Fox News host Tucker Carlson spent part of his Wednesday night show delegitimizing a Black Capitol Police officer who defended the building from the pro-Trump mob on January 6.
Biden Namechecks Fox Vax Switcheroo
Even Joe noticed …
Prez Biden name-checks the Fox vaccine switcheroo. pic.twitter.com/gl3j7aH2JS
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 22, 2021
PA’s Top Election Official Decertifies Voting Machines Targeted By Early Politicized Probe Of 2020
Pennsylvania’s top elections official has decertified a rural county’s election machines because the county allowed a company with no elections experience to access the machines as part of an early politicized audit.
Watch The New Episode Of The Josh Marshall Podcast: Pelosi’s Veto
A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is now live! This week, while discussing the fate of the bipartisan infrastructure package, Josh and Kate react in real-time to the news that Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected some of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s picks for the Jan. 6 committee.
Watch below and email us your theme song submissions and questions for next week’s episode.
You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.
NYPD Lags on Vaccines
Interesting and disappointing news that the NYPD uniformed and civilian workforce significantly lags the city’s rate of vaccination. An NYPD spokesperson told the New York Post that 43% of the agency’s workforce has been vaccinated. The city’s rate is 53%. Obviously not all city cops live in New York City. But the vaccination rate in the state overall is even higher – 56%.
Audit Stimulus
Remember how Arizona’s Maricopa County had to decertify and junk most of its election equipment because it had been compromised by the “audit” folks. Well, now the same thing has happened to a county in Pennsylvania.
Pelosi Gives McCarthy A Good Ol’ Thumping And The DC Press Is Very Confused
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.
It’s Not the Size Of The Gavel …
A flurry of moves and countermoves over the Jan. 6 select committee left the DC political press badly exposed.
- Nancy Pelosi’s rejection of two of Kevin McCarthy’s picks for the committee was such a power move that McCarthy et al. could only sputter at an afternoon news conference.
- The GOP had already succeeded in avoiding any kind of Jan. 6 reckoning via an independent commission, but Pelosi’s move kept them from turning the select committee into a Jim Jordan clown show.
- Pelosi’s checkmate gave McCarthy few options: In one fell swoop, she delegitimized the 3 remaining McCarthy picks AND whomever he picked to replace her two rejections.
The DC political press has Stockholm syndrome when it comes to the GOP’s aggressive use of power. So it’s as if political reporters can’t quite process Democratic power moves (which are rarer) as anything other than a GOP win.
- Even though any reporter with half a brain knew Jim Jordan was tapped to wreck the committee, there was a lot of lamenting the death of bipartisanship and questioning the committee’s legitimacy. One especially telling insta-analysis, under the headline “Nancy Pelosi just doomed the already tiny chances of the 1/6 committee actually mattering“:
No matter Pelosi’s reasoning, her decision to reject Jordan and Banks, the two most high-profile Republicans put forward by McCarthy, dooms even the possibility of the committee being perceived as bipartisan or its eventual findings being seen as independent.
But as we sit here on July 22, the only people charged with trying to overturn the 2020 election are the low-level followers who stormed the Capitol:
It is just mindboggling that there was a partisan attempted coup within minutes of murdering legislators, there has been no public investigation of any but the doofus footsoldiers, its leader is just hanging out at his golf club, and we’re blithely talking about debt ceilings.
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) July 22, 2021
It’s Still Happening
A “constitutionalist” sheriff in Michigan has launched his own investigation of bogus 2020 election fraud claims.
We’ve Entered The GOP Hostage-Taking Phase
The procedural maneuvering in the Senate this week over infrastructure is a bad proxy for policy and politics. It doesn’t tell us much. But stepping back a bit, we should assume the GOP is pulling out the same old playbook until it proves otherwise:
- Delay, Delay, Delay? Check. The GOP blocked the bipartisan infrastructure plan that has been the focal point of the delay strategy.
- Negotiate Dems Down, Then Walk Away? So far so good. Even the Republicans who have expressed support for a bipartisan bill refuse to commit to it.
- Debt Ceiling Redux! Now Mitch McConnell is threatening to blow up the whole thing over the debt ceiling he forgot about for the last four years.
Biden On The Filibuster
This may be the clearest distillation of Biden’s rationale for not forcing a confrontation over the filibuster, from last night’s CNN town hall:
There’s no reason to protect it other than you’re going to throw the entire Congress into chaos and nothing will get done, nothing at all will get done. And there’s a lot at stake.
I read that as saying, “Not yet.” Not never.
Long Time Coming
A bust of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, an early KKK leader, is expected to be removed from the Tennessee Capitol before week’s end.
No Joke
New detail in the domestic violence case against the FBI agent who investigated the Whitmer kidnapping plot: He allegedly beat up his wife after they returned home from a swingers party.
‘I’m Sorry, But It’s Too Late’
An Alabama doctors’s heartfelt account of treating unvaccinated COVID patients amidst the new resurgence of infections.
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Just How Much Of The PRO Act Can Democrats Squeeze Into Reconciliation?
The PRO Act will be included in the massive reconciliation bill currently under consideration by Senate Democrats.
At least, part of it will be. The question is, how much?
Continue reading “Just How Much Of The PRO Act Can Democrats Squeeze Into Reconciliation?”
McConnell Floats New Plan To Derail Infrastructure Talks: Hold The Debt Ceiling Hostage
As the much-covered drama over the fate of the bipartisan infrastructure deal dies down, McConnell told Punchbowl News Tuesday night that he doesn’t think Republicans will vote to raise the debt ceiling. It’s a revival of old tactics of GOP political brinksmanship that Republicans favored during the Obama administration.
“I can’t imagine there will be a single Republican voting to raise the debt ceiling after what we’ve been experiencing,” McConnell said.
Meanwhile, it’s looking increasingly likely that the procedural vote Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) set up for Wednesday will fail — but that he still may win the long game with his gambit. While some ruffled Republicans, probably critical to today’s vote, have said they won’t vote to proceed to debate with the bill unfinished, Schumer’s play still seems to have had the desired effect. The bipartisan group has put the pedal to the metal, and various members have suggested that they’re close to finishing.
Schumer gave them a bit of buffer, saying that if they finish by Thursday, he’ll swap in the completed text as a substitute amendment. If they don’t finish by then, he’ll offer the bills that have passed through committee as an amendment, calling them the “core” of the bipartisan framework.
And if they don’t finish at all … well, Democrats are prepared for that. Many senators told TPM Tuesday that if the bipartisan deal fails, they’ll just wrap hard infrastructure into the reconciliation vehicle.
In High-Volume Press Conference, McCarthy Musters Fury That Pelosi Blocked His Jan. 6 Picks
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), flanked by his equally stony-faced picks for the Jan. 6 committee, railed at top volume against the “lame duck” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for barring Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Jim Banks (R-IN) from serving.