March 26, 2024

Republican Disarray

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-03-25-republican-disarray-congress/



On Friday, after Republicans repeatedly threatened to shut down the government, the House passed a budget bill without disabling cuts. The vote beautifully fragmented the Republicans. The successful passage was the result of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) working with Democrats, keeping funding at the level agreed to in the debt limit deal. In the final roll call, the vote was 286 to 134, with 101 Republicans—not even half the caucus—joining 185 Democrats to pass the measure. Just after midnight Friday, the bill then went to the Senate, where unanimous consent was required to expedite passage. Four far-right senators threatened to hold the bill hostage for further cuts. But the four, Ted Budd (NC), Mike Lee (UT), Ted Cruz (TX), and Rand Paul (KY), immediately caved and settled for quickie token votes on deeper cuts that they knew would lose, and then allowed the measure to come to the floor. There was no filibuster.

By 2 a.m. Saturday morning, the bill had passed the Senate, 74-24, again dividing the GOP caucus almost in half, and was on President Biden’s desk for signature. Meanwhile, in the House, the always reliable Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, incensed at the display of bipartisanship on largely Democratic terms, filed a motion to declare the Speakership vacant and depose Johnson. She had no takers. One more Republican, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, is quitting early, leaving the GOP with a margin of error of just one. The House is currently 217-213, and if as expected a Democrat replaces New York’s Brian Higgins in a special election next month, that will go to 217-214. And it gets better, or worse if you are a Republican. In seizing control of the Republican National Committee and it finances, Trump has made clear that the lion’s share of the money will go to his campaign and that down-ballot candidates for the House and Senate will get whatever’s left over.

That’s fortunate, because the news for Democrats is not great, especially in the Senate. On the hopeful front, thanks to Trump’s meddling, incumbent Sherrod Brown will face the most extreme and weakest of the three Republican primary contenders, Bernie Moreno. But the Maryland Senate seat, in a state that Biden carried by more than 30 points in 2020, is suddenly in play because the popular moderate former Republican governor, Larry Hogan, will be the GOP candidate, and is leading both Democratic contenders, Rep. David Trone and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, in early polls. Rep. Jamie Raskin would be a much stronger candidate, but Raskin says he isn’t interested in running. In fact, he just endorsed Alsobrooks, a big boost for her against the wealthy self-funder Trone.

The New Jersey seat also looks conceivably at risk, because the corrupt incumbent Bob Menendez is talking about possibly running as an independent, thus splitting the Democratic vote. But Menendez has been running at under 10 percent in the polls, and this ploy is mainly a tactic to stay out of jail; he may well not run. So the New Jersey seat is probably safe with the popular Congressman Andy Kim as the likely Democrat. If this were a normal year, the Republican legislative disarray would help Joe Biden, since it would underscore the Democrats’ role as the grown-ups in the room, as the party that is serious about governing. But there is nothing normal about this year. The schisms in the GOP may help Democrats take one or both houses. But Biden needs to make a more effective case for his re-election on its own terms.

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March 26, 2024

The Promise of Biden's Second Term

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-03-22-promise-of-bidens-second-term/



If you want to get a sense of what Biden might do in a second term, especially if he brings with him a Democratic Congress, consider what he has already done. Between November 2021 and August 2022, with the slimmest of Democratic majorities in both houses, Biden signed into law three landmark pieces of legislation—the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS Act. Though Biden’s jobs creation record in general is exemplary—15 million jobs created in slightly over three years, including 800,000 manufacturing jobs. And the jobs created specifically thanks to these three laws were part of an industrial policy aimed at reviving U.S. supply chains, modernizing and greening decaying infrastructure, and adding new competence and domestic employment in semiconductors under the CHIPS Act.

As our friends at UMass Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute calculated in an authoritative report by Robert Pollin and colleagues released last September, “Investments supported by the BIL, IRA, and CHIPS programs would generate, in total, an average of nearly 3 million jobs per year, as long as investment levels associated with these programs are sustained at their anticipated levels.” They found that the expansion of job opportunities would be unusually large in occupations that did not require a four-year college degree.

Now PERI has just released a follow-up report on the occupations with the largest increased demand for labor thanks to these programs. The report also explores possible labor bottlenecks and strategies for increasing labor supply. Jeannette Wicks-Lim and co-author Pollin identify 21 occupations where demand has been increased by Biden’s three big programs, with relatively low entry-level requirements and mainly on-the-job training. These include laborers, pipelayers, and stock handlers. But other occupations with increased demand do require significant training, such as crane operators, carpenters, electricians, sheet metal workers, wind turbine technicians—27 such occupations in all. In the context of tight labor markets, expecially for skilled occupations in short supply, whether all this great job creation proves inflationary depends heavily on a rendezvous between big investment programs and workforce development programs.

Here, too, Biden has made a good start. Whether the progress will continue depends on whether he gets a second term. The PERI authors also point out that women and people of color are grossly underrepresented in the occupations that need more apprenticeship and other training opportunites. They conclude: “The training, apprenticeship and postsecondary education programs that are needed to expand the labor supply in these … occupations should be committed to recruiting and retaining people from underrepresented groups.” It is grossly unfair that Biden has not gotten more popular credit for his good deeds, which need to be intensified. The reason is that these and other successes have not been transformative enough, yet, for a majority of working people. That will take at least another term.

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March 26, 2024

Rachel Maddow Urges NBC News to 'Reverse' Ronna McDaniel Hire

The host called out her own network for its "inexplicable" decision to hire the former RNC Chair

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/rachel-maddow-nbc-ronna-mcdaniel-hiring-reverse-1234994316/



MSNBC primetime host Rachel Maddow criticized her own network over its hiring of former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and called on NBC News to reverse its decision. Maddow, MSNBC’s highest-rated anchor, began her show with a nearly 30-minute monologue blasting the network’s decision as “inexplicable.” “I want to associate myself with all my colleagues, both at MSNBC and NBC News, who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company putting on the payroll someone who hasn’t just attacked us as journalists, but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government,” she said.

“Someone who still is trying to convince Americans that this election stuff, it doesn’t really work.” “If you care what I think about this, the fact that McDaniel is on the payroll at NBC News, to me that is inexplicable,” Maddow said during her show on Monday evening. “You wouldn’t hire a wise guy … a made man, like a mobster, to work in a DA’s office. You wouldn’t hire a pickpocket to work as a TA screener. And so, I find the decision to put her on the payroll inexplicable, and and I hope they will reverse their decision.”

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1772435473555681526
On Friday, news broke that McDaniel would join NBC News as a conservative political correspondent on a nearly $300,000-a-year contract. The hire triggered a backlash of harsh criticism from within the network as some of the country’s top hosts and anchors lambasted their employer on its own airwaves. Sunday’s broadcast began with an interview with the ex-RNC Chair by host Kristen Welker — prior to the interview, Welker gave a brief disclaimer, saying: “This will be a news interview, and I was not involved in her hiring.”

After the segment wrapped, while seated across from Welker, NBC’s Chuck Todd blasted network executives. “Let me deal with the elephant in the room: I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation,” the former Meet the Press moderator told the host. On Monday’s show, Maddow implored NBC News to “take a minute, acknowledge that maybe it wasn’t the right call,” adding, “It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to acknowledge when you are wrong.”

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March 26, 2024

Here's a longer and higher quality video of the Baltimore bridge collapse. Crash and collapse happens at 2:34

https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1772521969562333539

March 26, 2024

Tom Tomorrow: Trump 2024 Campaign Slogans

March 26, 2024

Pandemic-Era Corporate Bullying: Big Retail threatened to punish suppliers unless they got first dibs on food/home goods

It’s a big deal when America’s top monopoly cop, the Federal Trade Commission, spends its finite time and resources studying an industry. The agency was created a century ago precisely to figure out which markets were working and which weren’t, but for decades the agency did very little of that kind of inquiry. Under Joe Biden, the FTC’s leadership has rekindled that core function, and last week the agency published the results of its examination of one of the decade’s most vexing problems: the fracturing of the grocery supply chain, and the subsequent and ongoing price hikes seen during and since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The FTC’s supply chain study, two years in the making, was succinct but clear: Documents and data from some of America’s largest grocery retailers, producers, and wholesalers showed that in those first months after the onset of the pandemic, dominant mega-retailers had flexed their muscle as the country’s largest buyers of food, shampoo, toilet paper, and every other consumer good to demand their suppliers fill their shelves first, likely at the expense of smaller stores around the country. The formula the FTC laid out in its findings suggested as straightforward a display of power as one can find in industry. The onset of the pandemic sparked chaos throughout the supply chain, disrupting manufacturing, shipping, and every other step along the path from factory to market. According to the FTC, powerful retailers used “on-time, in-full” policies to “pressure their suppliers to favor them over rivals.”



The pressure worked to ensure those monopoly retailers had preferential access to products in short supply, because “suppliers feared the financial penalties” those retailers could and would inflict on them if they didn’t deliver the goods. The FTC specifically named Walmart’s requirement that 98 percent of its orders be delivered on time and in full to avoid significant cash penalties. The findings weren’t exactly shocking. Walmart’s policy had been reported elsewhere, and there are dozens of examples of small stores and shops that have been unable to access the same goods, at the same prices, as their much larger rivals. Some of that access discrimination can be attributed to the same pandemic-era muscle-flexing the FTC found in the report, like Home Depot president Tim Decker bragging in 2021 that his company had gained market share during the pandemic because its size and buying power often put it at the front of the queue when its suppliers ran short on goods.

But though the FTC focused on the pandemic in particular, the economy is filled with examples of supply discrimination outside of that historic disruption. Small toy stores, for example, have been shut out by toy makers like Mattel, unable to afford the mandatory minimum number of toys they’re required to buy. Small brewers have struggled to access cans at a competitive price after Ball, the country’s largest aluminum can maker, raised both the price of cans and the minimum amount it required small brewers to purchase, according to the Brewers Association. It’s a chain-reaction epidemic, where power buyers demand preferential treatment, and big manufacturers are willing to grant it to ensure access to those powerful chain stores. Meanwhile, local shops and makers are often left out. The FTC’s report didn’t focus on recommendations, but in a public meeting announcing the findings of the investigation, agency chair Lina Khan said that if any of the conduct identified in the report violated the antitrust laws, including the long-dormant Robinson-Patman Act, the agency would take action.

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March 26, 2024

The Machine Crumbles

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-03-25-new-jersey-machine-crumbles-murphy-kim-senate/



There were some early rumblings a week ago. Steven Fulop’s resume may just say mayor, but he’s been in that position for a decade, Jersey City is the second-biggest city in the state, and Fulop is running for governor next year. He’s always cultivated a kind of outsider persona, but he endorsed Phil Murphy for governor in 2017, and endorsed Murphy’s wife Tammy for Senate in 2024, joining virtually every ambitious politician and county boss in the state. I’m sure Fulop didn’t see much of a choice. If you wanted to get ahead in New Jersey politics, you had to endorse Tammy Murphy. That was the expectation in a state that hasn’t really had contestable elections for a while, because the establishment of the party could by a wave of their hand choose winners and losers. And they had a long enough memory that being on the wrong side of the winners was nowhere to be for anyone with thoughts of higher office.

So when Fulop came out one week ago and said, “At this point, I don’t think it’s in the state’s best interest for Tammy to continue her campaign,” while switching his endorsement to Andy Kim, it was a signal that the old rules just didn’t work anymore. The extreme gap in quality of candidate between Kim and Murphy just blew up the corrupt bargain that had held in New Jersey for decades, and may turn that state into something approaching a democracy. Yesterday, Murphy did indeed drop out, a stunning turnaround for someone who seemed destined to waltz into a Senate seat. Kim won this race on the ground, in a series of grassroots performances at the handful of county conventions that weren’t rigged from the get-go. He won just about every single convention with a secret ballot (except for Bergen County, where party boss Paul Juliano seemed to still control the process), and demonstrated that voters would tilt in the same direction.

https://twitter.com/TammyMurphyNJ/status/1771986039940247650
That didn’t necessarily mean Murphy had no chance. She still had the endorsement in nine out of 21 counties, most of which were awarded by the fiat of the county chair. Several of those counties were among the biggest in the state; more primary voters were expected to come from counties with a Murphy endorsement. And 19 of the 21 counties in New Jersey use the controversial “county line” system, giving endorsed candidates prime space on the ballot while unendorsed challengers are sent to hard-to-find corners known as “ballot Siberia,” with a proven effect on election outcomes. But it’s not a stretch to suggest that polling was available to Murphy showing that she could not succeed. In her farewell speech, she admitted that she would have to go negative to win, something you do when you’re losing.

The edge in ballot position—a more modest edge than at first suspected because Kim won so many of the contested conventions­—would not survive voter opinions on Murphy, a first-time candidate who was a Republican for much of her adult life with little to recommend but her family name and the support of political bigwigs trying to win whatever favor they could out of Trenton. There was probably an element of “lose the battle, win the war” here. Lurking in the background of this race was a lawsuit to end the county line, which gives party bosses their power. Kim, while trying to win the Senate race despite the built-in disadvantages, had launched the lawsuit and sought an injunction against the county line, arguing that the ballot system is “fundamentally unjust and undemocratic.” The party bosses might have figured that, if Murphy were to drop out and they all endorsed Kim (which is what appears to have happened), Kim would drop the lawsuit, and they would retain the ballot weapon for future use.

They were wrong........

