Monday News & Notes
JULY 26, 2021 -- SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS ESTABLISHES U.S. POSTAL SERVICE, NAMES BENJAMIN FRANKLIN POSTMASTER GENERAL, 1775
•Democratic negotiators and the White House sent Republican counterparts a “global offer” to resolve outstanding issues, which are mostly about transportation, on the bi-partisan infrastructure deal late Sunday night, Punchbowl News reports, quoting Democratic sources. A Senate vote is anticipated early this week, although the Congressional Budget Office has yet to see an actual bill in legislative form, as required for its scoring. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, also wants to forward President Biden’s $3.5-trillion budget resolution, contingent on infrastructure action.
Kinzinger Says “Yes” to 1/6 Panel – Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-IL, was one of 10 Republican members of the House of Representatives to vote to impeach then-President Trump last January, and on Sunday he said he will accept Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s invite to join her panel to investigate the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Kinzinger joins Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who also voted for Trump’s second impeachment – which was over Trump’s complicity in the January 6 insurrection -- as two Republicans on the nine-member panel.
Pelosi said over the weekend that she rejected just two of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s, R-CA, five Republican congressmen he selected for the 1/6 committee; Jim Banks of Indiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio, both of them allies of the former president. McCarthy chose to withdraw all five Republicans, instead.
Originally, Pelosi had proposed a 13-member panel consisting of eight Democrats and five Republicans, Roll Call says, but now the committee will have seven Democrats plus Cheney and Kinzinger. Democrats on the panel are Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Elaine Luria of Virginia, Stephanie Murphy of Florida, and California Reps. Zoe Lofgren, Pete Aguilar, and Adam Schiff.
Note: McCarthy knew Pelosi would object to his nominating Banks and Jordan, of course. The two Republicans and subsequent withdrawal of all five is part of the dance that McCarthy is performing in front of all-but-formally-announced candidate for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, Donald Trump.
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Trump Continues to Promote ‘Alternative Reality’ – In a speech at a Turning Point USA event in Phoenix, Donald Trump said, “I predict when the votes come in … I think they’re going to be so horrible,” according to a report in Politico. “They will be, in my opinion, the results will be so outrageous.” Possibly the “horrible,” “outrageous” results will be what is the fact: Biden: 1,672,143 votes, 49.36%; Trump: 1,661,686 votes, 49.06%, in Maricopa County. That, of course, is not what he was suggesting.
Trump expanded his belief in the miscounting of ballots rather extensively: “We’re not talking about Arizona any more. We’re talking about the United States of America.” Perhaps it doesn’t occur to him that (1) he received more votes than he’d tallied in 2016 and there could be the possibility that he actually received fewer votes due to bona fide irregularities and (2) House Republicans did much better than expected, with the Democrats just flipping three seats in 2016, so there is the possibility that those people, too, won by stolen ballots or machines from Argentina or whatever nefarious plot of the day may be.
Note: Turning Point USA, which describes itself as “a 501(c)3 non-profit organization whose mission is to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote freedom,” will send a “No Forced Vax activism kit” to those who sign up on its website. The scroll of trending topics on its webpage includes: Vaccines, New York, America, Big Government Sucks, Critical Race Theory.
Teach your children well.
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Democratic ‘Hawks’ Propose 5% Defense Spending Increase – The Senate Armed Services Committee, led by Democratic “hawks,” have proposed a 5% increase in defense spending for fiscal year 2022, compared with President Biden’s budget proposing a 1.6% hike, Roll Call reports.
The committee voted 23-3 last Wednesday for a version of the National Defense Authorization Act to authorize $777.9 billion for defense in the next fiscal year. The budget is $25 billion more than the White House had sought for fiscal year 2022, and $37 billion more than was enacted for FY2021, the Capitol Hill news website reports.
Note: As long as progressive Democrats are threatening the debt ceiling and pushing for sweeping social program spending by taking advantage of their (very thin) majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives, why shouldn’t moderate/centrist Democrats push for big increases in defense spending?
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‘Arab Spring’ Falls in Tunisia – Tunisian President Kais Saied has dismissed the country’s prime minister and frozen parliament, amid protests, in what opponents call a “coup,” Reuters reports. Saied says he will assume executive authority with assistance of a new prime minister, creating what Reuters describes as the “biggest challenge yet to the democratic system Tunisia introduced in a 2011 revolution,” which triggered the region’s “Arab Spring.”
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Died: Civil Rights Leader Bob Moses – Bob Moses, described in The New York Times’ obituary as a soft-spoken civil rights leader who faced “relentless intimidation and brutal violence” to register black voters in 1960s Mississippi and later started aa national organization devoted to teaching math as a means to a more equal society, died Sunday in Hollywood, Florida. He was 86.
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods