After far too long a week, a bit of reality world is in order.
In his apparently humiliating near defeat, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s margin appears to be 50.9% to 48.3% over Jack Ciattarelli. In Virginia the margin of Glenn Youngkin’s triumph appears to be 50.8% to 48.5% over Terry McAuliffe.
We can add to this that Murphy is the first Democratic Governor of New Jersey to be reelected in 44 years. Meanwhile, going back 48 years the party which does not hold the presidency has won the Virginia’s race all but one time. That was when Terry McAuliffe won in 2013.
The House of Representatives on Friday night passed the bipartisan infrastructure package, sending the bill to Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
The chamber is set to consider a procedural vote on the Build Back Better Act, the social spending package, but a vote on the bill itself was delayed by several moderate Democrats’ insistence that it first receive a Congressional Budget Office analysis.
A rather bizarre development in Virginia. On election day Glenn Youngkin’s 17 year old son twice tried to vote illegally. Indeed, he attempted to do so – twice – in a precinct where his family doesn’t even live.
After agitating for the chance for weeks, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) finally visited alleged Jan. 6 rioters in jail Thursday night and compared them to prisoners of war, part of a months-long campaign to valorize the attack on Congress.
With the Florida governor’s race more than a year away, Thursday brought an early sign that national Democrats may be feeling skittish about their prospects of unseating incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
Good rundown on where today’s expected House votes fit into the overall legislative picture: Chad knows his stuff. Where it gets interesting is down around 12) in the thread. Short version is whatever version of the reconciliation bill passes the House today will get altered in the Senate and have to come back to the House, where it will likely get shoved down the throats of Dem members. That will happen in late November or early December. House members are used to getting dictated to by the Senate. Doesn’t mean the Senate version won’t pass the House. Just means there’s a long way to go even if Pelosi gets all her votes lined up today.
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.
We’ve Got More Important Things To Do
In newly aired deposition videos obtained by CNN, Rudy Giuliani and pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell admitted under oath that they hadn’t bothered to check if their conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and voting tech companies were true when they repeatedly regurgitated them in public.
Giuliani was just too darn busy to look into it all, he told the lawyer of a former Dominion Voting Systems executive suing him and Powell for defamation.
It’s also not Giuliani’s job to make sure his claims were based on fact, he argued. “Otherwise, you’re never going to write a story.”
Powell argued the truth wasn’t really important, claiming that it “didn’t seem to be the material part of the inquiry.”
Insurrectionist Who Bragged She Wasn’t Going To Jail Goes To Jail
Jenna Ryan, the infamous Jan. 6 insurrectionist/real estate agent who flew to D.C. via private jet before storming the Capitol (and livestreamed while inside the building), was handed a 60-day prison sentence yesterday after pleading guilty to one misdemeanor.
Ryan had been mighty confident that, as a white lady, this wouldn’t happen. In a tweet that somehow hasn’t been deleted yet, she declared in March that she was “definitely not going to jail” because “I have blonde hair white skin a great job a great future and I’m not going to jail.”
Smash cut to yesterday: “You win!!! I’m going to prison,” Ryan tweeted.
Jan. 6 Panel Set To Blast Out Fresh Round Of Subpoenas
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the chair of the House Jan. 6 select committee, said yesterday that he’s signed 20 subpoenas that could go out as soon as today.
Thompson wouldn’t say if ex-Trump legal adviser John Eastman, the guy who drew up a legal memo for Mike Pence to steal the 2020 election for Trump, would be getting one of those subpoenas, but he did tell reporters that some of the people on the list “have been written about.”
The committee isn’t planning on subpoenaing lawmakers – at least “not yet,” Thompson said.
The panel has interviewed more than 150 people at this point, according to committee vice chair Liz Cheney (R-WY).
Okay Guys This Is Finally It Maybe
Democrats are on track to pass both the $1.75 reconciliation bill and the bipartisan infrastructure bill (BIF) on Friday.
Here’s how it’ll go down with reconciliation: The House will convene at 8 a.m. ET, the chamber will debate the rule on the legislation on the floor, then debate the bill itself if the rule passes, then there’ll be a final vote on the package.
If reconciliation passes, it’ll get kicked over to the Senate and face a final reckoning with Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV).
BIF just needs one vote in the House.
Both the House and the Senate are out next week.
A New Grand Jury In Trump Org Criminal Case
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance has convened a second grand jury to hear evidence in his criminal investigation against the Trump Organization, according to the Washington Post.
This new grand jury is reportedly looking at how the company valued its assets. Vance has said he was investigating whether the Trump Organization had manipulated the value of its assets to reduce property taxes or obtain better loans.
The first grand juryfocused on the Trump Organization’s alleged tax evasion scheme in which the company’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, was allegedly given “perks” instead of being fully compensated, thereby dodging payroll taxes.
DeSantis Spox Endorses Muzzling Of Professors
At least eight professors at the University of Florida have been banned from testifying in lawsuits against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) anti-mask mandate policies or the voting restrictions he signed into law.
Christina Pushaw, DeSantis’ spokesperson, told the New York Times that the Constitution “guarantees the right to free speech, but there is no right to profit from speech.”
She was latching on to the University of Florida’s claim that the school was only banning three of the professors from “paid work that is adverse to the university’s interests as a state of Florida institution.”
Save The Sun
As winter darkness looms ahead, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) is pushing for a permanent Daylight Saving Time via the Sunshine Protection Act, the bipartisan bill she co-sponsored with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL).
Americans “want more sunshine and less depression,” Murray argued on the Senate floor yesterday.
Idk, I was pretty young when we couldn't sell our house and lost a shit ton of money paying two mortgages bc of rumors that my mom was slaughtering goats. So maybe like 2 or 3? https://t.co/cP5PWUNrKi
When I was 7 some kids called me chinaman and I said I'm Korean not Chinese so they beat me up instead so perhaps start before first grade. https://t.co/Q3eXte2nys
