•President Biden says he would potentially support Senate Democrats removing the legislative filibuster for a voting rights bill, and “other issues,” in a CNN Town Hall Thursday night.
•”Are you close to a deal?” on the Build Back Better budget reconciliation package, CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Biden. “I think so,” the president responded.
•Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-AZ, has reportedly accepted a package of tax changes that would help pay for the budget reconciliation package, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Moderate and progressive Democrats have negotiated the package to somewhere between $1.75 trillion and $1.9 trillion.
Moderate and Progressive Democrats Still Aren’t There – Despite all the sunshine and bunnies evoked by President Biden and Sen. Krysten Sinema, the two sides aren’t that close to a deal on budget reconciliation. “Democrats are unlikely to strike a framework deal … this week,” The Hill suggests, “as divisions between centrist Democrats and progressives continue to plague negotiations and threaten to derail them entirely.”
In a separate story in The Hill, Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, provided an explanation for the “bullshit” Mother Jones story that said he had threatened to leave the Democratic caucus to become an “American independent.” According to the Capitol Hill newsletter, Manchin told Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, “that if it would help (the Democratic caucus) ‘publicly’ to become an independent who still caucuses with the party” as they negotiate a bill as large as possible in order to appease progressives, he was willing to do so.
Note: Typical storm before the vote, as the herd of Democratic cats keeps trying to gather itself up to vote for the reconciliation bill. Prospects are probably better than it looks – but will either side of the party be satisfied with the outcome?
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House Vote is 229-202 to Hold Bannon in Contempt – The full House of Representatives voted 229-202 to hold former Trump advisor Stephen K. Bannon in contempt of Congress for failing to respond to a subpoena to question him for his role in the January 6 Capitol insurrection. Nine Republicans joined House Democrats voting for the contempt charges. Former Vice President Mike Pence’s brother, Rep. Greg Pence, R-IN, did not vote.
Select Committee on January 6 Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-MS, said Bannon “stands alone in his complete defiance of our subpoena,” according to Roll Call. The committee unanimously voted to move Bannon’s contempt charges forward to the full House. The two Republicans on Thompson’s committee, Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, were among the nine members of their party voting for the charges in the full House.
The others were:
•Peter Meijer and Fred Upton, Michigan.
•John Katko, New York.
•Nancy Mace, South Carolina.
•Anthony Gonzalez, Ohio.
•Brian Fitzpatrick, Pennsylvania.
•Jaime Herrera Butler, Washington.
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McCarthy to GOP Consultants: It’s Me or Cheney – A prominent Washington lobbyist close to Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, is warning political consultants to choose between the House minority leader and January 6 Select Committee member Liz Cheney, R-WY, The New York Times reports. This has prompted “one fund-raising firm to disassociate itself from Ms. Cheney,” according to the report.
The Morning Group has informed Cheney it can no longer work on her 2022 primary campaign, the NYT says.
Note: Back in July, Cheney told Fox News she had set two straight record fund-raising quarters in a row after McCarthy ousted her from GOP House leadership, per the conservative-turned-Trumpist magazine, National Review. McCarthy obviously intends to put an end to that, and The Morning Group’s acquiescence to the minority leader will force Cheney to seek help outside the usual channels. This will be a test of how large and serious the post-2016 anti-Trumpist conservative movement really is.
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Maybe It Wasn’t the Autopilot — Tesla is under investigation by both the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB — which you’re probably more familiar with vis-à-vis plane crashes) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The issue is whether the company’s so-called “Autopilot” system is the cause of fatalities or crashes, as there seems to be an unfounded understanding that the Tesla vehicles can drive themselves (they can’t). In August, NHTSA opened an investigation of 11 crashes “in which Tesla models of various configurations have encountered first responder scenes and subsequently struck one or more vehicles involved with those scenes.”
NTSB has been looking at an accident that occurred in Spring, Texas, last April in which there were two fatalities. The NTSB released an update yesterday, according to Automotive News, which indicate that the driver was behind the wheel of the Model S, not in the rear passenger seat, as had been initially claimed by some outlets. The investigation is on-going.
Note: What is interesting about this from a political point of view is that Tesla has been remarkably blasé about the claims that it makes for its “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” (it isn’t) systems. More conventional OEMs have tended to be more responsive to addressing the concerns of federal investigatory agencies. Seems like the same indifference to things like subpoenas by both public servants and private citizens has made its way to corporations, as well.
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash