We were minding our own business when a call came in: “Standby, Big Red Car, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the one and only Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi, would like a word with you. Let me warn you, she’s drunk with victory.”
In the background, I could hear the woman who called me saying, “Your Highness, I have that annoying Big Red Car for you.”
“Hello, Madame Speaker, what an unexpected pleasure,” I said.
One of the elements of the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act), the bi-partisan stimulus program in response to COVID19, was the $250B Payroll Protection Plan.
The CARES Act was passed unanimously by both the Senate and the House on a unanimous consent. Wow!
The PPP was a good deal based on its popularity, a popularity that has drained its coffers. The PPP is broke. Out of money. The need was enormous.
The PPP has deployed $350,000,000,000 and has thousands of more applications, but it is out of money.
The Congress has known this for almost two weeks now.
The Senate Republicans saw this — the exhaustion of funds for PPP — coming and more than a week ago they proposed a single change to the CARES Act — change the single number $350,000,000,000 to $600,000,000,000.
That’s it. Just that. Nothing more. One single change. Two numbers, nothing else. Simple, right?
It is Friday, a bit before 4:00 PM CST. Senator Murkowski of Alaska has announced she is opposed to seeking more witnesses in the Impeachment Trial of President Donald J Trump.
In this Senator Murkowski joins Senator Lamar Alexander, thereby leaving Cocaine Mitch and the Republicans with a worst case scenario of 51-49 which embraces the notion that Senator Mitt Romney and Senator Susan Collins (both nominally Republicans, though the disguise is no longer believable, just switch parties and get over it) will vote to seek additional witnesses.
That 51-49 total does not make any allowance for the votes of Senator Joe Manchin, Senator Doug Jones, or Senator Krysten Sinema — all Democrats thought to be considering jumping ship from their party and voting to disavow witnesses. [I predict they do not jump ship.]
While the vote is about “witnesses,” it is really a proxy for the dismissal of all charges against President Donald J Trump, thereby leaving him in office until the end of this term and on the ballot to be re-elected in November 2020.
Thus ends the impeachment and trial of President Trump. Much ado about nothing.
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