December 5, 2022

CALENDAR:
The House and Senate will both return Monday and stay in session through Thursday.

LAST WEEK IN THE HOUSE:

The House returned on Tuesday and took up three bills under Suspension of the Rules. Two of
them passed, but one of them failed.

On Wednesday, the House took up and passed a Rule. Then the House took up two resolutions
dealing with a potential rail strike. The first one, H.J.Res. 100, codified the terms of the
agreement worked out by the Biden Administration. The second one changed a provision
regarding paid sick leave, extending the terms of the original agreement from one day of paid
sick leave to seven. Both resolutions passed.

On Thursday, the House took up H.R. 3372, the One Stop Shop Community Reentry Program Act
of 2022. The bill passed by a vote of 259-167. The, by a vote of 324-90, the House took up and
passed H.R. 6878, the Pregnant Women in Custody Act. Then the House took a series of votes on
bills under Suspension of the Rules, all of which passed.

And then they were done.

THIS WEEK IN THE HOUSE:

The House will return Monday, but no votes are expected. Instead, members have been advised
that the first votes of the week could occur as early as 9:30 AM Tuesday. At that time, the House
is scheduled to take up 13 bills under Suspension of the Rules.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will take up the Senate amendment to H.R. 8404, the
so-called “Respect for Marriage” Act. That bill passed the House earlier in the year, but has to be
voted on again because the Senate amended it.
The House will also consider H.R. 3648, the EAGLE Act of 2022, and H.R. 7946, the Veteran
Service Recognition Act of 2022.

Additional legislative items are possible, most likely including the National Defense Authorization
Act.

LAST WEEK IN THE SENATE:

The Senate came back to work on Monday, and agreed to invoke cloture on the amended
version of H.R. 8404, the so-called “Respect for Marriage” Act, a bill that would codify the
Supreme Court’s ruling in the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling regarding same-sex marriage. The
vote for cloture was 61-35, with the same 12 Republicans voting to advance protections for
same-sex marriage as had voted that way before the Thanksgiving break.

On Tuesday, the Senate took up three Republican amendments to the bill. All failed. Then the
Senate voted to pass the bill, by a vote of 61-36, with the same 12 Republicans crossing party
lines.

On Wednesday, the Senate voted to invoke cloture on, and then to confirm, the nominations of
Camille L. Velez-Rive to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Puerto Rico and Anne M.
Nardacci to be U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of New York. Then the Senate vote to
confirm Robert Phillip Storch to be Inspector General of the Department of Defense.

On Thursday, the Senate voted to invoke cloture on the nomination of Jerry W. Blackwell to be
U.S. District Judge for the District of Minnesota. Then the Senate voted to invoke cloture on the
nomination of Doris L. Pryor to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Then the Senate turned to the railway strike resolution that had passed the House the day
before. First it considered an amendment offered by Alaska Republican Dan Sullivan to institute a
60-day cooling off period that would delay a strike. That amendment was defeated by a vote of
25-70. Then came a vote on a concurrent resolution that would have amended the resolution to
include seven days of paid sick leave. That resolution fell short as well. Then the Senate voted by
80-15 to pass the resolution that had passed the House, and send it to the president, to avert
the rail strike.

And then they were done.

THIS WEEK IN THE SENATE:

The Senate will come back on Monday, with the first vote set for 5:30 PM. At that time, the
Senate will proceed to a roll call vote on confirmation of Doris L. Pryor to be a Circuit Judge of
the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Then, based on the Majority Leader’s cloture filings, I anticipate we’ll see action on the following:

• Frances Kay Behm to be a U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan
 • Kelley Brisbon Hodge to be a U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
• Mia Roberts Perez to be a U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
• Kai N. Scott to be a U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
• John Frank Murphy to be a U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

SAME SEX MARRIAGE CODIFIED:

What’s troubling about the passage of the so-called “Respect for Marriage” Act is that this bill
isn’t really about same-sex marriage, it’s about religious liberty. The legislation that passed the
Senate and then passed the House creates a private cause of action that would allow an
individual citizen to file a lawsuit against a private institution that holds to the sincerely held
religious belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah
offered an amendment to make clear that no one could use this legislation to retaliate against
those who hold such views, but his amendment was defeated. Every senator who voted against
the Lee amendment made a deliberate choice to make vulnerable people and institutions that
hold to traditional views of marriage.

NDAA AND THE VACCINE MANDATE:

At a press conference Wednesday afternoon, 20 Senate Republicans threatened to block the
National Defense Authorization Act from final passage unless Congress first agreed to remove
the military COVID-19 vaccine mandate and to reinstate with pay all those service members who
had been fired under that policy.

According to Pentagon data, about 3,300 Marines, 1,800 soldiers, 1,800 sailors, and 900 airmen
have been dismissed for refusing to be vaccinated.

Appearing on FOX News “Sunday Morning Futures” yesterday morning, House Republican leader
Kevin McCarthy claimed that he had worked out an arrangement with President Biden. “We will
secure lifting that vaccine mandate on our military,” he said. “What we’re finding out is they’re
kicking out men and women who are serving.” Asked if the vaccine mandate would be removed
in the NDAA, he replied, “Yes, it will. Otherwise the bill will not move.”

The bill could hit the House floor as early as Tuesday.

BIDEN’S STUDENT LOAN DEBT PAYOFF SCAM:

On Thursday, the Supreme Court announced it would decide whether the Biden Administration
has the legal authority to wipe out hundreds of billions of dollars of student loan debt. The
justices declared they would hear arguments in February in the case of the six states suing the
Biden Administration over lost revenues, which seems to be the case with the best chance of
success. The justices left in place a nationwide injunction that blocks the program.

The announcement by the Supreme Court followed by nine days an announcement from the
Biden Administration that Biden would extend the pause on federal student loan repayments
that’s been in place since March of 2020. The extension is the sixth extension put in place under
Biden. Prior to his announcements extending the debt repayment pause, repayments had been
scheduled to resume on January 1.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released an analysis showing that changing the
date of the resumption of loan repayments from January 1 to September 1 – that is, 60 days
after litigation is ended – would cost $40 billion. “That would bring the total cost of the student
loan debt pause to $195 billion; continuing to extend the pause through the end of 2024 would
increase the total cost of the pause to $275 billion,” said CRFB. “Every month the pause is
extended costs the federal government $5 billion, due mainly to lost interest collection.”

GOVERNMENT FUNDING:
Last Tuesday, President Biden hosted the four congressional party leaders at the White House to
discuss government funding. Emerging from the meeting, Senate Republican leader Mitch
McConnell allowed as how the five agreed that they would prefer to do a full-year omnibus bill
rather than a Continuing Resolution. But, he said, there were still hitches in play.

The biggest hitch is this – for the last several years, Democrats have insisted on what they call
“parity” between the amounts appropriated for defense and non-defense discretionary
spending. Republicans very much want to increase the amount allocated by the Biden budget for
defense spending, because they are very concerned about Russia in Ukraine and China and
Taiwan and Iran and Israel and Saudi Arabia. Democrats, as ever, are happy to spend more
money, because Democrats are happy to spend more money, even if it’s on defense. But they
want to increase nondefense spending by similar amounts as the price for their support for an
increase in defense spending.

Republicans counter that the Democrats have been on a spending binge already in this Congress
– that, between the $1.9 trillion spring 2021 spending bill, and the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill,
and the $280 billion CHIPS bill, and the $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act, there’s more than
enough domestic spending going on already, and Democrats don’t need to plus up the year-end
spending bill.

Democrats aren’t convinced, and haven’t yet rolled over.

The current Continuing Resolution expires on December 16, which is one week from this coming
Friday.

ELECTION RESULTS:
Barring a reversal in the CO-03 contest, which is headed to an automatic recount because of the
meager margin of victory, the balance of power in the House of Representatives in the 118 th
Congress will be 222 Republicans to 213 Democrats, the mirror image of what it is today. That
will give the GOP Speaker a five-vote margin – he or she will be able to lose just four votes if all
members are voting.
HOUSE GOP RULES:
Members of the House Republican Conference for the 118th Congress met last Wednesday to
continue their consideration of proposed changes to their internal Republican Conference rules.

The conference passed by voice vote a proposal by Texas Republican Chip Roy to require the
leadership to give five days’ notice to any bills being considered under Suspension of the Rules.
The conference also passed another proposal from Congressman Roy that would require the
Rules Committee to consider any amendment that has the support of 20 percent of the
conference. Both proposals had been watered down a bit from their original language.

Most of the House Freedom Caucus’ proposed rules changes were defeated. For instance,
California Congressman Tom McClintock’s motion to ban earmarks went down by a vote of 158-
58-1. A proposal to have the selection of committee chairs moved from the Steering Committee,
where the power now lies, to the members of the individual committees themselves was
defeated. So was a House Freedom Caucus proposal to require appropriations bills to be
considered one at a time, rather than be thrown together into one huge bill we call an
“omnibus.”

THE TWITTER FILES:

On Friday evening, Chief Twit Elon Musk began releasing internal company documents revealing
what was happening behind the scenes during the hectic days at the close of the 2020
presidential campaign, when Twitter led social media giants in blocking circulation of the New
York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story. He did so via a lengthy Twitter thread from independent
journalist Matt Taibbi, who documented the backstory in a long Tweet thread.

The documents showed that Twitter was responsive to pressure from outside actors seeking to
manipulate speech. “By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine,”
wrote Taibbi. “One executive would write to another: ‘More to review from the Biden team.’ The
reply would come back: ‘Handled.’”

Taibbi said those requests would come from actors in both political parties. He said the
documents showed that Twitter executives honored requests from the Trump White House as
well as the Biden campaign: “Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020,
requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and
honored. However … this system wasn’t balanced,” Taibbi wrote. “It was based on contacts.
Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there
were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right.”

Included is a truly telling exchange between a senior Twitter executive and a Democrat
Congressman who emerges as more of a champion of free speech than were the people running
an organization built to encourage faster and wider dissemination of ideas and information. As
Taibbi writes, “A fundamental problem with tech companies and content moderation: many
people in charge of speech know/care little about speech, and have to be told the basics by
outsiders.” He then shows an exchange between former Twitter head of legal, policy and trust
Vijaya Gadde and California Democrat Ro Khanna, who had reached out to Gadde expressing
concerns over the First Amendment problems Twitter had just stepped in. Gadde didn’t
understand, and thought the congressman was wondering about the details of Twitter content
moderation policy, so he explained them. Khanna responded, “But this seems a violation of the
1st Amendment principles. If there is a hack of classified information or other information that
could expose a serious war crime and the NYT was to publish it, I think the NYT should have that
right. A journalist should not be held accountable for the illegal actions of the source unless they
actively aided the hack. So to restrict the distribution of that material, especially regarding a
Presidential candidate, seems not in the keeping of the principles of NYT v Sullivan. I say this as a
total Biden partisan and convinced he didn’t do anything wrong. But the story now has become
more about censorship than relatively innocuous emails and it’s become a bigger deal than it
would have been. It also is now leading to serious efforts to curtail section 230 – many of which
would have been a mistake … in the heat of a Presidential campaign, restricting dissemination of
newspaper articles (even if NY Post is far right) seems like it will invite more backlash than it will
do good.”

Two things are missing from the documents – there is no smoking gun showing that Twitter
pulled the Hunter Biden laptop story under pressure from the government, and there is no order
from then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. In fact, it appears Dorsey wasn’t involved in any of the initial
discussions.

Former President Trump responded with multiple posts on his social media platform, Truth
Social.

“Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of the 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL
WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows
for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.
Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections.”

Many people, of course, disagree, and believe nothing allows for the termination of the rules,
regulations, and articles found in the Constitution President Trump swore to preserve, protect,
and defend.

NEW YORK’S ATTACK ON THE FIRST AMENDMENT:

That disturbance you felt in The Force yesterday was a new law going into effect in New York.
Bloomberg describes the law as “prohibiting hate speech on social media,” which just goes to
show how poorly the Bloomberg copy editor understands the concept of free speech. The new
law requires the proprietor of any social media network, including a web site that allows
comments, to publish a plan for responding to so-called “hate speech” by users. The law requires
the proprietor to give users a way to complain, and requires the proprietor to respond to
comments.

The good news is that on Thursday, the legal affairs blog the Volokh Conspiracy and the video
site Rumble Inc. filed a federal lawsuit against New York State Attorney General Letitia James,
seeking to block the law from going into effect.
TRUMP NEWS:
On the Tuesday evening before Thanksgiving, President Trump had dinner at Mar-a-Lago with
billionaire rap mogul and Hitler fan Ye, who formerly went by the name Kanye West, and two
other guests – white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, and former Breitbart
provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. Yiannopoulos later told NBC News “I wanted to show Trump the
kind of talent that he’s missing out on by allowing his terrible handlers to dictate who he can and
cannot hang out with. I also wanted to send a message to Trump that he has systematically
repeatedly neglected, ignored, abused the people who love him the most, the people who put
him in office, and that kind of behavior comes back to bite you in the end.” And, he said, he
arranged the dinner “just to make Trump’s life miserable” because news of the dinner would
leak – that is, Yiannopoulis would leak it himself if need be.

Nine days later, after more than a week of commentary, Ye compounded Trump’s difficulties by
going on Alex Jones’ Infowars show. Jones tried to help Ye out of his troubles with a softball
opener: “You’re not Hitler, you’re not a Nazi, you don’t deserve to be called that and
demonized,” said Jones. Ye responded, “Well, I see good things about Hitler also. I love
everyone.” Then he added, “Every human being has something of value that they brought to the
table, especially Hitler.” And as the show was going to a commercial break, the host told Ye he
had a “Hitler fetish,” to which Ye replied, “I like Hitler.”

In unrelated news, also on Thursday, the Treasury Department’s Inspector General said in a
report that highly invasive audits of Trump foes former FBI Director James Comey in 2017 and
former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe in 2019 were not the result of any improper
influence at the top of the IRS and, by implication, also not the result of any order from the
president in place at the time, President Trump. In fact, despite the seemingly impossible odds of
two former FBI opponents of Trump being targeted for these incredibly rare audits – so intrusive
that tax professionals refer to them as autopsies without the benefit of death – they were,
nevertheless, just coincidental.

2024:

On Thursday, President Biden released a letter to members of the Democratic National

Committee urging them to change the party’s presidential nominating process by rejiggering the
calendar to remove Iowa from its first-in-the-nation status and replace it with South Carolina,
and also to end the use of caucuses in the delegate selection process. On Friday, the DNC’s Rules
and Bylaws Subcommittee voted to do just that.

Under the calendar proposed by Biden, South Carolina would hold its primary election on
Saturday, February 3, 2024. New Hampshire and Nevada would hold their primary contests three
days later, on Tuesday, February 6. Georgia would vote the following week, on Tuesday,
February 13, and then Michigan would go two weeks later, on Tuesday, February 27.
Democrats outside Iowa and New Hampshire have been complaining about the exalted status
given these two states in the presidential nominating process for decades. Both states are
overwhelmingly white, while the Democrat electorate is not. Both states are overwhelmingly
rural, while the Democratic electorate is urban and suburban. Plus, both states are very, very
cold in the middle of winter, when the nominating process formally starts, which means activists
and campaign volunteers have to door knock in freezing temperatures. And other than various
forms of fried food, there’s no good local cuisine, so visiting reporters don’t get much benefit
from the obligatory reporting trip.

Consequently, Iowa is done. But New Hampshire is not.

Iowa is done because Iowa Democrats really screwed up in 2020, with a buggy software app that
couldn’t give them the results of their caucus in a timely fashion. Plus, as champions of the New
Hampshire primary will tell you, Iowa picks corn, New Hampshire picks presidents – and that’s
true: Since Jimmy Carter came in second place to “uncommitted” in the 1976 Iowa Democrat
caucuses and then went on to win the nomination and then the presidency, only one Republican
and one Democrat – George W. Bush in 2000 and Barack Obama in 2008 – have won the Iowa
caucuses and then gone on to win the presidency. But most importantly, Iowa is done because in
2020, Biden finished in fourth place there.

New Hampshire, on the other hand, is not done because it’s New Hampshire, and New
Hampshire has been hosting the first-in-the-nation primary contest since 1952. There’s a state
law in New Hampshire that requires state officials to move the primary election date to
whatever date is necessary to ensure that the New Hampshire primary is held at least a week
before any similar contest, and state officials have made clear in previous cycles that they would
be willing to hold their primary on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving of the year before the
election if that’s what they decided was necessary to protect their first-in-the-nation status.

Georgia may not be able to move up in the calendar, because that would require action by the
governor and the state legislature, and in Georgia, they are all Republicans. Nevada just elected a
Republican governor, and he may not want to play ball, either.

Stay tuned. This one still has to play out.

SUGGESTED READING
JENNY BETH MARTIN/TEA PARTY PATRIOTS:
JENNY BETH MARTIN: Here’s How the GOP Could Change House Rules To Achieve Victories For
Conservatives

Outside The Beltway with John Fredericks - GUEST: Jenny Beth Martin
SAME SEX MARRIAGE CODIFIED:
Sen. Mike Lee: Respect for Marriage Act: Why religious liberty deserves protection and my
amendment will provide it

Senate Passes Same-Sex Marriage Bill

Senate passes landmark bill protecting same-sex marriage

United States Senate Passes Radical Respect for Marriage Act

Senate passes same-sex marriage bill with bipartisan support

The GOP's same-sex marriage evolution: A slow, choppy tidal shift

12 Senate Republicans join Democrats in passing pro-gay marriage bill

Respect for Marriage Act: Why religious liberty deserves protection and my amendment will
provide it

NDAA AND THE VACCINE MANDATE:

GOP senators threaten to block NDAA over COVID-19 vaccine mandate

Congress eyes end to military coronavirus vaccine mandate

BIDEN’S STUDENT LOAN DEBT SCAM:

Supreme Court agrees to decide fate of Biden's student debt relief

Supreme Court to hear student debt forgiveness case

White House extends pause on student loan payments

Group finds Biden's student loan deferment will cost $40 billion to taxpayers

GOVERNMENT FUNDING:
Senate GOP battles over spending strategy

White House Knocks Thune’s Bid to Tie Debt Limit to Entitlements

Congress inches toward year-end government funding deal

Senate conservatives press McConnell to punt on omnibus

GOP Senators Say They Will Block Military Funding Unless Vaccine Mandate Scrapped

GOP says Inflation Reduction Act should be factored into spending fight

RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE:

GOP ramps up call for more oversight of U.S. aid to Kyiv

Republicans are sounding bullish on Ukraine funding — but there's one big catch

GOP LEADERSHIP CONTESTS:

McCarthy meets with critics in fresh effort to secure speaker votes

Conservatives sharpen their knives as McCarthy works to peel off skeptics

In the Speaker's race, it's Kevin McCarthy versus the phantom conservative

GOP HOUSE RULES CHANGES:

House GOP votes down earmark ban proposal

Conservatives win -- with some help from McCarthy

THE TWITTER FILES:

NRO: 'Biden Team' requested Twitter scrub scandalous Hunter Biden info days before 2020
election

Musk releases Twitter internal documents showing suppression of Hunter Biden laptop story

Matt Taibbi tweet thread: The Twitter Files

Trump calls for the termination of the Constitution in Truth Social post

NEW YORK’S ATTACK ON THE FIRST AMENDMENT:

New York State wants to conscript me to violate the Constitution

New York online hate speech law challenged by Thiel-backed Rumble

Volokh v. James
TRUMP NEWS:
The inside story of Trump’s explosive dinner with Ye and Nick Fuentes

Trump’s dinner with antisemites provides test of GOP response to extremism

Kanye West deletes Nick Fuentes tweets after week of controversy

Masked Ye goers on antisemitic tirade on Infowars: 'I like Hitler'

Report Suggests Tax Audits of Trump Foes Were Random, but Leaves Questions

Watchdog report exposes New York Times, shows Trump didn't order IRS audits of FBI leaders

2024:
RNC commissions ‘review’ of party tactics after disappointing midterm

Biden endorses major shake-up of Democratic nominating process that puts South Carolina first

DNC panel chooses South Carolina as first state on 2024 nominating calendar

Biden, Demoting Iowa and Prizing Diversity, Wants S.C. as First Primary

Biden triggers Democratic battle with primary vote

DNC committee votes to end New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary status

Democrats ditch Iowa and elevate South Carolina to host first 2024 primary

DNC moves forward with dramatic change to presidential primary calendar

MISCELLANEOUS:
Biden treads lightly in response to COVID protests in China

GOPers push ‘pitiful’ Biden to get tough with China over ‘zero-COVID’ protests

Manchin and Klobuchar: Omnibus likely place for electoral count overhaul

Newt Gingrich - Quit Underestimating President Biden

Arizona Governor-elect Hobbs ultimatum to county board: Certify her election or face felony rap

This week: House poised to send same-sex marriage bill to Biden's desk