Congressional Whack-a-Mole in hard times

Against the backdrop of the Jan. 6 riot and with Delta sweeping the unvaxed part of the country, voting rights under attack, and millions threatened with eviction, House leaders are keeping busy playing Whack-a-Mole with each other. 

MAGA Party House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy threatened (jokingly?) to bop House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the noggin with the speaker's gavel during a glitzy fundraising dinner in Tennessee on Saturday night.

A war of words between the two party leaders escalated when McCarthy joined other Republicans in vehemently protesting a mask mandate the Capitol physician reimposed and Pelosi supported.

McCarthy went on to say that, should the GOP manage to flip the House in 2022 and if he were to become the speaker, he would find it difficult to resist hitting Pelosi with the speaker's gavel.

"It will be hard not to hit her with it but I will bang it down," McCarthy said.

I call this bipartisan foreplay.  

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Right Ruling for the wrong reason...A British judge has blocked the extradition to the U.S. of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, ruling that “Mr. Assange’s risk of committing suicide, if an extradition order were to be made, to be substantial.”

Trump to Raffensperger

“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have." Raffensperger’s Twitter response: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true. The truth will come out.” -- AP

Sen. Dick Durbin (IL)

President Trump's call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) "merits nothing less than a criminal investigation." In his statement calling for an investigation, the No. 2 Senate Democrat labeled the conversation as "more than a pathetic rambling, delusional rant."

"His disgraceful effort to intimidate an elected official into deliberately changing and misrepresenting the legally confirmed vote totals in his state strikes at the heart of our democracy and merits nothing less than a criminal investigation." -- The Hil

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez backs Pelosi for Speaker

...a progressive leader, backed Pelosi and told reporters that Democratic unity was important “at a time when the Republican Party is attempting an electoral coup.” -- AP

Trump ~ Fauci

The number of "China Virus" cases and deaths in the U.S. are "far exaggerated," President Donald Trump said on Twitter. He cited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's methodology. "When in doubt, call it Covid. Fake News!" Trump said.

Anthony Fauci, speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, said anyone who went into the "trenches" – intensive care units at hospitals across the nation – will quickly realize how severe the virus is. He called the statistics "real numbers, real people and real deaths."

Trump shot back on Twitter: "Something how Dr. Fauci is revered by the LameStream Media as such a great professional, having done, they say, such an incredible job, yet he works for me and the Trump Administration, and I am in no way given any credit for my work. Gee, could this just be more Fake News?" --  USA Today

When we look back on all this, the notion that Trump was impeached for the Ukraine call alone will seem utterly bizarre.

— Carlos Lozada (@CarlosLozadaWP) January 3, 2021

United front against Trump doesn't mean struggle ends.

"Ella Baker, a giant of the civil rights movement, left us with this wisdom: Give people light and they will find a way." -- Joe Biden 

"You and I cannot be free in America or anywhere else where there is capitalism and imperialism." --  Ella Baker, Puerto Rico Solidarity Rally 1974

Yes, I was captivated as usual by the Obama speeches and deeply moved by Kamala Harris' personal story and will definitely try to beat my brother Fred to the polls this time around to vote the anti-Trump ticket from top to bottom.

Although you might not have gotten this from the convention's singular focus on Biden/Harris, we also need to get out the vote for congressional candidates and take back the Senate if we are to begin undoing the damage Trump's regime has caused. My hunch is, congressional candidates weren't getting much play at the DNC so as not to offend or scare away the anti-Trump Republicans.

It's pretty clear that a united-front strategy -- all hands on deck -- is the right one to take down Trump in November even though it leaves some ("they're all the same") ultra-lefties grumpy and feeling betrayed by their base. But it's also important to remember that even within a united front, struggle goes on. Without that struggle -- and there is room for struggle -- the tone of the Democratic Convention would have been far different and minus progressive voices that made it through Nancy Pelosi's loyalty screen.

It seemed almost pro forma for convention speakers to tip their hat to SNCC '60s freedom fighters at the start of every speech. It shows how much the national BLM protests have forced the party leftward in order to maintain its credibility with labor, immigrants, and younger Black and Latinx voters and how much today's Democratic Party leaders like Harris (admittedly) have to stand on the shoulders of their Black Freedom Movement forerunners.

And these women inspired us to pick up the torch, and fight on. Women like Mary Church Terrell and Mary McCleod Bethune. Fannie Lou Hamer and Diane Nash. Constance Baker Motley and the great Shirley Chisholm. -- Kamala Harris speech

Despite all the civil-rights chatter, it became pretty clear that Pelosi's right-center conception of the anti-Trump united front is far different from ours. Hers is essentially a Kasich/Clinton/Obama coalition that even welcomes with open arms, union-busters, Pentagon and NRA faves, global-warming deniers, right-to-lifers, and neocon Republicans while keeping progressive and left-leaning Democrats at arm's length or out the door completely.

I know, AOC got her minute in the sun (and a powerful minute it was) and Bernie Sanders is too legit to quit. But I'm amazed, though not really surprised to see even loyal progressive Texas Democrats like Julian Castro and Beto O'Rourke, let alone Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib getting short shrift at the DNC. Remember Omar and Tlaib are big-time vote-getters and election winners in crucial swing states MI and MN.

Yet, Pelosi, Biden, and other Dem leaders feel compelled to attack them and other Squad members publicly and are, hopefully unsuccessfully, backing machine pols against them in local primaries. Case in point is Pelosi's recent endorsement of Rep. Joe Kennedy III in a primary challenge against progressive Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey.

The struggle continues

Y'all keep coming for @lsarsour so we will keep showing up for her and let you know that we stand w our sister in solidarity. Hi @lsarsour - we got your back! pic.twitter.com/LhMiFAMPb1

— Harish I. Patel (@iamharishipatel) August 21, 2020

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Migrant workers in India wait to board buses following government mass evacuation order. 

Donald J. Trump

Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, the US president claimed that, if his administration keeps the death toll to 100,000, it will have done “a very good job” --Guardian

 Nancy Pelosi

"His denial at the beginning was deadly." -- CNN

 U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres

 "The spread of COVID-19 is measured in a matter of a single day — not weeks, months, or years — and Respondents appear to ignore this condition of confinement that will likely cause imminent, life-threatening illness." -- Judge orders release of ICE detainees

Amanda Klonsky

An outbreak in a jail or prison will be a death sentence for many thousands of people. And so we're asking our state and local governments, the federal government, the Trump administration, to take this threat seriously, to release as many people as possible. It's the only way that we can reduce the number of deaths. -- PBS News Hour

Fareed Zakaria

“The United States is on track to have the worst outbreak of coronavirus among wealthy countries. This is the new face of American exceptionalism." -- CNN

David Gilbert, incarcerated '60s activist  

Most crucially, the policies we are living under will be most effective when we have a say in shaping them. Allowing prisoners an active role in creating a safer environment will protect lives both inside and out. -- Letter to New York Times

Dems being played by Trump. Now they're echoing his attacks on Bernie.

Bernie Sanders got more young voters in New Hampshire than everyone else combined/

Bernie Sanders Is The Front-Runner For Democratic Nomination. The democratic socialist is assembling a broad coalition of voters. -- Huffpost 

"I don't understand how Bernie is considered a frontrunner' after New Hampshire primary." -- Chuck Todd, MSNBC

Donald Trump is still the tail wagging the Democratic dog. His every tweet has Dems running from pillar to post in shock-and-awe.

Whether it was calling nazi thugs in Charlottesville "fine people"; or ICE agents raiding communities and separating thousands of immigrant children from their parents on the southern border; or now, the Stone sentencing outrage. Each outrage was going to be the big thing that would break Republicans away by, in the words of Chuck Schumer, putting them in touch with their "better angels."

When the needle didn't budge, they turned to impeachment, certain that the Ukraine quid-pro-quo scandal would resonate with disenchanted swing voters and peel off a section of Republicans. It was also hoped that the impeachment trial would boost the campaign of their chosen one, Joe Biden, while keeping their progressive opposition, Sanders, and Warren, out of the media spotlight.

It didn't. They didn't.

The good news, at least from my perspective, is that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now says that she is jumping back off the impeachment train-to-nowhere and will be refocusing the party away from the Ukraine shitshow (which probably hurt Biden as much or more than it did Trump) and on to "economic issues." Up til now, Dems have conceded them to Trump.

According to Politico:

To further underscore that point, Pelosi hosted a special speaker’s meeting on Tuesday with a top Obama economics adviser to explain to Democrats why the economy isn’t actually as strong as Trump claims and how they can message that to voters.

 “I’m glad that we’re shifting and pivoting to something else. Every time I poll in my area, it’s always the same thing: education, health care and the economy,” said Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, who is facing a fierce primary challenger from the left in his sprawling south Texas district.

 “Impeachment didn’t move the needle ... so continuing to focus on that target, you’re not going to convince anyone at this point,” said Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin, who represents a Trump-district. Kind said Trump’s real problem is in states that are key to his reelection, like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where some haven’t benefited from the president’s economic good fortune.

But the risk for Pelosi and the DNC is that a focus on the economy and the environment will strengthen Bernie Sanders, who they currently see as a greater threat to their power than they do Trump himself.

Yes, you read me right. Despite recognition of the fact by both camps that without party unity, it will be impossible to beat Trump in November, party leaders and media allies are doing everything possible to make post-primary unity impossible.

First, they have become an echo for Republican red baiters. Check out one of their media faves, Chris Matthews, raising the specter of Bernie's commie assassination squads.

Leading up to Sanders’s win this week in New Hampshire, Matthews truly lost it, implying that Sanders would cheer on his public execution: “I have an attitude towards [Fidel] Castro,” Matthews explained. “I believe if Castro and the Reds had won the Cold War there would have been executions in Central Park and I might have been one of the ones getting executed. And certain other people would be there cheering, okay?” -- Vice

Second, they have targeted Sanders' young activist base harder than Sanders himself, calling his supporters "Bernie Bros" and "a mob." This, even knowing that without these young activists, the party has little chance of pulling off the kind of mobilization necessary to win in November.

DNC surrogate & AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten has been leading the attack on the Sanders activists often referring to them as a "mob." Here she retweets this post by Kurt Bardella, a media strategist who previously worked as a spokesperson for Breitbart News:

Virtual lynch mobs are not something people of color or women — or anyone — should have to just live with.

Third, they are using their control of the party apparatus to tilt things in favor of their chosen candidate(s) and diminishing Sanders' primary victories in their media spin. Think Iowa and Chuck Todd's quote at the top of this column.

But here's the thing...Without young voters and a huge turnout of voters of color, a Democratic win is virtually impossible. The votes in Iowa and NH show that Bernie has the youth vote behind him. He got more young voters in New Hampshire than everyone else combined. Those are the foot soldiers every presidential campaign needs to turn out the vote.

They may not be enough to assure a win in November. But the Democrats sure can't win without them.

Complicit Democrats can redeem themselves on Iran war budget vote

Senators Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna push anti-war legislation

"Every member of Congress who voted to give the most corrupt, unhinged, and unstable president in history $738 billion to fight endless wars...must never tell us that we cannot afford Medicare for All or a Green New Deal." -- Warren Gunnels, Sanders senior adviser

Despite their claims that congress wasn't consulted in advance of the latest U.S. aggressive moves against Iran, Democrats had a chance to make their voices heard. Instead, they are in many ways complicit.

For one thing, they passed on chances to constrain military aggression against Iran in the recent Pentagon budget debate. Only 41 House Democrats, voted against the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which increased the Pentagon budget by $22 billion, including billions for Trump's bogus Space Force. The final vote was 377-48. Democrats voted overwhelmingly for passage without any restrictions on the use of funds in a war with Iran.

One of the omitted amendments in the annual National Defense Authorization Act, sponsored by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL), would have barred Trump from using federal dollars for military action against Iran without congressional approval. Although the measure was included in an earlier draft of the NDAA, it was later stripped out in the compromise version that Democrats voted for anyway.

Khanna, one of the members who vocally opposed the NDAA in December, argued that his amendment would have prevented the US from using government funds to conduct the strike against Soleimani. Whether his claim is real or not remains a question, given Trump’s potential for ignoring Congress and violating the Constitution.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) also sought to include an amendment in the NDAA that would limit the 2001 Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF), which permits the president to take action against anyone responsible for or associated with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, arguing that it was too broad. Administrations have since used the AUMF to wage military action across the Middle East, efforts that have been seen as further expanding the executive branch’s war powers.

More than 30 progressive and anti-war organizations — including MoveOn and Indivisible — expressed disagreement with the bill, too. “It is a blank check for endless wars, fuel for the further militarization of US foreign policy, and a gift to Donald Trump,” they wrote in their December statement.

On Sunday, Trump warned Iranian leaders against any military retaliation by boasting on Twitter that,

“The United States just spent Two Trillion Dollars on Military Equipment” and that if necessary he would use it to hit Iran “very fast and very hard.”

The $1.4 trillion spending deal for 2020 that became law in December includes about $695 billion for the Pentagon, an increase of about $19 billion from the 2019 level.

But Democrats still have a chance to redeem themselves in an effort to prevent all-out war with Iran by supporting a House bill introduced by Lee and Rep. Ilhan Omar and a Senate bill sponsored by Khanna and Bernie Sanders that would block funding for any military action "in or against Iran" without congressional authorization.

We should be watching closely and taking names on who votes which way.

🚨@SpeakerPelosi announced: This week, the House will vote on a #WarPowers Resolution to limit the President’s military actions regarding Iran. pic.twitter.com/gBH6WOy07A

— Christine Pelosi (@sfpelosi) January 6, 2020

.@RepBarbaraLee and I are introducing a War Powers Resolution in the House to prevent a disastrous war with Iran.

We in Congress must reassert our Constitutional authority and stop a disastrous war.

The stakes could not be higher.
#NoWarWithIran https://t.co/UXpKdbfk4R

— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) January 5, 2020

Rahm: Fighting Trump is 'sinking to his level.'

"Some may accuse me of being Pollyanna-ish — there’s a first time for everything." -- Rahm Emanuel

Rahm Emanuel is trying once again, to rebrand himself. He no longer wants to be seen as the divisive advisor who was canned by President Obama or the ex-mayor driven out of Chicago before voters could get a clean shot at him at the polls.

When he still had hopes of winning re-election, Mayor 1% tried to rebrand himself as a "progressive". But now, with real progressives threatening the centrists' hold on the Democratic Party leadership, he's dropped the progressive facade and is working with the DNC leadership to isolate and discredit the party's left-wing. Rahm now wants to morph into the "no-conflict" conciliator with Trump and the Republicans to "bring the country together."

He's warning Democrats to veer away from any anti-Trump resistance movements, especially the kind being forged by the likes of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during the primary elections.

To Rahm, fighting Trumpism is "sinking to Trump's level."

In yesterday's Washington Post op-ed, Rahm appears downright giddy over the new NAFTA deal Nancy Pelosi cut with Trump. 

If everything in Washington centered on conflict, President Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) would never have been able to align themselves on a major trade agreement. And yet there they were, serving up evidence that division and consensus can sit, however uncomfortably, side by side. What did that moment tell us? Riven though we are, we are also, on many matters, united.

From Rahm's POV, there's no longer a need for sharp conflict with Trump over issues like climate change, gun control, or immigration. Why? Because we're all already agreed. There's a national consensus, says Rahm.

We don’t need to tell Americans that the president’s decision to bully Greta Thunberg was wrong — they know that. We don’t need to tell them that his Dec. 18 attack on Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and her late husband, John, was beyond the pale and beneath this nation — they know that as well. 

This from the former White House chief-of-staff who called immigration reform, "the third rail of politics" and who warned Obama's attorney general to "STFU" about gun control. 

Rahm's call for consensus-building with Republicans is nothing more than a poke at the left-wing of the party who he and Dem party leaders see as a greater threat to their power than they do Donald Trump. Without mentioning Sanders, Warren or AOC by name, Rahm tries to paint them as the purveyors of conflict and Joe Biden as the Pelosi-style unifier.

He writes:

If Trump is going to do his best to deepen the conflict, should we do the same? Or, after three years of enduring the White House’s efforts to pit community against community, should we lean into the exhausted electorate’s desire to embrace a leader who will bind up the nation’s wounds?

His rebranding efforts won't work. He's still the same divisive, corporate shill he's always been. If the Democratic leadership follows Rahm's lead and opts for conciliation with Trump as their strategic goal, they will fail again as they did in 2016.

I've got problems with the impeachment strategy

Republicans aren't disputing the facts. They're telling Democrats where to shove them.

I know it's early in the game, but so far my fears about the current shitshow that is the Democrats' impeachment hearings are coming true. It's not that I'm against impeaching the grifter president. His attempt to use the weapons sale to Ukraine as quid pro quo to get dirt on Joe Biden and his son is a clear criminal act and should be prosecuted. Trump and the Republicans aren't even disputing the facts. They are simply reminding us that POTUS is above the law.

In my mind at least, the hearings, which are taken by most as impeachment itself, fail as a political strategy leading up to the 2020 elections.

I just can't imagine the predictable outcome of a failed impeachment attempt moving the needle much, especially in the battleground states, let alone inspiring millions of young voters in a crusade to win the White House and Congress.

To make matters worse, Nancy Pelosi's messaging about the "dangers" facing us in the upcoming election (even when she is misquoted on Fox News) gives the impression that without the hearings, Trump is bound to win the election.

“The weak response to these hearings has been, ‘Let the election decide.’ That dangerous position only adds to the urgency of our action, because the President is jeopardizing the integrity of the 2020 elections.”-- Nancy Pelosi

Pelosi's pessimism is understandable, especially given the slumping of her favorite candidate, Joe Biden. But I'll leave that for a future post.

The hearings, duller than a Chicago Bears game, have put all the Democrats' eggs in the Ukraine basket. They have nearly pushed all other issues like health care and education to the side, issues that gain traction with key voter blocs. Stories and events that present an even stronger rationale for impeachment or certainly for defeating the Republicans next year now pale in comparison to the Ukraine fiasco.

On the global front, there's Trump's pardoning of convicted war criminals, a move opposed by his own Pentagon brass. Or his putting the final nail in the coffin of a negotiated just peace settlement in Israel/Palestine by sanctioning and encouraging future Israeli settlements in the West Bank. This happened, by the way, with hardly a peep from the Democrats.

I could go on about the U.S. role in sanctioning the right-wing coup in Bolivia; the continued separation of thousands of children from their parents as part of the human rights immigration crisis on the southern border; or Trump's disastrous trade wars. All of these now have a media half-life of about four days because of all the air all being sucked up by Trump's phone call to Zelensky.

I hope I'm wrong and that the hearings inspire a move of swing Trump voters. I just don't see it happening that way.

The death of irony

Dare Pelosi and the Democrats utter the "R"-word?

It's ironic that Democratic Party leaders are hesitant to use the "R"-word while criticizing Trump and the Republicans. It seems they're afraid of alienating the so-called "moderate" Republicans, who they are counting on to elect Biden in the industrial swing states. They are also leery of giving any credibility to the progressive insurgency within the party, which threatens their positions of power.

So even when DT comes out with his most outrageous, naked white-nationalist diatribes, directed mainly at AOC and "The Squad" of four congresswomen of color, (who he told to "go back" to the countries they came from), the closest they come to calling "racism" is to charge the president with "xenophobia."

....and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced yesterday, that Democrats will soon introduce a resolution condemning Trump’s “xenophobic” remarks. OK, but just xenophobic?

I say ironic, because even thick-as-a-brick DT recognizes, in an oblique way, that his MAGA code language is racist to its core. So when Pelosi paraphrases and mocks him, saying MAGA would more accurately be described as "make America white again," DT tells reporters, "Speaker Pelosi said 'make America white again,' that's a very racist statement."

Irony is definitely lost on this man.

"Xenophobia" is now the Dem's saveur du jour. It means dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries, and there's no doubt, DT is a xenophobe. His picture should appear in the dictionary next to the definition. But his attack on the squad is racist, not just xenophobic.

It's a much softer, safer word in white America, one that doesn't have quite the sting of "racist." But it's also inaccurate in the case of the Squad.

Three of the four may come from "broken places," but those places are right here in the U.S. So telling four women of color to leave their country of birth and "go back"to the country they "came from"? Really?

Definitely racist. Let's call it what it is.

Trump claims a 94% approval rating among Republicans... I don't doubt it. It's definitely his party now. So Democrats building their 2020 strategy on hopes that a significant number of disenchanted Republican will swing their way, is likely a losing one.

2016 redux.

They insist that only a right-centrist like Biden can play to conservative swing voters and so, they direct their main blows not at Trump, but leftward at The Squad.

BTW, I don't like the name The Squad. It makes the party insurgency seem small and isolated, which it isn't.

Saving grace may be that Trump's racist attacks on the four are so odious that centrists and leftists will be forced to close ranks in their defense. We'll see how long that lasts.

Also important to note...Today's NBC/WSJ poll shows any one of the top Democratic contenders (not just Biden) beating Trump in a head-to-head race.

I know, it's early in the race and you can't rely on the polls and...blah, blah blah. But my point here is that there's no evidence in any polling to support the claim that Biden is the only one capable of beating Trump or that contenders like Sanders, Warren, or Harris (and the rest of us) should withhold criticism of Biden or the Democratic leadership during the primary.

Lots of candidates but no real debate on school deseg

Even though I have a lot is issues with Kamala Harris, I thought she was bold in confronting frontrunner Joe Biden and calling him out during the televised debate, for his opposition to "forced" school integration back in the '70s. Actually, as he pointed out, his position hasn't changed. He is still against a federal role in enforcing the Brown Decision.

His opposition to busing and his partnership with avowed "states-rights" segregationists like Eastland and Talmadge, seemed like fair game during the debate. Thanks to Harris, Biden himself was finally forced to apologize for touting his work with the racist senators.

In fact, I was surprised that not one of the other candidates, particularly white progressives like Sanders and Warren, had Harris' back at the time. None would even dare mention Biden's name during either of the two debates. This even though the road to the nomination obviously runs through him and the DNC leadership. If you're not willing to take on Biden, what's the point of running? Unless of course, you're just a stalking horse for Biden, trying to dissipate the opposition or an unprincipled kiss-ass, hoping for a V.P. slot or cabinet appointment if Biden wins.

Such is the intimidating power of the Pelosi party leaders who are really running Biden against young insurgents like Reps Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley, rather than any of the announced primary candidates who were on stage those nights.

Pelosi, it seems, would rather lose the election to Trump than risk losing the leadership of the party to the leftists.

Then yesterday, out comes Tulsi Gabbard (who I liked before this) with a blistering attack on Harris, calling her confrontation with Biden, "a political ploy' to get attention".

Here's my tweet to Sen. Gabbard...

Questions for @TulsiGabbard (who I like)... A"political ploy"? Aren't you running for political office?

To get attention? Isn't that why you take part in televised political debates with the top dog?

What's your gain in attacking Harris, defending Biden on school deseg??? https://t.co/bLBvnIly0i

— Mike Klonsky (@mikeklonsky) July 10, 2019

Gabbard also claimed Harris has been "levying this accusation that Joe Biden is a racist — when he's clearly not — as a way to try to smear him."

But Harris never called Biden a racist. In fact, she pointedly prefaced her critical remarks by stating, "I do not believe you are a racist and I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground."

In fact, a week later Harris revealed that she has essentially the same position as Biden on deseg being a local issue.

Common ground, indeed.