Shalom, Purrraying that our Lord and Savior will bless you every time you bless others every day. Mt. 10:42; Jn. 3:1-36; Lu. 2:1-52; Rev. 19:6.
Biden signs one month emergency extension of highway funding amid budget struggles by Sarah May on October 4, 2021
Amid ongoing wrangling among Democrats over two massive spending bills, President Joe Biden on Saturday signed a temporary extension of federal highway funding after the stop-gap measures was sent to his desk by the Senate, according to The Hill.
Biden’s move was necessitated by the failure of Democrats in the House to reach a compromise on passing a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package championed by the president, after which the Senate took steps to pass a 30-day extension of the funding, as the New York Post noted.
Funding for the Highway Trust Fund expired on Thursday, something which forced the furlough of approximately 3,799 employees and spurred prompt action in both the House and Senate to pass a short-term authorization once it became clear that the two hotly-debated spending measures that have divided progressive and moderate Democrats would not be brought forward for votes.
House Democratic leadership had fully expected to have the bipartisan infrastructure bill approved well in advance of the highway funding’s expiration, but continued battles with far-left factions in the party scuttled any prospects for such an outcome, according to the Post.
In attempting to walk a fine line between appeasing the progressive wing of her party and securing passage of at least one key pillar of Biden’s domestic agenda, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) succeeded only in angering moderates by again delaying a vote on the smaller spending bill.
New Jersey Democrat Rep. Josh Gottheimer blasted the speaker’s decisions, saying that she had “breached her firm, public commitment to Members of Congress and the American people to hold a vote and to pass the once-in-a-century bipartisan infrastructure bill.”
Jim Tymon of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation joined in the criticism of what occurred, saying, “Yesterday’s inaction on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act isn’t just disappointing – it lapses our highway, transit, and highway safety programs and halts work on vital transportation infrastructure around the country, which is detrimental to our economy and the quality of life in our communities,” the Post added.
With temporary highway funding in place for another month, Pelosi has a little bit of breathing room to continue negotiations with the warring factions within her party, and progressive Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) – one of the holdouts who thwarted the speaker’s previous timeline for votes – has already acknowledged that her side will need to lower the overall cost of the massive “human infrastructure” packaged sought by the far left.
In an apparent admission that the clock is ticking for her to achieve results, Pelosi said on Saturday, “There is an October 31 Surface Transportation Authorization deadline, after last night’s passage of a critical 30-day extension. We must pass [the bipartisan infrastructure bill] well before then…”, but whether she can bring about the needed intraparty consensus to do so, only time will tell.
I'm going to be moving in a few weeks. So I may not on our website but none of you will out of my mind. GOD bless all of you and GOD BLESS THESE UNITED STATES of AMERICA.
Out of the limelight for a while, Mary, shows up again with another accusation about Ivanka Kushner, of all people, her cousin. She seems to like being the center of attention and getting her an additional 15 minutes of fame.
Mary Trump claims Ivanka Trump is the most likely to “turn” on the family JULY 7, 2021
Former President Donald Trump’s niece has made an accusation against the first family saying that her cousin Ivanka Trump Kushner is likely the weak link in the Trump family chain, according to The Hill.
Mary Trump, author of “Too Much and Never Enough,” a book based on her uncle, has said she thinks her cousin Ivanka Trump Kushner is “much less likely to stay loyal” to her father.
The psychologist and author’s assessment was in comparison to recently indicted Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg who has made headlines with the dozen-plus fraud and conspiracy charges levied against him.
According to The Hill, Weisselberg pleaded not guilty to a total of 15 charges that included tax fraud, conspiracy, grand larceny and falsifying business records.
The Trump origination CFO is accused of dodging paying taxes on about $1.7 million in income between 2005 and 2017, and the investigation is still ongoing.
Weisselberg’s arrest has prompted questions about what other individuals close to the organization might have a target on their back, and in an episode of “The New Abnormal” podcast, Mary Trump said she thinks prosecutors won’t need to rely on the COF’s testimony because her family members will turn on the former president:
“If there are two sets of books for Allen, there are two sets of books for other people. And I think we’re also going to find that in these millions of pages of documents there will be more evidence,” Mary Trump said.
“So either they’re not going to be solely relying on Allen Weisselberg to flip because either there’s documentary evidence of Donald’s direct wrongdoing or there will be other people who might be more willing to flip than Allen. And I think among those might well indeed be my cousins,” she continued.
According to Mary Trump, Ivanka Trump Kushner received hundreds of thousands of dollars in “consulting fees” when she was an executive for the Trump origination and according to the author her cousin “has more to lose” and “more to hang onto” due to the fact that “Her husband’s family is legitimately very wealthy.”
Wolf wrong to veto Voter Act THEIR VIEW July 08, 2021
The ink was barely dry on Gov. Tom Wolf’s veto of Pennsylvania’s Voter Rights Protection Act, and the political press releases began rolling in.
Not surprisingly, the folks well to the left of center hailed the veto as a victory, while those who supported passage saw it as a threat to democracy.
We suspect that most people who knew what the proposed law actually says would find it not only tolerable, but sensible in the wake of the 2020 general election.
It’s not about whether there was widespread fraud (there wasn’t), or whether Donald Trump won Pennsylvania (he didn’t).
But there’s a reason 74 percent of Pennsylvanians are asking for election reform, and it isn’t because of conspiracy theories or fear the bogeyman stole their votes.
Plain and simple, the sudden changes necessitated by COVID-19 threaten the security of future elections, and the voters are losing faith in a system that opens the door to potential fraud down the road.
The folks who are today decrying the cost of implementing the requirements of the bill are the same ones who have no problem spending taxpayer dollars on other proposals, which like this one, will improve elections, not magically stop people from voting.
The provisions that are so offensive to the governor and his cronies are simple and sensible: n Require every voter to present ID at the polls (you know, like you have to do for dozens of other everyday activities in life; there would be no cost to obtain one); n Allow counties to begin processing and counting mail ballots five days before Election Day (the same thing Democrats seemingly favored six months ago); n Create six days of in-person early voting, beginning after the 2024 presidential election (again, an option formerly favorable to Dems, delayed only to give counties time to implement a working means of doing so); n Allow mail ballot drop boxes for seven days before Election Day (we’re not sure why anyone would object to this); n Move the voter registration deadline to 30 days before Election Day, from 15 (in line with residency and eligibility requirements already in the law); n Move the deadline for requesting mail ballots to 15 days before Election Day, from seven (to give overwhelmed counties, as we saw in 2020, time to respond to these requests before election day); n Allow voters to fix — or “cure” — mail ballots with missing signatures (so the partisan secretary of state can’t meddle with election rules at the last minute — like in 2020 — causing inequities among counties and possibly leading to incorrect vote counts); n Ban counties from accepting private donations for election administration (because neither the founder of Facebook nor the Koch brothers should be picking and choosing who gets electoral aid).
If you can explain to us why these are bad ideas (except when Democrats propose them), or how any of these would prevent one legal voter from casting a ballot, we’d love to hear about it.
In the meantime, we can only hope that 34 legislators and five state senators have the wherewithal to change their vote, allowing an override of another bad decision by Tom Wolf.
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