We watch our language – or, at least, look at it – on a home page debate on the use of “pro-MAGA” to describe rioters who descended on Capitol Hill January 6. Go to https://thehustings.news
We Have a Deal on Infrastructure? – A group of 10 moderate Republicans and 10 moderate Democrats wrote up their “hard” infrastructure plan Wednesday night with White House officials present, which makes it look promising. Sens. Rob Portman, R-OH, and Krysten Sinema, D-AZ, meet at the White House today in the latest effort to reach an infrastructure deal. The bipartisan group of senators propose $559 billion in new spending out of $953 billion overall, according to Punchbowl News. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, plan to get an infrastructure plan through Congress in July, but not without a companion budget reconciliation bill done at the same time.
Obviously, this will happen after the July 4 break, which begins this evening for the Senate, and blows through yet another Biden administration “deadline.” And that’s assuming progressive Democrats all get on board.
Note: This could become something of a major victory for the Biden administration, if Congress hands him a bipartisan “hard” infrastructure package that progressives otherwise would object to, while a filibuster-proof reconciliation package on the social infrastructure spending gets by with 51 votes, including Sens. Sinema and Joe Manchin III, D-WV. Will both parties find a way to claim victories?
No Recess for You – But wait! Senate Democrats are calling on Majority Leader Schumer to cancel its big summer recess, set for August 6 to September 13, to catch up on the Biden administration agenda, Roll Call reports Thursday.
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White House Outlines Crime-Fighting Plan – Facing severe increases in the murder rate in many cities since the pandemic shut-downs, the White House Wednesday unveiled a crime-fighting agenda that focuses on illegal gun sales and, in the face of last year’s “defund the police” movement that Republicans used against the Biden campaign, urges cities to use unspent COVID-19 relief money to strengthen community policing. The strategy is based on four principles, said Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland:
•Setting strategic enforcement priorities.
•Fostering trust and earning legitimacy in communities.
•Investing in community-based prevention and intervention.
•Measuring results via decreases in violent crime, rather than arrests and convictions.
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Bipartisan Support, Lobbyist Push-Back on Tech Antitrust – The House Judiciary Committee moved forward a six-bill package aimed at reducing the market dominance of Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook, among others, by 24-20 vote Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reports. Key to the American Choice and Innovation Online Act is a provision to bar big-tech corporations from favoring their own products. The legislative package is facing fierce push-back from the tech giants’ lobbyists, the WSJ says.
Note: Here’s where you’re going to find some interesting bipartisanship. Republicans who traditionally would oppose regulation and clampdowns on free-market activity are joining with Democrats on big-tech antitrust, because online tech platforms are seen as blocking hard-right conservative speech, and because Silicon Valley is perceived as another liberal wealth bastion, like Hollywood. And of course, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, one of ex-President Trump’s “fake news” outlets.
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For F**ks Sake, SCOTUS – A high school girl who scored four F-bombs in a 24-hour Snapchat post in 2017 was protected by the First Amendment, the Supreme Court ruled, 8-1, Wednesday. The court ruled that the Pennsylvania school district can regulate some off-campus speech, but it violated then-14-year-old Brandi Levy’s 1A rights when she was suspended from her school’s junior varsity cheerleading team for one year, SCOTUSblog reports. Justice Clarence Thomas provided the lone dissent in Mahoney Valley School District v. Brandi Levy.
Levy sent out a Snapchat photo displaying her middle finger and the caption, “Fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything,” which went out to just 250 of her friends – until this case.
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The Truth Is Out There – Sen. Marco Rubio, R-FL, is quoted by Politico: “There’s stuff flying in our airspace and we don’t know who it is and it’s not ours. So we should know who it is, especially if it’s an adversary that’s made a technological leap.” Cue The X-Files theme. Rubio went on to say, “But how can we have stuff flying over restricted military airspace and not even be curious — not to mention concerned —about who it is and why they’re here?” Rubio was talking in the context of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. The Pentagon plans to release a report to Congress about UAP.
Note: Given that Congress has a difficult time figuring out how to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the U.S., one wonders how these people imagine that they’d have any hope dealing with bona-fide aliens.
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods