Friday Talking Points -- Let Boredom Ring!
President Joe Biden has now spent his first 10 days in office. All told, it's been fairly boring. Which is exactly what millions of Americans voted him into office to achieve. Journalists everywhere are writing absolute [ipaeans to boredom]. Throughout the land, a joyous cry is raised: "Let boredom ring!" Well, OK, that may be overstating it a tiny bit. But not by much.
Central to this newfound delight in ennui, of course, is the vast and echoing silence emanating from Mar-A-Lago. Still cut off from all his social media accounts, and perhaps legally wary of saying anything before his Senate impeachment trial, Donald Trump has been gloriously and wonderfully quiet. This continues the longest streak of silence from him in at least five years (if not "ever" ).
Consider what Biden's first week in office would have been like if Trump had been taking dozens of potshots at him from the sidelines, each and every day. The one thing Trump is an absolute (if not "stable" ) genius at is manipulating the news media and inserting his own idiocy into subjects where it was never welcome to begin with. He's a master at it. He knows that the more outrageous whatever he tweeted out was, the higher the chance that it would be all anyone in the political media would be talking about by the time the evening news rolled around.
And now there has been none of it, for weeks. And, on Twitter at least, there will never be any more of it, ever again, forever. O blissful and joyous silence!
Biden certainly has not been bidin' his time (our apologies, but we're probably going to overuse that pun repeatedly for about the next four years, so be just warned...). His cabinet nominees are getting confirmed with overwhelming majorities in the Senate (so far, at any rate), and he has issued an absolute snowstorm of executive orders in his first 10 days in office.
Call it the "cleanup on aisle 45" list, since virtually all of it was necessary to overturn the worst of Trump's many misguided (if not downright evil) policies. Here's just a partial list of what Biden has accomplished in 10 short days (all of which are quite popular with the public, it bears mentioning):
Rejoined the Paris climate agreement. Rejoined the World Heath Organization. Lifted the ban on transgendered troops serving openly. Moved to restore the process of putting Harriet Tubman onto the $20 bill. Halted the Keystone XL pipeline construction. Opened the Obamacare exchanges back up, due to the pandemic. Killed Trump's border wall construction. Ended Trump's "Muslim ban." Moved to reunite families separated from their children at the border. Mandated masks on all federal property including airplanes, airports, and other interstate travel. Restored DACA. Restored moratorium on evictions. Restored moratorium on student loan paybacks. Ended citizenship nonsense at Census Bureau. Killed off a laughable "1776 commission report" which was intended to whitewash slavery in schools' history classes. Killed the global "gag rule" on abortion. Pushed for a $15 minimum wage. Pushed for $1.9 trillion in COVID-19 relief aid. Mandated climate change as a priority for the entire executive branch. Put new limits on oil and gas drilling on federal land. Halted many last-minute Trump hires across the executive branch. Halted many last-minute rules issued by Trump administration. Encouraged the federal government to "buy American."
That's all in just 10 days, folks. So, while the atmosphere in Washington has been soothingly boring, this doesn't mean things aren't still getting done at record speed. Adding to this return to normalcy is the fact that regular (propaganda-free and falsehood-free) White House press briefings have resumed, where solid information is given to the public on important subjects such as the pandemic response and vaccination plans.
That last subject, more than anything else, will be what Biden's presidency hinges on for at least his first year in office, so it is important. Trump left the vaccination efforts in ruins, just like he left everything else. The media hasn't been stressing this fact much, but it wasn't until a day or two ago that the country finally hit the milestone of the first 20 million people getting vaccinated that Trump had promised to achieve by the end of December. But now, at least, we've ramped up to over a million shots per day, so we're at least improving. So much so that Biden had to up his promise for his first 100 days from 100 million vaccinated to 150 million vaccinated, which probably will require hitting two million vaccinations a day within a month or two. That's ambitious, but not out of the question, at this point. Biden also announced the advance purchase of 200 million more doses, meaning we'll have enough to vaccinate 300 million Americans by the summer. If that goes according to plan, we will have then reached herd immunity. And, again, this more than anything else is what Biden will be judged on by the public.
So far, they're pretty happy, it seems. Biden is already polling well above 50 percent in his job approval ratings -- a mark that Trump didn't hit once during his entire term in office. One poll even had Biden above 60 percent.
What we're wondering -- since we haven't heard a peep about it from anyone in the Washington chattering class -- is whether President Biden will actually give an annual speech to a joint session of Congress or not. Since it'd be his first such address (given right after he took office), it wouldn't technically be a "State Of The Union" address, but late January to early February is the usual season for such speeches -- which is why we're wondering why nobody's even mentioned the possibility yet.
Perhaps Biden is waiting until after the Trump impeachment trial happens in the Senate? That's certainly understandable. But the trial, no matter what happens, isn't likely to impact Biden's popularity with the public at all, since he's wisely staying out of the fray on this one.
Currently, the Senate is wrestling with negotiations over the COVID-19 relief package Biden wants to pass. The big question is whether Biden's vaunted push for bipartisanship will have the slightest chance of success, given the daunting math involved. Are 10 Republican senators really going to vote for an enormous pandemic relief bill? This seems highly doubtful. The Republican negotiators have not put forward their own proposal, all they've been doing is whining about the total cost. In other words, they've been doing precisely what Mitch McConnell did for over nine months last year: obstructing any bill from being voted on, period.
Since we obviously can't wait another nine months to get an another inadequate bill, congressional Democrats have begun an alternate way of achieving some desperately-needed aid, by beginning the "budget reconciliation" bills in both the House and Senate. This will only require a simple majority vote in the Senate, meaning it could pass with zero GOP votes.
For some reason, this has upset the Republicans, and they are shedding many crocodile tears as they vaporously clutch their pearls. They have started using terms like "betrayal" of all those promises of unity from Biden. No, seriously:
Meanwhile, GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is calling on Biden to put the brakes on reconciliation to show that he's "sincere in his commitment to bipartisanship."
They've got this entirely backwards, as usual. Biden isn't the one who needs to show sincere commitment to bipartisanship, instead it is the Republicans who must do so for it to happen. Biden is giving them a very short window where they can get their bipartisan act together, and then if they don't, the bill will move forward anyway. As Democrats were more than happy to point out:
"I can guarantee you, no one back home cares. They just want their relief," added Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).
The insight that voters will judge Democrats by the scale of what they deliver on, and not on whether they achieve bipartisan cooperation for its own sake, suggests Democrats have learned the lessons of 2009 and 2010.
Dan Pfeiffer, former Obama top aide, wrote even more bluntly:
Republicans' big problem these days (other than the rampant unhinged batpoop craziness burrowing further within their ranks, of course) is that they have become exactly what they used to sneer at about liberals: the world's tiniest and saddest snowflakes. Just about everything sets them off these days, no matter how imagined the slight.
We're going to end this round-up with the prime example of this, Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri.
Hawley complained this week that he had been "cancelled" by those dastardly liberals. Now, "cancelled," when used by Republicans, means: "taken to task for something odious you have said or done in the past, and made to pay a price by society at large for being so offensive." It most definitely does not refer to Donald Trump trying to shame all his perceived enemies on social media -- because the idea of Trump "cancelling" people would just about make Republicans' little heads explode. No, to Republicans it now just means having to pay a price for being a complete jackass.
As Hawley has paid, for being one of two senators willing to put the country through the charade that the election could somehow be overturned on January sixth (Ted Cruz, of course, was the other -- more on him in a moment). So he wrote an opinion piece just whining that he had been "muzzled."
And it ran in the New York Post. A newspaper in the largest city in the country, that boasts a circulation almost every other newspaper would envy. Hawley's piece appeared on the front page of this paper. So he could complain about "being muzzled."
The Washington Post pushed back on this, hard. Which is what we'll end with today, since it accurately puts Hawley's snowflake complaint into some proper and necessary perspective:
This is not an issue on which reasonable people can disagree. It's understandable why [Senator Josh] Hawley would want to play down his role in the events that occurred, but to portray what followed as a politically motivated disagreement is to collapse the events of Jan. 6 into a general left-versus-right split. This is very useful for Hawley, another example of his cynically using the partisan divide to bolster his political position. But some things must stand apart from our all-too-familiar blue-said/red-said dynamic.
Criticizing the actions of the mob while defending the rhetoric that helped bolster its false perceptions is not tenable, but Hawley isn't the only one to try it. [Senator Ted] Cruz, for example, was on Fox News the day after the Capitol riot to insist something similar: What he was doing was "debating on the floor of the Senate election integrity," which "has nothing to do with this criminal terrorist assault."
"What I was doing is how you're supposed to resolve issues in this country," he said. But, of course, that's not what he was doing. In his speech shortly before the mob's arrival, he insisted he wasn't arguing that the election should be set aside but also that he didn't want to send the message that "voter fraud doesn't matter, isn't real and shouldn't be taken seriously."
Setting aside how much the minute amount of fraud in any election does matter or should be considered a real threat, Cruz was arguing that this issue, which Trump had been pressing for months specifically because he wanted to shift the results of the election, must be treated as a serious matter. Shortly afterward, the mob did.
. . .
The president of the United States spent months before and after the election claiming that rampant fraud tainted the results. Members of his party elevated those claims in a rush to garner favor from his energetic base. That toxic energy led thousands of people to feel like they had to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6 to stop what they incorrectly saw as the final certification of a result they had been told was illegally obtained.
That's the context for any claims that the left and the right simply disagree on the issue of fraud or that those claims are equivalent. They are not. The issue is not that Hawley is facing retribution for being a conservative. It's that he is using the retribution to try to recast an effort to interrupt the process of electing a new president -- an effort that contributed to a violent insurrection -- as simply being part of the political debate.
Before we get to the main award, we first have to hand Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez an Honorable Mention this week, for absolutely tearing Ted Cruz a new one.
In the midst of all the frenzy on the stock market (which we have chosen to ignore this week, seeing as how we'll likely get to cover it later during the hearings), A.O.C. weighed in on Twitter with a few choice comments on the Robinhood scandal (during the GameStop stock run), saying she would support hearings into the matter.
This is when -- of all people -- Senator Ted Cruz weighed in, saying he "fully" agreed.
A.O.C. did not exactly welcome his support, and she let him know why in no uncertain terms:
Cruz tried to get up on his high horse, even though Republican high horses barely break through the slime at the bottom of the gutter these days, huffing:
Seriously? There's partisan anger and rage on the Democratic side? Just because of a little thing like a Republican mob trying to kill them while the president of the United States egged them on? A.O.C. wasn't taking any of this lying down, responding:
You go, girl! Well done!
But the winner of the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week is Representative Jimmy Gomez from California. In response to all the recent revelations about the depths of both delusion and hatred newly-seated Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has sunk (which we will discuss in more depth later, in the talking points), which included supporting calls to kill Democrats and put a bullet in Nancy Pelosi's head, Gomez did exactly what needed to be done. He filed a motion to expel Greene from the House of Representatives.
This is exactly the right response. Greene's statements, videos, and other insanity are simply indefensible. And it's time to put every Republican in the House on the record as either supporting her dangerous lunacy or opposing it.
The measure will likely not work, because it would need a two-thirds vote. But politically, it will be beneficial later (especially if she melts down in some spectacular way a few months from now) to have every Republican on the record as supporting her.
So while other Democrats hesitated, Gomez acted. Doing so was impressive. So impressive he is the obvious choice for Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week.
[Congratulate Representative Jimmy Gomez on his House contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]
Sadly, we have two Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week awards to hand out this week, to Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
At the start of the week, we were still having a showdown between Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell. McConnell wouldn't agree to a new set of Senate rules to organize all the committees around the fact that Democrats were now in control of the chamber, because McConnell wanted Schumer to explicitly agree not to even attempt killing off the legislative filibuster. Schumer, rightly, refused to do so. The impasse broke, though, after Democrats Manchin and Sinema declared pretty unequivocally that they would never vote to kill the filibuster.
Because their statement were so strong, McConnell not only relented but pointed to them in a floor speech as the reason why he was now reassured that he will continue to be able to endlessly obstruct legislation in the Senate.
Manchin and Sinema, of course, are free to vote any way they want on the filibuster -- but they could have at least left the door open a crack. Doing so would have strengthened Schumer's hand not only during this power struggle but also far down the road when McConnell is being completely unreasonable about a particular piece of legislation (which is absolutely guaranteed to happen, kind of like the sun rising in the east).
By wording their statements as strongly as can be imagined, Manchin and Sinema seriously undercut their own party's political leader in an evenly-divided Senate. This could have dire consequences for the next two years.
Which is more than enough reason to award this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week to both Senator Joe Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema. Thanks for nothing, guys.
[Contact Senator Joe Manchin on his Senate contact page, and Senator Kyrsten Sinema on her Senate contact page, to let them know what you think of their actions.]
Volume 604 (1/29/21)
On to the talking points. There overarching theme this week (if there even is one) is how the entire Republican Party seems to have completely rounded the bend into Crazytown. I mean, we're talking Joker-level insanity here, folks. So buckle up, here we go....
Domestic terrorism gets attention
This really should have happened like 10 years ago (or even longer...).
"The Department of Homeland Security issued its first-ever National Terrorism Advisory System warning about homegrown domestic terrorists. This included pretty stark language such as warning that, quote, violent riots have continued in recent days and we remain concerned that individuals frustrated with the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances and ideological causes fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize a broad range of ideologically-motivated actors to incite or commit violence, unquote. Or, not to mince words quite so much, the biggest terrorist threat America now faces is coming from Donald Trump's most rabid supporters. And yet the silence from Republican politicians on facing up to and countering this threat is deafening."
