•President Biden has cancelled a trip to Chicago today in order to push his budget agenda forward as deadlines loom. Biden continues to negotiate with Sens. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, and Krysten Sinema, D-AZ, to get the $3.5-trillion budget reconciliation bill passed, Politico reports. Sinema said after negotiations Tuesday that she was “not there” on the Biden’s Build Back Better plan, though a senior White House official says much progress was made, according to Politico.
Senate Dems to Forward a ‘Clean’ Two-Month Funding Bill, Report Says –Senate Democrats will propose a “clean” federal funding bill that will keep the government open to December 3 and avoid potential economic calamity Friday, according to Punchbowl News. The bill will contain no language regarding a suspension of the debt limit, the sticking point that prompted Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, to block an extension twice in the last two days. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin estimates that without an extension, the federal government will run out of money by October 18.
Note: To recap, the Senate must extend federal funding by tomorrow to avoid a potential partial shutdown; the House of Representatives also has until Thursday to pass the $1.2-trilion bi-partisan infrastructure plan, per Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s, D-CA, self-imposed deadline. Meanwhile, Pelosi has promised House progressives that the $3.5-trillion Build Back Better Plan budget reconciliation will get a vote first, then must also pass the Senate, which needs the support of Senators Manchin, D-WV, and Sinema, D-AZ, in order to get to the necessary 51 filibuster-proof votes. Sure, could happen.
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Generals Contradict, Support Biden on Afghanistan – Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie advised President Biden to keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan past the planned withdrawal last summer in order to maintain “substantial gains” made in the country over the last 20 years, they told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday. This contradicts statements Biden made to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos last August, though both generals refused to discuss specifics of their private discussions with the president.
“If Biden didn’t take your advice, why didn’t you resign?” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-AR, asked Milley. It would have “been a political act” if he had, Milley responded.
The two generals, who testified along with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, admitted that while there was every expectation Afghanistan would fall to the Taliban following the U.S. military withdrawal, no one expected it to happen in 11 days.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s quick flight before the Taliban captured the capital of Kabul sealed the country’s fate, McKenzie said.
Note: This hearing stood out most for its relative civility, a rare quality even in the Senate these days. The Senate committee’s Republicans and Democrats were largely in agreement over mistakes made in the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal, while resolved to the reasons for the withdrawal. While the Pentagon officials lamented loss of “substantial gains” made in trying to prop up the country for nearly 20 years, Milley said, in response to a question by Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, that while the “outcome in which the enemy is in charge of the country upon our withdrawal is not the failure of days, weeks or even years, it is the cumulative effect of the entire war.”
Milley, McKenzie and Austin are scheduled to testify to the House Armed Services Committee today.
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About Milley and Our Nation in Peril – The subject of Gen. Mark Milley’s calls to his Chinese counterpart, and his apparent efforts as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to prevent then-President Trump from potentially launching missiles on China as he tried to remain in the White House after his November 2020 defeat, as described in the book Peril, did come up during Tuesday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
The call with Chinese Gen. Li Zuocheng was within his duties as Joint Chiefs chairman, Milley said.
Milley was not trying to undermine President Trump, he said. According to the book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, both of The Washington Post, Milley told other top military officials they were not to carry out any request by the president for such a strike without first consulting him. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, was also concerned that Trump might try an attack before Joe Biden’s inauguration January 20.
“I assured Li that President Trump did not plan to attack,” Milley said, and he “assured Pelosi that (I was) part of the official process. …”
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Omarosa Beats Trump — Former presidential aide of uncertain portfolio and The Apprentice contestant Omarosa Manigault Newman was taken to arbitration by former president Donald Trump (through his campaign) for what the ex-president claimed was a violation of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that Manigault Newman signed, with the violation taking the form of a book she published in 2018, Unhinged. The arbitrator, T. Andrew Brown, rejected Trump’s claim, according to The Washington Post. Brown’s finding says the Trump NDA defined “confidential” much too broadly, as in “all information . . . . that Mr. Trump insists remain private.”
Note: This could be the start of something big. As has been the case from the start of Trump’s 2016 campaign straight through to right now (actually before the campaign, but as we are considering this all from a political POV, we’ll go with that), Trump and his acolytes have imagined that whatever they said is true and whatever they don’t like that other people have said is lies or somehow wrong. This finding by the arbitrator indicates that that ain’t necessarily so. Conceivably this — along with the legal travails that will be experienced by the likes of Lindell, Powell, Giuliani, and Trump himself —will be effective in bringing back what has long considered to be (1) informed opinion and (2) non-alternate reality.
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New Leader for Japan – Former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida won his Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership election Wednesday setting him on course to become Japan’s prime minister. Next Monday, Kishida will replace Yoshihide Suga, who has served as prime minister for only one year, in which the country suffered a spike in coronavirus cases as it prepared for the Summer Olympics, already delayed by a year (per Associated Press).
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North Korea Tests Hypersonic Missile – North Korea confirmed Wednesday that it successfully tested a hypersonic missile, implying it would be nuclear-capable, Forbes reports. “Hypersonic” means it can travel at least five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5.
Note: North Korea tends to escalate missile testing at times when Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un craves a new round of attention from the West. But the Hermit Kingdom has been particularly bellicose lately, and its potential ability to build hypersonic missiles means we’re in for a fresh round of posturing.
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash