Tommy Tuberville only U.S. Senator openly backing Donald Trump in 2024
Former President Donald Trump announced last week that he was indeed running for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 2024. U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville has since told reporters that he will support Trump’s candidacy for president and praised his track record in the Oval Office. “He’s the leader America needs in 2024,” said Sen. Tuberville on Twitter Thursday night. “That’s why I’m proud to endorse Donald J. Trump for President of the United States!” Tuberville followed those comments with an interview on Fox News. “He stood up for the American people,” Tuberville said of Trump in a recent comment on Fox News, speaking with Maria Bartiromo, saying that he was “100%” behind Trump. Tuberville followed that up with comments to reporters from Washington, D.C. “He doesn’t have to learn the ropes,” Tuberville said. “He knows the ropes. He won’t be running again (in 2028). I like someone who will come in and say, ‘Listen, I don’t care. I will do what’s good for America.’” The other 48 Republican Senators were not so quick to jump on the Trump bandwagon. Sen. Lindsey Graham stopped short of endorsing Trump’s candidacy. “If President Trump continues this tone and delivers this message on a consistent basis, he will be hard to beat,” Graham wrote following Trump’s Mar-O-Lago speech. “His speech tonight, contrasting his policies and results against the Biden Administration, charts a winning path for him in the primaries and general election.” Graham was non-committal on endorsing Trump, though. Sen. Mitt Romney has been harshly critical of Trump. Romney called former President Donald Trump an “albatross” on electoral prospects for Republicans in the midterms. “I think President Trump was an albatross on the electoral prospects for some of our candidates,” Romney told MSNBC’s, Saul Kapur. “He helped select some of the people who turned out not to be very effective candidates.” “I understand that he’s going to run for president and announce that tomorrow. It’s like the aging pitcher who keeps losing games,” Romney added. “If we want to win, we need a different pitcher on the mound.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said that the party has scared off moderate Republicans and independents. Trump, for his part, has blamed McConnell for the underwhelming GOP performance in midterm Senate races. “It’s Mitch McConnell’s fault,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Spending money to defeat great Republican candidates instead of backing Blake Masters and others was a big mistake. Giving 4 trillion dollars to the Green New Deal, not infrastructure, was an even bigger mistake. He blew the Midterms, and everyone despises him and his otherwise lovely wife Coco Chow.” Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan came out strongly against another Trump run for the Presidency. “I am a Never-Again-Trumper. Why? Because I want to win, and we lose with Trump,” Ryan said in a recent interview on ABC News ‘This week.’ “It was really clear to us in ’18, in ’20, and now in 2022.” “I personally think the evidence is really clear. The biggest factor was the Trump factor … I think we would have won places like Arizona, places like Pennsylvania, New Hampshire had we had a typical, traditional conservative Republican, not a Trump Republican.” Trump is currently 76 years old. By the 2024 election, he will be older than Ronald Reagan was when Reagan was leaving office. The only President in American history who was older is President Joe Biden, who turned 80 on Sunday. To connect with the author of this story, or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.
Mighty Alabama Strike Force to deploy to Georgia to help Herschel Walker win Senate
Shelby County Republican Party Chair Joan Reynolds spoke at the River Region Republican Club meeting at the Farmer’s Market Café on Tuesday. The Mighty Alabama Strike Force, which she heads, will begin making trips on Sunday to Georgia to help football legend Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator, win the November 8 general election. Walker is challenging Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock. Reynolds said that the idea for the Mighty Alabama Strike Force began when then-Congressman Spencer Bachus (R-AL06) noted that the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) needed help with a congressional race in North Carolina and asked Reynolds for her help. “My job was to recruit volunteers and train them,” Reynolds said. “The volunteers were all from in the area. When I got back home, I said I need to get two or three people that can help me. I ended up spending two or three weeks in Durham. I realized then how important volunteers are.” “It started under the Bush Administration,” Reynolds explained of her involvement in out-of-state congressional campaigns. “That is what I have been doing for the last 14 years.” Reynolds said she took her first volunteers from Alabama to a Senate race in Arkansas, where they campaigned in Jonesboro. “In 2012, I was asked to go to Sioux City, Iowa,” to help the Mitt Romney campaign, Reynolds explained. “There was a religious factor there as they (Iowa voters) were not going to vote for a Mormon.” Reynolds is married to Alabama’s Republican National Committeeman Paul Reynolds. “Paul put together a busload,” Reynolds said. “It was a small used school bus, and they went to Sioux City. Coming back, they ran into a problem when they broke down. After that, I realized we needed some money.” “My volunteers did not mind staying in homes, but they would rather stay in hotels,” Reynolds said. “In 2014, we went to Indiana and campaigned for Bill Cassidy. We went to Tennessee and campaigned for Marsha Blackburn. We won both of those.” “In 2016, Donald Trump decided to run,” Reynolds said. “He was such a forceful figure that it was easy to get volunteers. It was also easy to raise money.” “We spend a week, or we won’t go,” Reynolds said of the duration of the trips. “We were asked to go to Florida in 2020.” “In 2021, I was asked by one of my donors to see if we can go to Virginia to go to campaign for Glenn Youngkin,” Reynolds said. “That was the first time we got involved in a governor’s race.” “That was the first time that we had to fly,” Reynolds said. “It was right after we were getting over COVID, and the economy was just opening up. I contacted every bus company in Alabama, and it was cheaper to fly.” Youngkin won his election. “He said it was so important that we came and actually talked to people in the Commonwealth,” Reynolds said. Reynolds asked for help from Republicans across Alabama. “We cannot do it without funding, and we cannot do it without volunteers,” Reynolds said. “We do not charge them (the volunteers) for their rooms or their transportation. There is no administrative fee, and I don’t get one red cent out of it, and that is ok because I don’t do for profit.” Reynolds said that volunteering is demanding. “If you cannot walk three miles, then don’t go,” Reynolds said. “You have to be able to use an iPhone, a google phone, or an android in order to be able to download the maps that we use.” “We do not go to Democrat homes,” Reynolds said. “We will run into some where people have moved and changed homes, but we go to Republican homes. We are strictly about getting out the Republican vote. We have got to get the turnout. The turnout (in the primaries) has been awful. Even in Shelby County, we were at a measly 18 percent.” “Lindy Blanchard is our inhouse Captain,” from the Montgomery area, Reynolds said. “She is going to Savannah.” Pat Wilson with the Montgomery Republican Women announced that Terri Hasdorff will speak to the group on Tuesday, October 26, about her book, Running into the Fire. “I still need poll watchers to make sure that our election is strong as it can be,” Wilson said. “I was disgusted when I looked at our voter turnout last time. Less than 15% of our voters cared enough about our county and state to come out and vote. We need to get people involved.” Greg Pool is the Chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Party. State Rep. Charlotte Meadows (R-Montgomery) and Republican House District 69 candidate Karla Knight Maddox also spoke to the group asking for their efforts to get out the vote in the Montgomery area. Maddox thanked the River Region Republicans for their help and said she had been working hard traveling around House District 69, campaigning and meeting people. Pool said the latest polling by the Alabama Republican Party has Maddox moving into an evenly split with the Democratic incumbent. Meadows said, “If Karla and I get elected, that will mean a Republican majority on our (Montgomery County) legislative delegation.” To connect with the author of this story, or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.
Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmed as first Black female high court justice
The Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court on Thursday, shattering a historic barrier by securing her place as the first Black female justice and giving President Joe Biden a bipartisan endorsement for his promised effort to diversify the high court. Cheers rang out in the Senate chamber as Jackson, a 51-year-old appeals court judge with nine years of experience on the federal bench, was confirmed 53-47, mostly along party lines but with three Republican votes. Presiding over the vote was Vice President Kamala Harris, also the first Black woman to reach her high office. Biden tweeted afterward that “we’ve taken another step toward making our highest court reflect the diversity of America.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer exulted that it was “a wonderful day, a joyous day, an inspiring day — for the Senate, for the Supreme Court, and for the United States of America.” Harris said as she left the Capitol that she was “overjoyed, deeply moved.” Jackson will take her seat when Justice Stephen Breyer retires this summer, solidifying the liberal wing of the 6-3 conservative-dominated court. She joined Biden at the White House to watch the vote, embracing as it came in. The two were expected to speak, along with Harris, at the White House Friday. During four days of Senate hearings last month, Jackson spoke of her parents’ struggles through racial segregation and said her “path was clearer” than theirs as a Black American after the enactment of civil rights laws. She attended Harvard University, served as a public defender, worked at a private law firm, and was appointed as a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. She told senators she would apply the law “without fear or favor,” and pushed back on Republican attempts to portray her as too lenient on criminals she had sentenced. Jackson will be just the third Black justice, after Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, and the sixth woman. She will join three other women, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Amy Coney Barrett – meaning that four of the nine justices will be women for the first time in history. Her eventual elevation to the court will be a respite for Democrats who fought three bruising battles over former President Donald Trump’s nominees and watched Republicans cement a conservative majority in the final days of Trump’s term with Barrett’s confirmation. While Jackson won’t change the balance, she will secure a legacy on the court for Biden and fulfill his 2020 campaign pledge to nominate the first Black female justice. “This is a tremendously historic day in the White House and in the country,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki after the vote. “And this is a fulfillment of a promise the president made to the country.” The atmosphere was joyful, though the Senate was divided, as Thursday’s votes were cast. Senators of both parties sat at their desks and stood to vote, a tradition reserved for the most important matters. The upper galleries were almost full for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic two years ago, and about a dozen House members, part of the Congressional Black Caucus, stood at the back of the chamber. Harris called out the tally, pausing with emotion, and Democrats erupted in loud applause and cheers, Schumer pumping his fists. A handful of Republicans stayed and clapped, but most by then had left. Despite Republican criticism of her record, Jackson eventually won three GOP votes. The final tally was far from the overwhelming bipartisan confirmations for Breyer and other justices in decades past, but it was still a significant accomplishment for Biden in the 50-50 split Senate after GOP senators aggressively worked to paint Jackson as too liberal and soft on crime. Statements from Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitt Romney of Utah all said the same thing — they might not always agree with Jackson, but they found her to be enormously well qualified for the job. Collins and Murkowski both decried increasingly partisan confirmation fights, which only worsened during the battles over Trump’s three picks. Collins said the process was “broken,” and Murkowski called it “corrosive” and “more detached from reality by the year.” Biden, a veteran of a more bipartisan Senate, said from the day of Breyer’s retirement announcement in January that he wanted support from both parties for his history-making nominee, and he invited Republicans to the White House as he made his decision. It was an attempted reset from Trump’s presidency, when Democrats vociferously opposed the three nominees, and from the end of President Barack Obama’s when Republicans blocked nominee Merrick Garland from getting a vote. Once sworn in, Jackson will be the second-youngest member of the court after Barrett, 50. She will join a court on which no one is yet 75, the first time that has happened in nearly 30 years. Jackson’s first term will be marked by cases involving race, both in college admissions and voting rights. She has pledged to sit out the court’s consideration of Harvard’s admissions program since she is a member of its board of overseers. But the court could split off a second case involving a challenge to the University of North Carolina’s admissions process, which might allow her to weigh in on the issue. Judith Browne Dianis, executive director of the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization, said Jackson will make the court more reflective of communities that are most impacted by the judiciary. “The highest court in the land now will have a firsthand perspective of how the law impacts communities of color — via voting rights, police misconduct, abortion access, housing discrimination, or the criminal legal system, among other issues,” she said. “This will ultimately benefit all Americans.” Jackson could wait as long as three months to be sworn in, as the court’s session generally ends in late June or early July. She remains a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington, but she stepped away from cases there when she was nominated in February. Republicans spent
Democratic, GOP Senate bargainers reach $10 billion COVID agreement
Senate bargainers reached an agreement Monday on a slimmed-down $10 billion package for countering COVID-19 with treatments, vaccines, and other steps, the top Democratic and Republican negotiators said, but the measure dropped all funding to help nations abroad combat the pandemic. The compromise drew quick support from President Joe Biden, who initially pushed for a $22.5 billion package. In a setback, he ended up settling for much less amid administration warnings that the government was running out of money to keep pace with the disease’s continued — though diminished — spread in the U.S. “Every dollar we requested is essential, and we will continue to work with Congress to get all of the funding we need,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. “But time is of the essence. We urge Congress to move promptly on this $10 billion package because it can begin to fund the most immediate needs.” Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., his party’s lead bargainer, also ended up agreeing to abandon Biden’s request to include $5 billion to help countries — especially poorer ones — where the disease is still running rampant. But the two sides could not agree on enough budget savings to pay for the larger amounts. Schumer said the pact would provide “the tools we need” to help the country recover from the economic and public health blows that COVID-19 has inflicted for the past two years. But he said while the $10 billion “is absolutely necessary, it is well short of what is truly needed to keep up safe” over time. He said members of both parties want to craft a second spending measure this spring that could include funds to battle COVID-19 and hunger overseas and more assistance for Ukraine as it continues battling the Russian invasion. The fate of such a measure is uncertain. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the lead GOP bargainer, hailed the accord as one that would address “urgent COVID needs.” He also trumped the measure’s savings, which he said meant it “will not cost the American people a single additional dollar.” Romney also suggested an openness to considering future money. “While this agreement does not include funding for the U.S. global vaccination program, I am willing to explore a fiscally responsible solution to support global efforts in the weeks ahead,” he said. The agreement comes with party leaders hoping to move the legislation through Congress this week, before lawmakers leave for a two-week spring recess. It also comes with BA.2, the new omicron variant, expected to spark a fresh increase in U.S. cases. Around 980,000 Americans and over 6 million people worldwide have died from COVID-19. At least half the compromise would have to be used to research and produce therapeutics to treat the disease, according to fact sheets from Schumer and Romney. The money would also be used to buy vaccines and tests. At least $750 million would be used to research new COVID-19 variants and to expand vaccine production, the descriptions said. The deal is also a reduction from a $15 billion version that both parties’ leaders had negotiated last month. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., abandoned that plan after Democratic lawmakers rejected proposed cuts in state pandemic aid to help pay for the package. Some people said the fate of the new agreement remained uncertain in the House, where Pelosi and liberal Democrats have expressed opposition to dropping the money for helping other countries. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, leader of the House Progressive Caucus, said it is “a big problem” to erase the global assistance from the package. “It’s really shortsighted to not spend money on making sure this virus is contained around the world,” Jayapal, a Washington state Democrat who worked in global public health for a decade, told reporters. The agreement will need to attract at least 10 GOP votes to move through the 50-50 Senate. The others said the needed Republican votes would be there. The measure is fully paid for by pulling back unspent funds from previous pandemic relief bills that have been enacted, bargainers have said. Romney’s fact sheet says those savings include $2.3 billion from a fund protecting aviation manufacturing jobs; $1.9 billion from money for helping entertainment venues shuttered by the pandemic; another $1.9 billion from a program that helps states extend credit to small businesses; and $1.6 billion from agriculture assistance programs. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Bipartisan deal near on trimmed $10 billion COVID bill
Lawmakers moved to the brink Thursday of shaking hands on a scaled-back bipartisan compromise providing a fresh $10 billion to combat COVID-19, a deal that could set up final congressional approval next week. The price tag was down from an earlier $15.6 billion agreement between the two parties that collapsed weeks ago after House Democrats rejected cutting unused pandemic aid to states to help pay for it. President Joe Biden requested $22.5 billion in early March. With leaders hoping to move the package through Congress quickly, the lowered cost seemed to reflect both parties’ calculations that agreeing soon to additional savings would be too hard. The effort, which would finance steps like vaccines, treatments, and tests, comes as Biden and other Democrats have warned the government is running out of money to counter the pandemic. At the same time, the more transmissible omicron variant BA.2 has been spreading quickly in the U.S. and abroad. “We’ve reached an agreement in principle on all the spending and all of the offsets,” Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the lead Republican bargainer, told reporters, using Washington-speak for savings. “It’s entirely balanced by offsets.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and others were more circumspect. “We are getting close to a final agreement that would garner bipartisan support,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. He said lawmakers were still finalizing the bill’s components and language and awaiting a cost estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., chair of the Senate health committee and another bargainer, said, “I’m hoping,” when asked about Romney’s assessment. Once clinched, an agreement would represent a semblance of bipartisan cooperation in battling the pandemic that dissolved a year ago, when a far larger, $1.9 trillion measure proposed by the new president cleared Congress with only Democratic votes. That bill was laden with spending to help struggling families, businesses, and communities, while this one would be aimed exclusively at public health. Many Republicans have been willing to go along with the new expenditures but have insisted on paying for them with unspent funds from previous bills Congress has enacted to address the pandemic. Half the new measure’s $10 billion would be used for treatments, said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who has helped negotiate the agreement. He said top federal health officials would be given wide discretion on spending the rest of it, but it would include research and other steps for battling the disease, which has killed around 975,000 Americans and millions across the world. Romney and others said savings the two parties had agreed to for the new bill would not include the cuts in state assistance that House Democrats opposed. He said some unused funds would be culled from another pandemic program that gives state and local governments funds for grants to local businesses. Blunt said both sides had also agreed to savings that include pulling back an unspent $2.2 billion for aiding entertainment venues closed during the pandemic and more than $2 billion still available for assisting aviation manufacturing. Romney said the $10 billion might include $1 billion for vaccines, treatments, and other support for countries overseas. Blunt said that figure seemed unresolved. One-third of the earlier $15.6 billion measure had been slated to go abroad. The lowered figure for assisting other countries encountered opposition in the House, where some Democrats wanted to boost the figure. Epidemiologists have cited the need to vaccinate more people around the world and reduce the virus’ opportunities for spinning off new variants. “It’s a problem,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters. “It’s a shame.” Kate Bedingfield, White House communications director, said officials were “very hopeful” an agreement would be reached and prodded lawmakers to include funds to help other countries cope with the disease. “We’re not going to be able to put this pandemic behind us until we stop the spread and proliferation of new variants globally,” Bedingfield said. Leaders hope Congress can approve the legislation before lawmakers leave for a spring recess after next week. Republicans have leverage in the Democratic-controlled, 50-50 Senate because 60 votes are needed to pass most major bills. Romney and Blunt both said they believed a finalized package they described would attract significantly more than the 10 GOP votes needed. Since the pandemic began, Congress has approved more than $5 trillion to address the economic and health crises it produced. Only a small fraction of that has been for public health programs like vaccines. In an interview earlier Thursday with Punchbowl News, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the measure’s price tag seemed to have fallen to $10 billion because Democrats weren’t agreeing to additional savings. Minutes later, Schumer took to the Senate floor and mentioned no figures but suggested its size could fall. “I’m pleading with my Republican colleagues, join us,” Schumer said. “We want more than you do, but we have to get something done. We have to get something done.” Asked if he thought an agreement could be reached before lawmakers’ recess, McConnell said, “We’ll see. Hope so.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Steve Flowers: 2022 Senate race will be most expensive in state history
The marquee race in this big 2022 election year is for our open U.S. Senate seat. It is beginning to percolate. The race has been raging for over a year already, and we are getting poised to begin the final full-court press to the finish line. The GOP Primary is three months away on May 24, with a monumental runoff on June 21. The winner on that day will be Richard Shelby’s successor. Early on, it appeared to be a two-person race between Mo Brooks and Katie Britt. However, Mike Durant has surged out of the blue with a three solid month media bombardment and made it a three-way race. All three candidates appear to be well-financed and ready for a three-month battle to the finish line. It will be the most expensive race in Alabama political history. There are barrels of money flowing into the Heart of Dixie, primarily out of the Potamic basin in Washington. In this modern-day of national politics, a candidate’s individual war chest is not the all-telling story. We live in a world of third-party political action committees (PACs). These third-party PACs, based out of Washington, will more than likely spend more on their preferred candidate than will be spent by the candidates’ direct campaigns. The candidates’ individual campaign account dollars will go towards positive ads for their candidate. The third-party PAC ads will be negative. These outside PACs are not supposed to work in conjunction or even correspond with their preferred candidate, but they do in actuality. They share polling and media strategy. These innocuous PACs have the meanest negative media gurus in America. These hired guns relish attacking and destroying their opposition. Therefore, look for the next three months to be a barrage of negative ads against Mo brooks, Katie Britt and Mike Durant. It will be easy to find and exploit negative ammunition on Mo Brooks. He has been in politics for 40 years. Katie Britt and Mike Durant will be harder to ambush as they are making their first races. It will be telling to see how Durant and Britt react to negative attacks. Mo Brooks is backed by the Club for Growth. He has been their boy for the last ten years. He fits in with them ideologically. The Club for Growth is an ultra-right-wing fringe group that funds right-wing antigovernmental free trade candidates mostly in smaller conservative states where their money will go further. They supposedly promised Brooks $5 million of soft third-party money to commit to the race. That money is there, and they are spending it. However, a deep dive into the polling shows Brooks sinking. The wild card in the race is one POW hero, Mike Durant. He has a really good story to tell, and he is telling that story with a well-done media buy. He makes no pretense towards campaigning or meeting Alabamians. He probably could not tell you where Conecuh or Bullock County are, much less Samson or Slocomb. He is from New Hampshire and moved to Huntsville to build an aerospace company. Durant is being assisted by a third-party PAC known as the Patriot PAC. This group’s primary donors are very anti-Trump. The primary contributor to this PAC is a wealthy donor named Harriman. His mission is to elect five independent senators who will be swing votes and not align or have allegiance to any party. Harriman scoured the nation to find the perfect military hero to win a Republican seat. He garnered the perfect candidate in Durant, who is coming around the corner like nobody’s business. Durant would be likely to align with moderate Republicans like Mitt Romney and Susan Collins. In Washington, they are referring to Durant as a RINO in uniform. Therefore, if you really look into the three GOP candidates, you see a semblance of national Republican circles vying for a candidate of their persuasion to fill a guaranteed Republican seat. Brooks would be the Club for Growth, right-wing, fringe candidate that adheres to pro-China trade policies and has no concern for Alabama jobs or federal projects vital to our state. Durant is backed by the Harriman PAC. Katie Britt is the mainstream, conservative, pro-business candidate who understands Alabama and her needs. In fact, she is the only real Alabamian in the race. It will be an interesting and expensive three-month show. It will be fun to watch. I will keep you posted. Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His weekly column appears in over 60 Alabama newspapers. Steve served 16 years in the state legislature. Steve may be reached: www.steveflowers.us.
Steve Flowers: Groundhog Day
Happy Groundhog Day. It is an ironic juxtaposition that the State of the Union address by the president and Groundhog Day occur on the same day. One involves a meaningless ritual in which a doddering octogenarian who is as outdated as the State of the Union event stumbles through some scripted predictions. The other involves an outdated mythical tradition celebrating a prediction by a rodent. Both prognostications by Biden and the Groundhog are insignificant and irrelevant. Our marquee race for 2022 in the State of Alabama is the race to replace our retiring U.S. Senator, Richard Shelby. Before I delve into the rivalry to follow Shelby and sit in his seat, allow me to say that his junior counterpart in our current Senate tandem, Coach Tommy Tuberville, is doing a good job after his first year as our junior U. S. Senator. There was some speculation regarding his effectiveness, given his lack of governmental experience. Tuberville has put together an excellent staff. He did a good day’s work when he secured Stephen Boyd as his Chief of Staff. Tuberville and his staff are doing an excellent job with constituent service, which is an integral part of a senator’s job when you want to be an effective senator for your state. Tuberville’s staff is especially interested in helping veterans in Alabama. He has a full-time staff member who is assigned to helping Alabama veterans get their deserved benefits for their service to our country. You could tell Tuberville was driven to making sure that military veterans and current servicemen and women were taken care of when he was running. His father was a career military man, and Tuberville revered him. Coach Tuberville has not sought the spotlight and tried to become a Fox News darling and be a right wing ideologue. He has taken on a workhorse mentality and has voted consistently conservative and been a team player within the GOP Senate caucus. Tuberville realizes that he will never be a Richard Shelby because he got there later in life after his career as a college football coach. He has learned that seniority counts. Arriving in the U. S. Senate at age 66 is not conducive to being a senate giant. Seniority is king in Washington. Tuberville also understands the importance that defense spending and agriculture are to Alabama. He is applying himself to protecting these two vital concerns as any senator from Alabama should strive to accomplish. It is all about seniority in the U.S. Senate. It will be at least 15 years before anybody we elect to this senate seat has any real power to bring home the bacon. Katie Britt is 40, and Mo Brooks is 68. You can do the math as to which one has the potential to be effective for Alabama and build seniority and power. Katie Britt not only has the youthfulness to gain seniority, but she also possesses the ability, acumen, and more importantly, she wants to be an effective senator for Alabama and protect our military bases and jobs. Mo Brooks has shown over his 40-year political career and, more recently, his 10-year congressional tenure that he does not want to be effective for Alabama. He is more interested in bomb throwing than doing anything for his district or Alabama. Brooks could not be effective, even if he wanted to. He will be 69, and the Republican leadership would dismiss him as a rightwing gadfly and an old one at that. The wildcard in the Senate race is one Mike Durant. He came out of the blue three months ago and has bombarded the airwaves with a constant saturation of television ads. He has run a total media campaign with no one-on-one campaigning. Few people have ever met him. He is like a stealth candidate who only appears on your television as a POW war hero. Durant, who hails from New Hampshire, is primarily self-funding his campaign. However, he is also being financed by a PAC headed by a wealthy donor Harriman, who wants to elect five independent non-partisan senators in the mold of Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine, which would put Durant in a small group of liberal Democrats and Republicans. Durant may also be torpedoed by a family situation that has come to light recently. The U.S. Senate race is fluid at this time, with most people undecided on their choice. It will be interesting to watch. See you next week. Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His weekly column appears in over 60 Alabama newspapers. He served 16 years in the state legislature. Steve may be reached at www.steveflowers.us.
House votes to avert shutdown, but quick Senate approval in doubt
The House passed a bill Thursday that funds the government through February 18 and avoids a short-term shutdown after midnight Friday, but quick Senate approval was in doubt because of a fight over President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates. An agreement among congressional leaders announced earlier in the day would keep the government running for 11 more weeks, generally at current spending levels, while adding $7 billion to aid Afghanistan evacuees. The Democratic-led House passed the measure by a 221-212 vote. The Republican leadership urged members to vote no; the lone GOP vote for the bill came from Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger. Lawmakers bemoaned the short-term fix and blamed the opposing party for the lack of progress on this year’s spending bills. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said the measure would, however, allow for negotiations on a package covering the remainder of the budget year through September. “Make no mistake, a vote against this continuing resolution is a vote to shut government down,” DeLauro said during the House debate. Before the House acted, President Joe Biden said he had spoken with Senate leaders, and he played down fears of a shutdown. “There is a plan in place unless somebody decides to be totally erratic, and I don’t think that will happen,” Biden said. Conservative Republicans opposed to Biden’s vaccine rules want Congress to take a hard stand against the mandated shots for workers at larger businesses, even if that means shutting down federal offices over the weekend. It was just the latest instance of the brinkmanship around government funding that has triggered several costly shutdowns and partial closures over the past two decades. The longest shutdown in history happened under President Donald Trump — 35 days stretching into January 2019, when Democrats refused to approve money for his U.S-Mexico border wall. Both parties agree the stoppages are irresponsible, yet few deadlines pass without a late scramble to avoid them. Republicans said during the debate that they had made it clear in the summer that they would not support spending bills that include “irresponsible spending increases and extreme policies.” “Unfortunately, that is exactly where we find ourselves,” said Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas. Democrats were able to use their majority to advance the spending bill. They have a more difficult task in the 50-50 Senate, where objections by just one senator can slow a final vote past Friday’s midnight deadline. That could mean a short-term shutdown into the weekend. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said Democrats knew last month from a letter that several Republicans would use all means at their disposal to oppose legislation that funds or allows the enforcement of the employer vaccine mandate. He blamed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for not negotiating and for ignoring their position. If the choice is between “suspending nonessential functions” or standing idle while Americans lose their ability to work, “I’ll stand with American workers every time,” Lee said. GOP senators said the idea is to vote on stripping money that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would use to implement the requirement that private employers with 100 or more workers ensure they are vaccinated or regularly tested. “This is a chance to correct a wrong,” said Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who undertook a similar effort against vaccine mandates during the last government funding standoff. Schumer said it was “not easy to reach this deal” and that while most Republicans do not want a shutdown, a “few individual Republican senators appear determined to derail this important legislation because of their opposition to the president’s lifesaving vaccine guidelines.” “Let’s be clear, if there is a shutdown, it will be a Republican, anti-vaccine shutdown,” Schumer said. The White House sees vaccinations as the quickest way to end a pandemic that has killed more than 780,000 people in the United States and is still evolving, as seen Wednesday with the country’s first detected case of a troubling new variant. Courts have knocked back against the mandates, including a ruling this week blocking enforcement of a requirement for some health care workers. For some Republicans, the court cases and lawmakers’ fears about a potentially disruptive shutdown are factors against engaging in a high-stakes shutdown. “One of the things I’m a little concerned about is: Why would we make ourselves the object of public attention by creating the specter of a government shutdown?” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a GOP leader. “There’s too much chaos in our country right now, too much concern about omicron. The last thing we need is more confusion and fear,” said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., reiterated that there will be no shutdown. “We’re not going to do that,” he said Thursday. The administration has pursued vaccine requirements for several groups of workers, but the effort is facing legal setbacks. A federal judge this week blocked the administration from enforcing a vaccine mandate on thousands of health care workers in 10 states. Earlier, a federal appeals court temporarily halted the OSHA requirement affecting employers with 100 or more workers. The administration has also put in place policies requiring millions of federal employees and federal contractors, including military troops, to be fully vaccinated. Those efforts are also under challenge. Polling from The Associated Press shows Americans are divided over Biden’s effort to vaccinate workers, with Democrats overwhelmingly for it while most Republicans are against. Some Republicans prefer an effort from Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., to vote to reject the administration’s mandates in a congressional review action expected next week, separate from the funding fight. Separately, some health care providers protested the stopgap spending measure. Hospitals say it does nothing to shield them from Medicare payment cuts scheduled to go into effect amid uncertainty about the new omicron variant. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
White House: U.S. has capacity to evacuate remaining Americans
The United States has the capacity to evacuate the approximately 300 U.S. citizens remaining in Afghanistan who want to leave before President Joe Biden’s Tuesday deadline, senior Biden administration officials said Sunday, as another U.S. drone strike against suspected Islamic State militants underscored the grave threat in the war’s final days. “This is the most dangerous time in an already extraordinarily dangerous mission these last couple of days,” America’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, said not long before confirmation of that airstrike in Kabul, the capital. The evacuation flow of Americans kept pace even as a new State Department security alert issued hours before the military action instructed people to leave the airport area immediately “due to a specific, credible threat.” Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said that for those U.S. citizens seeking immediately to leave Afghanistan by the looming deadline, “we have the capacity to have 300 Americans, which is roughly the number we think are remaining, come to the airport and get on planes in the time that is remaining. We moved out more than that number just yesterday. So from our point of view, there is an opportunity right now for American citizens to come, to be admitted to the airport and to be evacuated safely and effectively.” Sullivan said the U.S. does not currently plan to have an ongoing embassy presence after the final U.S. troop withdrawal. But he pledged the U.S. “will make sure there is safe passage for any American citizen, any legal permanent resident” after Tuesday, as well as for “those Afghans who helped us.” But untold numbers of vulnerable Afghans, fearful of a return to the brutality of pre-2001 Taliban rule, are likely to be left behind. Blinken said the U.S. was working with other countries in the region to either keep the Kabul airport open after Tuesday or to reopen it “in a timely fashion.” He also said that while the airport is critical, “there are other ways to leave Afghanistan, including by road and many countries border Afghanistan.” The U.S., he said, is “making sure that we have in place all of the necessary tools and means to facilitate the travel for those who seek to leave Afghanistan” after Tuesday. There also are roughly 280 others who have said they are Americans but who have told the State Department they plan to remain in the country or are still undecided. According to the latest totals, about 114,000 people have been evacuated since the Taliban takeover on Aug. 14, including approximately 2,900 on military and coalition flights during the 24 hours ending at 3 a.m. on Sunday. Members of Congress criticized the chaotic and violent evacuation. “We didn’t have to be in this rush-rush circumstance with terrorists breathing down our neck,” said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah. “But it’s really the responsibility of the prior administration and this administration that has caused this crisis to be upon us and has led to what is without question a humanitarian and foreign policy tragedy.” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the U.S. policy in Afghanistan, with 2,500 troops on the ground, had been working. “We were, in effect, keeping the lid on, keeping terrorists from reconstituting, and having a light footprint in the country,” he said. U.S. officials said the American drone strike hit a vehicle carrying multiple Islamic State suicide bombers, causing secondary explosions indicating the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material. A senior U.S. official said the military drone fired a Hellfire missile at a vehicle in a compound between two buildings after individuals were seen loading explosives into the trunk. The official said there was an initial explosion caused by the missile, followed by a much larger fireball, believed to be the result of the substantial amount of explosives inside the vehicle. The U.S. believes that two Islamic State group individuals who were targeted were killed. In a statement, U.S. Central Command said it is looking into the reports of civilian casualties that may have been caused by the secondary explosions. An Afghan official said three children were killed in the strike. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations. It was the second airstrike in recent days the U.S. has conducted against the militant group, which claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing Thursday at the Kabul airport gate that killed 13 U.S. service members and scores of Afghans struggling to get out of the country and escape the new Taliban rule. The Pentagon said a U.S. drone mission in eastern Afghanistan killed two members of IS’ Afghanistan affiliate early Saturday local time in retaliation for the airport bombing. In Delaware, Biden met privately with the families of the American troops killed in the suicide attack and solemnly watched as the remains of the fallen returned to U.S. soil from Afghanistan. First lady Jill Biden and many of the top U.S. defense and military leaders joined him on the tarmac at Dover Air Force Base to grieve with loved ones as the “dignified transfer” of remains unfolded, a military ritual for those killed in foreign combat. Sullivan said earlier that the U.S. would continue strikes against IS and consider “other operations to go after these guys, to get them and to take them off the battlefield.” He added: “We will continue to bring the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan to make sure they do not represent a threat to the United States. In a joint statement, the U.S. and about 100 other nations said they are committed to ensuring that their citizens, employees, Afghans, and others at risk will be able to travel freely from Afghanistan. The statement said the Taliban had made assurances that “all foreign nationals and any Afghan citizen with travel authorization from our countries will be allowed to proceed in a safe and orderly manner to points of departure and travel outside the country.” The 13 service members were the first U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan since
Infrastructure bill fails first vote; Senate to try again
Senate Republicans rejected an effort Wednesday to begin debate on the big infrastructure deal that a bipartisan group of senators brokered with President Joe Biden, but pressure was mounting as supporters insisted they just needed more time before another vote, possibly next week. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had scheduled the procedural vote to nudge along negotiations that have dragged for weeks. But Republicans mounted a filibuster, saying the bipartisan group still had a few unresolved issues and needed to review the final details. They sought a delay until Monday. “We have made significant progress and are close to a final agreement,” the bipartisan group of senators, 11 Republicans and 11 Democrats said in a joint statement after the vote. The senators said they were optimistic they could finish up “in the coming days.” The nearly $1 trillion measure over five years includes about $579 billion in new spending on roads, broadband, and other public works projects — a first phase of Biden’s infrastructure agenda, to be followed by a much broader $3.5 trillion measure from Democrats next month. Biden’s top priority is at a critical juncture, posing a test of his ability to forge bipartisan cooperation in Washington and make investments the White House views as crucial to the nation’s ability to pull out of the COVID-19 crisis and spur economic growth. The president traveled to Ohio later Wednesday to promote his economic policies and was calling his infrastructure agenda a “blue-collar blueprint for building an American economy back.” He has said that Americans overwhelmingly support his plan. In a CNN town hall, Biden also talked up the benefits of the bipartisan framework, saying, “It’s a good thing, and I think we’re going to get it done.” He also made passing reference to the dangerously outdated Brent Spence Bridge across the Ohio River, saying they’ll “fix that damn bridge of yours.” At another point, Biden was asked by a union electrician if it was possible to bring Congress together to pass an infrastructure bill that would help the region replace the bridge. “The answer is, absolutely, positively, yes,” the president said. The party-line vote blocked the bill from advancing, 51-49, and fell far short of the 60 votes required under Senate rules. Schumer switched his vote to “no” at the end, a procedural step that would allow him to move to quickly reconsider. The bipartisan group has labored for days with Biden aides to strike a deal, which would be a first phase of the president’s eventual $4 trillion-plus package of domestic outlays — not just for roads and bridges, but foundations of everyday life, including child care, family tax breaks, education and an expansion of Medicare for seniors. The next steps are uncertain, but the bipartisan group insists it is close to a deal and expects to finish soon. “We’re voting no today because we’re not ready, but we’re saying we do want to take up this bill as soon as we are,” said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, a leader of the effort. “I think that’ll be Monday.” At least 11 Republicans signed on to a letter to Schumer saying they would vote yes to proceed on Monday if certain details about the package are ready. Republican Sen. Todd Young of Indiana was among the Republicans who signed the letter and said he was “cautiously optimistic” they can reach a bipartisan deal. Restless Democrats, who are facing a crowded calendar while trying to deliver on Biden’s priorities, nevertheless said they are willing to wait if a deal is within reach. “I’m willing to give it another chance next week,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. “But we need to fish or cut bait.” The senators in the bipartisan group were joined for a private lunch ahead of the vote by the two leaders of the House’s Problem Solvers Caucus, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., a bipartisan group generally supportive of the effort. Schumer said senators are in the fourth week of negotiations after reaching an agreement on a broad framework for infrastructure spending with the White House. He said Wednesday’s vote was no different from other times when the Senate sought to get the ball rolling on debate and “not a deadline to have every final detail worked out.” But Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky encouraged Republicans to vote against it, called the vote a “stunt” that would fail, but he emphasized senators were “still negotiating in good faith across the aisle.” “Around here, we typically write the bills before we vote on them,” he said. Biden has been in touch with both Democrats and Republicans for several days, and White House press secretary Jen Psaki traveling with the president Wednesday on Air Force One said the administration was “encouraged.” While Biden proposes paying for his proposals with a tax hike on corporations and wealthy Americans who earn more than $400,000 a year, the bipartisan group has been working almost around the clock to figure out a compromise to pay for its package, having dashed ideas for boosting the federal gas tax or strengthening the IRS to go after tax scofflaws. Instead, senators in the bipartisan group are considering rolling back a Trump-era rule on pharmaceutical rebates that could bring in $170 billion, some of which could be used for infrastructure. They are also targeting unspent COVID-19 relief aid to health care providers and extending multiyear, modest reductions in a wide array of federal benefit programs, according to two people familiar with the talks who described the details on the condition of anonymity. Senators are also still haggling over public transit funds. Typically, spending from the federal Highway Trust Fund has followed the formula of 80% for highways and 20% for transit. Some Republicans are concerned that the ratio would change to 82%-18% under the bipartisan bill, said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah. “Big numbers are involved,” Romney said. But Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said: “There’s not a lot of sentiment for public transit on their side. They
With John McCain in mind, Kyrsten Sinema reaches for bipartisanship
More than for her shock of purple hair or unpredictable votes, Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is perhaps best known for doing the unthinkable in Washington: She spends time on the Republican side of the aisle. Not only does she pass her days chatting up the Republican senators, she has been known to duck into their private GOP cloakroom — absolutely unheard of — and banter with the GOP leadership. She and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell talk often by phone. Sinema’s years in Congress have been a whirlwind of political style and perplexing substance, an antiwar liberal-turned-deal-making centrist who now finds herself at the highest levels of power. A key negotiator of the bipartisan infrastructure compromise, she was among those President Joe Biden first called to make the deal — and then called upon again as he worked furiously to salvage the agreement from collapse. A holdout to changing the Senate’s filibuster rules, she faces enormous pressure to act as voting rights in her own state and others hang in the balance. “If anybody can pull this off it’s Kyrsten,” said David Lujan, a former Democratic colleague of Sinema’s in the Arizona statehouse. “She’s incredibly smart, so she can figure out where people’s commonalities are and get things done.” The senator’s theory of the case of how to govern in Washington will be tested in the weeks ahead as Congress works to turn the infrastructure compromise into law and mounts a response to the Supreme Court decision upholding Arizona’s strict new voting rules. She is modeling her approach on the renegade style of Arizona Sen. John McCain, who died in 2018 and was known for his willingness to reach across the aisle. But aspiring to bold bipartisanship is challenging in the post-Trump era of hardened political bunkers and fierce cultural tribalism. Many in her own party scoff at her overtures to the GOP and criticize her for not playing hardball. Her name is now uttered alongside West Virginia’s Sen. Joe Manchin as the two Democrats standing in the way of changing the filibuster rules requiring 60 votes to advance legislation — a priority for liberals working to pass Biden’s agenda in the split 50-50 Senate. This year she cast a procedural vote against raising the minimum wage and has opposed the climate change-focused Green New Deal, even though she’s not fully opposed to either policy. She declined a request for an interview. “It’s the easiest thing in the world for politicians to declare bipartisanship dead and line up on respective sides of a partisan battle,” she said in a statement to The Associated Press. “What’s harder is getting out of our comfort zones, finding common ground with unlikely allies, and forming coalitions that can achieve durable, lasting results.” Sinema arrived in Washington with a burst of energy and a swoosh of fashion. She quickly became known as one of the best vote counters in the House, on par with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, because of her visits to the other side of the aisle. She voted against Pelosi more than once for speaker. Her maiden speech in the Senate drew from McCain’s farewell address, a marker of where she was headed. She changed the decades-old Senate dress code by simply wearing whatever she wants — and daring anyone to stop her. The purple wig was a nod to the coronavirus pandemic’s lockdown. (In off hours, she has been spotted wearing a ring with an expletive similar to “buzz off.”) “People may debate her sincerity, but the truth is, she makes an active decision that she’s going to work well with other people — and I haven’t seen her slip up,” said Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, who served with her in the House. Sinema’s status as a bipartisan leader fascinates those who’ve watched her decades-long rise in Arizona politics, where she began as a lonely left-wing activist who worked for Ralph Nader’s 2000 Green Party presidential campaign and then slowly retooled herself into a moderate advocate of working across the aisle. “Ideologically, it does surprise me,” Steven Yarbrough, a Republican who served 12 years with Sinema in the Arizona legislature, said of her transformation. “But given how smart and driven she is, well, that doesn’t surprise me at all.” That Sinema even made it that far seemed improbable. Her parents divorced when she was young, and she moved with her mother and stepfather from Tucson to the Florida panhandle, where she lived in an abandoned gas station for three years. Driven to succeed, she graduated from the local high school as valedictorian at age 16 and earned her bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University in Utah at age 18, leaving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in which she’d been raised, after graduation. Sinema landed in Phoenix, where she earned several more degrees — including a law degree and a doctorate — worked as a social worker and then a lawyer, vociferously protested the Iraq War and fought for immigrant and LGBTQ rights at a time when Arizona was veering right. In 2004 she was elected to the state legislature representing a fairly liberal area and initially was a backbencher who lobbed rhetorical bombs from the left. But Sinema has written and spoken extensively of how she discovered the merits of moderation while serving in the GOP-controlled state legislature. She wrote a book titled “Unite and Conquer” about the need for leftists to compromise and cut deals. In 2006, she co-chaired a bipartisan group to fight a gay marriage ban on the ballot and had to decide whether to simply condemn the ban or try to defeat it, said Steve May, the Republican former state lawmaker who collaborated with her. An avid consumer of polling, she helped hit upon a strategy of targeting older, retired heterosexual couples who could also lose benefits under the ballot measure due to their unmarried status. They narrowly succeeded in defeating it. (Another ban passed two years later.) “She came from doing speeches and leading protests, and she learned she can actually win,” May said. When a
‘We have a deal’: Joe Biden announces infrastructure agreement
President Joe Biden announced on Thursday a hard-earned bipartisan agreement on a pared-down infrastructure plan that would make a start on his top legislative priority and validate his efforts to reach across the political aisle. He openly acknowledged that Democrats will likely have to tackle much of the rest on their own. The bill’s price tag at $973 billion over five years, or $1.2 trillion over eight years, is a scaled-back but still significant piece of Biden’s broader proposals. It includes more than a half-trillion dollars in new spending and could open the door to the president’s more sweeping $4 trillion proposals later on. “When we can find common ground, working across party lines, that is what I will seek to do,” said Biden, who deemed the deal “a true bipartisan effort, breaking the ice that too often has kept us frozen in place.” The president stressed that “neither side got everything they wanted in this deal; that’s what it means to compromise” and said that other White House priorities would be tackled separately in a congressional budget process known as reconciliation. He made clear that the two items would be done “in tandem” and that he would not sign the bipartisan deal without the other, bigger piece. Progressive members of Congress declared they would hold to the same approach. “This reminds me of the days when we used to get an awful lot done up in the United States Congress,” said Biden, a former Delaware senator, putting his hand on the shoulder of a stoic-looking Republican Sen. Rob Portman as the president made a surprise appearance with a bipartisan group of senators to announce the deal outside the White House. The deal was struck after months of partisan rancor that has consumed Washington while Biden has insisted that something could be done despite skepticism from many in his own party. Led by Republican Portman of Ohio and Democrat Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, the group included some of the more independent lawmakers in the Senate, some known for bucking their parties. “You know there are many who say bipartisanship is dead in Washington,” said Sinema, “We can use bipartisanship to solve these challenges.” And Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said, “It sends an important message to the world as well that America can function, can get things done.” The proposal includes both new and existing spending and highlights the struggle lawmakers faced in coming up with ways to pay for it. The investments include $109 billion on roads and highways, $15 billion on electric vehicle infrastructure and transit systems, and $65 billion toward broadband, among other expenditures on airports, drinking water systems, and resiliency efforts to tackle climate change. Rather than Biden’s proposed corporate tax hike that Republicans oppose or the gas tax increase that the president rejected, funds will be tapped from a range of sources — without a full tally yet, according to the White House document. Money will come from COVID-19 relief funds approved in 2020 but not yet spent, as well as untapped unemployment insurance funds that Democrats have been hesitant to poach. Other revenue is expected by going harder after tax cheats by beefing up Internal Revenue Service enforcement. The rest is a hodge-podge of asset sales and accounting tools, including funds coming from 5G telecommunication spectrum lease sales, strategic petroleum reserve, and an expectation that the sweeping investment will generate economic growth — what the White House calls the “macroeconomic impact of infrastructure investment.” The senators from both parties stressed that the deal will create jobs for the economy, a belief that clearly transcended the partisan interests and created a framework for the deal. “We’re going to keep working together–we’re not finished,” Sen. Mitt Romney said. “But America works, the Senate works.” For Biden, the deal was a welcome result. Though for far less than the approximately $2 trillion he originally sought, which is raising some ire on the left, Biden had bet his political capital that he could work with Republicans and showcase that “that American democracy can deliver” and be a counter-example to rising autocracies across the globe. Moreover, Biden and his aides believed that they needed a bipartisan deal on infrastructure to create a permission structure for more moderate Democrats — including Sinema and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — to then be willing to go for a party-line vote for the rest of the president’s agenda. There is still some skepticism on the left. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said the bipartisan agreement is “way too small –paltry, pathetic. I need a clear, ironclad assurance that there will be a really adequate robust package” that will follow the bipartisan agreement. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, like Biden, warned that it must be paired with the president’s bigger goals now being prepared by Congress under a process that could push them through the Senate with only Democratic votes. “There ain’t going to be a bipartisan bill without a reconciliation bill,” Pelosi said. Portman had met privately ahead of the White House meeting with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell at the Capitol and said afterward that the Kentucky senator “remains open-minded and he’s listening still.” The announcement leaves unclear the fate of Biden’s promises of massive investment to slow climate change, which Biden this spring called “the existential crisis of our times.” Biden’s presidential campaign had helped win progressive backing with pledges of major spending on electric vehicles, charging stations, and research and funding for overhauling the U.S. economy to run on less oil, gas, and coal. The administration is expected to push for some of that in future legislation. But Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La, stressed that there are billions of dollars for resiliency against extreme weather and the impacts of climate change and deemed Thursday’s deal a “beginning investment.” Biden has sought $1.7 trillion in his American Jobs Plan, part of nearly $4 trillion in broad infrastructure spending on roads, bridges, and broadband internet but also including the so-called care economy of child care centers,
