Trouble Home, Abroad

On Thursday, House far-right extremists said that Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson will renege on the topline funding agreement; Friday, Johnson said he won’t. Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) and his allies also want the GOP 2017 tax agreements to continue at a cost of $4 trillion. President Joe Biden wants tax increases for the wealthy and corporations to raise another $2 trillion. That’s $6 trillion the self-identified anti-spenders want to add to the deficit. The IRS funding boost that the GOP wants to eliminate collected almost $500 million since 2022. That’s another one-half a billion dollars added to the deficit if Republicans get their way.

“Less legislating, more Hunter Biden porn.” That’s Dana Milbank’s description of the current GOP approach in the House. While books falsely accused of being only about sex are banned for youth, C-SPAN watchers get a good view of the pornography—photos of a naked Hunter Biden—that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has put into the Congressional Record twice with the approval of 21 Republicans in the hearings. The Senate claims it wants decorum by forcing male members to wear suits on the chamber floor, but House Republicans shout about “balls” and other insults. Another threatens to engage a witness to a physical fight during a hearing.

Democrats have introduced a bill to curtail militias’ deadly training to overturn the government. Gun rights organizations and anti-government groups argue that the Secon Amendment protects paramilitary activity because of “a well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.” Constitutional experts, however, disagreed after the 2017 violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville (VA), stating that all 50 states have laws, rarely enforced, against that paramilitary activity. A team with Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, led by former acting assistant AG Mary McCord in the DOJ national security division, also found that the historical context of “militia” did not mean a private paramilitary group that was answerable only to themselves but an armed group that predated the National Guard. First established in the colonies during the 1600s, these groups were deployed by the governor.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) opposes a bipartisan bill   by Ohio senators Sherrod Brown (D) and J.D. Vance (R) introduced after the East Palestine (OH) disaster dumping chemicals from a 150-car freight train. The wealthy freight rail industry is also fighting a bill for mandatory safety procedures for trains carrying hazardous materials.

The media has discovered audio of plans by the treasurer of the National Rifle Association to cover up luxury expenses involving now-resigned CEO Wayne LaPierre in connection with NRA’s longtime public relations firm. The information starts in 2009. Ten years later, New York AG Letitia James began her investigation into the NRA and sued the organization in 2020. James’ office was not aware of the audio until The Trace and ProPublica contacted it.

Monday, Iowa will hold its presidential candidate caucus, the first decision in the nation for the final 2024 candidates. Although far behind DDT, Nikki Haley has pulled ahead of Ron DeSantis. DDT – 54 percent; Haley – 20 percent, and DeSantis – 13 percent. Vivek Ramaswamy, still in the race, has 6 percent.

White-out Iowa weather conditions, which could drop the temperatures to as low as 45 degrees below zero, is causing GOP presidential candidates to cancel their events or move them to tele-town halls. Haley has changed three events to online in which caucusgoers can ask questions, and DeSantis postponed four events on Friday. DDT has voluntarily spent his time in courtrooms.

While DeSantis was on the campaign trail, he lost another court case, this one for suspending a progressive state prosecutor for political gain. A three-judge panel of the 11^th Circuit Court overturned a lower ruling, determining the DeSantis violated First Amendment protections. DeSantis had accused the elected official of not prosecuting the culture wars that DeSantis opposes but didn’t cite any specific cases. He said his action was taken for “public safety” although GOP lawyers couldn’t find any justification.

A GOP lawmaker introduced a bill to make accusations of racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia considered defamation in Florida. With this bill, those sued in a defamation lawsuit would find it impossible to defend themselves because they couldn’t cite a plaintiff’s constitutionally protected religious expression or beliefs … [or] scientific beliefs.” The law covers all statements in print, on TV, and online and does away with the journalistic privilege to keep sources anonymous when defending themselves. The bill creates “a presumption that a statement by an anonymous source is presumptively false.” A similar bill died last year in the Judiciary Committee.

Escambia County (FL) is facing a lawsuit for banning books but haven’t stopped removing them from the shelves. In December, schools pulled five dictionaries from the shelves for sexual content among 1,600 titles chosen for review. Also being evaluated are eight encyclopedias and other reference materials such as The Guinness Book of World Records and Ripley’s Believe it or Not. A DDT-appointed district judge ruled that books cannot be pulled under the First Amendment because officials are removing books based on ideological concerns. Over 40 percent of book bans in the U.S. during the 2022-23 school year came from Florida schools. Of the 2800 books that have been shelved in the district, only 67 have been reviewed. The staff was told to use Book Looks, a website of book titles with content that the owner finds objectionable. A member of the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Moms for Liberty founded the website.

Florida’s Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, chosen party for his anti-vaccination belief during the Covid epidemic, has blocked the mRNA Covid boosters as cases and hospitalization surge. Ladapo has joined DeSantis on his campaigning, currently in Iowa where voters will select their GOP presidential candidate in a week. Last year, Ladapo was investigated for scientific fraud, allegedly accused of falsifying vaccine safety data. As Covid wound down last year, Florida had 8,000 deaths.

Nikki Haley’s past is also catching up with her. Despite multiple crashes from alleged carelessness, she opposed disclosure of Boeing’s spending to influence politicians and safety regulators. Haley served on Boeing’s board in 2020 and helped kill an initiative to mandate more transparency for this spending. In the same year, Boeing lobbied the FAA on approving planes to fly; the agency lifted its founding order of the 737 fleet in effect since the plane crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people. Boeing spent $153 million for lobbying from 2010 to 2018 along with $10.6 million in 2023’s first three quarters. Haley voted against transparency despite a report from one of the world’s largest institutional investment advisers on shareholder resolutions supporting this transparency. Since 2015, Boeing shareholders proposed mandates on lobbying disclosures. Existing law does not mandate companies reveal the source of their lobbying.

Joining the Boeing board in 2020, Haley sat on the audit committee that oversaw the company’s risk management along with compliance with laws and company policy. Boeing’s subcontractor, including the one manufacturing the door plug recently falling off the Boeing 737 Max 9, also significantly donated to lawmakers and lobbyists. Before Haley joined the board, she helped Boeing break a union drive at a South Carolina plant.  

Three white Christian Nationalists on CrossTalk, an online program, promoted beating up children of gay parents and endorsed school children as moral referees to safeguard Christian values on the playground. Children with lisps “need to go back into the closet,” according to the trio. Right-wing conspiracy theorists Edward Szall and Lauren Witzke were joined by antisemitic and self-declared fascist Vincent James, treasurer for white nationalist Nick Fuentes’ America First organization.

The U.S and UK have launched strikes against Yemen’s Houthis for their 27 attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea although U.S. officials have continually said President Joe Biden didn’t want Israel’s war in Gaza to cause a wider conflict in the Middle East. Iran-aligned Houthis control large parts of Yemen including the western coast overlooking the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which leads to the Red Sea. Shortly after the Israeli war began on October 7, the Houthis began firing missiles at Israel and attacking the ships. About 12 percent of global oil trade transits through the Red Sea, eight percent of grain and liquified natural gas, and other commodities were shipped through the red sea as over 2,000 ships diverted their course to avoid the Red Sea, causing delays in international shipping for consumers. Containers through the Red Sea fell by 60 percent last month and global trade by 1.3 percent in December.

In December, the U.S. led a coalition of UK, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands to counter the Houthi attacks, sinking three Houthi boats and killing ten fighters. Since the Israeli war began, Biden has given Isael military support with no restrictions for their use. The U.S. also blocks UN resolutions urging a ceasefire and refused a case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide.

On Friday, a U.S. airstrike targeted a Houthi radar site in direct response to the launch earlier of an anti-ship fired at a ship in the Gulf of Aden. Iran said the attack will not go unchallenged, indicating continued Houthis’ strikes, and has fed the Houthis with intelligence about shipping movements in the Red Sea along with providing weapons for the attacks. Costing millions of dollars, ships typically using the Suez Canal will need to change their route around the Cape of Good Hope on the southern tip of Africa.