1.23.22: In Terms of Shellacking, It's Still Premature for the Heavy Varnish

Representative Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) had it exactly right when she explained that families in her district, and this translates throughout the county writ large, are concerned about inflation and keeping their kids in school and the cost of healthcare, specifically on the point of prescription drug prices. She also said that the administration and Democrats should focus on a few things and do those few things well. Under promise and over deliver, she said, which is something that we all strive for in our jobs. However, that doesn't work if you're a politician these days. Your entire existence revolves around over-promising and under-delivering.  

President Biden has an overall approval of 43 percent, in which 'dismal' would be an understatement and 72 percent feel that the country is on the wrong track after his first year in office. Mr. Biden campaigned on bringing the country together and that simply hasn't panned out. The problem has been two pronged with Democrats trying to do too much at once and Republicans obstructing on any all legislation with the exception of tax cutting. 

Senator Bernie Sanders described it correctly that 5 months of fruitlessly negotiating with two senators in back rooms was a waste of time. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) isn't going to be for any climate legislation (and 'no,' don't give him the pen to write the legislation) and as NBC's Kristen Welker stated, no one knows what Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) is for (and 'no' she shouldn't have been censured). 

Senator Sanders advocated for a strategy, as did Representative Slotkin, of putting smaller bills on the floor for a vote, and in the case of the Senate, it's more of an imperative given the Democrats' slim majority.

With an issue like Medicare being able to negotiate prescription drug prices so that Americans will pay less is a no brainer. Why doesn't it get done? Because it's always included in bigger bills with provisions that have no way of passing, hence sinking the entire bill. 

Smaller wins to achieve incremental change is the course they're suggesting which makes complete sense but this is the United States of Attention Deficit Disorder and if we don't get it when we want there are bound to be some dissatisfied customers.

This brings us back to a bit of the 'why' as it pertains to President Biden's approval ratings. Chuck Todd explained that it was a coalition that elected Joe Biden and not the push from a large, passionate base. In electing Biden, it speaks to Americans' practical nature of government covering the basics moving the country forward. But in catering to and governing a coalition, it's inevitable that there will be over-promising and under-delivering because there are too many fragmented interests to placate everyone.

Politics is the art of compromise, but if politicians compromise one agenda for another in a coalition it will leave many dispirited and unenthused, which is what we're seeing now. "Shellacking" territory is where Mr. Todd put it in his mid-term tracking meter. We'll just say this to that, before everyone gets out their 5-gallon cans of varnish, there's a lot that can happen between now and November.

****

As we stated last week, you want to see Democrats and Republicans united? If Russia incurs into, invades, strikes, attacks or vacations in Ukraine, it will cut to the quick and you'll see a unified response. And make no mistake Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was correct in saying that it will have larger implications for world order. If the Putin Regime is allowed to invade Ukraine without repercussions, what's to stop China from doing the same to Taiwan? The secretary was also correct that what ever Putin's intention, diplomacy has to be completely exhausted in a way to find a way to avoid bloodshed.

It seems unthinkable the prospect of a land war in Europe in the year 2022. Then again, an archduke was assassinated and Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, from there...

Will it come to that? We certainly hope not and that hope lies within the fact that the fortunes of all countries are too intertwined that the ripple effect would be too great. That said, our eyes are wide open.

Panel: Symone Sanders, fmr. VP Chief of Staff; Kristen Welker, NBC News; Peter Baker, The New York Times; Carlos Carbello, fmr. Republican Congressman

1.16.22: It's A Slog And We're In The Mud

We'll get to Russia later in the column, but first much has been said today about President Biden's sagging poll numbers, a stalled agenda and his promise to govern with unity and not division. In this case, we have to take the last one first. To govern with unity, it takes two sides to cooperate and negotiate in good faith. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) has proven to be one Republican seeking bipartisanship. However, that can not be said for the rest of his Republican colleagues writ large. 

As Chuck Todd pointed out, there are 147 Republicans in the House who are on record saying that Joe Biden isn't the duly-elected president, hence making bipartisanship a complete nonstarter. Speaking about the group of 12 moderate Republicans in the Senate, Mr. Romney said that the president made no attempt of outreach on voting rights. Clearly a mistake as the administration should have made the attempt even if they were only to get the support of half of that group. It would have demonstrated the action of bipartisan outreach and then the onus would have been on Republicans. 

The problem is the Administration and Democrats are preoccupied, justifiably, with their two conservative senators who, let's face it, are singularly responsible for stalled agenda and hence the president's sagging poll numbers. Also responsible for his crappy approval rating is the wet blanket that is the covid pandemic. This week there are complaints about testing... we don't have enough... no one can buy them, etc. 

However, let's do a little math. The United States has a population of 330 million and 63 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, which is approximately 210 million people, leaving 110 million people unvaccinated. The politicization and misinformation of the vaccine is not something that any one person alone can fix. No, not even "Mr. I-alone-can-fix-it."

Also, what is all too obvious is the different standard by which we're holding Joe Biden compared to his predecessor. We complain that Mr. Biden did consult with Republicans, as Mitt Romney stated. But when did Mr. Biden's predecessor ever reach out to Democrats for bipartisan legislation? 

When asked about the January 6th commission, Mr. Romney explained that it was uncovering information that wasn't previously known and that it is an important and legitimate effort. However, the vast majority of Republicans in congress deny its importance or worse, that the horrors of that day didn't happen. 

So we ask, how do we get unity from that?

And on voting rights, we happen to agree wholeheartedly with Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) that a vote should be held and that the American people should see where people stand on this fundamental issue. We want to know! And to Mr. Todd's point that it could point out further divisions in the Democratic party, one could argue that the divisions will only get worse if there isn't the disinfectant of a vote.

As Mr. Clyburn said, "we have to press on." As per James Carville, "we have to 'soldier on.'" It's a slog and in we're in the mud.

And then there's Russia...

It was good that NBC's Andrea Mitchell set the record straight explaining that contrary to what Mr. Romney said, the Biden Administration has done a very good job in coordinating with NATO and its European allies. The current intelligence is that the Russians are planning a false flag operation with Russian troops dressed as saboteurs attacking other Russian troops to create the context for an invasion of Ukraine.

Cynically, and Russians can probably appreciate this, if Putin invades Ukraine it will refocus U.S. foreign policy to be hardline with the Putin regime, which will get bipartisan support. In other words, if Russia wants to stem the divisions in U.S. politics, invade. 

It's not a matter of if Russia will take action, only a matter of when.

Panel: Andrea Mitchell, NBC News; Amna Nawaz, NPR; Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post; Matthew Continetti, American Enterprise Institute

One more thing...

Senator Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) is emblematic of many of us Americans today in that she lacks grace and respect for others

1.9.22: Supply Chain of Confusion

 After this week's "Meet The Press," we couldn't stop thinking that we're in the midst of a supply chain of confusion. 

From the CDC's messaging problems to Chicago teachers walking out of schools to whether voting rights are important to how we govern ourselves to Republicans denying the actual events of January 6th to our general distrust of each other.

It's almost too much to swallow and as Democratic strategist Cornell Belcher mentioned, covid is like a wet blanket over the country making it difficult to move forward.

Specifically, when it comes to covid, and it should be caveated - if you care, the focus should be on hospitalizations and deaths as Dr. Celine Gounder explained but to mitigate those two factors, more Americans need to be vaccinated. And therein lies the rub as 70 percent of hospitalizations and deaths are among the unvaccinated. To go from the pandemic state to an endemic stage, Pennsylvania University's Ezekiel Emanuel explained that the only way to get there is with vaccine mandates that President Biden has put in place. However, the conservative Supreme Court seems to be poised to strike down those mandates. A decision striking down vaccine mandates will only serve to hamper progress for the public's general health, no two ways about it. We're not looking it as a political decision on the part of the court, but what is a political decision is what the Florida Surgeon General announced this week, which is that the DeSantis administration is rolling back testing, which puts people's lives in danger because it renders individual's to know the state of their own health.

The other wet blanket, if you will, is January 6th and the actions surrounding it. There is a fever that will not break as long as Republican leaders do not interdict and be truthful to their constituents as Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-OH) explained. There was a moment on January 7th, 2021 when congress came together to condemn what happened, however, as Mr. Kinzinger noted, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) went down to Mar-a-Lago two weeks after that to meet with the former president and in that instance, he brought back the former president to legitimacy within the party. The Republican party is left in a state of confusion with some totally on board with the big crime, some who know it's a big crime but won't say anyting and then there are the few who are standing up against the former president's wanton authoritarianism. 

Hence, the Democratic party is confused on how to approach Republicans because their actions in state legislatures is curtailing voting rights and Republican representatives refusing to even acknowledge that Joe Biden is president. Compounding Democrat's confusion is that the fact that they worked to get the majority only to see it thrown into turmoil by Democratic senators from West Virginia and Arizona respectively. 

And what doesn't make sense to us is that fact that State Senates can pass laws with a simply majority, but the U.S. Senate can not, blocking the majority of laws the majority wants.

Panel: Anna Palmer, Punchbowl News; Sara Fagen, Politic Director for the Bush Administration, Cornell Belcher, Democratic Strategist, Peter Alexander, NBC News

A little something to put a point on it:

1.2.22: Let's Stop Pulling Punches, The 'Big Lie' is the 'Big Crime'

With the one-year anniversary of the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol coming this week, this edition of "Meet The Press" focused on what we know and what can expect moving forward from the select committee.

As we know, the attempt to block the certification of electoral votes was not just what happened on the 6th but all the days from November 4th to that date. That includes the former president's phone to Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, where he asked the GA official to find 11,780 votes. That includes the 187 minutes on the 6th where the former president did nothing while there was an attack on the American people, as committee chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) described. 

There's no pulling punches here, the 'Big Lie' as it's called, is actually the 'Big Crime.' Donald Trump committed crimes against the Constitution of the United States. Period. Hard Stop. We know enough to factual conclude that that is the case. If one doesn't see that objectively then he or she is choosing to ignore these crimes.

As Chairman Thompson explained about the riot itself was that it was both spontaneous and in some instances coordinated. And yes, members of Congress were in the know about what the former president's lawyers and operatives [read: Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon] were doing to subvert the will of the American people. 

In fact, as far as the former president is concerned, these crimes were set in motion before election day with the former president's statements that if he didn't win, the election must have been rigged. It's time to stop taking democracy for granted, look at these actions objectively, and understand who was responsible. 

Most chilling, Barton Gellman of The Atlantic and former State Dept. Russia expert Fiona Hill described how the former president's Big Crime is still continuing with the help of what Ms. Hill called a 'compliant legislature.' Mr. Gellman explained that there has been an uprooting of the obstacles that would have keep the intergrity of the vote in place. In Republican controlled state legislatures over 400 new voting laws have passed that either make it more difficult to vote or change who is in charge of the certifying the votes, and in most cases both.

Yes, we are at a tipping point here is the United States. We can only hope that the January 6th Select Committee can provide clarity that cuts through the noise on what fully happened and who was responsible, lest we'll all fall down.

Panel: Jonah Goldberg, The Dispatch; Yamiche Alcindor, PBS; Garrett Haake, NBC News; Brandy Zadrozny, NBC News

Happy New Year, btw!