Unfinished business.

December 1, 2022

         Congress was the epicenter of the major political developments on Wednesday—most of which related to the unfinished business of the expiring term. As usual, the stark differences between Democratic efforts to govern and Republican efforts to sow chaos were on full display. Let’s take a look.

Democrats lead the way in the effort to avert a rail strike.

          The House passed a bill to avert a rail strike, which passed with broad bipartisan support. The House also passed a separate bill authorizing seven days of paid sick leave for rail workers; Republicans voted in near lockstep against the bill providing for sick leave—221 to 207. Of course, the Republicans who voted to deny sick leave to rail workers have unlimited sick days themselves. See Newsweek, Republicans With Unlimited Sick Days Vote Against Time Off for Rail Workers.

          Senate Republicans will vote against the paid sick leave bill but support the bill to end the strike, thereby forcing a contract on rail workers they rejected over the absence of sick leave. In a truly perverse display of GOP deceit, Senator Rubio tweeted that he would “not support a deal that doesn’t have the support of the rail workers.” Of course, if Rubio voted to support the sick leave bill, that would be the “deal” that rail workers want. Rubio gives politicians a bad name—and that is saying a lot!

          Many readers sent emails and made comments in support of the rail workers’ demand for paid sick leave. For an explanation of the arguments in favor of allowing a strike over paid sick leave, see Ryan Cooper’s op-ed on MSNBC, Biden picked the wrong side in the rail union strike. As Cooper explains, the refusal to grant sick days will harm the operations of rail carriers and eventually lead to many of the supply chain issues that Biden is seeking to avoid.

          Mr. Cooper’s arguments are unassailable, but he describes only one side of the argument. He does not address whether a strike now that would impose $2 billion in daily losses to the economy and cause the loss of 700,000 jobs is an appropriate way to secure a benefit for 115,000 rail workers.

          Mr. Cooper could reasonably say, “Yes, the loss of jobs and harm to the economy is worth it because we must draw a line in the sand somewhere” (as one reader said in an email). But simply ignoring the harm to the economy and job losses is hardly fair to President Biden if your thesis is that Biden picked the “wrong” side in the dispute. It was a difficult choice and Biden made a tough call. As with almost every issue, Biden will be blamed for seeking to protect the interests of tens of millions of Americans. It comes with the territory!

House Democrats elect Hakeem Jeffries as House Minority Leader.

          In a promising show of unity, House Democrats elected Hakeem Jeffries as the leader of the Democratic caucus in the House. See NYTimes, Hakeem Jeffries Elected Leader of House Democrats. Democrats also elected Representatives Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Pete Aguilar of California as members of Democratic leadership. The generational change in leadership was accomplished, in part, because senior members of the party agreed to step down or not run for election—including Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, James Clyburn, and Adam Schiff.

          The willingness of senior Democratic leaders to step aside to facilitate party unity is in stark contrast to what is happening in the GOP. Read on.

Kevin McCarthy is starting his reign of terror early.

          Kevin McCarthy is already describing himself as “Speaker Elect,” even though there is non-trivial chance that he will not win the support of his caucus. See Talking Points Memo, Speaker-elect? Kevin McCarthy’s Website Is Getting A Little Ahead Of Itself, and Politico,  Conservatives sharpen their knives as McCarthy works to peel off skeptics. Since McCarthy may never actually be Speaker, he has begun acting as though he is—just in case he misses his third opportunity to be elected by his caucus while it is the majority.

          Even as faux-Speaker, McCarthy is engaging in performative histrionics rather than focusing on substance. On Wednesday, he sent a letter to the January 6th Committee demanding that it preserve “all documents and transcripts” gathered by the Committee. Oh, okay. The demand is pointless since the Committee has already announced it will publish all documents and transcripts to ensure that Republicans do not go on a document destruction spree. See NBC News, Jan. 6 committee to release transcripts of interviews along with report, expected before Christmas, Thompson says.

          McCarthy’s letter to the Committee says that Republicans will investigate security lapses at the Capitol on January 6th. There are, of course, legitimate questions about the response of the Department of Defense, Secret Service, Department of Justice on January 6th—but McCarthy seems intent on the only area of security over which a house Committee had jurisdiction.

House Democrats obtain “access” to six years of Trump tax records.

          After the Supreme Court refused Trump’s last-ditch appeal to stop disclosure of his tax returns, the House Ways & Means Committee now has obtained “access” to Trump’s returns. See Business Insider, House Democrats Gain Access to 6 Years of Trump's Tax Returns. “Access” to the records presumably means that the Committee has access to electronic versions of the returns.

          Whether and when members of the Committee will actually take possession of physical copies of the returns is not clear—but let’s hope that Chairman Richard Neal acts with dispatch. On January 3, 2023, Republicans will be in charge of Ways & Means & Committee.

Congress must act quickly to pass Electoral Count Reform Act.

          There are two key pieces of legislation that Democrats must pass before the current session of Congress ends—debt ceiling relief and reform of the Electoral Count Act. Both are critical-and both could be passed as part of a reconciliation package. But members of Congress are becoming concerned that they are running out of time to pass the Electoral Reform Act. See Talking Points Memo, Experts Worry Congress Might Run Out Of Time To Pass Legislation To Prevent Next Jan. 6.

The effect of the Oath Keeper verdicts on GOP investigations.        

          Jim Jordan claims that he will investigate excesses by the FBI in its pursuit of domestic terrorism. Part of the GOP narrative that justifies the impending GOP investigations is that the January 6th insurrection was a political protest that “got out of hand.” But with the conviction of two Oath Keeper leaders on charges of sedition, that narrative has evaporated. See Dennis Aftergut, New York Daily News, The Oath Keeper convictions answer Trump’s lies and up his criminal jeopardy. Per Aftergut,

Tuesday’s verdict was an antidote to the contagion of these lies. It also eviscerates the premise of MAGA Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan’s planned investigations attacking the FBI for exaggerating the threat of domestic terrorism.

          The verdicts establish that there was a conspiracy directed to overthrowing the government and obstructing the constitutional procedure ensuring the peaceful transfer of power. There will be more such convictions. Jim Jordan can claim the FBI acted too aggressively all he wants. Juries composed of American citizens say otherwise.

More on Twitter.

          The EU has warned Elon Musk that the lack of content moderation may lead to a ban of Twitter in in the EU. See Financial Times, “EU and US turn up the heat on Elon Musk over Twitter.” (Sorry, I can’t link to the article.) The EU told Musk that he must abandon the “arbitrary” method for reinstating banned users—a difficult obstacle given that Musk relies on user “polls” to reinstate insurrectionists and grants blanket amnesty to racists, antisemites, and purveyors of dangerous misinformation.

          If Twitter is banned in the EU, that may be end of the platform—because the majority of Twitter users are outside the US. Meanwhile, advertisers continue to flee Twitter. See Business Insider, Twitter Seeing Decline in Advertising Revenue, Platformer Reports.

A much discussed option is to repeal of Section 230 (47 U.S.C. § 230), which provides,

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

          Section 230 effectively grants immunity from defamatory statements published by an “interactive computer service” by users of that service. That protection is what allows unbridled free speech to flourish on social media platforms—along with vile hate speech and deadly misinformation. Social media platforms can ban users who violate terms of use. For a full-throated defense of Section 230, see Electronic Frontier Foundation, Section 230 is Good, Actually.

          We don’t need to get into the details of a debate about Section 230 to agree that “blanket amnesties” do not constitute responsible content moderation. Surely Congress can amend Section 230 in a way that removes the protections of Section 230 if social media platforms fail to moderate content in a good-faith manner. Social media platforms are free to refuse to moderate content, at which point they should be subject the same defamation rules that apply to newspapers and magazines. If the EU can regulate social media platforms and still maintain free and open societies, the US can do so, as well.

More on Trump’s dinner with Ye and Fuentes.

          Several readers commented on an op-ed by Bret Stephens in the NYTimes, The Table for Trump’s Antisemitic Banquet Was Set Long Ago. Stephens argues that plans for the dinner at Mar-a-Lago, were laid over the course of the last seven years when

• Republicans normalized Trump’s various ethnic bigotries;

• Republicans normalized Trump’s conspiracy theories;

• Republicans became the party of immigrant bashers;

• Trump called the news media the “enemy of the American people;”

• The conservative movement came to despise intellectualism of any sort; and

• When “globalist,” another dog-whistle word for “Jew,” became a slur used by the right.

          Stephens concludes by discussing the tension that many writers experience when discussing Trump:

I was reluctant to write this column, because I think the former president is a spent political force and because, as Patti Davis observed on Monday, often the best way to defeat a bully is to ignore him. But the bigotries Trump has unleashed are not spent and cannot be ignored. And they won’t be defeated until they are unequivocally denounced by whatever is left of honorable conservatism.

          Stephens is right. Painful as it is, we cannot ignore the bigotry of the leader of the GOP. But we must denounce Trump not only to defeat him but also to defend the targets of his hate speech. If we fail to do so, our inaction gives permission to others to follow suit. We must not allow that to happen.

Concluding Thoughts.

          The early voting turnout in Georgia continues to be encouraging. The latest data indicates that 70% of young voters have voted for Warnock in the runoff to date—much higher than in 2021 and 2022. See @Victorshi2020. As always, early returns do not guarantee victory and the race remains close. But the voting patterns established in Georgia during the midterms and run-off bode well for the future of Democratic politics in Georgia. While we must do everything to win, every new voter we bring into the process is a small victory. We should be rightly proud of each and every one of those victories.

          Talk to you tomorrow!