Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has applied for a six month tourist visa to extend his stay in the United States, which began two days before he relinquished the presidency. The Financial Times reports that, according to Bolsonaro’s lawyer, the time to process the request could itself take “several months.” So it doesn’t sound like Bolsonaro is planning to return to Brazil any time soon.
Continue reading “When You Really, REALLY Love Florida”That ‘No Negotiation’ Strategy
Let me start by saying that I think Democrats are doing just the right thing on their flat policy of non-negotiation on the debt-ceiling extension or increase. As several articles have reminded us today, Obama and Biden (and really all Democrats with their eyes open) learned this lesson in 2011–2013. But I think there’s a slight clarification or additional elaboration that could help Democrats anticipate one line of attack from congressional Republicans.
No one — not the White House or any Democrats on Capitol Hill — is saying they won’t negotiate the federal budget or how much the country should be spending on this or that priority or how much debt the country should take on. Kevin McCarthy is right when he says, albeit disingenuously, you can’t say you won’t negotiate. That’s what democratic governance is. That’s true. In the last Congress, Democrats’ had a tenuous but complete control of Congress as well as the White House. Now Republicans hold the House by an equally tenuous but real margin. By definition, that means fiscal policy will move in the Republican direction during the next two years. That’s the democratic process. The extent of the shift is what negotiation is about. Each side has its own set of tools at its disposal.
Continue reading “That ‘No Negotiation’ Strategy”House Dems Call McCarthy’s Bluff On Committee Seats: He’s Just ‘Catering To The Most Extreme Members’
Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) have all been targeted by Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in recent weeks as the House has been working to finalize committee assignments for the 118th Congress.
Last week, Schiff and Swalwell were stripped of their positions on the House Intelligence Committee, after McCarthy officially denied the Democrats from taking their previously held seats. And House Republicans plan to hold a vote this week on Omar’s seat on the House Foreign Affairs panel as McCarthy aims to oust her out as well.
But the Democrats argue the Speaker’s actions targeting them is nothing more than another political calculation to cling to his power as speaker by keeping the conservative hardliners — who recently held the speakership hostage in a very public and very embarrassing days-long vote — happy.
Continue reading “House Dems Call McCarthy’s Bluff On Committee Seats: He’s Just ‘Catering To The Most Extreme Members’”The DOJ Might Be Investigating Santos’ Campaign Finances
Representative George Santos (R-NY) has attracted even more attention from law enforcement—this time, from the feds, who are reportedly conducting parallel investigations into his campaign finances.
Continue reading “The DOJ Might Be Investigating Santos’ Campaign Finances”Take Two!
McCarthy now seems to say Social Security and Medicare are “off the table” in debt ceiling hostage negotiations.
RNC Passes Resolution Urging Party To ‘Go On Offense’ With Anti-Abortion Bills In 2024 Run-Up
The Republican National Committee passed a resolution Monday urging party members at both the state and federal levels to pass the most aggressive anti-abortion legislation possible in the run-up to 2024.
Continue reading “RNC Passes Resolution Urging Party To ‘Go On Offense’ With Anti-Abortion Bills In 2024 Run-Up”McCarthy Now Seems To Say Social Security And Medicare Cuts Are ‘Off The Table’ In Debt Ceiling Negotiations
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said on Sunday that cuts to Medicare and Social Security are “off the table” as his party seeks to win a concession from the Biden administration in exchange for raising the debt limit.
Continue reading “McCarthy Now Seems To Say Social Security And Medicare Cuts Are ‘Off The Table’ In Debt Ceiling Negotiations”Why The House GOP Debt Ceiling Gambit Is Extra Insane
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Don’t Stop Reading Yet!
I know it’s hard to start your Monday reading about the federal budget, but I’ll keep this one pretty simple even though it’s an important point.
I’ve been getting questions from non-experts in recent days about the difference between the debt ceiling hostage-taking and a government shutdown, about why the House GOP might relent on the debt ceiling until later this year, and about the interplay between the debt ceiling and a government shutdown.
The key point that the casual observers I run into don’t have firmly in their minds is that the federal budget for fiscal year 2023 was just passed last month in the lame duck session of Congress. The $1.7 trillion omnibus bill that President Biden signed on Dec. 29? That funds the federal government through the fiscal year that ends in September.
So to put it succinctly, House Republicans have virtually no say, no control, no forcing mechanism to redo the 2023 federal budget. That ship has sailed. They’re trying to use the debt ceiling to force the Democratic Senate and White House to re-open the books on 2023, even though that was all wrapped up a month ago.
I won’t get into all the reasons now that this is political terrorism, taking the world economy hostage under threat of a default by the federal government. Kate Riga covers that here. But you can see why – given that 2023 is already funded and House Republicans don’t have any other leverage – Democrats are content to tell them to pound sand on the debt ceiling.
How does this all square with a government shutdown?
A government shutdown wouldn’t happen at earliest until October, when the new fiscal year begins. House Republicans do have leverage there. To fund the government in the new fiscal years requires a new budget to be passed, and that means the House has to play ball. They will of course demand budget cuts and priorities consistent with their preferences, and the Democratic Senate and White House will have to negotiate with McCarthy et al. That’s normal and to be expected. A government shutdown is an extreme threat at the negotiating table, but it’s not as extreme as a debt-ceiling default.
The reporting in recent days that Republicans may kick the can on the debt limit down the road to October and fold it in with the annual budget negotiations reflects the limited leverage they have now and the greater leverage they’ll have then.
I hope this helps clear up any confusion, without offending budget experts by oversimplifying things.
The Week Ahead
President Biden and Speaker McCarthy are scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss the House GOP’s debt limit hostage-taking.
What The Tyre Nichols Video Shows
The NYT has the most comprehensive analysis of the video released by Memphis police that even Donald Trump couldn’t defend.
Matt Gaetz Gets The NYT Treatment
Confess I started reading this article with a sense of dread, but the NYT showed unusual flourish in profiling Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL):
- “political arsonist”
- “chief tormentor”
- “insatiable limelight seeker”
- “prankish and abundantly coifed”
- “chubby and bombastic adolescent”
- “boorish”
The Curious Case Of Charles McGonigal
TPM: Albanian Firm Ties Indicted Former FBI Official To Yet Another Disgraced Former Agent
NYT: How an Oligarch May Have Recruited the F.B.I. Agent Who Investigated Him
DOJ Will Try To Accommodate Intel Committees On Classified Docs Probes
In a letter Saturday to the Senate intel committee, the Justice Department said it was working to provide the committee information on the classified documents found in the possession of Presidents Trump and Biden without compromising the two active special counsel probes.
SCOTUS Has Financial Ties With Chertoff
The Supreme Court’s investigation of the leak of the draft opinion in Dobbs has been a fiasco from the start. Now CNN reports that the firm of former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who gave the internal probe his seal of approval, had contracted with the court in recent years for security assessments.
The Right-Wing Attack On ESG
WaPo: Meet the dark-money group sharpening the GOP attack on ‘woke’ climate policies
Book Banning Is Getting Worse
Anne Lutz Fernandez with a rundown of the current state of play in schools and libraries across the country.
Molotov Cocktail Thrown At New Jersey Synagogue
The attack early Sunday morning was captured on surveillance video but did little damage to the synagogue.
Dozen Killed In Explosion At Pakistani Mosque
The blast in Peshawar killed more than 30 people and injured more than 100 others. Many of the dead were policemen. The mosque was inside a police compound, the WaPo reports.
Israel Strikes Inside Iran
Israel launched a drone strike against a weapons facility in Iran.
Cool Reporting
WSJ: The Covert Polish Repair Shop Patching Up Ukrainian Arms
More Campaign Finance Troubles For George Santos
Mother Jones: We Tried to Call the Top Donors to George Santos’ 2020 Campaign. Many Don’t Seem to Exist.
McCarthy Not So Deftly Dodges The George Santos Question
The speaker of the House talks in circles rather than answering the question about George Santos:
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What Defaulting On Our Debt Would Actually Look Like
The threat that Republicans have been teasing since before the 2022 midterms looms all the larger on this side of the debt ceiling, as the Treasury Department shuffles money around to keep paying our bills.
Continue reading “What Defaulting On Our Debt Would Actually Look Like”Dem Guvs Jump At Chance To Counter DeSantis’ Ban On African American Studies
Two Democratic governors jumped at the chance to go after Republican Governor Ron DeSantis (FL) for his recent ban on an Advanced Placement African American Studies course, with one vowing to enforce teaching the course in full in his state.
Continue reading “Dem Guvs Jump At Chance To Counter DeSantis’ Ban On African American Studies”