Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that a proposal from Democrats to approve $2,000 stimulus checks “no realistic path to quickly pass the Senate,” the Washington Post reports.
McConnell said Republicans would not be “bullied” into passing the bill quickly despite intensifying pressure from Democrats and President Trump.
For members: McConnell Cuts Trump Loose
A New York man is in the hospital with COVID-19 after attending an indoor Christmas party thrown by a local Republican Party group, the Queens Daily Eagle reports.
James Trent attended the December 9 party, which went viral after a Twitter video showed guests participating in a Conga line.
Jonathan Last wrote on December 4: “Well, we have had 3.4 million new cases in the 21 days since 12 November. If Trevor’s 1.6% CFR still holds, you end up with 54,000 deaths over the next 21 days. Merry Christmas.”
Here’s his update: “Our reported death total for that 21 day span from December 3 to December 24 was 52,584. Pretty close to the pin.”
“We got that projection by using a Case Fatality Rate of 1.6 percent and applying it to the new case count of the preceding three weeks. Now do the math looking three weeks out from here: Over the last 21 days we’ve had 4.38 million new cases. So we should expect roughly 70,000 more deaths between now and January 20.”
President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team said at a press briefing on Wednesday that the Office of Management and Budget has been limiting support to the incoming administration, accusing the agency of “intentionally generated opacity,” Axios reports.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she will seat Rep.-elect Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) this weekend as Rita Hart (D) contests the results of their race, The Hill reports.
Results show Hart having been defeated by Miller-Meeks by six votes after a recount.
“A federal appeals court Wednesday kicked a legal battle over President Trump’s financial statements back to a lower court, further delaying House Democrats’ efforts to obtain years of the president’s personal and business records,” CNBC reports.
“In its ruling, a panel of three judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated a prior district court judgment and aligned itself with a Supreme Court ruling over the summer that ordered lower courts to more carefully consider questions about the separation of powers in the case.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said that he will object during Congress’s counting of the Electoral College vote on January 6, becoming the first GOP senator to back the effort by House conservatives, The Hill reports.
The decision by Hawley would ensure a debate and vote in the House and Senate on the Electoral College results.
A new NPR-Ipsos poll finds 40% of Americans believe the coronavirus was made in a lab in China even though there is no evidence for this.
And one-third of Americans believe that voter fraud helped Joe Biden win the 2020 election, despite the fact that courts, election officials and the Justice Department have found no evidence of widespread fraud that could have changed the outcome.
This one is particularly bonkers: The poll asked respondents whether they believe that “a group of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media” — the false allegation at the heart of QAnon. While only 17% said it was true, another 37% said they didn’t know.
“Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) needs your help to keep the U.S. Senate in Republican hands. So blared a handful of Facebook’s ads that Cruz’s campaign committee purchased this month. But none of them were actually raising money for the Republican candidates in Georgia. Instead, every penny donated went directly to…Cruz,” the Daily Beast reports.
“The Cruz campaign bought 15 separate ads on Facebook over the past two weeks, each featuring a video of the senator dramatically hyping the need to hold two U.S. Senate seats in Georgia runoff contests.”
A new JMC Analytics poll in Georgia finds Democrats leading in the two Senate runoffs:
A new Trafalgfar Group poll shows closer races:
Nate Silver: Why a split verdict in Georgia isn’t that crazy.
The U.K.’s House of Commons voted 521 to 73 on Wednesday in favor of the historic post-Brexit trade deal reached between Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government and the European Union, the BBC reports.
A fun read: Make Russia Great Again by Christopher Buckley.
James Stavridis: “The book is ostensibly written by President Donald Trump’s seventh chief of staff (he’s actually getting close to that number), who remains improbably loyal to his ex-boss even as he writes from prison, serving time for his actions in the White House. Unlike the many unfunny Trump memoirs published this year, this novel had me laughing out loud and, by the end, shaking my head at what we’ve come to accept as normal. This book contains the answer to one of the few enduring Trump mysteries: Why does he continue to pander so remarkably to Vladimir Putin? Buckley’s answer is very funny.”
“President-elect Joe Biden plans to nominate two former senior officials to fill the Pentagon’s No. 2 and No. 3 jobs, transition officials said, further signaling the new administration’s intent to forge a more predictable foreign policy and revitalize agencies that Biden says have been ‘hollowed out’ by President Trump,” the Washington Post reports.
“The officials said Biden has selected Kathleen Hicks, a think tank strategist and former senior Pentagon official who is heading Biden’s Defense Department transition team, as his nominee to be deputy defense secretary.”
“The officials said Colin Kahl, who served as a top Pentagon official for the Middle East during the Obama administration and later as Biden’s national security adviser, would be nominated to become undersecretary of defense for policy, an influential role that helps shape major security decisions.”
“President Trump on Wednesday called for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to resign, escalating his criticism of a fellow Republican who has refused to intervene in the state’s presidential election or embrace Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud,” the Washington Post reports.
“References to decades-old computer software are included in the new Brexit agreement, including a description of Netscape Communicator and Mozilla Mail as being ‘modern’ services,” the BBC reports.
“Experts believe officials must have copied and pasted chunks of text from old legislation into the document.”
“The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency alerted Congress Tuesday about plans for a $290 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia that would include 3,000 precision guided munitions,” Axios reports.
“The State Department’s approval of the potential deal in the Trump administration’s final weeks comes despite President-elect Joe Biden vowing during his election campaign to end weapons sales to the Saudis.”
Stat News: “The logistics of the rollout have been largely left up to states to navigate. States and local public health officials have warned for months that they would need more than $8 billion in additional funding to stand up the infrastructure needed to administer vaccines.”
“The Trump administration instead provided states $340 million in funding to prepare for vaccinations. Congressional lawmakers also balked for months at appropriating additional funding for vaccine distribution, although the coronavirus stimulus package signed by President Trump on Sunday included $8 billion in funding for that effort.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
