Josh Marshall
I had missed this important development in the rush of events on Friday. We’ve been discussing the rising tide of harassment (legal, extralegal and illegal), threats and sometimes actual violence against election officials around the country. Sometimes it’s relatively high level elected officials like Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. But more often it’s little known election administrators at the local level – elected, appointed or simply hired to conduct the nuts and bolts of managing elections. Now the Garland DOJ has set up a special task force focused on these threats.
DC Bigs’ Bothsidesist Journalism Having a Moment
I’ve written over many years that despite the seesawing of control in Congress and executive branch, Washington remains wired for the GOP. We’re seeing another striking example of that in the way most establishment DC press outlets are are treating the brouhaha over President Biden’s alleged ‘veto threat’. We started with Biden stating openly what all the parties to the proposed bipartisan legislation know, which is that for Democrats it’s a package deal. Democrats know that. Republicans know that. The reporters know that. And yet the same folks have decided to take the feigned Republican freakout entirely at face value regardless. Politico of all places was closer to the mark on Friday when they noted that it took a day for Republicans to realize they were upset and what about.
And it’s actually accelerated over the weekend.
Biden’s Snowflake Therapy
As you’ve likely seen, President Biden put out a statement yesterday to settle the waters over the mostly pretextual Republican freakout over his saying he’d only sign both the bipartisan mini-infrastructure deal and a larger reconciliation (i.e., 50 vote) package. A lot of people rushed forward to claim vindication that Biden had in fact turned the tables on Republicans or “upended” the deal by some last minute switcheroo. That’s not the case. It’s really better seen as a nicely crafted bit of snowflake therapy. In Biden’s new statement he restates what was clear a week ago, clear three days ago and remains clear today: for him it’s a package deal.
Courtesy of TPM Reader KS we learn that the FBI conducted a raid last week on the California home of an associate of Rudy Giuliani. George E. Dickson III was, according to a May 2020 report in Mother Jones, part of Rudy’s effort to raise $10 million for a ‘documentary’ about Hunter Biden.
We are ten days into our second annual TPM Journalism Fund drive and I’m happy to report we’re now more than half way to our goal. I’ve heard from a lot of you who say you’ve been meaning to contribute but haven’t found a convenient moment. This is totally a convenient moment! A Saturday in June. Click right here to contribute. If you’re already a member there’s not even a lot to fill out. It’s really, really important for TPM.
I also wanted to tell you about a different kind of drive we’re going to be doing later this fall: one where we’re going to be giving things away. And part of it is we’re going to be asking your help to find people to give things to. Right? Imagine that.
I noted below how AP and WaPo completely ran with Senate Republicans’ absurd claim that Biden somehow double-crossed them. Politico Playbook did pretty much the same thing, though in Playbook argot. But Politico itself, or the regular edit team published the first account of what happened here that more or less captured what happened. Republicans woke up Friday angry about what they’d agreed to Thursday. And their best argument, to the extent they had one, is that Biden said too clearly what they knew and what they had just agreed to.
Here’s the flavor.
WaPo Hooked Too!
The Washington Post also has a story out this afternoon that closely follows the AP’s credulity, adding lengthy quotes about Republican outrage, shock, feelings of betrayal at Biden’s surprise announcement. But unlike the AP, it actually provides an example of something slightly different: the way the bigs can get the real information in there, sorta, but in a way that buries it so much as almost not to matter.
The article’s first ten paragraphs go on as I described: Republican shock and outrage over Biden’s switcheroo. And then down at the end you have three paragraphs, literally the last three paragraphs which basically tell the story: that this has all been completely known for weeks or even months. They even quote Mitch McConnnell saying as much. They feel the need to hang it on Sen. Brian Schatz. But still it does cover at least a significant statement of the reality of the situation.
BREAKING: AP Dragged Hook, Line and Sinker in GOP Fishing Tourney!
Here’s one of those things that drive me to distraction but I at least enjoy flagging to everyone’s attention when it’s so egregious. Mitch McConnell is now claiming Republicans have somehow been hoodwinked, double-crossed, done dirty by Democrats springing ‘linkage’ on them: Basically, that the White House and the Democratic caucus will support the bipartisan mini-infrastructure bill as long as they can put the rest of their plan in a reconciliation bill.
Then I noticed an AP reporter, apparently new to the White House beat, flagged a new AP story with this: “This is the catch for the WH on the infrastructure deal right now: Senators who were part of the bipartisan group were never told of such an explicit linking of the two packages, the two people familiar with the discussions said.”
The article itself, by Lisa Mascaro, manages to be even more credulous.
Here’s another key question a lot of people are trying to figure out.
If Joe Biden gets most of his infrastructure agenda passed through combination of a mini-hard infrastructure bipartisan deal and the bulk of it through a 50 vote reconciliation bill that will be a big win on policy and politically.
So why did this deal – even if it falls apart – get to the White House press event level? Why did Mitch McConnell allow that to happen?
I’m still trying make sense of the ‘deal’ negotiated yesterday on infrastructure. But there are a few key issues I can share with you that are pretty interesting. Let me start with one about the so-called ‘payfors’.