Cash and Carry

State of Dis Union: Yesterday, in the aptly named CASH bill, the House took Trump up on his offer, voting 275 to 134 to increase the previously approved $600 stimulus payment to $2000.  All but two Democrats voted for the increase as did a number of Republicans, however some of Trump’s die hard supporters including Louis Gohmert, Jim “Gym” Jordan, Devin Nunes and Matt Gaetz voted against the increase even though Gaetz recently announced that he’s a member of the Trump rather than the Republican Party.  House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy didn’t even bother to vote. The House also voted 322 to 87 to override Trump’s veto of the annual Defense Authorization Act with all but nine of the Republicans who’d originally voted to pass the act sticking with guns over Trump who only wanted to tank the bill because it didn’t include the curtailment of Twitter’s right to mark his lie filled tweets as deceptive and because of the provision stripping bases of their Confederate names.  The action now moves to the Senate where Leader McConnell’s preference would be to focus only on overriding Trump’s Defense Act veto, keeping the CASH Act from even coming to the floor for a vote as the very concept of cold cash going to constituents who aren’t rich gives him the willies. A majority of his crowd doesn’t want to increase the cash payment and he doesn’t want to expose their delicate egos and future political aspirations to Trump and/or the public’s wrath, particularly Senators Loeffler and Perdue, his two exposed Georgia Senators, especially since Trump is scheduled to campaign for them this weekend. Unfortunately McConnell may not be able to pull his head in shell routine this time around as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has announced that he intends to filibuster, preventing a vote on the popular Defense Act if a vote on the CASH Act doesn’t precede it.  He insists he’s willing to keep at it through New Year’s Eve if that’s what it takes. It’s not clear whether he’ll take a page from Texas’ Ted Cruz who once read his very frustrated Senate colleagues Dr Suess’ Green Eggs and Ham during a filibuster or if he’ll go with something more edifying, like the complete works of Karl Marx.  

Peaches and Pence:  Getting back to the Georgia duo Loeffler and Perdue, they remain locked in neck and neck battles with their Democratic rivals Warnock and Ossoff with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer expressing concern that his team is running short of the cash needed to get over their January 5^th finish line, a bit surprising and maybe just a fundraising and/or expectations management tactic as the two have already raked in a record haul.  One thing’s for certain, though he is polling ahead of Ossoff by a teeny but sufficient margin to win, Perdue is twitching, he’s one of the Republicans who called Trump over the weekend to impress upon him the need to sign the coronavirus relief/omnibus spending bill.  South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham also gets credit for pushing Trump to keep the government running, not only did he caddy for Trump this weekend but he also helped convince him that it would be better for his legacy not to crash the government.  Graham’s message wasn’t all that different from the message delivered by Rupert Murdoch’s NY Post yesterday. They called for Trump to step aside, acknowledge his election loss and for him to dump Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, his current crop of crazies, saying that doing so would preserve his legacy.  Could someone please explain what legacy they’re talking about?  As to acknowledging loss, Trump isn’t ready to go that route yet or ever, neither is Texas Republican Congressman Louis Gohmert. Gohmert, in the running for worst representative ever, whose sanity is frequently questioned even by those in his disintegrating party, filed suit against Mike Pence to force him to replace those inconvenient Biden electoral college slates from states like Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan with Republican ones.  Gohmert’s argument is that Pence has the “exclusive authority and sole discretion” to decide which electoral votes from a given state should be counted on January 6, at the Electoral College confirmation session. He filed his case in Texas where the presiding judge is a Trump appointee, though his argument has no merit, who knows, it is still 2020. Don’t be surprised if Pence decides to remain in Vail forever or go into witness protection to avoid having to decide whether to confirm Biden’s victory or upend Democracy.  He can ask the Senate’s President Pro Tempore Senator Chuck Grassley to preside over the January 6 session in his place, that wouldn’t be without precedent. After losing to Richard Nixon in 1968, Hubert Humphrey did not preside over the Electoral College Session, not because he thought that overturning election results was something he could do but because he thought that the losing candidate shouldn’t run the session.  Notably, despite the litigation surrounding his loss to George W Bush, then Vice President Al Gore did man the session.                 

And More:  It appears that President-Elect Biden is losing his patience, yesterday he went public with complaints about Trump’s team’s unwillingness to cooperate with the transition.  In particular he noted that the Defense Department’s failure to be more forthcoming is putting the country in jeopardy.  That’s the Defense Department currently run by the unconfirmed acting Secretary Chris Miller and some Devin Nunes cronies all of whom were put in place to obfuscate and do only Trump’s bidding.  On the virus front, VP-Elect Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff are due to get their vaccinations today.  Counting theirs, the country’s total number of shots in arms is only at 2 million, far short of the 20 million that we were assured would be completed by year end.

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