•Capitol Police officers Harry Dunn and Aquilino Gonell and Washington Metropolitan Police officers Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges are the first witnesses to testify before a special committee of the House of Representatives on the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill, underway today.
•”When the New Clothes are an Orange Jumpsuit” is pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay’s accounting of Donald Trump associates who have been charged, convicted and/or pardoned of various crimes, Tuesday at thehustings.substack.com.
To Recess or to Not Recess – That is the question posed by the tardy bipartisan infrastructure bill language that has media, more so than senators, kvetching. The pattern feels familiar, that the 22 Democrats and Republicans at the center of reaching bipartisan accord on a $1.2 trillion infrastructure agreement have too many disagreements over how details are still to be written.
The Hill cites party sources that Democrats over the weekend gave moderate Republicans a “global offer” to propose levels of funding for broadband, highways and bridges, to tap unspent COVID-19 relief to help offset nearly $600 billion of new spending and addressed whether the plan would fully fund a water bill the Senate had previously passed. Relax, the message goes; bipartisan legislative language will emerge in time for Senate floor consideration and, presumably, an August break.
Note: Expect high drama, CNN/MSNBC/Fox News-style through the week (and potentially the weekend) as the bipartisan infrastructure deal’s negotiations stretch out to the very tip of the August recess, to become the first (and likely only) source of a claim of bipartisan unity under the Biden administration. If nothing else, Infrastructure Week is an enduring, universal concept.
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EPA Plans to Protect Water Discharge from Energy Plants -- The US Environmental Protection Agency said yesterday the initiation of a rulemaking process to strengthen certain wastewater pollution discharge limits for coal power plants that use steam to generate electricity. While this might not seem to be particularly significant, according to EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan, an objective is to “further reduce power plant pollution that can contain toxic metals such as mercury, arsenic, and selenium.”
Note: While it might seem that preventing mercury, arsenic, and selenium from getting into the ground water is something that you’d like to have happen already, according to the EPA, “The agency intends to issue a proposed rule for public comment in the fall of 2022.” Nothing, it seems, happens quickly in Washington.
It is worth noting that the EPA says there are approximately 914 steam electric power plants in the US, and the US Energy Information Administration calculates that “Coal was the third-largest energy source for U.S. electricity generation in 2020 —about 19%.”
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Caught in the Middle with Trump – The MAGA wing of the Republican Party’s favorite 2024 running mate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has reversed his rhetoric to begin encouraging citizens of his state to go out and get COVID-19 vaccine shots, according to Politico.
Pushed by attacks from the medical community and Democrats as Florida counted more than 73,000 new infections last week alone, a fourfold increase since the beginning of July, and more than 300 deaths from the coronavirus in the latest seven-day period, DeSantis now says “vaccines are saving lives.”
The backlash was immediate from GOP anti-vaxxers. “Don’t let political correctness get in the way of health choices,” the Trump administration’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, said on a right-wing talk show.
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Canary in a Texas Coal Mine – The widow of the late U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-TX, who died of COVID-19 last year after the November elections, has the explicit endorsement of Donald Trump, and so her runoff against fellow Republican Jake Ellzey today to represent the Fort Worth-area district is considered an early test of the former president’s enduring control over the GOP. Trump made a last-minute pitch for Susan Wright in a phone rally Monday night in which he gloated over her first-place showing in a May 1 special election over 23 other candidates, The Texas Tribune reports.
In the special election, Wright garnered 19% of the vote, with Ellzey at 14%. Ellzey is a state representative who has been endorsed by former Texas governor and Trump administration energy secretary Rick Perry and Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-TX.
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Former Senator from Wyoming Dies – Mike Enzi, Republican senator from Wyoming who retired last year, died Monday from injuries from a bicycle accident near his home in Gillette Friday, the AP reports. Enzi was first elected to the Senate in 1996 and was known for emphasizing compromise over “grandstanding and confrontation.” He was replaced this year by Republican Cynthia Lummis, a former Congress member and state treasurer. Enzi was 77.
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Former Senator Barbara Boxer Assaulted and Robbed – Former Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, of California was assaulted and robbed Monday in the Jack London Square area of Oakland. “The assailant pushed her in the back, stole her cell phone and jumped in a waiting car,” according to a tweet from Boxer’s verified Twitter account, the AP reports. “She is thankful that she was not seriously injured.”
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Nic Woods