Joy in the Morning

Divided Government is Here:  Freshman orientation is officially over.  Yesterday the most diverse group of newly elected Congresspeople and Senators were sworn into office.  Notably with the exception of a few Republican women, most of that diversity is on the Democratic side of the aisle, the Republicans, like their base, remain largely white and male.  Nancy Pelosi, the first and only female Speaker of the House and one of the very few to return after an absence, is officially the Speaker again.  After NY Congressman Hakeem Jeffries nominated her with a rousing speech that began with a quote from the Scriptures that said “weeping may endure during the long night, but joy will come in the morning,” Pelosi sailed to victory.  As expected a few of the “never Nancy” Democrats who had promised their constituents that they wouldn’t vote for her didn’t, they cast their votes for a list that included former VP possible presidential candidate Joe Biden, Senator Tammy Duckworth and the ever popular “present.” After her victory, Pelosi took to the podium, called for cooperation across the aisle, spoke a few immigrant friendly Ronald Reagan remarks, and then made it clear that that cooperation didn’t extend to any wall funding, a message similar to one she shared with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie earlier in the day when she also said that though impeaching Trump wasn’t her number one priority, at least until the Special Counsel Mueller report is finalized, she does believe, contrary to current Justice Department policy, that a sitting president can be indicted.  Frantic that he was being upstaged by Nancy and her crowd, Trump staged an impromptu press conference timed to immediately follow Pelosi’s coronation, one where he took no questions but did stand with a phalanx of curiously bald, male and apparently white border control officials, whose chief and only purpose was to jointly utter the words “wall is good.”  The stunt was so obvious that MSNBC decided not to air it, instead continuing on with their normal programming.  As a result they missed Trump’s statement that he knew drones better than anyone else and therefore is confident that drones are not enough, you also need wall.  Trump then posted another Game of Thrones poster on Instagram, this one had “Wall is Coming” emblazoned along the bottom just under his smiling countenance.  Apparently, Trump doesn’t know that the Game of Thrones wall has been toppled. Last night, as planned House Democrats with the assistance of seven Republicans who crossed the aisle to join them, passed long term funding legislation for all the remaining unopened parts of the government except for Homeland Security.  With the help of five of those seven Republicans, they then passed a continuing resolution to fund Homeland Security through to February 8,  at last year’s levels with no wall funding.  Though he has the votes to pass both pieces of legislation, Senate Majority Leader McConnell says that he won’t put anything up for a Senate vote until he knows for sure that Trump is on board and at least for now Trump isn’t.  That said a number of the Republican Senators who face uphill battles in 2020 aren’t happy and have started to speak out.  Yesterday, Colorado Republican Corey Gardner was the first to break rank, he called for the legislation to be brought to the floor of the Senate for a vote.  Maine’s Susan Collins, who yesterday confirmed that she does plan to run for reelection in 2020, then joined him at least with regard to the legislation that funds everything but Homeland Security.  North Carolina’s Thom Tillis and newbie Arizona Senator Martha McSally who is serving out the rest of John McCain’s term are likely to follow suit, they both face contentious elections in 2020 and really want to see the government reopened ASAP.  At least for now, the “partial” government shutdown continues which means that though the IRS will gladly accept your tax payments, they will not be issuing any refunds.  Ironically the already overloaded immigration courts are largely closed meaning that a significant number of undocumented immigrants have just won a reprieve that could last years and the E-Verify system that allows employees to determine whether or not job applicants are legal residents is also down not that the absence of that system has ever been a problem for Trump’s Bedminster New Jersey golf club. Yesterday, another Bedminster employee told the NY Times that her bosses knew that she was here illegally.  She’s sure about that because she told them so that they could take her name off of a list of people to be vetted by the Secret Service.  Management complied but kept her on at Trump’s golf where she continued to work in the kitchen, preparing his food.     

2020:  On the presidential front, Independent Senator and frequent presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ star may be fading.   A number of the female staff members from his 2016 campaign are speaking out, complaining about the way they were treated during the campaign.  They allege that they were paid less, got lower level assignments and were harassed and that though they reported their harassment little was done to rectify the situation.  A slightly tone deaf Sanders responded by saying that he was too busy running to notice the problems last time but that to the extent he’s running again, and he probably is, he’ll try to hire a more diverse crew and treat people better this time.  Though few noticed, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley did run for the Democratic nomination in 2016.  He had been laying the groundwork to run again but announced yesterday that he won’t be, instead he is throwing his support behind Beto O’Rourke, the now former Texas Congressman who ran a strong but ultimately unsuccessful campaign against Senator Ted Cruz.  O’Rourke has not yet said that he’s running, but reports are that he is on his way to Iowa to test the waters, which means that he is running.  California Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein pretty much endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden yesterday should he decide to run, at the same time she threw some shade at fellow Californian Senator Kamala Harris another possible Democratic candidate, saying that she could use more seasoning, possibly because to 85 year old Feinstein, the 54 year old Harris is just a kid. Though she didn’t say it she probably thinks that Beto is a toddler. On the Republican front though he seems to relish the fun he’ll have being a thorn in Trump’s side, Utah’s new Senator Mitt Romney says he’s not running but that he’d like to see someone else challenge Trump in the Republican primaries, assuming that the RNC doesn’t cancel those primaries, something that they are considering doing in order to ensure that Trump doesn’t get primaried.  That said, if Trump were to step down for some reason, Romney would probably be more than happy to step up to the plate.    

Other News:  The Russians formally charged ex-Marine Paul Whelan with espionage.  He’s being held in Russian’s Lefortovo prison, hardly a nice place to hang out unless you really like solitary confinement and bread and water.  Whelan who was kicked out of the Marines is probably not a spy, the CIA frowns on hiring people who have been court martialed.  However, he makes for a good bargaining chip which is probably the reason that he was arrested in the first place.  This story isn’t over yet. Red Sparrow Maria Butina may have won her get out of jail free card, a good thing only if Vladimir is willing to forgive her for cooperating with Federal investigators.  There has got to be more to this story, don’t you think?