that most people, including
people of color, want traditional policing -- but they want it without the
brutality. Adams actually won the mayor's race by appearing to hit a sweet
spot: He's an ex-cop who said he was a victim of police mistreatment as a young
man, and he seemed to advocate reform as well as law and order. But as mayor
he's abandoned the idea of reform.
I'm not convinced voters are repulsed by police
brutality. After George Floyd was murdered 24 months ago this month, most
people were outraged as images of the brutality
were so pervasive that they were virtually inescapable.
Those images are now a thing of the past, replaced by video
of mayhem which occurred at some of the George Floyd protests, as well as
constant (exaggerated) reminders by the media of soaring murder rates. Republican Conference chairperson Elise
Stefanik skillfully exploited this with her loathsome, yet tactically brilliant, tweet
following the mass murder in Buffalo:
Our nation is heartbroken about the tragic news of horrific loss of life in Buffalo.
We are mourning for the entire community & loved ones.
During #NationalPoliceWeek, we must thank & honor our law enforcement & first responders who heroically face skyrocketing violent crimes.
When Stefanik spoke of allegedly "skyrocketing violent
crimes," she wasn't referring to mass murders at schools,
discount department stores, or supermarkets.
She was talking about the violent crime which takes place daily across
the country, which occurs disproportionately in minority neighborhoods in major
cities. (If a Tucker Carlson fan, you might believe it occurs exclusively in
black neighborhoods in major cities.)
Democrats didn't need a lecture from a big-city mayor to know they have been plagued with an image of being "soft" on crime
since Richard Nixon demagogically urged "law and order" to
combat "crime in the streets."
It's history that Eric Adams chooses to ignore because it carries with it potentially explosive implications. Democrats cannot talk
effectively and convincingly about crime, guns, and police without confronting
the racial component considered fundamental by (non-black) Americans. So good luck
with that.
Race was an important theme in Richard Nixon's narrative and, even more cagily, it is now for Elise Stefanik and her fellow travelers. Eric Adams won't tell you. Nancy Pelosi and Sean Patrick Maloney won't
tell you. Neither will Politico and the rest of the mainstream media tell you. But it is the rest of the story.
Noting the announcement by President Biden of the
framework of a $1.75 billion soft infrastructure bill, The Washington Post reported
The architect of the original $3.5 trillion plan, Sen.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), similarly encouraged House Democrats to hold off on
voting until “clear language” is finalized on the safety net bill with the
support of 50 senators. He said he continues to work to advance issues
including a more robust expansion of Medicare, but he also described the
$1.75 trillion compromise as transformational, saying it is “the kind of
legislation [that hasn’t] passed in Congress since the 1960s.”
Thursday’s new framework includes prekindergarten programs
that White House aides described as part of the largest one-time education
investment[s] since the creation of public high school. The $1.75 trillion plan
also includes new aid to help families afford child care and extends tax
credits that millions of parents are receiving in the form of monthly checks.
When it comes to health care, the White House plan expands
Medicare to cover new hearing benefits. The plan would lengthen the life of tax
credits that have helped roughly 9 million Americans afford health insurance
purchased on the Affordable Care Act exchanges. And it would provide new tax
credits to help roughly 4 million low-income people afford health insurance in
a dozen states that have not expanded Medicaid under the ACA.
Liberal carping notwithstanding,
these are not small beer to those of us who lived through Bill Clinton’s
pitching for school uniforms and Barack Obama’s hiring of Bob Rubin and Timothy
Geithner. Neither are they consolation prizes to the millions of families who
will see their kids off to pre-K without having to take out a home equity loan,
or the millions of people who will be able to take advantage of the Affordable
Care Act now in spite of their wingnut governors. Take the win and press on is
not a bad strategy. You can get there that way.
I don't know what "take the win" means, especially
because as of Friday afternoon, there is no bill but only a framework, and no assurance that even
if the tepid bill is enacted as described by the President that the
approximately $1.75 billion reconciliation bill will be enacted. Progressives have demanded that the two measures be passed in
tandem because if the tepid bipartisan bill is passed and signed first, any reconciliation bill passed afterward is likely to be a shell of its former self.. Once upon a time, Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed the progressive strategy, as did
President Biden.
We now know who holds the cards within the Democratic Party and it's not the left, the Speaker, or even the President. Upon reaching agreement in July with the budget
committee on a bill which could be passed by reconciliation
"The budget committee has come to an agreement. The
budget resolution with instructions will be $3.5 trillion," (Senate
Majority Leader Chuck) Schumer said, speaking to reporters with Sanders and
other members of the panel. "Every major program that President Biden has
asked us for is funded in a robust way."
The deal will also include funding for expanding Medicare to
cover dental, vision and hearing and addressing climate change — key asks from
progressives, including Sanders. A Democratic aide familiar with the deal said
that the budget resolution will also include language prohibiting taxes from
being raised on individuals who make less than $400,000 or small businesses.
It hasn't worked out that way. Medicare will not be expanded to cover
dental and vision care- though hearing aids were left in- and the full-scale
attack on climate change is looking like a small foray.
Presently, Democrats may have no choice but to "take
the win," though if this is the transformative change Joe Biden, Charlie
Pierce, and others claim it is, one might legitimately ask what President Obama
was doing for eight years (hint: very little).
However, that "win" looks a lot like progressives
being rolled. Consider that when Schumer cited the $3.5 trillion
figure, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, one of the two Democratic opponents
of the ambitious proposal, already had
previously suggested to ABC News that he was interested in a
smaller figure, saying that "if that’s $1 trillion or $1.5 trillion or $2
trillion, whatever that comes out to be over a 10-year period, that’s what I
would be voting for."
Manchin at that time, in July, was willing- given a little
cajoling, ego enrichment, and maybe a couple of things for West Virginia- to
approve a $2 trillion package. Fourteen weeks later, after intense negotiation,
progressives and Mr. Build Back Better reportedly have been able to get Manchin
up to $1.75 trillion.
Even those of us who never advanced in math class beyond
Algebra know that $1.75 trillion is less than $2.00 trillion. Nonetheless Pierce, whose sentiments probably will be echoed along the
ideological gamut of Democrats from John Bel Edwards to Ilhan Omar once this
process is complete, maintains
It is a radical rethinking of national priorities, and
implicit in Sanders’ remarks is the undeniable truth that, if you want this
package of proposals improved, and if you want to maintain the momentum for
change that it signifies, elect more Democrats to the Senate and watch their
smoke.
Electing more Democrats clearly is the best solution. For
now, however, that smell wafting through the air is the Democratic left getting smoked.
Conservatives an obsession with wrapping itself in the
cloak of God and accusing Democrats of being anti-religion, anti-God,
anti-Christian, or anti-Catholic. They've started in with Joe Biden:
Newsmax host: "There's a strong case against [Joe Biden] that he's not really a Catholic" pic.twitter.com/dz2tcltIl7
Nonetheless, probably nobody has been so attacked on
those grounds as Nancy Pelosi.
And so it is that Red State's Mike Miller, condemning the
Speaker of the House for allegedly being "Catholic in Name Only,"
quotes Dr. Paul Kangor, a proudly Catholic right-winger:
“The list of outrageous statements by Congresswoman Nancy
Pelosi, a Roman Catholic, is unending. Her statements—and actions—advancing
abortion have been nothing short of astounding, and extremely damaging. They
are scandalous.
“But her latest comment may be her worst yet.
“Asked why she refuses to support a bill banning late-term
abortions, Pelosi said: ‘As a practicing and respectful Catholic, this is
sacred ground to me…. This shouldn’t have anything to do with politics.’
“Her statement speaks for itself. And frankly, I’m grateful
she said it. Clearly, this is where Nancy Pelosi’s heart and mind and soul is.
And she is speaking for countless other radical ‘abortion rights’ advocates.
“In the past, I’ve gotten nasty responses when I’ve referred
to abortion as a ‘holy sacrament’ in the ‘feminist church.’ I was told this was
over the top, too harsh, exaggerated. Well, it isn’t.
“For certain extreme liberal feminists, there’s nothing more
dear—nothing more sacred—than abortion. Nancy Pelosi has simply publicly reaffirmed
the fact.”
In this country alone, tens of
millions of Roman Catholics support reproductive freedom. Further ,the Protestant Christian
right has its roots in opposition to the the federal government's effort in the
1970s to deny segregated Christian academies tax-exempt status.
However, Miller's screed is Catholic-centric and he blasts Pelosi predominately for the hypocrisy he perceives because she cleaves to her Catholic faith while
being pro-abortion rights. Nonetheless, if Pelosi can be charged with heresy
solely because of her view of abortion rights and "untold numbers of her
actions and the causes she supports," Miller should aim a little higher.
For over five years the country was regaled with Donald Trump's personal insults: "Morning Psycho" (Joe Scarborough); "stone cold
Crazy" (Adam Schiff); "little Eric Schneiderman";
"weirdo" (Tom Steyer); "dumb as a rock" (Rex Tillerson);
"Crazy Bernie Sanders"; "the dumbest man on television"
(Don Lemon); with many other targets including, of course, "Crooked Hillary," she of "no strength, no stamina." The list is much, much longer.
From time to time, we all violate Jesus' warning (Matthew 15:11, ESV) "It is
not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the
mouth; this defiles a person.”
But Donald Trump did this as President. And none of us (except possibly the extremely
mentally ill) ever has claimed "I am the Chosen One." Few of us has been so contemptuous of Jesus
Christ's warning "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s
clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their
fruits” (Matthew 7:15-16).
And Donald
Trump's fruits, culminating - or maybe not- with the riot he instigated on
January 6 are clear. By contrast, according to Michael Miller, this is one of Nancy Pelosi's greatest sins:
.@SpeakerPelosi: "Our nation is blessed with Joe Biden as President of the United States. He is an extraordinary president. He knows how to get the job done." pic.twitter.com/0n4HtdMxVs
This is an interesting argument by Will, whose last name is
not "Bunch sign up for my newsletter":
The thing that's driving me crazy about the impeachment coverage on TV cable news is that the primary goal isn't getting him out of office these last 12 days (although that would he helpful). It's all about banning him from running in 2024 and removing him from public life
— Will Bunch Sign Up For My Newsletter (@Will_Bunch) January 8, 2021
Surely, as Bunch suggests, the primary goal should not be
getting Donald Trump out of office in the last few days of his presidency.
That's especially true given that President Pence's first act would be to
pardon Donald Trump in what would be for once, a President actually doing
something on "Day 1."
Unless the US Constitution was, unbeknownst to the public,
changed overnight, neither Donald Trump nor anyone else can be "removed
from public life" except by incarceration.
Donald Trump could be impeached for a second time or be
removed via the 25th Amendment, the latter highly unlikely, though it would let
congressional Democrats and Republicans off the hook.
Yet, there is little chance Democrats will be officially in
charge of the Senate before January 20 and thus there will be no conviction, if
even a trial, of the President before that date. Obviously, then, he would not
be banned from running in 2024 because he'd first have to be convicted by the
Senate; nor removed from public life, whatever that phrase means.
Once he leaves office, Donald Trump could be impeached and
tried in the Senate. The former may well happen; the latter will not, given
that conviction requires a two-thirds majority and the distribution of power in
the next Congress between senators Schumer and McConnell is yet to be determined.
If the Senate were to convict and- as is uncertain even in
the next Congress- then rule that Trump could not again run for public office,
it would be a punishment akin to that rendered upon more than 99.9% of Americans.
Donald Trump could not enter another presidential race, just as you, I, and
virtually every other individual will never even sniff the presidency.
This would not be a fate worse than death, the latter a far
more likely condition for what in 2024 would be a 78-year-old man who has made
at least two trips to the hospital in the past 14 months.
Nonetheless, there is an action which Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi
and other Democratic officials, and much of the media realize holds greater
peril for Donald J. Trump. That is prosecution, and not of the variety being
investigated by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office nor the New York State
Attorney General but that which would be pursued by the Justice Department.
Joe Biden- and probably Merrick Garland, the presumptive
upcoming Attorney General- would like to go in another direction. It would be
easier for them to fulfill their fantasy of moving on or "not looking
backward" were ex-President Trump to be impeached, thus "punished
enough already," as we might hear.
Paradoxically, that may be why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, her caucus,
many Senate Democrats, and Democratic-leaning legal analysts see impeachment,
if the 25th Amendment is not invoked, as the easy way out.
Federal officials responsible for spending $660 billion in
taxpayer-backed small-business assistance said Wednesday that they will not
disclose amounts or recipients of subsidized loans, backtracking on an earlier
commitment to release individual loan data.
The Small Business Administration has previously released
detailed loan information dating to 1991 for the federal 7(a) program, a
long-standing small-business loan program on which the larger Paycheck
Protection Program is based.
The SBA initially intended to publish similar information
for the new coronavirus-related loans. An SBA spokesman told The Washington
Post in an April 16 email that the agency “intend[s] to post individual loan
data in accordance with the information presently on the SBA.gov website after
the loan process has been completed,” and it made a similar commitment in
response to an April 17 open records request.
But the administration appeared to change course at a
hearing Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship,
as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza
declined to discuss specific borrowers.
“As it relates to the names and amounts of specific PPP
loans, we believe that that’s proprietary information, and in many cases for
sole proprietors and small businesses, it is confidential information,” Mnuchin
said in the hearing. “The reason why we’re not disclosing the names and
amounts, unlike in the 7(a) program, is because of that issue.”
Obviously, the congressional arm of the Trump Party wouldn't
want transparency. House Democrats, under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi, maybe
should not have helped craft a bill- approved by unanimous consent- which left
details to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. The man who in 2017 said of Donald
Trump "he's got perfect genes" and who before entering government was
widely known as the "Foreclosure King" has now double-crossed
Democrats.
Shocking, I tell you! But it doesn't end there. David Dayen explains that the Congressional
Oversight Commission is not fully staffed, has no chairperson, has held no
meetings, and is dependent upon the good intentions of the Senate Majority
Leader. House leadership
designed a process that relied on cooperation from Mitch
McConnell after an entire term in Congress marked by his lack of cooperation.
The oversight provisions were a talking point, a useless chimera attached to a
giveaway to the capital class and the largest corporations in America. It’s
hard not to conclude that there was no desire to scrutinize the bailout, that
it was easier and preferred for the Treasury and the Fed to accomplish their
handouts in the dark.
Little attention will be given to that failure as Nancy
Pelosi can spot an issue no Democrat can (publicly) disagree with. On Wednesday
she
called for the removal of statues of Confederate
soldiers and officials from the U.S. Capitol as reignited conversations about
the nation's treatment of racial minorities have once again brought the
monuments' history into question.
In an open letter to the Joint Committee on the Library,
Pelosi asked Congress to "lead by example" and remove 11 Confederate
statues from the Capitol.
It now has been over 17 months and over 520 days since Nancy
Pelosi has regained the Speaker's gavel. And she has finally figured out that Confederate statues
must not be inside or outside the United States Capitol. Finally
"The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest
ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation.
Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly
racist end are a grotesque affront to these ideals. Their statues pay homage to
hate, not heritage. They must be removed," Pelosi wrote in the letter
addressed to committee Chair Roy Blunt and Vice Chair Zoe Lofgren.
It shouldn't be necessary to recognize the statues as
monuments to cruelty and barbarism or racism and hate. Most of all, they are monuments to
treason. These folks were civilian or
military leaders of the Confederate States of America which, Pelosi might
notice, is not the same as the "United States of America."
They were traitors. That isn't really difficult to understand.
But Pelosi was content to allow them to stand until the groundswell of
opposition to racially discriminatory policing threatened to gravitate to
opposition to all manner of racial discrimination, misinterpreted as
"racism."
Presumably, most of these Confederate leaders were partially
motivated by racial bias. However, the motivation invariably varied at least in
part from one to the other and they all had one thing in common: treason. Insofar as their attitudes were manifested in discriminatory private and/or public behavior, they should be dishonored. However, we know only for certain that they participated in armed rebellion against the United States of America.
That should have been enough to take them off the grounds of
the Capitol. Similarly, congressional Democrats already had more than three
years of dealing with Steve Mnuchin, Donald Trump, and Mitch McConnell. Whether fooled or a willing participant in
the flim-flam of coronavirus relief, Speaker Pelosi has failed to provide
critical leadership.
On Monday evening, Nancy Pelosi famously- or infamously-
stated of Donald Trump
As far as the president is concerned, he's our president and
I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the
scientists, especially in his age group and in his, shall we say, weight group,
morbidly obese, they say. So, I think it's not a good idea.
Many people (not all of them fat) believe that making this
statement was not a good idea:
I grew up as a fat kid who wore Husky pants. Every day was enduring endless teasing & humiliation. I turned out OK but I know many who are still traumatized as adults. Make fun of Trump because he's a vulgarian & an idiot, but let's be better about shaming others due to weight.
— Wajahat "Social Distance Yourself" Ali (@WajahatAli) May 19, 2020
Credit Chris Cillizza for doing the nearly unthinkable in
American media nowadays, considering less the political impact than the
accuracy of Pelosi's remark. (If Trump's personal physician is in the right zip
code about the President's weight, Trump is obese but not morbidly so,
according to CDC guidelines.)
Admittedly, being overweight appears to be among the least
of Donald J. Trump's 1,251 faults, although asserting that he is an
"idiot" is even more ridiculous. That's because Donald Trump, and the
Party whose extreme right-wing ideology he promulgates, is no dummy. On the day
before we learned that Republican governor Brian Kemp of Georgia cancelled an election so he could appoint a successor to a retiring state Supreme Court
justice, The New York Times reports on a GOP program
which has gained steam in recent weeks, envisions recruiting
up to 50,000 volunteers in 15 key states to monitor polling places and
challenge ballots and voters deemed suspicious. That is part of a $20 million
plan that also allots millions to challenge lawsuits by Democrats and
voting-rights advocates seeking to loosen state restrictions on balloting. The
party and its allies also intend to use advertising, the internet and Mr.
Trump’s command of the airwaves to cast Democrats as agents of election theft.
The efforts are bolstered by a 2018 federal court ruling
that for the first time in nearly four decades allows the national Republican
Party to mount campaigns against purported voter fraud without court approval. The
court ban on Republican Party voter-fraud operations was imposed in 1982, and
then modified in 1986 and again in 1990, each time after courts found instances
of Republicans intimidating or working to exclude minority voters in the name
of preventing fraud. The party was found to have violated it yet again in
2004....
The Republican program escalates a focus on limiting who can
vote that became a juggernaut after the Supreme Court dismantled the Voting
Rights Act in 2013. It also reflects an enduring tension in American life in
which the voting rights of minorities — whether granted in 1870 by the 15th
Amendment or nearly a century later by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — seldom
seem free from challenge.
Besides the national party and Mr. Trump’s campaign
strategists, conservative advocacy groups are joining lawsuits, recruiting poll
monitors and mounting media campaigns of their own....
"Collateral damage," instead of killed; "enhanced
interrogation," instead of torture; "slept with" instead of had
sex with. Now we have "poll monitors" instead of thugs. The Times continues
“They don’t need to keep millions of people away” from the
polls, Ms. Groh-Wargo said. “Challenge a couple of voters here, a couple there,
and it all aggregates up. They realize they’re going to win or lose this thing
at the margins.”
Among other things,
Democrats cite Mr. Trump’s repeated demands that law enforcement officers
patrol the polls and the recent creation of voter-fraud task forces by
Republicans in four state governments, at least in part at the national party’s
urging.
History suggests this is well-founded concern because
The court order vacated in 2018 involved repeated efforts to
depress Democratic turnout. In the first instance, the party recruited off-duty
police officers wearing “National Ballot Security Task Force” armbands to
monitor polling places in black and Latino neighborhoods in New Jersey. A Democratic
lawsuit claimed the officers hectored poll workers and voters and stopped
volunteers from helping voters cast ballots....
Joe Biden may stumble
as the Democratic presidential nominee.
The economy may stabilize. The Speaker of the House may enrage some
people with "fat shaming."
Any of these, and other factors, might contribute to Donald
Trump's re-election and maintenance of a GOP-controlled Senate. However, they
are small potatoes. Republicans know
their way victory in November is through voter suppression, and they won't be
stymied unless Democrat understand that and aggressively prepare.
On Tuesday, Chris Hayes interviewed Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi and asked (at 4:05 of the video below)
Two more topics I just want to get to and I – and then I
will let you go. But first on oversight, because it obviously is extremely
important. $2.2 trillion pushed out the door, $500 billion Steve Mnuchin has
tremendous discretion. The president immediately signing the legislation with a
signing statement essentially X-ing out many of the oversight provisions you
put in.
There`s one person appointed to that sort of oversight panel
right now who was just profiled and doesn`t verified Twitter account. Do you
and Congresshave the capacity to actually make sure this is not incompetently
orcorruptly distributed?
The one word Speaker Pelosi does not use in her response is
the one most relevant: "no." She maintains there will be a select
committee and that it will have subpoena power. Until and unless it happens,
that is in doubt. However, not within doubt is the likelihood that subpoenas
will be ignored The Trump Administration has demonstrated how it is done, and
the lack of repercussions. Most notably, Robert Mueller considered subpoenaing
the President, decided Trump would fight it, and dropped the idea.
Pelosi responded to Hayes
Well, we have to. In addition to the panel that you
reference, and that would be in place, I have named a select committee on the
corona –the challenge of the coronavirus. And my colleague, the Democratic whip
Mr.Cochran (sic) is the chair of that. That is predicated on a committee called the
Truman Committee that the then-Senator Truman instituted during World War II,
at the start – at the very beginning of World War II.
He said at the time 116 investigative committees performed
to investigate the defense spending on World War I. So he said, how much better
it would be in World War II to have an investigative committee at the time.....
And so it would be to fight waste, fraud, abuse, price
gouging, profiteering, and the rest. And that is what this committee is modeled
off of that, and it will have investigative authority, subpoena power. And that
– I don`t know why Republicans take offense at it. Why
wouldn`t they want to fight waste, fraud, abuse, price gouging, and
profiteering off of the taxpayer dollar which is destined to fight the
coronavirus as it attacks the lives, the livelihood of the American people?
But maybe the problem is not the old bromide "waste,
fraud, and abuse." In some cases,
it may be simple greed, which was legal even before the Age of Trump, in which selfishness is condoned, approved, and respected. Greed was described on Wednesday when
American Prospect editor David Dayen explained
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was told directly in a
phone call on April 1 that the $1,200 CARES Act payments to individuals were
not protected from private debt collection. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH),
ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, informed Mnuchin that the
payments could be garnished by private debt collectors, or used by banks to
offset existing debts that an individual had with their financial institution.
The payments are going out this week, two weeks after
Mnuchin was first informed about the issue. And under the CARES Act, the
Treasury Department has the ability to write rules protecting that payment from
being taken by financial actors. But Treasury has done nothing of the sort. On
Tuesday the Prospect reported that a top Treasury official, on a webinar with
bank compliance officers, gave them an effective green light to use the CARES
Act payments to offset debts, saying twice that “There’s nothing in the law
that precludes that action.” The official also addressed garnishment by private
debt collectors, which can commandeer payments if they have a judicial order,
saying, “We do understand that concerns have been raised about this legal
requirement, but it is a legal requirement at this time,” failing to add that
Treasury can suspend that legal requirement through regulatory action.
“On a call with Secretary Mnuchin on April 1, Senator Brown
raised the garnishment issue to Secretary Mnuchin, who at the time was not
aware of the issue,” according to a statement from Senator Brown’s office.
Mnuchin negotiated the CARES Act directly, and it passed a week before Brown
confronted him over the garnishment issue. So Mnuchin claimed in this phone
call that, a week after crafting the legislation, he was unaware of how CARES
Act payments, intended to provide food, medicine, and basic necessities to
millions of Americans in an emergency, could instead pass into the hands of
creditors.
Senator Brown’s office added: “Treasury has the power to fix
this and they should.”
It should but it's not a foregone conclusion that it will.
Dayen adds
After the April 1 phone call, Brown on two occasions urged
Mnuchin to write regulations to flag the CARES Act payments and prevent
financial actors from taking them. On April 3, he joined Senators Ron Wyden
(D-OR) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in a letter. Then on April 9, he wrote a
bipartisan letter with Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO).
In the parlance of Washington, if a member of Congress
writes a letter to an executive branch official, it often means that they are
trying to get public attention to an issue they have already raised privately.
That appears to be the case here. We do not know what Mnuchin said in response
to Senator Brown on that phone call, but his actions indicate that he did
nothing. And the rapid deployment of a letter suggests that Mnuchin ignored
Brown’s request in that moment, and Brown decided to go public to pressure the
Treasury Department to act.
Speaker Pelosi didn't have to do this. Back on March 19,
when Democrats and most of the media were disregarding the "act in haste,
repent at leisure" maxim, Michael Grunwald already recognized that
The lesson of the last congressional response to an economic
emergency, President Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill, is that when a
president desperately needs legislation to address a crisis, anyone with the
power to stop him can decide what’s in it....
Right now, after initially downplaying the threat of
coronavirus, then bungling the response to the pandemic, then watching the
swift demise of the bull market he had hailed as proof of his leadership, Trump
absolutely needs congressional action to limit the public health disaster and
mitigate the economic damage on his watch...
House Democrats can pass whatever bill they want, and if
Republicans aren’t willing to go along with it, another lesson of American
crisis politics is that it’s Trump who will suffer the consequences.
By giving Trump the emergency measures that he needs most
without insisting on the worker protections that Democrats wanted most, Pelosi
has sacrificed some of that leverage. She has also helped the president look
like a bipartisan consensus-builder, while essentially confirming the GOP
talking point that Democrats have a responsibility to meet Trump’s demands in
order to avoid a partisan stalemate. In 2009, Republicans simply ignored all
the pundits warning that they would pay a huge political price for refusing to
help the first black president fix an economic mess he had inherited—and the
pundits turned out to be wrong.
Thus far, Nancy Pelosi has been rolled. The only question is whether she
was fooled or intimidated, or instead got the result she wanted.