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March 26, 2024

With the GOP fundamentally reshaped, the legislative branch is poised to fuel, not fight, Trump's desires should he win

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-gop-lawmakers-are-already-preparing-for-trumps-return



As he campaigns to return to the White House, Donald Trump has nothing but lofty promises for a second term. At rallies and in interviews, Trump has declared he’ll fix the border and radically transform citizenship laws, curb inflation, dramatically increase oil production, enact new trade deals, and protect entitlements—all while somehow cutting taxes. But in the same breath, Trump will often outline an entirely different set of promises for a second term—ones that read more like threats. Vowing to be the “retribution” of his followers and carrying years of political grievances, Trump and his campaign have detailed plans to “dismantle the deep state,” investigate federal law enforcement and prosecutors who have investigated or censored him and his allies, all with flotillas of subpoenas issued promptly to back them up.



Caught in the middle of this split-screen vision for a second Trump term is the institution with the power to make or break his vision: Congress. While there has been close scrutiny of the Trump team’s policy plans and how his allies are mobilizing for January 2025, there has thus far been little attention paid to the role GOP lawmakers might play. Of course, it’s up in the air whether Republicans would have majorities in the House and Senate next year, and it’s entirely possible Democrats control at least one of the chambers, providing a major check on Trump. But without the active support of Republican lawmakers, Trump’s power to reshape the country will be far more limited—just as it was during his first term, when his efforts to undo the Affordable Care Act were stalled and, in general, his worst impulses were reined in by a skeptical congressional GOP.



Now, many of the Republicans who thwarted Trump’s most aggressive priorities are gone, replaced by Trump loyalists. And in surveying Republican lawmakers, aides, and Trumpworld sources to piece together Capitol Hill’s role in a Trump second term, one thing became clear last week: instead of containing Trump, a Republican Congress would march in lockstep behind him in MAGA harmony. Many of these Republicans, for instance, mentioned addressing the border as the top priority and would likely push Trump to make good on his radical immigration promises. Cracking down on immigration, said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), is “the No. 1 issue to the American people.” “Not just to Republicans, it’s a major issue for Democrats too and it shows up in polling,” Greene told The Daily Beast. “It’s something he talks about every single rally, every single press conference, every single speech. He talks about border security.”



But for all that GOP lawmakers talked up their eagerness to move forward with Trump’s agenda on the economy, immigration, and other topics, a great many of them are just as eager—if not more so—to tap into Trump’s grievance agenda. The most important goal of a Trump second term, said Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH)—a staunch Trump ally—would be to “prevent the Department of Justice from being weaponized against future American citizens and administrations,” and they would do that without a “partisan spin to it.” “There's going to be a lot going on. I think there’s going to be a pretty aggressive effort to try to curtail some of the abuses of the administrative state, especially the DOJ bureaucracy,” Vance said. “I think all these things can be pretty much on the table.” That vision is widely shared. “A key priority will be reining in the federal bureaucracy that has operated with impunity for far too long,” a senior GOP aide told The Daily Beast. “A Republican House and Senate will be crucial to accomplishing that goal.”

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March 26, 2024

Why The West Failed In Iraq and Afghanistan - Steve Coll talks to Aaron Bastani

The wars waged by The West in Afghanistan and Iraq were pivotal moments in the modern history of foreign policy. In the rearview mirror, both of these campaigns look like terrible failures both strategically and politically. The Taliban are back in power in Afghanistan, and living standards are worse in Iraq than they were before Saddam Hussein's years in power.

In his new book, 'The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the Middle East, 1979-2003', veteran journalist Steve Coll looks at British and American foreign policy through the lens of one man - the aforementioned Saddam Hussein.

He sat down with Aaron to talk Afghanistan, Iraq and why it's a mistake to avoid talking to your enemies.

00:00 Intro
01:40 Early Days in Afghanistan
08:23 Pakistan’s Role in Afghanistan
12:18 The Iranian's Role
19:14 Why Did Saddam Want Nukes?
21:02 War in Kuwait
29:16 Saddam & Chemical Weapons
40:29 Donald Rumsfeld
44:38 How To Talk To Your Enemy
51:53 Do Sanctions Work?

Novara Live broadcasts every weekday from 6PM on YouTube and Twitch.
Episodes of Downstream are released Sundays at 3PM on YouTube.

March 25, 2024

US 'very disappointed' after Netanyahu cancels Israeli visit to Washington

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/mar/25/israel-gaza-live-unrwa-aid-north-gaza-un-security-council-vote-ceasefire-middle-east-latest?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66019f8b8f0836b1893af24a#block-66019f8b8f0836b1893af24a

The White House has said it is “very disappointed” that Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled a high-level Israeli delegation’s planned visit to Washington after the US abstained from a UN security council vote demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

As we reported earlier, Netanyahu’s office announced that a planned visit to Washington by Israeli officials, which was to include Israel’s minister of strategic affairs, Ron Dermer, and head of Israel’s national security council, Tzachi Hanegbi, will no longer take place.



A separate set of talks between Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, who is already currently in Washington, and senior US officials is expected to take place.