12.27.20: Keeping Our Expectations in Perspective for 2021

Today's program focused on president-elect Joe Biden's career up to his latest interviews and statements as to give some perspective as to how Mr. Biden will lead and what we can expect in 2021. 

As is the case with the president-elect, you can go way back in television history for clips of Mr. Biden explaining his views, which we won't go into in depth except to say that what these old clips showed was a politician that indeed has the perspective of history, which this column would argue is essential to be successful in the presidency. That's not to say that Mr. Biden as a U.S. Senator didn't cast votes for bad legislation or that he didn't have his share of political scrapes. The point is that there is that perspective of the good and the bad since 1972 that's put him in the position he is now.

Former Senator John Sununu (R-NH) said that one politician's flip flop is another evolution, which is a fairly dismissive view of things and he seemed to exclude himself from the false equivalency. Dismissing vulgar social media statements for four years and then saying someone isn't qualified because you don't like what they said on social media is a flip-flop, not to mention hypocritical. "Being for it before I was against," as John Kerry argued about the Iraq War in 2004 didn't make the grade either. But you can not compare it to Mr. Biden's evolution and reconciliation with his faith on Roe vs. Wade or his sense of marriage equality. 

The fact that we're discussing issues and political philosophies will be the biggest expectation for this column in 2021, which brings us to expectations in the new year.

As fmr. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said, the biggest challenge will be unifying people, but again, if there is anyone suited to do it, it would be Joe Biden. The majority of Americans assessed this to be the case and that's why he's president-elect. 

Beyond that in terms of domestic policy, NBC's Kristen Welker reported that the Biden Administration's first priorities will be healthcare and climate change, to which Sen. Sununu said that would be a waste of time because Republicans would block those priorities and that the party isn't obligated to cooperate with Democrats but he sees opportunity on infrastructure and taxes. He's half right. The tax breaks that are expiring are for the top one percent mostly so for the most part, they should be left to expire. However, infrastructure, which those expiring tax breaks could help with is the way forward, outside of ridding ourselves of the pandemic, of course. Infrastructure would accomplish multiple goals in building more energy efficient building and bridges, renovations, and broadband access. Additionally, it means jobs.

Healthcare reform, building on the Affordable Care Act, to include a public option, will be a difficult lift, especially if Republicans maintain control of the Senate, which the incoming Biden Administration is planning for.

But it's really all secondary as long as the pandemic is raging out of control.

In terms of foreign policy the three areas that the panel focused on were the Paris Climate Accords, Iran and Russia with extenuating circumstances surrounding each. Of the three, the United States should reenter the Paris Climate Agreement immediately. Even if you think that climate change is a hoax, the rest of the world is playing on this field of business and the United States has to enter back into the game. When you think of it in business terms, it's the way forward. 

In terms of Russia, if you read our column last week, you know our stand, but it's worth mentioning that Ms. Welker reported that there will be an immediate change in tone from the top when it comes to U.S. relations with Russia and where the Biden Administration stands.

Fmr. Senator Sununu gave the current administration way too much credit and too big of a pass when it came to discussing foreign policy writ large saying that the Trump Administration set a solid framework with Russia, Iran and most notably China. Mess, mess and more mess. The Administration decimated the United States farmers' soy business which thoughtless tariffs on China, Mr. Trump let pass Russia bounties on U.S. soldiers and has given a pass to Russia for the biggest cyber attack in U.S. history, and with Iran he has just made things worth without the U.S. having an real leverage.

On the last point, rejoining and restarting the Iran nuclear deal may be a fruitless task. Congressional Republicans didn't want the deal in the first place and the president's aggressive moves toward Iran's regime have given Iran little reason to go back. This may really be starting again from scratch.

So there's the policy and it's a pleasure to write about it, but as we write, there is a tragic reminder of why it's understanding is needed so badly in this moment. The House and Senate passed a bi-partisan Covid relief bill, which the president is refusing to sign because he said that direct payments of $600 are too low and they should be $2,000. For once, the problem isn't that the president is wrong, Americans should get $2,000, but where was he all this time? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) brought the measure to the House floor and Republicans voted against the increase.

As it stands, the American people aren't getting any relief and if the president doesn't sign that bill and the other spending bills on his desk by Tuesday, there's no direct payments, no military funding and no government funding so there will be a shutdown on Wednesday. 

As for the motivations behind all these non-action, duty derelictions by the burn-it-all-down president, trying to decipher them is so 2020, and we're trying to look forward to 2021. 

If you read this column, and we are humbly grateful and thankful for your support, you know we're fairly pragmatic in our political thinking. With that, save your political resolutions for January 20 because 2020 isn't over until then.

This is probably our last column for the year so THANK YOU ALL FOR READING!
Have a safe and healthy rest of the year. 

Panel: Kristen Welker, NBC News; Claire McCaskill, fmr. Senator (D-MO); John Sununu, fmr. Senator (R-NH)

Meet The Press's In Memoriam 2020:

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Civil Rights Leader C.T. Vivian, Senator Slade Gorton (WA), Senator Tom Coburn (OK), Paul Sarbanes (MD), Senator Roger Jepsen (IA), General Electric CEO Jack Welch, Talk Show Host Regis Philbin, NASA Mathematician Katherine Johnson, Civil Rights Leader Joseph Lowery, National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, PBS News Hour Anchor Jim Lehrer, NYC Mayor David Dinkins, Linda Tripp, Actor Chadwick Boseman, AAPI Activist Irene Inouye, Georgetown Basketball Coach John Thompson, Businessman Herman Cain, Test Pilot Pioneer, Chuck Yeager, Sportscaster Phillis George, Jeopardy's Alex Trebek, Basketball Icon Kobe Bryant, Writer and Gay Right Activist Larry Kramer, Diplomat and Humanitarian Jean Kennedy Smith,
Our American Soul Congressman John Lewis
and
over 300,000 Americans dead from Covid-19

12.20.20: The Question Remains - What Else Can This Outgoing President Do to Weaken the Nation?

 Just add one more panic button to the growing list of the anticipated and unimaginable dangers outgoing President Trump is leaving this country with in 2020. In addition to the internal cultural strife that he only exacerbated; the continued unmitigated failure of his administration's response to the pandemic that has left 316,000+ Americans dead; the wrecking of our economy that has seen 8 million Americans fall below the poverty live since April; we now know that the United States has suffered the worst national security failure since WWII. 

It simply leaves one to ask: What the hell else?

Since March a sophisticated trojan horse malware attack through a 'trusted source' network has penetrated numerous government agencies and businesses with access to untold amounts of classified information, which could take months if not years to assess the damage. 

By all accounts from the United States intelligence community, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and congress people on both sides of the aisles, responsibility all points Putin's Russian regime. 

And then the odd off-putting dance and song we've heard before, which begins with the president doing a soft-shoe saying nothing about the Russian cyberattack on American sovereignty followed by the off-key, tone-deaf response that it 'could be China.'

Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) on the program today, recalled his impassioned plea this week to the Administration to respond to this publicly and said he was disappointed by the president's comments. What he also said this week that this cyberattack was the equivalent of Russia flying war planes over the continental United States and doing nothing about it. 

Chuck Todd didn't bring up that last piece today, but he seemed to refer to it when asking Senator Romney about the line between espionage and an act of war. Understandably, Mr. Romney who chooses his words carefully avoided the distinction, but was forthright in stating that the Russians feel as though they can act impunity, the United States has to rethink it cyber capabilities defensively and offensively, and that there should be a response.

The last one for certain. There needs to be an offensive response against the perpetrators of this invasion of the United States' government systems. The response needs to be aggressive, large scale and on multiple fronts. What it must not be is rushed, but it must indeed be.

It has gone on for too long in too many countries, not to mention gratuitously brazen assassinations throughout European countries. A time for response is coming, but chess masters know this and prepare and in the meantime, grab all they can before their opponent finally wakes the hell up and responds.

Senator Romney also said that the president has a blind spot when it comes to putting responsibility upon Russia for its apparent bad actions. 'Blind spot' was a charitable eyebrow raiser and it didn't go unnoticed by Mr. Todd. The senator responded that he didn't want to psychoanalyze the president, which is another way of saying "I don't want to go there." But it doesn't take psychoanalysis, it takes a thorough deep dive into the tangled web that is Mr. Trump's finances. If there is reason to look in any direction that would be the one this column recommends.

All that said, one can be as optimistic about a response as one can about getting a Covid-19 vaccine at this moment. NBC's Hallie Jackson reported that all of the president's focus is on the election and trying to find a way to overturn it while as a sidebar creating as many problems as possible for the incoming Biden Administration. Notably, the president's newly appointed loyalists to the Pentagon are holding up transition briefings.

Pretty heavy and heady for a Sunday before Christmas - too much to think about. However, the question remains of what other pain can this outgoing president inflict to weaken this nation and cripple the government's capacity to keep its citizens safe.

In the meantime, please have a very safe, healthy and happy holiday. Thank you for reading.

Panel: Hallie Jackson, NBC News; Yamiche Alcindor, PBS News Hour; Rich Lowry, The National Review

12.13.20: Numbers Don't Lie So Don't Even Consider Them

It's certainly great news that Pfizer's vaccine is starting to roll out across the country, with the combined effort of the private sector, namely UPS and FedEx, handling the transportation. However, for all intent and purpose, the vaccine doesn't exist in practical terms. In other words, for the time being we have to continue to live life as though there isn't one.

Francis Collins, the Director of the National Institute of Health, explained that to eliminate the virus and move back to a sense of normal we need 70 to 80 percent of the population immunized. He also expressed great concern, as have many other health professionals, that roughly 50 percent of the population for one reason or another, some valid and some not so much, isn't on board with getting vaccinated.  

Frankly, it's surprising that we've gotten this far considering one of the main reasons, of course, which is... wait for it... the politics surrounding every step of the way. When you hear that White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows threatened the FDA director with his job if he didn't approve emergency use of the vaccine and consider the speed in which it was developed, it drives skepticism on both sides of the political aisle.

In the mean time, the lack of empathy along with the tone deafness that goes with it from the president and the Senate majority leader on the toll that the pandemic is taking on the economic welfare of working Americans has compounded the misery. There is a $908 billion relief bipartisan package going through the Senate and Mitch McConnell will not bring it to a vote. Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) said he was frustrated and embarrassed by Mr. McConnell's blocking of a second relief package, laying the blame squarely at his feet. The fruit of Senator McConnell's work has manifested itself in 850,000 new unemployment claims last week. 

Mitch McConnell looks at the dollar numbers and doesn't like them. He looks at Americans as simply numbers and doesn't like us either. Speaking of numbers, it may go without saying that Donald Trump doesn't like us either because he really doesn't like the numbers.

After the Supreme Court flatly rejected the lawsuit brought by Texas' Attorney General in which 17 other states' Attorneys General signed onto, 9-0 by the way, to nullify hundreds of thousands of votes in others, not their own, the president vowed to fight on.

The thinking can only be that since numbers don't lie, they shouldn't even be considered in the first place.

But here are some numbers to consider:

3,100+ deaths per day (equivalent of 9/11) everyday for the next 30 to 60 days. 
     This is what the Director of the CDC predicted this week;

297,000+ deaths in the U.S.; 16.1 million infections
     According the the New York Times Covid-19 tracker; and

more than 100,000 small businesses have closed permanently.

But these numbers mean nothing to the Senate majority leader or the president. Kristen Welker noted that the president has commented on the election 62 percent of the time this week while only referencing the pandemic 7 percent. As we said before, the president is checked out completely from any sort of governing as all his efforts have been focused on overturning a free and fair election. (Mr. Trump is so completely checked out from governing, it makes one wonder that if he could overturn the election, how would he ever be able to check back in?)

And speaking of free and fair elections, lastly we leave you with this number, 126. This is how many Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives signed onto the aforementioned lawsuit to nullify the election results, subvert the democratic process, and act in direct defiance of the U.S. Constitution. 

OK...

We don't know who has already called for this, but without hyperbole it's important to get on the record that this column is calling for resignation letters of these Congress people. Not out of malice, but because in a moment of expedient political posturing, they did not uphold their oaths to the office in which they sit.

Panel: Kristen Welker, NBC News; Matt Bai, The Washington Post; Lanhee Chen, Stanford University

12.6.20: "Responsible People Need To Act Responsibly."

