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      From A Very Stable Genius to After Trump: 2020 in US politics books

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      A long time ago, in 1883, a future president (Woodrow Wilson, a subject of this year’s reckonings) studied political science at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, in a classroom in which was inscribed the slogan “History is Past Politics, Politics is Present History”, attributed to Sir John Seeley, a Cambridge professor.That was before the era of the made-for-campaign book.Politics books in this election year fell into three broad categories. The ordinary, ranging from “meeting-and-tells” to campaign biographies that outlived their relevance. The interesting, those which made tentative starts at history or contained some important revelations. And the significant, those few whose value should live past this year because they actually changed the narrative – or are simply good or important reads.Perhaps unsurprisingly, the books also fell in descending categories numerically. Carlos Lozada of the Washington Post read 150 books on Donald Trump and the Trump era for his own book, What Were We Thinking. Virtually all readers, however, will be content with simply a “non-zero” number, to quote a Trump campaign lawyer.First, the ephemera and the expected offerings of any election year. Scandals in and out of government; tales of the extended Trump family; attempts at self-justification; books, some entertaining, by correspondents; how-to guides to politics meant to be read and applied before November.The permutations and penumbras of the 2016 campaign continued to produce new books: Peter Strozk’s Compromised is the story of the origin of the investigation into the Trump campaign from one FBI agent’s perspective, strong stuff and persuasive though omitting facts inconvenient to him. Rick Gates’ Wicked Game contains some new inside scoop, but the real stuff presumably went to the Mueller investigation of which Strzok was briefly a part. Donald Trump Jr’s Liberal Privilege had a double mission: to encourage votes for the father in 2020 and perhaps for the son in 2024. American Crisis, New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s early book on the coronavirus outbreak, highlighted his programmatic vision rather than soaring prose, a choice appropriate for the year but quickly forgotten as the pandemic rages on.Second come those books that made one sit up a bit to pay attention: a new insight, important facts revealed; “worth a detour”, in the language of the Michelin guides. Psychologist and presidential niece Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough explained the pain of the Trump family over two generations and how that pain has influenced our national life for ill. David Frum was among the first to predict Trump’s authoritarian dangers. This year, Trumpocalpyse, well-written and insightful as always, focused on the attacks on the rule of law and “white ethnic chauvinism” as hallmarks of Trumpism, whether its supporters are poor or elite. Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, Pulitzer-winning Post reporters, chronicled Trump more deeply and successfully than most in A Very Stable Genius. Trump’s anger at the book showed they hit their target.Stuart Stevens’ It Was All a Lie takes Republican history back a few decades in a punchy mea culpa whose themes will be important in the debate over the future of the GOP. Among the Democrats, a rare good work by a politician, Stacey Abrams’ Our Time Is Now, as well as her triumph in political organizing in Georgia, marks her as an important force.For quality in financial journalism and the importance of its topic, not least to current and future investigations of Trump and the Trump Organization, Dark Towers by David Enrich on Deutsche Bank offers as full an analysis of the bank and its relation to Trump as is likely to be public absent a further court case in New York.Andrew Weissmann, a senior prosecutor with the Mueller investigation, wrote Where Law Ends, a strongly-written account in which he regrets his boss not having pursued further, notably in not issuing a subpoena to Trump and then in not making a formal determination as to whether the president would be charged with obstruction of justice. Weissmann’s frustration is understandable, but readers may judge for themselves how fair or not he is to the pressures and formal restrictions on Mueller himself.There is a subcategory here, of books on foreign and security policy. HR McMaster’s Battlegrounds attempts to explain his working theories (“strategic empathy”) modified for current realities and arguing against American retrenchment and isolation. In The Room Where It Happened, former national security adviser John Bolton told of Trump begging for China’s assistance and wrote that Trump was not “fit for office” – the tale would have been better told to the House impeachment committee. David Rohde’s In Deep demolished the theory of the “deep state”. Barry Gewen delivered a new biography of Henry Kissinger’s life and work. Traitor, by David Rothkopf, sought to chronicle the Trump administration while seeking to reverse its effects and giving a history of American traitors.Finally, the significant – those few books that contributed importantly to the year’s narrative, or that deserve a reading next year.There was another Bob Woodward book, Rage – with tapes. The big news was that Trump was aware of the dangers of Covid-19 yet chose not to publicize them and that Dan Coats, then director of national intelligence, thought Putin had something on Trump. Woodward got the stories others chased. Michael Schmidt’s Donald Trump v the United States is another serious book, with a strong argument of how deeply the attacks on the rule of law by the Trump administration, notably by Trump himself, threaten democracy. Schmidt’s recounting of efforts to prosecute Hillary Clinton and James Comey are sobering, and his revelations on how the Mueller investigation was narrowed to focus on criminality rather than Russian influence in 2016 form a useful corrective to Weissmann.Politics meets history in a few volumes, notably Thomas Frank’s plea against populism, The People, No, contrasting Trump unfavorably with FDR. Peter Baker and Susan Glasser teamed for a masterpiece biography of former secretary of state James Baker, The Man Who Ran Washington, that reminds us what (and whom) the Republican party used to call leadership. It’s a serious book that recalls Baker, Gerald Ford’s campaign manager in 1976, did not challenge the election result because Ford lost the popular vote. It also shows the truth in Seeley’s aphorism about the relation of politics and history, with many insights into one of the best recent practitioners of politics, fondly remembered for his statesmanship at the end of the cold war.Molly Ball’s well-researched and enjoyable biography of Nancy Pelosi makes sense of the most powerful woman in American history. Thomas Rid’s Active Measures, on disinformation and political warfare – Clausewitz for the cyber era – finds fresh urgency in light of recent revelations about major cyberattacks on the US government.Two books merit a final mention. As the Trump administration comes to a close, Ruth Ben-Ghiat analysed Trump’s actions and personality from the comparative perspective of fascist leaders since Mussolini and chillingly noted not only the actions that pointed to authoritarianism, but how deep the danger of going down that path.Strongmen is a vital book and a warning. Ben-Ghiat sees in Trump a “drive to control and exploit everyone and everything for personal gain. The men, women and children he governs have value in his eyes only insofar as they fight his enemies and adulate him publicly. Propaganda lets him monopolize the nation’s attention, and virility comes into play as he poses as the ideal take-charge man.” Dehumanizing rhetoric and actions against immigrants (and even members of Congress) and appointments of people whose motivation was loyalty rather than law has real cost to a political system whose fragility at points is evident. It takes both individual action and courageous will to preserve democracy.On a happier note, Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith in After Trump offer a legal, sometimes quite technical roadmap to reform of many norms of government that have been eroded. Some are obvious, others will prove controversial, but let this urgent discussion begin with Congress and the Biden administration.Of which, this year also saw the publication of A Promised Land, the first volume of memoirs from Barack Obama, whom the new president served as vice-president. Well-written despite being policy heavy, at times deeply moving, at others not as detailed as many readers might wish (despite its length), Obama is reflective both about the nature of power and about himself. More, his book serves once again to remind the world of the contrast between him and his successor. He is rightly proud to have written it – and to have written it by hand, to encourage his own deep thoughts about his presidency and the country he was honored, and sometimes troubled, to lead.To learn more about the president to come, Evan Osnos’ Joe Biden: American Dreamer is an excellent place to start: his political skills, life tragedies and conviviality are here in equal measure. Osnos ends with a Biden speech about dispelling America’s “season of darkness” – a fervent hope for the new year ahead. More

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      US Congress closes in on $900bn Covid aid bill as Friday deadline looms

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      Bill will include $600 to $700 stimulus checks and extended unemployment benefits US congressional negotiators on Wednesday were “closing in on” a $900bn Covid-19 aid bill that will include $600 to $700 stimulus checks and extended unemployment benefits, as a Friday deadline loomed, lawmakers and aides said.Top members of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and Republican-controlled Senate sounded more positive than they have in months on a fresh response to a crisis that has killed more than 304,000 Americans and thrown millions out of work. Continue reading… More

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      After Trump review: a provocative case for reform by Biden and beyond

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      At times, the Trump administration has seemed like a wrecking ball, careening from floor to floor of a building being destroyed, observers never quite knowing where the ball will strike next. At others, it has worked stealthily to undermine rules and norms, presumably fearing that, as the great supreme court justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “sunshine is the best of disinfectants”.
      These changes, far beyond politics or differences of opinion on policy, should trouble all those who care about the future of the American republic. Jack Goldsmith and Bob Bauer, veterans of Republican (Bush) and Democratic (Clinton) administrations, are students of the presidency whose scholarship is informed by their service. They have combined to write a field guide to the damage and serious proposals to undo it.
      Presidencies do not exist in a vacuum, and many of the excesses of which the authors complain did not begin in 2017. But Trump upped the stakes: the violations of rules and norms are not merely quantitatively more numerous but qualitatively different. Whether seeking to fire the special counsel investigating him, making money from his businesses or attacking the press, he has made breathtaking changes.
      As the authors write, “Trump has merged the institution of the presidency with his personal interests and has used the former to serve the latter”, attacking “core institutions of American democracy” to an extent no president had before.
      The American constitutional system, unlike the British, is one of enumerated powers. But over 230 years, norms have arisen. Unlike laws of which violations are (usually) clear, norms are “nonlegal principles of appropriate or expected behavior that presidents and other officials tacitly accept and that typically structure their actions”. In an illustration of the great American poet Carl Sandburg’s observation that “The fog comes on little cat feet”, norms “are rarely noticed until they are violated, as the nation has experienced on a weekly and often daily basis during the Trump presidency”.
      Those two axioms – that Trump’s offences are worse than others and that norms can easily be overcome by a determined president – show reform is essential.
      The first section of After Trump deals with the presidency itself: the dangers of foreign influence, conflicts of interest, attacks on the press and abuses of the pardon power.
      Here the reforms – political campaigns reporting foreign contacts, a requirement to disclose the president’s tax returns and criminalizing pardons given to obstruct justice – are generally straightforward. Regarding the press, where Trump has engaged in “virulent, constant attacks” and tried to claim his Twitter account was not a public record even as he happily fired public officials on it, the authors would establish that due process applies to attempted removal of a press pass and make legal changes to deter harassment of or reprisals against the media because “the elevation of this issue clarifies, strengthens, and sets up an apparatus for the enforcement of norms”.
      Goldsmith and Bauer’s second section focuses on technical legal issues, specifically those surrounding special counsels, investigation of the president, and the relationship between the White House and justice department.
      The American constitution is far more rigid that the British but it too has points of subtlety and suppleness. One example is the relationship between the president and an attorney general subordinate to the president but also duty bound to provide impartial justice, even when it concerns the president.
      The issues may seem arcane, but they are vital: “Of the multitude of norms that Donald Trump has broken as president, perhaps none has caused more commentary and consternation than his efforts to defy justice department independence and politicize the department’s enforcement of civil and criminal law.”
      And yet even as the attorney general, William Barr, sought a more lenient sentence for Roger Stone, stood by as Trump fired the US attorney in New York City, and kept up a “running public commentary” on an investigation of the origins of the investigation into the Trump campaign, the authors oppose those actions but remain cautious. They decline to endorse some of the more radical proposals, such as separating the justice department from the executive branch. More

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      The US election's 'safe harbor' deadline is here. What does that mean for Biden?

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      While Donald Trump continues to falsely insist he won the 2020 race, Tuesday marks an important deadline further cementing that Joe Biden will be inaugurated as America’s 46th president on 20 January.
      This year, 8 December is the so-called “safe harbor” deadline, which federal law says must fall six days before electors meet across the country to cast their votes for president. The statute says that as long as states use existing state law to resolve disputes about electors by the deadline, the votes cast by those electors will be “conclusive”. It is meant to act as a safeguard so that Congress, which will count the electoral votes on 6 January, can’t second-guess or overturn the election results.
      At least one Republican member of Congress, Mo Brooks of Alabama, has said he will object to electors and Republicans in Pennsylvania have urged lawmakers to do the same. Those challenges are unlikely to be successful because a majority of both houses would have to agree to the challenge. Democrats control a majority of the US House of Representatives.
      The Guardian spoke to Edward Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University, about the importance of the safe harbor deadline and what it could mean.
      Why is the safe harbor deadline so important?
      The key concept of safe harbor is the benefit that states get if they meet it. But it’s optional.
      It’s desirable that they get this benefit, but it’s not essential. And what makes it desirable is Congress promises to accept as “conclusive” – that’s the statutory language – any resolution that the state itself meets if it complies with these two requirements, one being timing and the other being the use of existing law.
      A state puts itself in as good a position as possible to have its electoral votes accepted by Congress if it’s safe-harbor-compliant. Because if Congress obeys its own promise, then it’s a done deal.
      Lacking safe harbor status doesn’t mean a state’s electoral votes are going to be rejected by Congress. It just means that they’re arriving in Congress without the benefit of a super-shield, if you will.
      Are there states that are at risk of not meeting safe harbor? It seems like every state has certified.
      Yes. Certification is not sufficient for safe harbor status.
      Electors have to be certified and they have to get their own certificates of ascertainment from the governor, and that then allows them to go to the state capitol and vote … That’s happened at least in enough states now for Biden to be above 270 electoral votes. There’s no danger of that not happening.
      States that have litigation procedures written into state law to challenge a certification, even after the certification has occurred … it’s often called a contest. That’s a term of art, in law, that means you’re contesting the certification. If any state has a procedure like that … that’s what has to be finalized by 8 December for safe harbor status.
      Wisconsin, for example, is a state that’s looking like at the moment like it’s not going to achieve safe harbor status because it has a hearing on 10 December in state court pursuant to a procedure that exists in state law … I’m not expecting that procedure to be successful in overturning certification. But I think it does mean that there will not be a final determination of that controversy or contest concerning the appointment of electors until after 8 December.
      And that opens the door for Congress to second-guess the electoral votes that Wisconsin is sending?
      It deprives Wisconsin of that super-shield that we were talking about. It doesn’t mean that Congress will reject the votes. I don’t think it puts Wisconsin’s votes in any practical jeopardy. But it does put them in a different legal status.
      Representative Brooks from Alabama says he’s going to object to Biden’s electoral votes. I don’t know if he specified which states. But in my judgment it is inappropriate for any member of Congress, representative or senator, to file an objection to any electoral votes that actually have safe harbor status.
      Congress should treat safe harbor status in the way the law calls for it to be treated. It’s conclusive. There shouldn’t be any objections filed to anything that a member of Congress believes to have safe harbor status. But if it doesn’t have safe harbor status, then I think it opens it up, as you said, to congressional second-guessing, in a way that safe harbor status shouldn’t.
      When a state meets safe harbor, a member of Congress and a senator can still object to its electoral votes. And I expect we will see those objections. You talked about safe harbor offering a super-shield. What does that protection actually look like?
      Unless there’s some court that’s gonna try and tell Congress what to do on 6 January, which I don’t really envision, then it’s up to Congress to police itself in terms of its own rules.
      Every conscientious member of Congress, whether representative or senator, once the objection is raised … they’re not supposed to say: ‘Who do I think won Georgia? Who do I think won Pennsylvania?’ They’re supposed to ask themselves: ‘Did Georgia and Pennsylvania utilize a procedure to achieve its own resolution of that issue? Did they do so by 8 December?’
      It’s up to Congress to abide by that rule that Congress created and not be tempted to second-guess a decision that it’s not supposed to second-guess. But human beings being human beings, if members of Congress want to ignore their own rules and second-guess something which they shouldn’t be second guessing, then who’s to stop them?
      A lot of people are going to hear that and say: ‘If it’s up to Congress to police itself, that’s not reassuring.’ I think a lot of people will have a hard time believing there are going to be Republican senators, with a few exceptions, that aren’t willing to go along with an objection.
      I totally get the realism there. And I understand why readers would want to think that. But here’s where I think maybe the safe harbor concept might provide a buffer for some.
      Take someone like Senator Rob Portman of Ohio. It might be that the concept of this super-shield could actually help him both in his own internal and mental deliberations and also with his constituency, by saying: ‘Look, I’m trying to do a job here and the job I’m supposed to do is respect state law. I’ve been told by the relevant act of Congress that I’m obligated to accept the state’s judgment. I’m not going to ask myself who won Georgia. I’m only going to ask myself whether Georgia reached a final answer.’
      How concerned should people be if a state like Wisconsin doesn’t meet safe harbor?
      This year, as a practical matter, I wouldn’t have any concern. I think it’s unfortunate that Wisconsin wound up where it will. I think it was unnecessary.
      I think the extent to which we get more objections of the Representative Brooks kind, it’s going to erode Congress’s own self-policing, which they should do, which is probably not a good thing.
      There’s no threat to Biden’s inauguration. What there is potentially … if one senator signs anything that Representative Brooks submits, that’s going to cause there to be a repeat of what happened in 2004 … I think there will be roll-call votes.
      Even though Biden’s going to be inaugurated, if a lot of senators go on record agreeing with Brooks, that’s agreeing with a claim that Biden didn’t win those states.
      I think that’s a very likely scenario.
      It’s taking us into a realm of American politics that I’m not sure we’ve had before. I mean, it’s a denial of reality that’s very dangerous.
      Elections require accepting results, even if your team loses. Your team will win next time, maybe. You give the winning team a chance to govern based on what the voters said this time. You have to acknowledge that reality. For significant numbers of members of Congress, going on the record, if that’s what happens, in defiance of that reality, that will be really dangerous for the operation of competitive elections.
      This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity More

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      Congress to pass shutdown-averting bill to continue coronavirus stimulus talks

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      Congress is poised to pass a stopgap funding measure that will avert a government shutdown and provide lawmakers more time to negotiate an emergency coronavirus stimulus legislation amid deepening economic pain.Negotiations over a $1.4tn catch-all spending package are playing out alongside bipartisan efforts to pass long-delayed Covid-19 economic relief.Congressional leaders hope to attach the stimulus bill to the must-pass spending bill, though several key sticking points remain.On Monday, the Democratic House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, said that the House would vote on Wednesday on a one-week spending bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), to avoid a government shutdown while lawmakers race to reach an agreement. Government funding for federal agencies is due to expire on Friday.Hoyer had initially told lawmakers that the House would finalize its end-of-year business this week, allowing lawmakers to leave Washington for the year, but negotiations over the omnibus spending bill were proceeding more slowly than he had hoped.“I am disappointed that we have not yet reached agreement on government funding,” Hoyer wrote on Twitter. “The House will vote on Wednesday on a one-week CR to keep government open while negotiations continue.”A bipartisan group of senators expressed optimism about a $908bn aid proposal to help alleviate the financial disaster facing millions of American families and businesses as a rise in coronavirus cases threatens the labor market, which has struggled to fully recover from the economic downturn that followed the pandemic’s arrival in March.But their plan, the details of which could be released as early as Monday, remains hung up over provisions to aid states and localities, a Democratic priority, and liability protections for businesses from Covid-related lawsuits, which Republicans want.The proposal is less than half of the $2.2tn relief package passed by the Democratic-controlled House in October and does not include the direct payments to Americans that Trump sought before the election.Yet the senators’ plan is nearly double the $500bn package proposed by the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who advocated a list of “targeted” relief provisions he said the president would sign.Lawmakers quickly enacted a $3tn aid package to salvage the economy earlier this year, but they have been deadlocked for months over whether to approve another stimulus plan.President-elect Joe Biden has urged Congress to act immediately and endorsed the senators’ bipartisan framework, calling it a “down payment” that would provide immediate relief to those suffering the economic consequences of the virus. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, also tentatively expressed support, saying they would use the plan as a “framework” for their negotiations with Republican leaders, which are proceeding on a different track from the talks with the senators. On Monday, the White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said the Trump administration and Congress were nearing an agreement on aid.“We are moving in the right direction, I think,” Kudlow said in an online interview with the Washington Post. “We are getting closer.”The US Chamber of Commerce said in a new memo to Congress that failure to enact relief would risk a “double-dip recession” – which occurs when a recession is followed by a brief recovery and then another recession – that would permanently shutter small businesses and leave millions of Americans with no means of support.The same issues have blocked coronavirus relief legislation for months, leading to mounting frustrations among business owners, unions, state and local government officials, and ordinary Americans.Considering the weakening of the economy coupled with a surge in Covid-19 cases at a time when previously approved relief mechanisms are due to expire, it would be “stupidity on steroids if Congress doesn’t act”, said the Democratic senator Mark Warner, a member of the bipartisan group that wrote the proposal, to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.A group of emergency aid programs implemented in response to the pandemic, including additional unemployment benefits and a moratorium on renter evictions, is due to expire at the end of December.With US coronavirus deaths topping 283,000 and pressure mounting for aid to a fragile economy, the new package is expected to include fresh emergency assistance for small businesses, unemployment benefits, and funding for Covid-19 vaccine distribution.“We have to get something done for the American people,” Schumer said in a floor speech on Monday, “before the end of the year.” More

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      'Right now, I'm in panic mode': US freelancers plead with Congress to pass Covid relief

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      Suzy Young, an artist in Winterport, Maine, cheered when Congress enacted an innovative program that provided unemployment benefits to artists, freelancers and the self-employed after Covid-19 hit the US. But like many others, Young – whose art sales have plunged in recent months – is angry that this pandemic aid program is due to expire the day after Christmas.Young was already upset that the most generous part of the program – $600 a week in supplemental jobless benefits – expired in July, but now she fears she will lose all her jobless benefits. Four months behind on her $1,800 rent, she is fighting her landlord’s effort to evict her and her disabled husband on 1 January.“Congress needs to do something, or a lot of people are going to face homelessness,” said Young, 58. A fiber artist who weaves works out of wool, Young saw her income disappear when the farmers market where she sold her work was closed due to the lockdown. “That killed my business,” she said. She was getting by while receiving the $600 weekly supplement, but once that disappeared, her unemployment benefits fell to $172 a week.A study by the Century Foundation estimates that 7.3 million freelancers, artists, self-employed and others will lose their weekly benefits if the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program (known as PUA) expires, as scheduled, after Christmas. That program is unusual because jobless benefits traditionally go only to laid-off workers who are considered employees – and not to freelancers or the self-employed. A second program – Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation – is also scheduled to expire 26 December, ending special federal benefits for 4.6 million laid-off workers who were considered employees.“A lot of these people [freelancers and the self-employed] were out of work, and not eligible for regular unemployment benefits,” said Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. “This program has been really successful. These people really need this bridge until the economy gets back to a better place.” After the $600 benefit supplement expired in July, freelancers and the self-employed continued receiving regular unemployment benefits, but the average nationwide for them has been just $207 a week, although it’s two or three times that in some states.Last Tuesday, a bipartisan group of nine senators proposed a $908bn stimulus and relief package that included a $300 weekly jobless supplement, half the former $600. The senators said their plan “would increase unemployment benefits to help families make ends meet”. That same day, five Democratic senators, including the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, proposed a relief plan that would restore the $600 boost in benefits as well as extend normal jobless benefits by 26 weeks. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, threw cold water on the bipartisan plan, saying: “We just don’t have time to waste time.”Rafael Espinal, president of the 500,000-member Freelancers Union, said the senators’ $300-a-week proposal was inadequate. “Considering the cost of living in cities, $300 isn’t going to allow people to pay their rent or meet other demands.”Grant McDonald, a New York-based video director who films concerts and special events, has had little work since March and worries about PUA expiring. “It’s pretty drastic sitting here, waiting for my savings to run out,” he said. McDonald fears he will soon fall behind on his rent; he may then move in with his father.“I have worked very hard to build a career in this city,” McDonald said, worried that leaving New York will set back his career.McDonald and Stephanie Freed, who lights fashion shows and other special events, founded ExtendPUA, a group that has lobbied dozens of senators and representatives to extend pandemic assistance and restore the $600 supplement. Many Republicans oppose the $600 level, saying it costs too much and discourages people from seeking work.We need to help people out here from starving. We need Congress to hear us, we’re in the worst placeBut ExtendPUA argues that it’s not wise to press people to look for work when the pandemic is raging or when skilled people with long careers, on Broadway, for instance, have little idea when they’ll return to regular work.“Any economist will say you don’t want skilled people to give up their work and not be able to get back to what they’ve given up,” Stettner said. “We can see that the vaccine will make everything better, and if we can just extend these benefits a little longer, it will make a big difference for a lot of people. If you lose your car or get evicted, those are not easy things to recover from.”Steve Gregg stopped working as an Uber driver in San Francisco after Covid-19 hit – he has diabetes and lung problems. Greg said the $600 supplement, on top of his $450 in regular weekly jobless benefits, “saved me, I would have lost my home”. But with the $600 expired, Gregg, divorced and paying child support, has moved into a single room in Modesto he shares with a cousin. “If they want us not to be homeless, they better pass something,” Gregg said. “I have no flexibility. I’ve cut back on many things.”Friends tell Gregg he has an extraordinary voice and should do TV voiceovers, but he doesn’t have the several hundred dollars to go to a studio to prepare a proper sample recording.Shan Grimm, a guitarist for jazz and R&B bands in New Orleans, fears she and her daughter will be evicted once the moratorium on evictions ends. She receives $247 a week in jobless benefits, but her rent is $850 a month, her car insurance $193 and her phone $60. “I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do, where I’m going to go,” said Grimm, who also worked as a bartender. “Even $300 a week would make a big difference. Right now, I’m in panic mode. I have $107 in my bank account. I’ve been eating once a day.”“We are the people and Congress needs to hear us,” Grimm added. “We need to help people out here from starving. We need Congress to hear us, we’re in the worst place.” More

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      Biden mulls options in case Republicans try to block cabinet picks

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      Joe Biden has had a fairly smooth cabinet appointment process so far, but there are rumblings that it could get choppier, and speculation that the Democratic president-elect may take a leaf out of the Donald Trump playbook to try to get the team he wants.Publicly, Democrats are hopeful that the confirmation processes for all of Biden’s cabinet nominees will go smoothly. But looming over the Biden team’s planning is the possibility that Republicans in the Senate decide to stonewall a nominee, blocking confirmation of anyone Biden puts forward.Their ability to do that will rest on who wins two Senate runoff races in Georgia. If Democrats win, they wrest control of the vital upper chamber away from Republicans. But if Republicans triumph, it raises the prospect they can stonewall any Biden nominee for a specific cabinet position.In that scenario, one option for Democrats would be to follow Donald Trump’s example and controversially install cabinet officials under the “acting” moniker, where they are not confirmed but serve in that role regardless.In the later period of his administration, Trump made a habit of appointing acting heads to federal agencies, thereby circumventing the usual confirmation process, even with Republicans controlling the Senate.“Frankly, it’s not an unhelpful precedent,” a Senate Democratic aide said of the idea of Biden appointing acting cabinet secretaries in the face of a Republican blockade.If Democrats control the Senate, the Senate majority will almost certainly move in lockstep to confirm Biden’s nominees as a demonstration of the incoming president’s promise to “lower the temperature” of American politics. If Republicans control the chamber, gumming up confirmations is a tempting way to generate leverage with a new president who has promised to work with the opposing party.It’s unclear which of Biden’s nominees Republicans will find most objectionable.So far, the most opposition Republicans have sounded on any of Biden’s nominees has been over Neera Tanden, the president of the progressive Center for American Progress. Biden nominated Tanden to run the Office of Management and Budget. Drew Brandewie, the communications director for the Texas senator John Cornyn, one of the highest-ranking Republicans in the Senate, tweeted that Tanden has “zero chance” of getting confirmed.Neera Tanden, who has an endless stream of disparaging comments about the Republican Senators’ whose votes she’ll need, stands zero chance of being confirmed. https://t.co/f6Ewi6OMQR— Drew Brandewie (@DBrandewie) November 30, 2020
      The Ohio senator Rob Portman, a former OMB director, told reporters he supported a hearing for Tanden but that she is “problematic as a nominee, and I would hope the Biden administration would reconsider nominating her.”If Republicans retain control of the Senate, Portman will chair one of the committees that handles Tanden’s nomination.Republicans are expected to aggressively fight at least a few of Biden’s nominees, not just Tanden. Conservatives have already started to signal a critical interest in the dealings of the consulting firm the secretary of state nominee Tony Blinken helped co-found, WestExec Advisers.Biden transition team officials, congressional Democrats, and veterans of the process are hesitant to think about a worst-case scenario like a Senate blockade over multiple nominees. The Biden transition team has set a goal of meeting with every member of Congress, according to a Biden transition official. The team is also in the process of setting up meetings between nominees and senators, the official said, a sign that the incoming administration still hopes it can engineer some bipartisan support.“Over the course of just the last eight days, President-elect Biden has put forward a group of experienced and committed nominees who will rebuild our relationships in the world and build back our economy,” the Biden transition team spokesman, Sean Savett, said in a statement.He added: “The process of engaging with Democratic and Republican members and offices is already well under way and it will only pick up in the weeks ahead. While we fully expected disagreement with some members of the Senate, we have no doubt that the American people fully expect the consideration and confirmation of qualified nominees.”Phil Schiliro, the former White House director for legislative affairs during the Obama administration, said he expected the confirmation period for Biden’s nominees to be similar to past ones.“I don’t think it’ll be aberrational,” Schiliro said. “In part because we’ve just had an aberrational presidency where norms have been broken repeatedly, and I think there are Republican senators who have had a real problem with that whether they can articulate it or not is one thing. But there’s been a real norm where there comes to confirmations for the cabinet that’d be done expeditiously and professionally and I would expect that’s going to happen again.”The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, the highest-ranking Republican official in the chamber, for example, broke longtime precedent on supreme court nominees when he refrained from allowing a hearing on Barack Obama’s pick of Merrick Garland. More recently, he went back on his own logic for refraining from holding hearings on Garland when Republicans quickly moved Amy Coney Barrett through the Senate’s hearings.In other words, there’s precedent for McConnell and the current crop of Republican leadership to buck longstanding Senate traditions. It’s also normal for a few cabinet nominees to not make it through the confirmation process.Schiliro noted though that Biden has a “history of good relationships with the Senate even though the Senate has changed a lot. There’s still a fair amount of members he has good relations with and there’s goodwill and trust.” More