1.24.21: How The United States Proceeds Forward: It Depends on the Senate

As Chuck Todd said at the top of today's program, there are a myriad of challenges facing the new Biden Administration that is only four days into office. This column contends that the crises facing the country cannot be mitigated without getting the Covid-19 pandemic under control and getting the American people vaccinated. White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain stated that this is the metric of which the Biden Administration will be judged. The success of the Biden Administration depends on it, but more importantly, the success of the future of the country depends on. The longer that we're unable to get the pandemic under control, the extent of long term damage to the country's overall well-being with grow.

So how does the United States proceed forward? For the Administration's part, they are putting together a nationalized central response to the pandemic, according to Mr. Klain, enacting the Defense Production Act to ramp up supplies of the vaccine and the equipment needed to administer it. In other words, it is gearing up for a massive response, 'throwing everything at it' as Dr. Fauci was quoted saying this week.

As we're well aware, effective action is going to depend on Congress, its ability to act and whether the Senate can walk and chew gum at the same time because its biggest problem aside from not bringing any legislation to the floor is multitasking.

Apparently, it will be a challenge for the Senate to hold an impeachment trial and legislate at the same time. For insights into the two sides thinking, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Mike Rounds (R-SD) expressed their views on both and the better news is that in terms of a Covid relief bill, both sides feel like they can get to a place of compromise. Impeachment, however, is another story.

On the relief package, The New York Times' David Brooks seemed to agree that a bipartisan agreement can come about reasoning that Democrats put additional measures into the package that can be negotiated out, like a minimum wage increase to 15 dollars an hour.  Chuck Todd asked Mr. Klain, Mr. Durbin and Mr. Rounds this, which came off as a bit of agenda journalism that is never received well. That specific example aside, Senator Rounds has a point that all the provisions should have a direct effect on Covid relief. This sounds reasonable and indicates how Republicans in the Senate may proceed on the bill. 

However, the Senate as to be expected is stumbling out of the gate because they cannot agree on a power sharing accommodation. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is proposing a filibuster resolution which is a non-starter according to Senator Durbin. Mr. McConnell insists as part of the rules that the filibuster can not be done away with. Mr. Durbin rightly explained that the result would be that Republicans would threaten a filibuster on every piece of legislation, hence maintaining the status quo in the chamber as a place where bills go to die.

Many say that the filibuster is a legislative relic from the Jim Crow era, including President Barack Obama, and that may be so but is the problem with the filibuster or the procedure surrounding it? Here's how it would go: The Senate Democrat would propose legislation and the Republican minority would threaten a filibuster which would essentially kill the bill. Senators are never pushed to back up their words. If they threaten a filibuster then they have to take to the floor and actually stand there speaking for however many days... That's what filibustering is! We say, call the bluff and have those octogenarians Senators stand on the floor for 18 hours, speaking. Force them to do that on successive bills and see how enthusiastic they are about filibustering after that. 

In addition to the power sharing dilemma, there is the pending impeachment trial of Mr. Trump. Here's where Senator Rounds while trying to give a moderate answer as to not discount the fairness of the election but at the same time trying not to alienate the base of his party, which is really Trump's party at the moment. He said two things that don't quite add up. One, he said an impeachment trial is a moot point because Donald Trump is not in office, hence it's unconstitutional. However, the impeachment is for actions while Mr. Trump was in office and they were grave enough that consideration of barring him from future office must be brought to a vote. Though we agree with Politico's Tim Alberta that impeachment may put Mr. Trump front and center in the media (where he likes to be) bringing him out of the obscurity where he presently resides, accountability for a insurrection against the people of the United States has to be brought to bear. Not to mention that as the days pass and more information comes out, the attack on the Capitol gets only worse. We can not just let that go without legal consequences or it will almost certainly happen again.

The other thing is that Senator Rounds called for an investigation of the November vote to illustrate to Trump supporters that the vote was fair, which is something Mr. Rounds believes. The problem with this is that the question of fairness doesn't come from evidence to the contrary, just the lies by the president and his allies. An investigation gives credence to those lies. Additionally, if a bipartisan Congressional panel investigates, it just opens the door to political grandstanding which would make matters worse and put retched people like Ted Cruz back into the spotlight. If an outside group conducts the investigation, no one will believe the results and then there are even more conspiratorial lies. Investigation: not the way to go.