Paraphrasing himself from earlier in the week, Georgia Voting Systems Manager Gabriel Sterling said "responsible people need to act responsibly." However, what we're seeing is an abdication of responsibility with regard to both the post-election/transition and the Covid-19 response on all levels of American life. 

Mr. Sterling's tough words for Republican leaders come on the heels of one of his 20-year employees received death threats, just for doing his job. Mr. Sterling said he was done. Though Mr. Sterling voted for Mr. Trump, he also explained that the president should be held to a higher standard. Yet, it is Mr. Trump who is leading the charge of irresponsibility on both fronts.

Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute explained that Mr. Trump's rally last night in Georgia focused on the two Senate-race candidates for about 10 minutes of the 90 minute speech with the rest reserved for the president's grievances and conspiracy theories about how he lost in the state and that it was rigged... Of course this is how it was predicted to go. 

The panel generally agreed that the president's toxic anti-democratic rhetoric could suppress the vote in Georgia, giving the Democrats control of the Senate. This could very well be the case, however Steve Kornacki explained that Georgians with intention voted for a split ticket - Trump out and Republican control of the Senate - with Biden winning the state by 13K+ votes, but incumbent Senator David Perdue getting 88K+ more votes than challenger Jon Ossoff. The question here is whether Trump supporters view the president's irresponsible voter-fraud/ rigged-election rhetoric as a show or do they think it's for real. 

The president gives his supporters what they want, getting them angry and fired up in the moment, but chances are that at the end of the day, they will turn out to vote. Ms. Pletka said that if there is depressed turnout and Republicans lose even one of the seats, he will be to blame. It's difficult to imagine these two races splitting between parties.

Well that was five paragraphs too many... 

We're not making light of this totally unprecedented assault on our democracy of respecting the vote and the peace transition of power by the President of the United States no less. There is no way to minimize the fecklessness and irresponsibility of Republicans in Congress who do not accept or will not say publicly that Joe Biden is the President-elect.

But it palls in comparison to Mr. Trump walking away from any responsibility on combatting the Covid-19 pandemic. In terms of leading this fight, the president has flat out quit on us. 

And if you don't think so, let these numbers soak in...

Not only did he not talk about the pandemic at his rally, but the rally itself was potentially a super spreader event. Chuck Todd asked Corona Virus Task Force Coordinator Deborah Birx about the mixed messaging coming from Administration health officials and the president. But what really can Dr. Birx say to that question at this point? She along with many other health professionals, namely Dr. Anthony Fauci, have been thrown into a political hell that they can't even understand, let alone see coming.

Dr. Birx said that she didn't want to be critical on television any individual state or official (good move) and reiterated the mitigation measures - wearing a mask, socially distancing, washing hands, not gathering in big groups - that we all should be following. 

There within lies the rub.

The populace writ large is not being responsible either. Dr. Birx mentioned that we haven't yet experienced the spike in cases from the Thanksgiving holiday. You read about public officials, Democrats in particular are guilty of this, telling their constituents to exercise mitigation but don't do it themselves. Sure, we're lacking leadership from the president and on down it's quite spotty but when you see statistics like these:

As of Dec. 6th,
     U.S. Cases: 14.6+ million
     U.S. Deaths: 281,202;

you would think people would take personal responsibility and protect not only themselves but their families as well; just as a precaution, right? Alas, that is certainly not the case and our hospital systems are being pushed beyond the limit. Even when all this ends, we'll need a public fund to assist healthcare workers with all the PTSD they are sure to suffer from in the future.

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) explained that a bi-partisan group of Senators came together over the holiday to put together a bill for Covid relief in the range of $908 billion. It's frankly not enough but it's at the very least something. This is the kind of responsibility you want to see from your Senators only to have it undone by a cynical Senate Majority Leader and a president who has not interest in the oath that he took way back when on January 20th, 2016 - to protect the American people.

Determined to hamper the transition and knee-cap the incoming president as much as possible, Donald Trump is irresponsibly putting the safety of the American people at extreme risk.

Panel: Kimberly Atkins, Boston Globe; Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute; Jeff Mason, Reuters; Steve Kornacki, NBC News