•Up next, Elon Musk: Amazon founder/WaPo owner Jeff Bezos and three other passengers took a quick trip to outer space in his Blue Origin spacecraft on the 52nd anniversary of Armstrong’s walk on the moon. Bezos is only the second multi-billionaire to go out there, with Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson having made the trip nine days ago.
•Coming later today in an extra newsletter: Pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay annotates the donaldjtrump.com website.
•Tuesday debate: Craig Fahle in the left and Bryan Williams in the right column discuss the walkout by Democratic state lawmakers, and proposed Texas election laws behind it on The Hustings’ home page.
Schumer Files Cloture on $1 trillion Infrastructure Bill – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, filed cloture on the $1 trillion “hard” infrastructure bill Monday, and he’s set a hard deadline of Wednesday for the bipartisan group of Senate negotiators to wrap up its details, including funding sources, according to Punchbowl News. Moderate Republicans who make up half the G20 group of senators who initiated the negotiations are now balking at the compromise bill with the threat they could vote it down this week.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-OH, lead negotiator among his party’s moderates, says he won’t vote for cloture “on something we haven’t accomplished yet.” Portman told reporters of a slew of Zoom calls Monday, including with White House officials, to work out the details. But it’s clear that Schumer and the 10 Republican senators necessary to pass cloture tomorrow are not on the same page.
Note: The pessimistic takeaway is that we are looking at yet another doomed infrastructure package – the two words that come up most often for this bipartisan struggle are “last” and “ditch.” The optimistic takeaway is that Schumer won’t be able to stick to his tight timeline of a compromise to the compromise package by Thursday, and that it’s mostly the Senate’s struggle to leave for summer recess in time next month is under threat.
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Introducing The McCarthy Five – House of Representatives Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, has chosen his five caucus members to serve on the committee investigating the January 6 Capitol Hill attack by supporters of then-President Trump. All five are subject to approval by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, who has chosen eight Democrats for her side of the committee.
Ranking member, if approved, is Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, a “skilled messenger,” Politico reports, and a reliable Trump ally. Pro-Trump pitbull Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who serves as the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, is another McCarthy choice.
The other three McCarthy nominees are Reps. Rodney Davis of Illinois, a “moderate” on the House Administration Committee, Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, who served on the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment, and Troy Nehls of Texas, a former sheriff who backed Capitol Police against rioters, according to Roll Call.
Note: Banks’ and Jordan’s inclusion on the panel assures there will be two distinct lines of questioning by 1/6 committee members, each with a distinct set of facts.
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First Rioter Sent to Prison for January 6 Insurrection – Paul Hodgkins, photographed wearing a Trump t-shirt and waiving a Trump flag on the Senate chamber dais January 6, was sentenced Monday to six months in prison after pleading guilty last month to a felony count of obstructing congressional proceedings, New York magazine’s Intelligencer reports. He is the first person sentenced for taking part in the riot.
“In that act, he captured the threat to democracy that we all witnessed that day,” D.C. District Judge Randolph Moss said in the sentencing hearing.
Note: Prosecutors had sought an 18-month sentence for Hodgkins, but he has been described as cooperative and non-violent in his January 6 actions. The short sentence may not portend how more violent suspects fare in subsequent cases.
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Man Who Threatened Judge Over Flynn Case Sentenced – A 53-year-old man who threatened a judge handling a high-profile criminal case against former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn was sentenced to 18 months in prison in a plea deal with prosecutors, Politico reports. In sentencing Frank Capruso, U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden called his threat “heinous,” but said he was convinced he never actually planned to carry it out.
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Taylor Greene Twitter Time-Out -- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA, was given a 12-hour “read-only” status on her Twitter account after claiming that the coronavirus is “not dangerous for non-obese people and those under 65.” Ms. Greene called the suspension “a Communist-style (sic) attack on free speech,” according to The Washington Post.
Note: Ms. Greene, 47, not a Constitutional scholar, is also not a medical expert, unless a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Georgia somehow has a track that focuses on virology. However, Ms. Greene does know a little something about beating obesity, as in 2012 she was a part-time coach at a CrossFit gym and founded her own CrossFit facility in 2013, which she left in 2017, according to Wikipedia. The gym company’s site notes that “CrossFit can be used to accomplish any goal, from improved health to weight loss to better performance.” Evidently it can be used to accomplish being elected to Congress, too.
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Obituary: Former Rep. Jerry Lewis – Jerry Lewis, not the former partner of Dean Martin (who died in 2017), but rather the California Republican in the House of Representatives from 1979 to 2012, died July 15. He was known for being an old school “appropriator” as younger, more conservative members permeated his party’s House caucus over the years. He was 86.
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods