Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

Who Is Mike Roman? The Trump Indictee with Canadian Ties

Charged with US election crimes, Roman strategized with Scheer and helped Harper push a global right-wing agenda.

Yesterday, Trump gave his first press conference since the election. It was exactly what Trump’s public performances always are: attention-grabbing threats alongside lies and very little apparent understanding of actual issues. His mix of outrageous and threatening is central to his politics, though: it keeps him central to the media, even though, as Josh Marshall pointed out in Talking Points Memo on December 13, he often claims a right to do something he knows very little about and has no power to accomplish. The uncertainty he creates is key to his power, Marshall notes. It keeps everyone off balance and focused on him in anticipation of trouble to come.

At the same time, it seems increasingly clear that the wealthy leaders who backed Trump’s reelection are not terribly concerned about his threats: they seem to see him as a figurehead rather than a policy leader. They are counting on him to deliver more tax cuts and deregulation but apparently are dismissing his campaign vows to raise tariffs and deport immigrants as mere rhetoric.

As the promised tax cuts are already under discussion, interested parties are turning to deregulation. Susanne Rust and Ian James of the Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday that on December 5, more than a hundred industrial trade groups signed a 21-page letter to Trump complaining that “regulations are strangling our economy.” They urged him to gut Biden-era regulations and instead to “partner” with manufacturers to create “workable regulations that achieve important policy goals without imposing overly burdensome and impractical requirements on our sector.”

They single out reductions in air quality, water quality, chemical, vehicle, and power plant environmental regulations as important for their industries. They also call for ending the “regulatory overreach” of the Biden administration on labor rules, saying those rules “threaten the employer-employee relationship and harm manufacturers’ global competitiveness.” They want an end to “right-to-repair” laws, a loosening of the rules for how and when companies need to report cyber incidents, and the replacement of mandated consumer product safety rules with “voluntary standards.”

They also call for cuts to the Biden administration’s antitrust efforts and for looser corporate finance regulations. On December 12, Gina Heeb reported in the Wall Street Journal that Trump’s advisors are exploring ways “to dramatically shrink, consolidate or even eliminate the top bank watchdogs in Washington,” including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

As Catherine Rampell explained in the Washington Post today, Congress created the FDIC in 1933 to protect bank deposits so that a bank’s customers can trust that mismanaged banks won’t lose their money. The FDIC also oversees those banks so that they are less likely to get into trouble in the first place. Congress created the system after people rushing to get their money out before a collapse actually created the very collapse that they feared, with one bank failure creating another in a domino effect that dug the economy even further into the crisis it was in after the Great Crash.

But the insurance money for those banks comes from fees assessed on the banks themselves, so abolishing the FDIC would save the banks money.

When he learned that Trump’s advisors are eyeing cuts to the FDIC, Princeton history professor Kevin Kruse commented: “When I lecture about New Deal banking reforms, I note that some of the key measures—like Glass Steagall—were repealed by the right with disastrous results like the 2008 financial meltdown, but ha ha, no one will ever be stupid enough to kill FDIC and bring back the old bank runs.”

Ben Guggenheim of Politico was the first to report that twenty-nine Republican members of Congress are also quick off the blocks in getting into the act of promoting private industry, calling for the incoming president to end the program of the Internal Revenue Service that lets people file their taxes directly without using a private tax preparer. Other developed countries use a similar public system, but in the U.S., private tax preparers staunchly opposed the public system. When more than 140,000 people used the IRS pilot program this year, they saved an estimated $6.5 million. Republicans called for its end, warning it is “a threat to taxpayers’ freedom from government overreach.”

But for all their faith that Trump will deregulate the economy, economic leaders seem to think his other promises were just rhetoric.

Brian Schwartz of the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that business executives have been lobbying Trump to change his declared plans on tariffs. The president-elect has vowed to place tariffs of 25% on products from Canada and Mexico, and of an additional 10% on products from China. He claims to believe that other countries will pay these tariffs, but in fact U.S. consumers will pay them. That, plus the fact that other countries will almost certainly respond with their own tariffs against U.S. products, makes economists warn that Trump’s plans will hurt the economy with both inflation and trade wars.

Schwartz reported that some companies and some Republicans are hoping that Trump’s tariff threats are simply a bargaining tactic.

Trump supporters say something similar about his vow to deport 11 to 20 million undocumented immigrants, hoping he won’t actually go after long-term, hardworking undocumented people. On December 10, Jack Dolan reported in the Los Angeles Times that the resort town of Mammoth Lakes, California, depends on migrant labor, and on December 15, Eli Saslow and Erin Schaff of the New York Times reported the story of an undocumented worker brought to the U.S. as an infant, who is now trying to figure out his future after his beloved father-in-law voted for Trump. Two days ago, CNN reported on Trump-supporting dairy farmers in South Dakota who depend on undocumented workers, insisting that Trump will not round up undocumented immigrants, no matter what he says.

One person who is not discounting Trump’s threats is Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). McConnell will give up his leadership position in January and has told his colleagues he feels “liberated.”

McConnell appears to be taking a stand against Trump’s expected appointee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy speaks often against vaccines, and after the New York Times reported that the lawyer working with Kennedy to vet potential HHS staff petitioned federal regulators to take the polio vaccine off the market, McConnell—a polio survivor—warned: “Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed—they’re dangerous. Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts.”

McConnell has also been vocal about his opposition to Trump’s isolationism. He is a champion of sending military support to Ukraine and, after he steps down from the leadership, will chair the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, the subcommittee that controls military spending. “America’s national security interests face the gravest array of threats since the Second World War,” McConnell says. “At this critical moment, a new Senate Republican majority has a responsibility to secure the future of U.S. leadership and primacy.”

McConnell will also chair the Rules Committee, which gives him a chance to stop MAGA senators from trying to abandon the power of the Senate and permit Trump to get his way. McConnell has said that “[d]efending the Senate as an institution and protecting the right to political speech in our elections remain among my longest-standing priorities.”

That last sentence identifies the current struggle in the Republican Party. McConnell is showing his willingness to prevent Trump and MAGA Republicans from bulldozing their way through the Senate in order to undermine the departments of Justice, Defense, and Health and Human Services, among others. But when he talks about “protecting the right to political speech in our elections,” he is talking about protecting the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that permits corporations and wealthy individuals to flood our elections, and thus our political system, with money.

It is those corporations and wealthy individuals who are now lining up for tax cuts and deregulation, but who don’t want the tariffs or mass deportations or isolationism Trump’s “America First” MAGA base wants.

Trump and his team have been talking about their election win as a “mandate” and a “landslide,” but it was actually a razor thin victory with more voters choosing someone other than Trump than voting for him. He will need the support of establishment Republicans in the Senate to put his MAGA policies in place.

At yesterday's press conference, he appeared to be nodding to McConnell when he promised: “You’re not going to lose the polio vaccine. That’s not going to happen.” McConnell’s fierce use of power in the past suggests that the Senate’s giving up its constitutional power to bend to Trump’s will isn’t likely to happen, either.

Did someone suggest the polio vaccine should be discarded?

Yesterday, Representative Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) released an “Interim Report on the Failures and Politicization of the January 6th Select Committee.” As the title suggests, the report seeks to rewrite what happened on January 6, 2021, when rioters encouraged by former president Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol. Loudermilk chairs a subcommittee on oversight that sits within the Committee on House Administration. The larger committee—House Administration—oversees the daily operations of the House of Representatives, including the Capitol Police. Under that charge, former House speaker Kevin McCarthy permitted MAGA Republicans to investigate security failures at the Capitol on January 6.

Loudermilk was himself involved in the story of that day after video turned up of him giving a tour of the Capitol on January 5 despite its being closed because of Covid. During his tour, participants took photos of things that are not usually of interest to visitors: stairwells, for example. Since then, he has been eager to turn the tables against those investigating the events of January 6.

Loudermilk turned the committee’s investigation of security failures into an attack on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, more commonly known as the January 6th Committee. Yesterday’s report singled out former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who has taken a strong stand against Trump’s fitness for office after his behavior that day, as the primary villain of the select committee. In his press release concerning the interim report, Loudermilk said that Cheney “should be investigated for potential criminal witness tampering,” and the report itself claimed that “numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney” and that the FBI should investigate that alleged criminality.

The report seeks to exonerate Trump and those who participated in the events of January 6 while demonizing those who are standing against him, rewriting the reality of what happened on January 6 with a version that portrays Trump as a persecuted victim.

Trump’s team picked up the story and turned it even darker. At 2:11 this morning, Trump’s social media account posted: “Liz Cheney could be in a lot of trouble based on the evidence obtained by the subcommittee, which states that ‘numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney, and these violations should be investigated by the FBI.’ Thank you to Congressman Barry Loudermilk on a job well done.”

To this, conservative writer David Frum responded: “After his successful consolidation of power, the Leader prepares show trials for those who resisted his failed first [violent attempt to overthrow the government].”

Liz Cheney also responded. “January 6th showed Donald Trump for who [he] really is—a cruel and vindictive man who allowed violent attacks to continue against our Capitol and law enforcement officers while he watched television and refused for hours to instruct his supporters to stand down and leave.” She pointed out that the January 6th committee’s report was based on evidence that came primarily from Republican witnesses, “including many of the most senior officials from Trump’s own White House, campaign and Administration,” and that the Department of Justice reached the similar conclusions after its own investigation.

Loudermilk’s report “intentionally disregards the truth and the Select Committee’s tremendous weight of evidence, and instead fabricates lies and defamatory allegations in an attempt to cover up what Donald Trump did,” Cheney wrote. “Their allegations do not reflect a review of the actual evidence, and are a malicious and cowardly assault on the truth. No reputable lawyer, legislator or judge would take this seriously.”

CNN aired clips today of Republican lawmakers blaming Trump for the events of January 6.

Last night, Trump also filed a civil lawsuit against pollster J. Ann Selzer, her polling company, the Des Moines Register, and its parent company Gannett over Selzer’s November 2 poll showing Harris in the lead for the election. Calling it “brazen election interference,” the suit alleges that the poll violated the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act. Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told Brian Stelter, Katelyn Polantz, Hadas Gold, and Paula Reid of CNN: “This absurd lawsuit is a direct assault on the First Amendment. Newspapers and polling firms are not engaged in ‘deceptive practices’ just because they publish stories and poll results President-elect Donald Trump doesn’t like. Getting a poll wrong is not election interference or fraud.”

Conservative former representative Joe Walsh (R-IL) wrote: “Trump is suing a pollster and calling for an investigation of [Liz Cheney]. Don’t you dare tell me he’s not an authoritarian. And don’t you dare look the other way. Donald Trump is un-American. The resistance to him from Americans must be steadfast & fierce.”

This afternoon, Trump’s authoritarian aspirations smashed against reality.

The determination of the MAGA extremists in the House to put poison pills in appropriations measures over the past year meant that the Republicans have been unable to pass the necessary appropriations bills for 2024 (not a typo), forcing the government to operate with continuing resolutions. On September 25, Congress passed a continuing resolution that would fund the government through December 20, this Friday. Without funding, the government will begin to shut down…right before the holidays.

At the same time, a farm bill, which Congress usually passes every five years and which outlines the country’s agriculture and food policies including supplemental nutrition (formerly known as food stamps), expired in 2023 and has been continued through temporary extensions.

Last night, news broke that congressional leaders had struck a bipartisan deal to keep the government from shutting down. The proposed 1,500-page measure extended the farm bill for a year and provided about $100 billion in disaster relief as well as about $10 billion in assistance for farmers. It also raised congressional salaries and kicked the government funding deadline through March 14. It seemed like a last-minute reprieve from a holiday government shutdown.

But MAGA Republicans immediately opposed the measure. “It’s a total dumpster fire. I think it’s garbage,” said Representative Eric Burlison (R-MO). They are talking publicly about ditching Johnson and voting for someone else for House speaker.

Trump’s sidekick Elon Musk also opposed the bill. Chad Pergram of the Fox News Channel reported that House speaker Mike Johnson explained on the Fox News Channel that he is on a text chain with Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, both of whom are unelected appointees to Trump’s proposed “Department of Government Efficiency” charged with cutting the U.S. budget.

Johnson said he explained to Musk that the measure would need Democratic votes to pass, and then they could bring Trump in roaring back with the America First agenda. Apparently, Musk was unconvinced: shortly after noon, he posted, “Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!” Later, he added: “No bills should be passed Congress [sic] until Jan 20, when [Trump] takes office.”

This blueprint would shut down the United States government for a month, but Musk—who, again, does not answer to any constituents—seems untroubled. ″‘Shutting down’ the government (which doesn’t actually shut down critical functions btw) is infinitely better than passing a horrible bill,” he tweeted.

Pergram reported that Musk’s threats sent Republicans scrambling, and Musk tweeted: “Your elected representatives have heard you and now the terrible bill is dead. The voice of the people has triumphed! VOX POPULI VOX DEI.”

But Trump and Vice President–elect J.D. Vance seem to recognize that shutting down the government before the holidays is likely to be unpopular. They issued their own statement against the measure, calling instead for “a streamlined bill that doesn’t give Chuck Schumer and the Democrats everything they want.”

Then Trump and Vance went on to bring up something not currently on the table: the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling is a holdover from World War I, when Congress stopped trying to micromanage the Treasury and instead simply gave it a ceiling for borrowing money. In the last decades, Congress has appropriated more money than the country brings in, thus banging up against the debt ceiling. If it is not raised, the United States will default on its debt, and so Congress routinely raises the ceiling…as long as a Republican president is in office. If a Democrat is in office, Republicans fight bitterly against what they say is profligate spending.

The debt ceiling is not currently an issue, but Trump and Vance made it central to their statement, perhaps hoping people would confuse the appropriations bill with the debt ceiling. ”Increasing the debt ceiling is not great but we’d rather do it on Biden’s watch. If Democrats won’t cooperate on the debt ceiling now”—again, it is the Republicans who threaten to force the country into default—“what makes anyone think they would do it in June during our administration. Let’s have this debate now.”

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) explained: “Remember what this is all about: Trump wants Democrats to agree to raise the debt ceiling so he can pass his massive corporate and billionaire tax cut without a problem. Shorter version: tax cut for billionaires or the government shuts down for Christmas.”

President and Dr. Biden are in Delaware today, honoring the memory of Biden’s first wife, Neilia, and his one-year-old daughter Naomi, who were killed in a car accident 52 years ago today, but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a statement saying:

“Republicans need to stop playing politics with this bipartisan agreement or they will hurt hardworking Americans and create instability across the country. President-elect Trump and Vice President–elect Vance ordered Republicans to shut down the government and they are threatening to do just that—while undermining communities recovering from disasters, farmers and ranchers, and community health centers. Triggering a damaging government shutdown would hurt families who are gathering to meet with their loved ones and endanger the basic services Americans from veterans to Social Security recipients rely on. A deal is a deal. Republicans should keep their word.”

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo pointed out the relationship between Trump’s authoritarianism and today’s chaos on Capitol Hill. Trump elevated Musk to the center of power, Marshall observes, and now is following in his wake. Musk, Marshall writes, “is erratic, volatile, impulsive, mercurial,” and he “introduces a huge source of unpredictability and chaos into the presidency that for once Trump doesn’t control.”

Ron Filipkowski of MeidasNews captured the day’s jockeying among Trump’s budding authoritarians and warring Republican factions over whether elected officials should fund the United States government. He posted: “The owner of a car company is controlling the House of Representatives from a social media app.”

The drone panic isn't just about drones...

I’m old enough to remember the satanic panic of the 1980s, when a remarkable number of people believed that there was widespread ritual abuse of children in American day care.

Lash wrote:
Did someone suggest the polio vaccine should be discarded?

“The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress,” Paul posted on X. “Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk … think about it … nothing’s impossible.”

A group of Senate conservatives led by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) are demanding Social Security reforms ... Paul says the bill, which has 13 Senate Republican co-sponsors, would lead Social Security to become insolvent more quickly.

“It speeds the bankruptcy of Social Security. Social Security is due to go bankrupt in 2034. This will speed it up by a year or so. It’s $200 billion added to a program that is already short of money,”

The real difficulty is with the vast wealth and power in the hands of the few and the unscrupulous who represent or control capital. Hundreds of laws of Congress and the state legislatures are in the interest of these men and against the interests of workingmen. These need to be exposed and repealed. All laws on corporations, on taxation, on trusts, wills, descent, and the like, need examination and extensive change. This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations. — How is this?