Crazy like an elephant
Of course, these lunatics wouldn't have quite as much power if they weren't aided and abetted by Republicans from the top on down.
"We are getting close to the point where it can accurately be said that the Republican Party has lost all moral standing whatsoever. Or just plain lost its mind. Last week, the official Hawai'i Republican Party Twitter account sent out messages of support for QAnon followers, saying they had, quote, a sincere and deep love for America, unquote. They went on to say that patriotism 'should never be ridiculed,' and that Q adherents 'don't deserve mockery.' Also last week, the Oregon GOP approved a resolution 'condemning the betrayal' of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump for inciting an insurrection against the constitutional duties of Congress. A clearer example of putting party over country is hard to imagine. This resolution called the Republicans who voted their conscience 'traitors' who 'conspired' with 'Leftist forces seeking to establish a dictatorship void of all cherished freedoms and liberties.' It then went on to state that there was 'growing evidence' that the Capitol attack was a 'false flag operation [to] discredit President Trump, his supporters and all conservative Republicans.' Folks, this is what we are now dealing with. This is not some buffoon in a tinfoil hat, these are coming from the official leaders of state Republican Party groups. These nonsensical conspiracy theories based upon pure moonbeams are now the official policy of the Republican Party. Still think 'lost its mind' is too strong a term? I don't, because the lunatics have now officially taken over the GOP asylum."
Case in point...
And then there are Republicans in Congress.
"So far, the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives has done nothing -- other than to reward her with choice committee seats -- to rein in the nuttiest flake in the party's current granola mix. Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene is now documented to have: supported QAnon and other conspiracy theories, stated that the school shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and Sandy Hook Elementary were 'false-flag' operations -- including videos of her harassing one of the Douglas High students on the street in which she points out that she has a gun, liked and echoed social media posts that called for violence against Democrats including shooting Nancy Pelosi in the head, threatened a Democratic colleague in the halls of Congress, made racist comments, and (the icing on the fruitcake) blamed California wildfires on -- are you sitting down -- giant Jewish space lasers. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, in response to all these revelations, decided she needed a seat on the House education committee. So, yeah, even at the national level the Republican Party has completely lost its mind."
A dangerous place
Pelosi's right, on this one.
"Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded to the news that Kevin McCarthy had given Marjorie Taylor Greene a seat on the education committee -- after harassing an underage teen and claiming that school shootings were somehow faked -- by pointing out: 'What could they be thinking? Or is thinking too generous of a word for what they might be doing? It's absolutely appalling, and I think the focus has to be on the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives for the disregard they have for the deaths of those children.' She went on to echo Pogo Possum's famous line ("We have met the enemy and he is us" ) by saying: 'The enemy is within the House of Representatives. We have members of Congress who want to bring guns on the floor and have threatened violence against other members.' And Republican leadership not only turns a blind eye, but actually rewards such people."
Give him a jail cell instead
Nikki Haley was, right up until this week, the most unscathed member of the Trump Administration to have served. She used to be still somewhat respectable, in other words. Not any more. She's not the only one engaging in this "OK, sure we egged on an insurrectionist mob to not only kill Democratic members of Congress but also Republicans like Mike Pence, but hey, that was like over three weeks ago, so why are you bring up old stuff?" line of thinking, but her statement truly stood out. In fact, the reasons why are so glaringly obvious that we are leaving her quote untouched, for the reader to construct his or her own talking point (hint: if you need help getting started, think "Benghazi"...).
"They beat him up before he got into office. They're beating him up after he leaves office," she said. "I mean, at some point -- I mean, give the man a break. I mean, move on."
Pilgrimage of pusillanimousness
Sometimes we have to turn over a talking point to another wordsmith. This one really caught our eye, and deserves recognition. From the Washington Post this week, here's an absolute doozy of purple prose (extra points for the alliteration!):
Morally and (hopefully) financially bankrupt
Oh, please. Please, please please....
"Dominion Voting Systems has now filed a lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani alleging he defamed the company with his incessant lies and false claims and downright conspiracy theories about the company. It charges Rudy 'cashed in' to the tune of demanding $20,000 per day for his services. Within the lawsuit, they call it all the 'Big Lie' which 'deceived millions of people into believing Dominion had stolen their votes and fixed the election.' Since this is a rather existential crisis for a company that manufactures voting equipment, it is seeking 1.3 billion dollars from Giuliani. So maybe he'll soon wind up not just morally bankrupt but also financially bankrupt as well. I couldn't think of a more fitting fate for Rudy, personally."
Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
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