Republicans in the House of Representatives, led by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, are trying to paint Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democrats as being somehow "too partisan" about investigating the attempted insurrection at the United States Capitol on the sixth of January. This is supposed to somehow delegitimize the effort, but it is in fact laughable on the face of it. Because when you get right down to it, of course it is a partisan exercise. The reason? Because one of America's major two political parties was complicit in attempting to overturn the will of the people in a national presidential election. One party did that. In a very partisan way. So any investigation of the incident is going to naturally expose this fact in a glaring way, because at this point only one party is even interested in getting at the truth -- the other party doesn't want that at all because they know they are so complicit. It doesn't matter who investigates it, the facts are the facts -- and one party bears the blame. This is precisely what Republicans don't want to talk about, which is why they've attempted to either stop or sabotage the entire effort to investigate 1/6 in any way, shape, or form from the very beginning.

Read Complete Article »

There were two interesting developments in the congressional sausage-making process this week, both of which Democrats should immediately adopt as their main messages for the next week or so.

The first was that Senators Bernie Sanders and Mark Warner announced they had come to a compromise on the reconciliation bill which will fund the lion's share of President Joe Biden's economic agenda. They settled on a total figure of $3.5 trillion in new spending, which is far less than Bernie's original goal of $6 trillion (just for this bill alone), but also far more than the opening bid of the fiscally-conservative Democrats, which was in the $1.5 to $2 trillion range. It also will mean that Biden got the exact total he asked for in his "three-legged stool" of economic legislation. His first big legislative achievement (the American Rescue Plan) spent $1.9 trillion, and the bipartisan infrastructure deal represents $0.6 trillion more, which will mean a grand total of $6 trillion for all three -- which is exactly what Biden asked for in the first place.

Read Complete Article »

Tomorrow, President Joe Biden is scheduled to give an address on voting rights. This could be a rather crucial speech, because it might signify how much political capital Biden is willing to expend over the issue. This might also signify the relative chances of whether the Democrats are going to do anything at all about it before the next election. Biden could just give a nice polite speech (but refuse to call for drastic action), or he could alternatively use the speech to lay out a series of actions he thinks Democrats should now take. Hopefully, it'll be the latter.

Read Complete Article »

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has never been seen by anyone as any sort of profile in courage. The most common view of him, in fact, is that he's as spineless as a jellyfish. He has gotten to his position of power within the Republican Party largely by trying to be everyone's best buddy, but that's not exactly a core leadership quality, to put it mildly. And now he's in a pickle, because everyone is waiting to see what he's going to do about the House 1/6 Select Committee. My personal guess is that he'll figure out what the path of least resistance is and then embrace it. He's certainly done so before, so it's about all I expect from him.

Read Complete Article »

Happy Independence Day! No, that heartfelt wish is actually not premature, as we pointed out years ago. The second of July is indeed the day American declared her independence from Britain. All the histories, all the traditions, all the celebrations get it wrong each and every year. No, really!

Read Complete Article »

Call it true irony. The man who had a book ghost-written for him called "The Art Of The Deal" could never actually manage to strike any kind of deal. So the man who replaced him ran on his own dealmaking skills, in a time where pretty much everyone in Washington considered the idea too old-fashioned to ever work. But President Joe Biden just got his first big deal, this week. A bipartisan infrastructure plan is now going to move forward in the United States Senate and has what can only be called a better-than-average chance of passing.

Read Complete Article »

President Joe Biden had a pretty good week all around. He began the week in Europe, where he met with the leaders of NATO, the European Union, the G7, a few royals (just to mix things up), and Vladimir Putin. That's a pretty packed schedule, but Biden seemed to manage just fine. The Europeans were both visibly thrilled and massively relieved to be visited by a United States president who was, once again, a sane adult (and not a petulant little child-man). They heaped praise upon Biden -- mostly just for being "President Not-Trump." You may laugh, but please recall President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize solely for being "President Not-Dubya," years earlier. But more seriously, Europe announced some deals with Biden (including, notably, a truce being called on the subsidy war over Boeing and Airbus airplanes). Not only were personal relationships either reaffirmed or begun, tangible diplomatic progress was made. Europe stood as one with the United States over the contentious issues of Russia and China, which only strengthened Biden's position for his meeting with Putin. The Putin summit didn't produce a whole lot in the way of tangible deliverables, but then again it didn't produce an American president willing to believe Russia's ex-K.G.B. leader over his own intelligence services either, so it has to be chalked up as a major improvement. Throughout it all, Biden stuck to one very simple slogan that summed up what his trip was supposed to be showcasing to the world: "America is back."

Read Complete Article »

This has been an extraordinary week. I say that because things seem to actually be happening in Washington, which is (to put it politely) not the normal state of affairs at all. Congress even proved that, on occasion, they could move with blinding speed, as they passed a bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday in a matter of days, instead of the usual "months, if not years." President Joe Biden has already signed the law, long before most Americans were even aware of its existence. The federal workforce will get to take tomorrow off, which just wasn't true at the beginning of the week, or even yesterday. It's long been a closely-held secret, but Congress can act this quickly, when they really want to.

Read Complete Article »

The two most powerful men on Capitol Hill should really sit down and have a talk with each other. It'd be risky, but maybe it's the only way the situation could improve. Senator Joe Manchin should invite Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to lunch, and the two should spend the entire time talking about the concept of bipartisanship. Of course, the risk involved in this strategy would be if McConnell instead actually talked Manchin into switching parties (which has to be considered a real possibility, at this point). But the benefit could be Manchin coming to a new understanding of how there just is never going to be any bipartisanship on the budget, on voting rights, on the 1/6 commission, or on just about anything else of any importance at all.

Read Complete Article »

The ushers are flashing the lights in the lobby. Intermission is over, and the last act of the "Bipartisan Infrastructure Kabuki" extravaganza is about to begin. Actually, truth be told, we were among those who thought this play would be over by now, but apparently a final act was hastily added at the last minute, for no real apparent reason.

President Joe Biden called Senator Shelley Moore Caputo today, in what most view as the final negotiation attempt which will try to hammer together a compromise infrastructure package that 10 Republican senators will actually vote for. Biden is, in essence, making his final offer. It is eminently reasonable, considering where the two sides started from, but that doesn't mean it will have any chance of success, since Republicans are really just trying to run the clock out and stall for as long as they can get away with before they admit to the world that there simply is no infrastructure bill that 10 Republican senators are ever going to vote for -- at least not while a Democrat sits in the Oval Office.

Read Complete Article »