President Joe Biden is now getting very close to securing the second leg of his three-legged economic legislative stool. To put it another way: this week we all finally got to experience the almost-mythological "Infrastructure Week" which we had been promised for lo, these many years. Bipartisanship struggled back to life, fulfilling not just a campaign promise from Biden but also his deep-seated desire to return Washington to some sort of pre-Trump normality.

Of course, it's not a done deal yet. It could still be derailed, but at this point the momentum behind it seems almost guaranteed to get the deal across the finish line in the Senate. The vote to open debate on the bill was a lopsided 67-32, with even Mitch McConnell voting to move forward. With a margin like that, when the final details are unveiled, it will probably garner enough Republican votes to pass. It may even get more than that initial vote-count, as all Republican senators realize they can either vote for bridges and roads or be hit with the issue in their next campaign.

Even if it does pass the Senate, there's no guarantee it'll get to Biden's desk, though. Speaker Nancy Pelosi laid down a marker weeks ago and swore she would not bring the bipartisan infrastructure bill up for a vote in the House until the Senate also passed the companion budget reconciliation deal. When this does happen, Pelosi will move the two bills forward together, and both bills will wind up on Biden's desk at the same time. This (hopefully) will satisfy the demands of both the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic Party. The moderates may have to hold their noses to vote for the budget reconciliation deal, but they will likely do so knowing it will be the only way the bipartisan deal will make it into law. The progressives will be doing the opposite -- voting for a bill they see as hopelessly inadequate in order to get their "everything else" bill passed as well. Such a balancing act is possible, and it is even looking more and more likely by the day.

Continue Reading »

Is Donald Trump's stranglehold over the Republican Party fading? One can only hope....

It is indisputable that Trump's voice is fading. Banished from polite online society, Trump is now reduced to sending out an email blast every once in a while and doing interviews on far-right media outlets. This does get his message out to his base, but with a lot smaller a megaphone than he once wielded to his tens of millions of social media followers.

Continue Reading »

It is a rare day when I devote a whole column to praising any Republican politician, but Representative Liz Cheney certainly deserves some thanks and appreciation today. She has accepted the role of de facto Republican lead on the House January 6th Select Committee, much to the consternation of most of the other members of her caucus (including everyone in GOP leadership). Cheney and Adam Kinzinger were the only two Republicans willing to honor their oath of office to the United States Constitution by accepting a seat on the committee and bringing a serious demeanor to the investigation into what went so horribly wrong.

For her valiant efforts, she is being excoriated by members of her own party. During the testimony yesterday, one of the police officers made a very salient point: "Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are being lauded as courageous heroes. And while I agree with that notion, why? Because they told the truth? Why is telling the truth hard?"

Continue Reading »

Today the House's new January 6th Select Committee convened for the first time and held its first hearing. Today's initial hearing was all about setting the stage for what is to come, explaining why such an investigation is necessary, and countering all the Republican gaslighting that has been attempted of late by instead reminding the country of exactly what did happen that day. It was brutal -- the videos played (once again) showed an out-of-control mob hellbent on harming sworn police officers while storming the seat of democracy, in an effort to overturn an election result they didn't like. Just like we all saw with our own eyes on that dark day.

The committee purposefully called four prominent police officers who served on the front lines during the attempted insurrection. All told their firsthand stories, and all expressed their desire that the committee get to the bottom of what happened so it can never happen again. These were not the high brass or the Pentagon officials we've already heard from in much more restricted investigations (much narrower in scope), these were the guys who actually put their own lives on the line to protect not only the congressmen in both chambers, but also all the aides and staffers who work in the building every day. They had a much more visceral story to tell than their bosses, to put this another way.

Much of the day was spent pre-emptively refuting all the Republican attempts to rewrite the past into something different than what every citizen actually saw that day. This parade of nonsense includes: The insurrectionists were "just tourists." They were not armed. They weren't actually supporters of Donald Trump but instead members of Black Lives Matter or Antifa. They greeted the police with "hugs and kisses." Above and beyond all these fantasy stories, Republicans have been urging everyone to just "move on," because investigating the worst attack on the U.S. Capitol since 1814 was somehow not worth the time, to them. Their attitude, in fact, is downright cliché: "Nothing to see here... move along...."

Continue Reading »

Last week was supposed to be Infrastructure Week. I naively believed this was possible. However, Senate Republicans then blew a big hole in that, leaving in doubt if even this week will prove to be the grand time when bipartisanship reigns once again in the Senate chamber and hands President Biden a big bipartisan gift... or not. Because so far, all the Republicans seem to be proving is that they are capable of Olympic-level stalling. They can always come up with new reasons why something can't get done. They are masters of it, in fact.

It has been almost five weeks since President Biden and a group of bipartisan senators made a big public announcement and everyone shook each other's hands. A deal had been struck! Everything had been worked out! Looking back, it seems more that they all merely agreed that "a bipartisan infrastructure deal would be a dandy thing to have," with absolutely zero actual details. Either that, or the Republicans have been negotiating in bad faith all along (for which there is abundant proof).

Continue Reading »

It's like the Republicans all suddenly got put on double-secret probation or something. It seems to have finally dawned on them that the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus is actually real, and it is now killing off an inordinate number of their own base voters. So some of them had, as President Joe Biden said this week, their "altar call" moment.

Of course, hearing "Delta," what popped into our minds for this tectonic shift was Animal House's John Belushi asking his fellow Delts: "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!" Of course, his speech ended when his frat brother stood up and proclaimed: "I think this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part." To which Belushi responded: "And we're just the guys to do it!"

You can see why that sprang to mind this week, as not only GOP congressional leaders and governors but also Fox News stars finally began telling their followers: "Maybe it's not such a good idea to 'own the libs' by not getting vaccinated and running the risk of a gruesome death." At this point, their gesture may prove to be futile (although admittedly it is anything but stupid), but it certainly is a welcome change to see, even if it isn't universal. There are still plenty of Republicans out there telling whomever will listen that the vaccine -- which Donald Trump loves to personally claim credit for, mind you -- is some sort of nefarious plot dreamed up by Joe Biden and his Deep State. You'll recall that in Animal House the "futile gesture" turned out to be an armored car christened the "Deathmobile."

Continue Reading »

Last night, President Joe Biden participated in a town hall in Cincinnati, Ohio, hosted by CNN and moderated by Don Lemon. He made some news there, because when he was directly asked if preserving the Senate filibuster was more important than passing voting rights bills, he sounded like he kind of wanted to have it both ways. He seems absolutely convinced that either: (1) Republicans are going to suddenly magically develop a conscience and a high-minded sense of civic duty and start joining with Democrats to pass good legislation; or (2) that getting rid of the filibuster would somehow "throw the entire Congress into chaos and nothing will get done." The first seems naive, at best. The second, however, is completely backwards.

Continue Reading »

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.

It's not that Kevin McCarthy wants the investigation done in any different way, in other words, it is that he does not want it to happen at all. That has been the Republican goal all along. Ironically, if he follows through on his threat to pull his choices from the select committee, he will make the entire proceedings a lot more serious, sober, and efficient -- which is precisely what he doesn't want to happen.

Continue Reading »

The ball is now in Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's court. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy finally named his five picks for the 1/6 Select Committee investigation, but the way the bill creating the committee was written gives Pelosi full veto power over any or all of these suggestions. At a minimum, she should reject at least one of the names put forth by McCarthy. [Editorial Note: This entire article should be read "as of this writing," as Pelosi could act at any time.]

In fact, Pelosi wouldn't even have to give any ideological reason for rejecting the most odious of McCarthy's choices. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First, here are McCarthy's five picks, in alphabetical order: Representatives Kelly Armstrong, Jim Banks (proposed as "ranking Republican," or lead GOP committee member), Rodney Davis, Jim Jordan, and Troy Nehls. One name rather obviously stands out from this list, n'est-ce pas? But perhaps not as much as you might think.

Continue Reading »

It became a running joke in the previous administration (the phrase a mockery since none of it ever came to fruition), but we may now have finally arrived at a real, honest-to-goodness "Infrastructure Week." Or, to put it another way, it's finally time for everyone to stop kidding around. By week's end, we may know what sort of legacy President Joe Biden is going to leave. He could be counted by history as one of the more transformational presidents of the modern era, or it all may fall apart at the last minute. Either way, this week will likely be the pivotal one.

The real question has always been whether Republicans are negotiating in good faith over a bipartisan infrastructure plan, or whether their true goal has just been to waste everyone's time for as long as they can possibly get away with it. That is still an open question, but if Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders remain firm, by week's end it may not matter.

Continue Reading »