So how we proceed depends on the United States Senate. That fact alone is cause for worry.

Panel: Yamiche Alcindor, PBS News Hour; Andrea Mitchell, NBC News; Tim Alberta, Politico; David Brooks, The New York Times

1.17.21: The Measure of Accountability for the Damage Wrought Over the Past Four Years.

The United States does not have laws with regard to domestic terrorism. When acts such as what we saw with Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City in April of 1995, they are treated as capital crimes, not as an act of terrorism. 

They're obviously needed now as more details and images of the attack on the Capitol and our democracy are providing a clearer picture of the extent and intent of these insurrectionists. As Chuck Todd outlined, right-wing violence has been building for years, and in most recent Mr. Trump has encouraged the justification of such acts by not ever condemning the people and groups who have perpetrated them. When a lone gunman commits mass murder in El Paso, TX citing Mr. Trump's words as the inspiration, the president equivocates. 

On January 6, 2021, Mr. Trump smashed the top off of the bottle and it turns out that the genie that's not going back in is actually scores of right-wing white supremacist militias planning acts on Washington DC and multiple state capitols. Donald Trump has done everything he's could to subvert the process of a peaceful transfer of power, the foundation of our democracy, and for that he cannot ever be forgiven in the annuls of history for a disgraceful act that overshadows all the rest.

He has accomplished his goal of having Americans arming themselves to kill other Americans.

Between the seditionist incitement of the Capitol attack and the additional looming pardons including one possibly for himself, even the National Review's editor-in-chief Rich Lowry said that the Administration is losing credibility and legitimacy before our eyes. 

So where does that leave us on the pending impeachment who will be out of office come this Wednesday? 

There's no doubt that an impeachment trial in the Senate will be characterized as politically vindictive by most Republicans and if it is Constitutional given Mr. Trump is no longer president, as Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) argues. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) said that it's Constitutionally dangerous if we don't proceed because it would mean that there has no accountability for the president's actions while in office. If we do not proceed, he continued, we'd be missing the larger historical picture in this instance. 

Post-presidency, it's unlikely the Senate will vote to convict Mr. Trump, however, a few variables could change that equation. One of those variables that the panel discussed today was potential pardons in these last few days. They could certainly come like a wave. NBC's Kristen Welker reported that the president is undecided on what to do about pardons, particularly for himself and his family, because of the public relations disaster it would be, not to mention the questionable legality of pardoning yourself. Pulling on that thread a bit, the bad PR could also be legally jeopardizing. A slew of pardons in these last few days, a list of potentially 20 people or more, would sour Republicans on acquittal because of any double digit number and also they know that an acceptance of a pardon is in essence an admission of guilt. For anyone who accepts a pardon, they therefore give up their 5th amendment rights as it pertains to a relevant inquiry, compelling answers. And the kicker to that is if you don't tell the truth, you're not pardoned from the perjury you just committed.

This all equals a messy impeachment trial, littered with explosive and or insane testimony.

Newly elected Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) said that she didn't vote for impeachment because due process was not followed in the House leading up to the vote. However, she also said that the president should be held fully accountable for his actions. In other words, Representative Mace doesn't disagree with the charges, just the way they're being dealt with, and that is why she is recommending censuring the president. 

[Aside: You may agree or disagree with Rep. Mace on how to proceed, but if the United States Congress had more Republicans like her who puts country over party and with whom you can disagree without being disagreeable, the complexion of the country would change.]

The only way that there isn't extreme political backlash with censure is if it contains language that bars the Mr. Trump from ever holding public office again (a big 'if'), but is it enough accountability for potentially criminal acts?

Whether the president will be impeached or censured by Congress is immaterial because there will never be the proper measure of accounting for all the damage that these four years have wrought on our country. The amount is incalculable. 

If you're well versed in Mr. Trump's career, you'll know that he's left our country like he's left so many of his businesses - bankrupt, broken, sick and wrecked with people in every direction either pissed off, unpaid, disgusted, lied to, cheated, lawyered up or all of the above.

Panel: Kristen Welker, NBC News; Claire McCaskill, fmr. Senator (D-MO); Rich Lowry, National Review

A few more things...
Senator McCaskill said that she thought the Biden Administration could work on its agenda because President Biden will stay out of Senate impeachment business, essentially working around impeachment drama and the Trump Republicans in both chambers. To this point, Mr. Lowry explained that Democrats will be able to do a work around, but not Republicans. A civil war within the party is coming, he said.

Lastly, Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) voiced concern that other areas of the DC metro area could be attacked given that the Capitol Campus is so heavily guarded. She explained that she has been briefed on potential attacks on Washington and across the country. There are more troops in Washington, 25,000, than there were after 9/11 and who are presently stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria combined.  Think about that...

1.10.21: Beyond Our American Comprehension/ Donald Trump is a U.S. Citizen but Not American

Where to begin this column after this week is not an easy task. So many instances and individuals to point one's anger, frustration, outrage and sadness toward all it can render is shock. 

It comes down to a simple equation: Donald Trump is un-American. He is a citizen of the United States and its president, but he's not American. He doesn't understand the idea of what it is to be American.

In its totality, there is no other way to think of it. What Mr. Trump sought to do was to overturn a free and fair election under the pretenses of a lie by inciting a crowd to storm the Capitol. Sedition leading to attempted insurrection? It's insane to even be writing these words but as with all things Donald Trump, here is where we find ourselves.

The one point that this column knew it had to comment on came from Senator Toomey (R-PA) to his credit said that Mr. Trump should resign immediately also said that no one could see what happened on Wednesday coming. However, former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson set that record straight as law enforcement should have seen this coming. 

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) outlined three paths from where we can go now, but none seem promising. The first is Mr. Trump resigning from office, and though the calls are turned up to eleven it's definitely not going to happen. Impeachment would be a futile exercise in the end because the Senate won't take up the matter until January 19th, Senator Toomey stated. And then there is the cabinet invoking the 25th Amendment, also unlikely. One could argue that Vice President Pence has justification for this since Mr. Trump told rioters to go to the Capitol and when they arrived, they wanted VP Pence. Damn, that's as ugly as it gets, like cosmic ugly. The vice president wouldn't violate his oath of office and instead would uphold the law so the president told a mob of rioters to go get him. [This would all be bad movie shit if it weren't for the fact that it was horrifying reality TV produced by Donald Trump.]

All jest aside, Donald Trump statements and intentions on January 6th set one is a state of beyond understanding for the American mind. For all the service men and women for over two centuries that bled and died or came home changed forever physically and emotionally to defend this country and the Constitution and the peaceful transfer of power, Mr. Trump sought to negate all of that history and to fundamentally change the United States on that day. Secretary Johnson said seeing the Confederate flag in the halls of the Capitol was horrifying and showed a photo of an ancestor's grave, one who fled slavery. Lincoln insisted that the Capitol Building continue to be built during the Civil War. Mr. Trump called the man who brought that flag into those hallowed halls 'special.'

If you're a reader of this column you know that we're apt to present a more pragmatic [read: realistic] outcome that could come about, which would be to censure Mr. Trump to the extent that effectively leaves decisions to the vice president for the remaining days. Whether that could or would come about seems unlikely since there is never any mention of it and the main reason is that it would be insufficient to hold this president accountable. Sedition deserves much more.

According to Kasie Hunt's reporting, most Republican senators have a different sort of deep anger about this final act by Mr. Trump and from public statements we know they're open to some kind of extraordinary step. This, of course, is with the exception of senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) who if we're completely without shame would resign. If it weren't for the Democratic majority in the House, we wouldn't be living in a democracy anymore because a majority of Republican House members supported overturning the vote, lead by the minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and minority whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), both of whom should also resign (not likely) but nothing short of being taken out of leadership roles.

The depth of disgrace that the Republican party is mired in because of its continued support of a man who Senator Toomey said had 'spiraled into madness since the election' is bringing us all down.

Speaking of which, there are already reports of protests scheduled for January 17th and Inauguration Day, the 20th so we see what's coming down that road. In terms of political action against this president in the near term, it's a wait and see.

We'll leave it there this week because this 'nightmare of a week' to quote Chuck Todd has left us Americans so disoriented that we don't know if we even made any sense this week. Did we?

Panel: Kasie Hunt, NBC News; Hallie Jackson, NBC News; Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal; Jeh Johnson, fmr. Secretary of Homeland Security

One more thing...
Fmr. White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney tried to get on the right side of history in saying that Wednesday, being something different, was his breaking point and he had to resign. He explained that this isn't the same Donald Trump that he worked for 8 months ago. Where has he been? Oh right, after falling out of favor with the president he was exiled to be the envoy for Northern Ireland, apparently without a solid internet connection.

1.3.21: Daily Damage and the Mutant Strain

Dr. Anthony Fauci said that predictably we should see a spike in Corona virus cases in the next few weeks from all the holiday travel ending today. In further explaining the state of the Corona virus fight, he also explained that while the roll out of vaccinations has been behind the stated goal, in the last 72 hours there has been much improvement and that we can avoid a nation-wide lockdown if we practice the recommended CDC fundamentals.

To unpack Dr. Fauci's diplomatic answers here, by President Trump's own admission, the federal government, who have been inconsistent with their distribution instructions, dropped off doses of the vaccine to the states and then left them to fend for themselves, without any logistical help. So of course the distribution is going to be slow because the states' resources are already stretched to the limit. Additionally, Dr. Fauci used the word 'predictable' when it came to the upcoming spike and diplomatically left out that the president is playing an active role in not encouraging best practices. Where Dr. Fauci refused to be diplomatic was in to response the president's tweet that the CDC is overestimating the counting of deaths due to the Corona virus, to which he flatly said that the deaths are real - over 350,000 Americans are dead and it didn't have to be that many. 

What's incredible is that there is no sense of that loss conveyed by the Administration and many leaders in Congress. Simply being objective about it, the Federal Government's response to the pandemic has been an utter failure and an abdication of leadership.

Good news... Dr. Fauci did say that the new mutant strain is not more deadly but it can spread more quickly, however, the vaccine seems effective on this new variety.

But more severe damage is being done by the day with the help of this mutant strain and we're not even talking about the virus.

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) could only be given credit by Chuck Todd for accepting the interview because Mr. Todd wasn't having any of the senator's explanations as to why an emergency committee needed to be set up before certifying the election results in favor of Joe Biden. It was also clear that nothing of what Mr. Todd said was penetrating through to his interlocutor. After 60 lost court challenges due to lack of evidence of any fraud and all 50 states certifying their results, the president keeps lying about a fraudulent and rigged election and in a nakedly partisan party-above-country move, 12 Senate Republicans are willing to perpetuate this lie, of whom Mr. Johnson is a chief proprietor. Despite no evidence for concern about the results, Mr. Johnson who is perpetuating this lie is saying there are serious concerns. In political parlance, it's all bullshit. And these senators know it. 

Mr. Todd got into a quite telling and entertaining sparring match with the senator, in which he called him out on his perpetuating of this conspiracy theory, in fact called the senator the arsonist. Mr. Johnson shot back that the [proverbial] fire was started by the Democrats back in January of 2017 when they tried to delegitimize Mr. Trump's presidency. Whether conspiracy or not, who you believe - whatever, don't you just love it when a reporter asking a sitting senator if his committee intends to investigate the moon landing and whether it was staged or not.

Judge for yourself HERE.

We expect daily damage to our democracy Mr. Trump is inflicting on his way out the door, but this mutant strain of the Republican party is out of control. 

And of course, Vice-President Pence is encouraging this move because it means he maintains power even though on January 6th he technically only has a pro-forma role (not in the era of Trump). Peter Baker of The New York Times called it out that we're acting as if this is normal when in reality it is far from it, unprecedented in the nation's history in fact.

NBC's Leigh Ann Caldwell said that a divided nation and a divided Republican party only benefit the president, which makes logical sense given the president's modus operandi. Mr. Trump is still attacking the Georgia government and its secretary of state claiming the vote was rigged in the state, which could effect Republican turn out in the senate run-off, to the chagrin of Mitch McConnell. Ms. Caldwell also reported that due to these breakaway senators there could be a Trump party and a Republican party in the Senate. More like two separate Republican caucuses in the Senate. 

And the end game? NBC's Geoff Bennett said what we basically already know, and that is Mr. Trump saving face on his way out the door.

Two viruses pummeling our democracy and our people, and the administration is actively subverting the effort to combat both.

Panel: Leigh Ann Caldwell, NBC; Peter Baker, The New York Times; Geoff Bennett, NBC News

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

11.29.20: Living in Limbo is Killing Us

There is certainly a presidential transition happening but essentially 'government' as we know it is not working. We don't mean that something is wrong with the levers of government, no, we mean the administration and congress aren't doing their jobs, hence not working.

Behind the scenes current administration officials are working with transition personnel, but at the presidential level it's non-existent. Without getting into the weeds of Mr. Trump's hold-out on this front, the ripple effect is a congress in limbo, with no real impetus to get anything done until the president decides his next move, to which Mr. Trump said that he would leave the White House if the electoral college votes for Joe Biden on December 14th, but he also said that a lot can happen between now and January 20th. Yes, a lot can happen in that time, but Americans need something to happen now on pandemic relief because we're on the cusp of a complete Covid meltdown.

At the top of the program today, Mr. Todd ripped through some troubling statistics:

     1. The United States has 4 percent of the world's population but has 19% of the world's Covid
         deaths;
     2. Currently, the United States has over 13.3 million Covid cases and 266,826 total deaths;
     3. Since Thanksgiving (three days ago), 2,704 have died from Covid-19 in the U.S.;
     4. Over 4 million Covid infections in November alone;
     5. Over 91,000 hospitalizations due to Covid-19; and
     6. 22 percent of hospitals in the United States are under staffed.

No wonder Dr. Anthony Fauci is very concerned about hospital healthcare systems breaking down because "reality is staring us right in the face." He explained that it isn't too late to do something about this, but the mitigation measures that he and all top healthcare officials are imploring people to follow are being ignored by large swaths of the populace. Let's face it, the CDC, Dr. Fauci, Secretary of HHS Alex Azar, Mike Pence, et al could say 'where a mask' on television 24/7 for a week and it still wouldn't make a difference. When asked about advising the president on speaking about mitigation measures, Dr. Fauci said that he didn't have that kind of influence with the president so he's doing all he can by appearing on national television programs, then he thanked Mr. Todd for giving him the platform. The only thing that could jump start a decline in those tragic statistics and begin to bend the curve (sidebar: Isn't curve a misnomer at this point when doctors like Dr. Fauci illustrate it as a straight line upward at a 70 degree incline?) is President Trump formally addressing the public and advising people to wear a mask. It would have that big of an effect.

What it would also do, indirectly, is that it would give the incoming Biden administration something on which they can ride coattails by continuing their mask messaging and maybe, just maybe, unite people using this one issue. OK, a big leap, but it would be a game changer.

Instead, there's no push from the current administration on Covid-19 mitigation measures or financial relief for Americans. It's prompted questions in the media about whether President Trump is trying to box in President-elect Biden on policy issues because Mr. Trump is planning on running again in 2024. Hugh Hewitt seems convinced that this is the case and wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Trump declares his candidacy on Mr. Biden's inauguration day. 

And Mr. Trump is certainly boxing in the incoming Biden administration on Iran. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Retired Admiral Mike Mullen explained that our adversaries look to take advantage of the United States during transition periods. However, it looks like our friends do as well. Mr. Todd all implied that Israel was responsible for the assassination of Iran's top nuclear scientist, Dr, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. More importantly, Iran is saying that Israel and the United States are responsible and is vowing to retaliate. As Admiral Mullen said, Israel regards a nuclear Iran as an existential threat and will do whatever it has to to prevent that. 

The incoming Biden Administration is looking to rejoin the Iran Nuclear Deal, putting safeguards and inspections back in place and if you're Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, you look at the situation and see that a Biden Administration wouldn't give its blessing to killing Iran's top scientist when the U.S. is trying to rejoin the accord. With President Trump still in office, Mr. Netanyahu would have U.S. support for such an operation and for Mr. Trump it's a win as well. He has essentially cemented the elimination of any trust it would take to reconstruct the nuclear accord. 

And while decisions like this are being made in the name of the American people, they are left to fend for themselves and survive on their own without an help from the government during a pandemic health and economic catastrophe.

It's like we're all living in this weird limbo. When you live in limbo things aren't supposed to move in either direction, a holding pattern, but this limbo is killing us.

Panel: Kasie Hunt, NBC News; O. Kay Hutchinson, Director of Iowa Radio Network; Michael Eric Dyson, Vanderbilt University; Hugh Hewitt, Salem Radio Network