•The Senate and House are scheduled to go on holiday recess after next week, but it’s clear the two chambers will have to stick around through Christmas as Democrats try to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open, raise the debt ceiling, move President Biden’s Build Back Better social safety net forward, and even fund the military by the end of the year. Republicans are happy to prevent most of this from getting done.
•Get something done: All adults should get a COVID-19 booster because of omicron, the CDC says (WaPo).
•The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization over the Mississippi law that bans nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy (SCOTUSblog).
Coronavirus Shutdown, Meet Government Shutdown – Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) seems almost proud of the GOP’s reputation as the party whose raison d’etre seems to be to put a dead stop on getting anything done. Whatever you’re for, I’m against it, Groucho Marx sang in Horse Feathers.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) seems to be his party’s weakest link as all he can do is shake in frustration over McConnell, who almost seems to be working as part of a comedy team with notorious swing vote Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-WV).
•On Monday, McConnell rallied his caucus to resist Schumer’s efforts to shut down debate on the National Defense Authorization Act, the $700-some-billion (the exact amount is part of the debate) annual defense budget that the majority leader had hoped to get passed early this week to move on to more contentious issues, Politico reports. Republicans’ excuse? They say they want more time to take up amendments.
•The current stopgap federal funding bill expires Friday. Democrats have another kick-the-can stopgap spending bill on the table that would keep the lights on through late January, but the Senate Appropriations Committee’s ranking Republican, Richard Shelby, of Alabama is balking, Politico says. “I’d like February. March would suit me. April. May … I think it gives us more time to seriously sit down.”
•Last, but not least, Manchin told reporters yesterday that McConnell wants Democrats to use reconciliation by itself in order to raise the debt ceiling by itself, which Politico says would be okay with him. It would also extend Trump-era policy still on the books into Biden’s second year as president, as we head toward those November mid-terms.
Note: What have we learned from all this? McConnell might famously be on the outs with the GOP’s leader, possible House speaker candidate and likely future presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump, but he’s doing what he can (and that’s a lot) to keep the ex-president’s rule in place. All Biden can do is wait to see how this plays out with a new coronavirus strain threatening to shut down the global economy again.
And isn’t it odd that the Republicans are putting the U.S. military in a bad place and showing levels of irresponsibility when it comes to paying bills? Maybe we’re thinking of the previous version of the Republican Party.
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Federal District Court Judge Blocks Vax Mandate in 10 States: Matthew T. Schelp, a federal judge in Missouri, has blocked the Biden administration’s requirement that health-care workers in facilities that receive funding from Medicare and Medicaid to be vaccinated, Axios reports. This covers 10 states -- Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming—which had brought a lawsuit against the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
Note: In his ruling, Schelp, a Trump appointee, described the vaccination requirement as a “politically and economically vast, federalism-altering, and boundary-pushing mandate.”
The reference to “federalism” is interesting. It generally refers to the Constitution’s division of powers between the national government and the states. The funding for Medicare comes from the Social Security Administration, which is squarely in the federal category. Funding for Medicaid is a national-state proposition, with the federal government sending money to the states to fund it. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “the federal share (FMAP) varies by state from a floor of 50% to a high of 78% for FY 2022.” In Missouri, where Schelp works, the federal government kicks in at least 60%. In Arkansas, another of the state involved in the lawsuit, the percentage is at least 70%.
Somehow it seems that when there is that kind of money involved, the federal government ought to have at least the right that stores and restaurants do in posting signs saying, “No shirts, no shoes, no service.”
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They Don’t Make Up This Sort of Thing About Schumer – Just how much more effective and powerful is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) next to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)? The far-right propaganda machine only is concerned about the Speaker.
Consider this: An obviously false report that Pelosi had closed on a $25-million Jupiter, Florida “retirement” mansion just 25 miles from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago spread across social media and the edges of more legitimate right-wing outlets, including the Washington Examiner over the weekend. Jim Swift’s debunking in the anti-Trump conservative news site The Bulwark can be found here: https://www.thebulwark.com/conservative-media-makes-up-a-fake-florida-mansion-for-nancy-pelosi/
Odds are Schumer doesn’t mind.
–Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash