A U.S. senator just got his comeuppance this week, and it really couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy. Senator Joe Manchin was forced to pull his pet bill (that would have greenlighted a pipeline in West Virginia), due to lack of bipartisan support. Because he backed down, the government now appears to be in no danger of shutting down this Friday. Both the Senate and the House appear to be on a glide path to passing a short-term budget deal that will kick the "government shutdown" can down the road to mid-December, at the end of the lame-duck Congress. So all around, it's good news: the government will continue to be funded, and Joe Manchin has now gotten a taste of his own medicine.

Forgive me if I sound a wee bit bitter (or feeling a good bit of schadenfreude, more like), but after a full year and a half of watching Joe Manchin essentially proclaim himself king of the Democratic agenda, it's hard not to feel a "what goes around comes around" vibe.

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Right before I sat down to write this, the January 6th House Select Committee announced it was postponing tomorrow's publicly-televised hearing, due to Hurricane Ian being scheduled to hit Florida. Nevertheless, I was going to write about the committee today anyway, so these comments will eventually be valid, whenever they do reschedule their hearing. And although it might be seen as an extension of what I say here, I cannot fault the committee for taking into account a natural disaster and being respectful of the people of Florida who will be in danger. Postponing was the right decision, in other words, as far as I am concerned.

Overall, two big things have struck me about the committee's public presentations: how tightly organized they are, providing "good television" (which is not just rare but unheard-of for congressional committees); and how disorganized the scheduling has always been. Most of the hearings have not been announced with much lead time (one was thrown together in a single day), and confusion reigns over what each hearing will consist of.

Perhaps this is all meant to tease the public -- "Tune in, or you might miss a big surprise!" That could be. Or perhaps it is just the committee's internal wrangling -- they reportedly have a hard problem reaching consensus on this stuff, so you get conflicting reports ahead of time as to what to expect next. That could be, too.

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Program Note: Sorry for the lack of a new column today, but I had family visiting and therefore was away from politics for the day. I went looking for a column to run again today and came across this, from a little more than two years ago today. Thankfully the worst of my predictions didn't happen, but things sure turned out a lot worse than the rosiest of my projections. In any case, it's already been a long two years and we're going to have to put up with this situation for a long time to come as well, so here's a look at what started it all.

Originally published September 21, 2020

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg now rests in peace.

For the rest of us, there will be no rest and very little peace for the next few months -- of that much we can be certain. Because while the phrase is occasionally overused, it is no hyperbole to say that Ginsburg's death has now left America in what can only be called a true constitutional crisis.

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We do try to avoid it in general, but this week it is impossible not to lead our news wrap-up with the ongoing Donald Trump Follies. Spoiler alert: it wasn't a very good week in Trumpland.

Here's how one Washington Post writer summed things up:

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All of Donald Trump's legal defenses (if you can even call them that) for having hundreds of stolen classified U.S. government files in his possession just crashed into the brick-wall reality of a panel of three actual law-abiding appellate judges (as opposed to whatever you want to call Trump's pet district judge who issued the ruling on the special master that Trump was seeking). It wasn't pretty, to put it mildly. The three judges on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals -- two of them nominated by Trump himself -- all unanimously agreed that the lower court's ruling was hogwash, as well as all the various legal excuses he's been deploying being complete bunk too, just for good measure. It was truly an epic legal smackdown.

The three judges took 28 pages (plus cover page) to eviscerate the initial ruling on the special master as well as Trump's public defense of: "I magically declassified them all just by thinking about it, so there!" The appellate court properly responded (paraphrased a bit): "Who cares? That's not even what's at issue here!"

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Today Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, announced a civil case against Donald Trump, three of his children, and the Trump Organization. This stems from a long investigation into fraud committed by the company, mainly tax fraud and bank fraud. It is the first actual legal case against Trump that has been announced, and his reaction was entirely predictable -- calling the whole thing a "witch hunt." But this isn't the only legal problem Trump faces, even if it was the first out of the gate. Trump could soon be looking at criminal charges in more than one jurisdiction and for more than one crime. So the real question is which hunt has the best chance of succeeding?

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Joe Biden gave an interview to 60 Minutes last week, and in doing so he made some news. He reiterated his previously-held position on Taiwan (which his aides tried to walk back afterwards), he did not unequivocally say that he was running to get re-elected president in 2024, and he declared: "The pandemic is over." Which, of course, set off a frenzy of: "See? He said it's over!" versus: "It is most definitely not over!" from all sides. But what Biden actually said was a little more subtle than anyone is really giving him credit for.

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The lame-duck Congress, which will take place from just after the midterm election to the end of the calendar year, is shaping up to be a rather busy one. This isn't too unusual, since punting things to the lame-duck period is always a tempting option for politicians worried about their re-election. But this year's lame duck might be more significant than most, because of what is being teed up for it. They'll only have two months to act on all of it, minus all the breaks they'll take for the November and December holidays. And it looks like they'll have a lot to get done.

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We fully admit that headline isn't really close enough to the original to trip off the tongue very well. But we're in an optimistically cheerful mood, so we're not going to change it.

These were really the three big political stories of the week. Last weekend saw the culmination of an incredible performance by the Ukrainian military. Within a week, they had retaken over 2,000 square miles of their country, as the Russian invading forces mostly just fled. That is beyond impressive, and may prove to be a real turning point in the whole war.

Or maybe not. They've still got an enormous amount of territory to reclaim, and the Russians are still fighting hard to hold the city of Kherson, in the south. So we'll see whether this astoundingly successful counteroffensive is a real harbinger of more such victories or merely an aberration. But whatever it turns out to be, the Ukrainian fighting forces had one heck of a good week.

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President Joe Biden has averted a major crisis by getting the freight rail carriers to agree to a compromise with their Union workers. Details of the compromise are still slowly trickling out, but the big achievement was getting the railroad companies to allow workers to schedule doctors' visits without being penalized for taking time off (unpaid time, mind you). Biden was reported to have been angry that the rail companies hadn't budged an inch on the time-off policy, so this is a clear victory not just for the workers but also for Biden and his team.

A rail strike would have been devastating, if it had lasted for more than a few days. Supply chains would have completely broken -- there just aren't enough trucks to carry all that freight on the roadways. Store shelves would have been bare. Fuel and water supplies would have been in danger (although emergency contingency plans were already in place to ensure clean water was still delivered to where it needed to go). Prices would likely go up. It would have been a big hit on the American economy and would have had all sorts of ripple effects which lasted far beyond the actual duration of the strike. It would have been a disaster, plain and simple.

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