Thursday on The Hustings
JUNE 3, 2021 -- CHINESE GOVERNMENT BEGINS CRACKDOWN ON TIANANMEN SQUARE PROTESTS, 1989
Sign of hope? Unlikely. Republican senators, led by Shelley Moore Capito, of West Virginia, return to the White House Friday to continue negotiations with President Biden over an infrastructure bill. Capito reportedly spent about an hour at the White House yesterday with a GOP counteroffer to Biden’s $1.7 trillion proposal.
Republicans and Biden May be Further Apart on Infrastructure – Senate Republicans may send the White House a new offer tomorrow, Punchbowl News reports, but yesterday, negotiations between President Biden and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-WV, indicate the deal “seems to be going backward.” Biden’s offer reportedly has come down to the low $1 trillion range, while the Republican offer of $928 billion includes just $250 billion of new spending, with the rest from “unspent” COVID-19 relief.
Note: As always, it comes down to Biden’s wish to reverse the Trump Administration’s corporate tax cut – a twain over which the two parties never will meet. Mainstream Democratic drumbeats are getting louder for Sens. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, and Krysten Sinema, D-AZ, to get in line to vote for Biden’s package under reconciliation while GOP infighting proceeds over the question of whether it is still Trump’s party. If the two centrist Democratic senators can be convinced, expect the Biden infrastructure plan via reconciliation (bypassing the possibility of a filibuster) followed up by an effort to end the legislative filibuster in order to pass the For The People voting act in time to give Democratic candidates a chance in next year’s midterms.
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Justice Department Investigates Democratic Lobbying Firm; Politico – The Justice Department is investigating whether Blue Star Strategies lobbied the U.S. on behalf of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, of which Hunter Biden was a board member, Politico reports in a scoop citing unnamed sources. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware is coordinating the investigation with the National Security Division of the Justice Department, and a grand jury has been convened in the case, the political news outlet says. Republican efforts to investigate Burisma and Hunter Biden in 2019 led to the first impeachment of President Trump.
Note: Trump supporters and media outlets from Fox News rightward have been calling for a serious investigation into Hunter Biden’s sweetheart board membership at Burisma for more than a year, and you can count on hour-by-hour coverage right up to and past Laura Ingraham’s show tonight. Trump supporters assert that as vice president, Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian political and business leaders to place his son on Burisma’s board despite no experience in the energy industry.
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New Unemployment Claims Drops by 20,000 – Seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims continued to fall for the week ending May 29, according to the U.S. Labor Department, to 385,000, a drop of 20,000 claims from the previous week’s revised numbers. The last time the rate was lower was for the week ending March 14, 2020, when the rate was 256,000.
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Losing Netanyahu – Israeli Knesset members intent on finally removing Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu after 12 years in office were still at it Thursday, set for a quick parliament vote to approve a new government coalition made up of eight parties, including hard-right conservatives, liberals, and even an Arab party. Main coalition partners are Naftali Bennett, considered more hard-line right than Netanyahu, who would take over as PM for two years before handing it over to the coalition’s partner from the left, Yair Lapid, the AP reports.
Note: Netanyahu’s uncanny ability to hold on to power past the last minute surely appeals to former President Donald J. Trump. The Israeli PM, who was indicted in 2019 on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, tweeted (this alone raises Trump’s envy) in response to his potential removal: “All members of the Knesset who were elected with right-wing votes need to oppose this dangerous leftist government.” The hope among the coalition is that the new government will be able to appeal to Palestinians over the issue of a separate homeland, without having to deal with Hamas.
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Add NYT to Justice Department’s Seized Phone Record List – The U.S. Justice Department under the Trump Administration seized the phone records of four New York Times reporters under a leak investigation following an article on how FBI Director James Comey handled politically charged investigations during the 2016 presidential election, The New York Times reports. The reporters, Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eric Lichtblau and Michael S. Schmidt, join reporters from The Washington Post and CNN in having been notified by the Justice Department about the seized records. The NYT’s reporting on Comey began with an April 22, 2017 news article.
–Edited by Todd Lassa and Nic Woods
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