Politics Today Bulletin 27, 12/16/24

… Rep Victoria Spartz (R-IN) will refuse all Committee assignments and will not caucus with Republicans or attend any meetings with them. She said she will remain a Republican though. Curious. The Republicans only have a one seat voting majority before this with the Waltz and Gaetz seats vacant, and now this.

… Spartz issued the following statement: “I will stay as a registered Republican but will not sit on committees or participate in the caucus until I see that Republican leadership in Congress is governing. I do not need to be involved in circuses.”

… Adam Kinzinger says that when it comes to Spartz, don’t read too much into this: “She is just lazy and doesn’t want to do any work. I’m serious.”

… But Politico reports that some Republican members say that Spartz is pouting because she wanted on the Ways and Means Committee and didn’t get it. This would make sense since Spartz made this announcement right after the committee assignments were announced.

… The Congressional Joint Economic Committee published a report showing the effect of Trump’s mass deportations on the US economy. The report shows that 1.5 million workers in the construction industry, 225,000 from agriculture, 1 million from hospitality, 870,000 from manufacturing, and 461,000 from transportation would be subject to deportation.

… The report showed that 25% of all US construction workers are migrants with 282,000 job openings in construction remaining unfilled. The study also showed that deportation of 8 million migrants would result in a 7.4% reduction in US GDP over the next four years, which would be a severe recession right on the borderline of a depression.

… CNN is reporting that Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz is on the short list to be appointed by Trump as his FEMA Director. Before entering Congress, Moskowitz was the Director of Emergency Management for the state of Florida under Ron Desantis.

… If it happens, that would take a crucial vote away from Democrats in a closely divided House.

… Watch how slowly Ron Desantis moves to fill Moskowitz’s seat. He will leave that vacant as long as he possibly can so Dems will be one short for quite a while. Desantis won’t set a special election for many months. Expect him to get around to this a lot slower than he did to set the election to fill the Matt Gaetz’s seat. This will be vacant for many months at a time when every Democratic vote is critical.

… Just watch how much further out Desantis sets a special election to fill Moskowitz’s vacant seat than he did to the ones he set for Republicans Mike Waltz and Matt Gaetz.

… Democrats can also then lose the seat in that special election, which is in somewhat of a swing district.

… So if this happens, not great for Democrats politically to say the least. Although at least America will get a good FEMA Director, so there’s that.

… Laura Loomer: “I am deeply disturbed to learn that Democrat FL Rep Jared Moskowitz is being considered as a top contender to be Trump's FEMA director. Moskowitz has suggested that Trump was Hitler for having dinner with Nick Fuentes at Mar a Lago. He blamed Trump for what Moskowitz says was a rapid increase in anti-Semitic content on X. Earlier this year, Moskowitz also implied that Trump was a pedophile who pals around with Jeffrey Epstein when the Republicans were having a hearing on Hunter Biden’s laptop.”

… Lindsey Graham said that Pete Hegseth told him that he would release his sexual assault accuser from her NDA if Democrats want her to testify at his confirmation hearing. Call his bluff then.

… President Biden just taped an interview with MeidasTouch. Stay tuned, as we tried to ask him some different questions than the ones he usually gets.

… Trump advisor Alex Bruesewitz collapsed on stage during his speech last night to the New York Young Republicans Club at their big holiday gala. Indicted attorney and former Trump Asst. AG Jeff Clark gave an update later in the evening that he feinted again at the hospital and was undergoing a battery of tests.

… Trump reportedly called Alex to wish him well: “I know that Alex is going to be fine because he’s a tough son of gun. There’s no doubt about that. He’s a very special guy.”

… The anti-vax X account ‘Died Suddenly’, which baselessly speculates on all these incidents whenever a younger person passes out or dies, struggled to pin this one on the covid vaccine since 27-year old Alex is an anti-vaxxer. But they claim he was likely the victim of “vaccine shedding” where he probably got too close to someone who is vaccinated and their spike protein leapt onto Alex and infected him.

… The good news is that Kash Patel sells pills which are intended to reverse the effect of vaccine shedding.

… I assumed that Bruesewitz was going to be out of the hospital relatively quickly, but an update his situation tonight is that he is still in. Derek Utley: “I appreciate everyone’s calls and texts about my business partner. At this time, I don’t have any information to share or new updates.”

… Bruesewitz posted an update on X tonight thanking medical personnel and well-wishers. He did not comment on his condition or status.

… Steven Bannon was also at the event. He came out and said, “Yo, are you guys drunk enough already? There are more convicts and thugs here than in Danbury prison!” He is right about that. The NYYRC certainly has quite a collection of deplorables.

… Bannon also said that since the 22nd Amendment doesn’t include the word “consecutive” when it limits a president to serving just two terms, that Trump could be eligible to run for president again in 2028.

… This is the exact text of the Amendment: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” Seems pretty clear to me.

… To much fanfare, Trump announced today with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son looking on that SoftBank was going to invest $100 billion in the US because the Japanese investment firm had confidence in Trump. Except that the two of them both made exactly the same announcement after Trump won in 2016. And it never happened. The only difference between the two big announcements was that the one in 2016 was on December 6.

… Axios is reporting that Rep. Gerry Connolly beat out AOC on the Steering Committee vote for Democratic ranking member of the Oversight Committee. AOC is still reportedly going to ask the full caucus to vote for her despite the committee recommendation, per CNN.

… Some members had an issue with AOC’s penchant for supporting progressive primary challengers to centrist Democratic incumbents. According to Politico, she pledged to either stop doing that or to only do that in very rare cases.

… Trump said that he won’t play golf at his Bedminster course until the mystery drone situation is resolved: “The government knows what’s happening. Our military knows where they took off from. They know where it came from and where it went. Something strange is going on.”

… The NSC issued a statement today about all the mystery drone drama. John Kirby: “Having closely looked at the tips and collated them as best we can from concerned citizens, we assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed wing aircraft, helicopters and even stars that were mistakenly reported as drones. We have not identified anything anomalous or any national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in NJ or other states in the Northeast.”

… Ocean County NJ Sheriff Michael Mastonardy told Newsmax his agency has been investigating the drone claims by sending up drones of their own on scouting missions: “We have numerous calls. We have to try to deconflict and see which are legitimate calls. That’s what our drone program does.”

… There are multiple reports of aircraft on their final approach into the Newark Airport who say they are being hit by green lasers from the ground on Staten Island. Someone or a lot of people is going to get seriously hurt or killed if this foolishness continues.

… Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) says the government is covering up information about the mystery drones just like they did with the Chinese balloons: “This is really unacceptable. The DOD has the authority to shoot these things down. Nothing yet has happened, and you can’t figure out what these things are until you have them in your hands.”

… Charlie Kirk, Roseanne Barr, and other right-wingers say that the drones are part of Project Blue Beam, which is an old right wing conspiracy that globalists will use a faked alien invasion to impose a New World Order with a crackdown on civil liberties. Kirk posted this all-caps rant: “THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT INVESTIGATING. THEY ARE DOING THIS. WHATEVER YOU SEE IN THE COMING DAYS IS NOT GOD.”

… Punchbowl is reporting that House Intel Committee members are going to get a briefing on the drone situation tomorrow from various intelligence agencies.

… I have written in the past in this column that Trump plans to try and repeal the Impound Control Act of 1974, which comes straight from Project 2025. The Act requires the president and federal agencies to spend all the money allocated to them by Congress. It was passed in response to President Nixon “impounding” funds passed by Congress that he didn’t agree with. Trump’s budget director Ross Vought is a strong proponent of the repeal, as is Elon Musk.

… Now a bill has been introduced in the House by Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) to repeal the Act and it is backed by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) in the Senate. This would essentially allow Trump or any other president to unilaterally “cut” spending on a line-item basis by simply picking and choosing which funds they decide not to spend. The difference between Trump and Nixon is that Trump plans to redirect those funds elsewhere rather than return it to the Treasury or use it to pay down debt.

… Mike Lee also called for TSA to be abolished today. So they want to shoot down unidentified aircraft and abolish TSA. Make Air Travel Homicidal Again.

… People in Trump’s orbit have also suggested that he can just challenge the law and impound funds in the budget even if repeal fails to pass. Vivek Ramaswamy: “It is likely unconstitutional.”

… CNN’s Jim Acosta on the ABC settlement with Trump: "This is a time for our industry to stand firm and we're going to have a very important job to do. We're going to have a very important job to do, because Trump is not going to change his ways. You can't have the news industry worrying about this sort of stuff when they're just simply doing their jobs."

… Elon Musk says that Sen. Adam Schiff “is a criminal” and should be prosecuted by Trump’s DOJ. Alex Jones responded to Musk’s statement by saying that Schiff “should be the top target of the incoming Trump DOJ.” Not much difference politically between Musk and Jones these days.

… James Comer’s former star witness in the Hunter Biden investigation Alexander Smirnov pled guilty today in federal court to lying about a $5 million bribe that was supposedly paid by Burisma to Joe Biden in 2015. He made the allegations during the 2020 presidential election in June of that year, which was supposed to pair up with Rudy Giuliani’s “discovery” of the Hunter Biden laptop right before the election.