Wednesday News & Notes
JUNE 16, 2021 -- 'A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF CANNOT STAND' -- ABRAHAM LINCOLN TO THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION, 1858
President Biden’s first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin is today in Geneva, where they were expected to spend several hours in a summit. In place of the usual joint press conference after such a meeting, Biden will go it solo. His press conference is scheduled for 12.30 p.m. Eastern time.
Meanwhile, on The Hustings home page, we continue to feature our discussion previewing the Braver Angels’ June 17 Community Debate on violence in our political process. To register for the free, Zoom debate, go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/national-debate-violence-in-the-political-process-registration-156741667547
Meadows Took Trump Loss to High Levels of Desperation – The House of Representatives’ Oversight and Government Reform Committee released emails Tuesday showing the post-Barr Justice Department gently pushing back against late Trump administration efforts to overturn the November election. Then-President Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, called on the DOJ to look at what Politico calls “bizarre videos” in which a former intelligence officer, Brad Johnson, claimed that individuals in Italy had manipulated presidential election ballots in the U.S. using satellites.
“Pure insanity,” the acting deputy attorney general, Richard Donoghue, wrote in response to Meadows’ January 1, 2021, email. Acting Attorney Gen. Jeffrey Rosen, who had just replaced Bill Barr before Christmas, kept a written record of the events.
“After this message, I was asked to have FBI meet with Brad Johnson, and I responded that Brad Johnson could call or walk into FBI’s Washington Field Office with any evidence he purports to have,” Rosen wrote in response.
Committee member Jim Jordan, R-OH, excoriated Rosen for failing to carry out Meadows’ request and accused the former acting AG of “insubordination.”
Note: Meanwhile, the Florida firm Ninja Warriors continues to scan Maricopa County, Arizona, ballots for bamboo-fiber paper that would indicate they came from Asia, and Donald J. Trump continues to raise money to “primary” Republicans who haven’t shown sufficient fealty to him for next year’s midterm elections. There also is buzz, beyond the QAnon theory that Trump will return to the White House in August, that the former president could be voted in as House speaker in 2023 (the position does not require membership in Congress). The fight for the soul of the Republican Party seems to come down to the question of who, and how many, are willing to continue to defend – or ignore – these far-out theories and take advantage of the former president’s populist core support.
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Congressional Gold Medals to Four Officers Defending Capitol in Riots – The House approved, 406-21, legislation awarding four Capitol Police and Washington Metro officers with Congressional gold medals for their valor in defending against pro-MAGA insurrectionists in the January 6 Capitol attack. The gold medals, one of the highest civilian honors, will be displayed at Capitol Police and Washington Metro Police headquarters, the Smithsonian Institution and a “prominent location” at the Capitol, The Hill reports.
Three of the officers, Brian Sicknick and Howard Liebengood, of the Capitol police, and Jeffrey Smith of the D.C. Metro police, died after the riot. The fourth is Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, who lured the MAGA-mob away from the Senate chamber, helping then-Vice President Pence to safety. Goodman has since been promoted to acting deputy Senate sergeant-at-arms.
But 21 Republican Representatives Voted Against the Medals – Rep. Thomas Massie, R-KY, voted against Congressional gold medals for the four officers because he objected to use of the word “insurrection,” in the legislation, according to The Hill.The other House Republicans voting against the honors were Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Michael Cloud, Louie Gohmert and Chip Roy of Texas, Andrew Clyde, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jody Hice of Georgia, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Matt Gaetz and Greg Steube, of Florida, Bob Good of Virginia, Andy Harris of Maryland, Mary Miller of Illinois, Barry Moore of Alabama, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, John Rose of Tennessee and Matt Rosendale of Montana.
Gosar Demands Name of Officer Who Shot Babbitt – Rep. Paul Gosar, R-AZ, “says Capitol police officer was ‘lying in wait’ for Ashli Babbitt,” the pro-MAGA rioter who was killed in the January 6 insurrection, “before shooting her,” Politico’s Josh Gerstein tweeted Tuesday.
Fellow Arizona Rep. Liz Cheney, also R, responded in this tweet: “On January 6, as the violent mob advanced in the House chamber, I was standing near @RepGosar and helped him open his gas mask. The Capitol Police led us to safety. It is disgusting and despicable to see Gosar lie about that day.”
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Lucky for Senate Republicans it was by Unanimous Consent – The Senate passed by unanimous consent legislation making Juneteenth a legal public holiday Tuesday. Passed by voice vote, no senators objected, making it unanimous, Politico reports. Already recognized in 45 states, Juneteenth marks the day, June 19, 1865, that enslaved Americans in Texas learned of President Lincoln’s January 1, 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. The legislation now proceeds to the House.
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Tell-All (Positively) in Jared Kushner Book Deal – Former White House adviser and current son-in-law Jared Kushner has signed a book deal to write a “definitive” account of the Trump presidency, The Guardian reports. Broadside Books, a conservative imprint of HarperCollins Publishing, is set to print the book in early 2022. Financial terms were not disclosed.
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Southern Baptist Convention Elects Moderate as its President – The Southern Baptist Convention elected Ed Litton president of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination over hard-right favorite Mike Stone, The Washington Post reports. Litton was nominated for the leadership post at the denomination’s annual meeting in Nashville by Fred Luten, the only Black pastor to have served as SBC president. Stone had the support of the hard-right Conservative Baptist Network.
Note: Litton beat Stone in the election by a vote of 52% to 47.8%, with no calls for a recount. The question is whether Litton’s victory offers any indication of waning conservative Baptist support for former President Trump.
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We Need More Home Construction, Says Industry Group – A report from the National Association of Realtors saying we need 5.5 million new housing units normally is imminently ignorable. Obviously, self-serving, right?
But NAR’s report, which the Rosen Consulting Group conducted to be released today and previewed by The Wall Street Journal plays into current Capitol Hill talks between the White House and Senate Republicans over potentially trillions of dollars of infrastructure funding. The report says that an average of 1.225 million new units’ construction between 2001 and 2020 was down from an average of 1.5 million between 1968 and 2000.
“The scale of the problem is so large. We need affordable (housing), we need multi-rate, we need single family, we need multi-family,” the report’s co-author and vice president of the Rosen Consulting Group, David Bank, told the WSJ.
Note: This comes as lumber shortages during the pandemic added an average of $36,000 to the price of a single-family home, says the Marketplace radio show. Although lumber prices have taken a plunge just this week, they’re still three times last year’s price. But both the Biden administration and Senate Republicans ought to pay attention to the need for much more housing – including for moderate-income families – that could serve as a bargaining chip over the prospect of adding jobs for thousands of construction workers.
Note on a Note: And yet, “key figures” in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s, D-CA, inner circle, including several committee chairs, are highly skeptical of a bi-partisan Senate infrastructure counter-proposal to the White House’s sweeping plan, Punchbowl News reports Wednesday morning. So, the plan appears to be DOA; but then, progressives in Pelosi’s inner circle won’t have to tell that to Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Krysten Sinema of Arizona. – Edited by Todd Lassa and Nic Woods