Daily Archives: January 3, 2022

Even a most optimistic gloss on 2021 would say it was a year of high hopes and huge disappointments. All the things that looked to have been chased away in 2020totalitarian Republicans in control, coronavirus out of controlare either back, or a near-certainty to return imminently. Democrats seized power at the beginning of the year and by its end had proven beyond argument that they, as ever, had no intention of wielding it. My year in review traces a few of those steps.

Six days into the new year, a mob stormed the Capitol in a coup attempt that was orchestrated in close collaboration with Republican leadershipremember that? That group intended to ensure that democratically elected Democrats could never again hold power; they might have been happy to pick off a few choice Democrats (and Mike Pence) in the process. And yet most Democrats were content to scold Donald Trump and his conspirators with a few harsh tweets. Only the Squad extendedyoung members of the progressive flankwere willing to call for impeachment from the get-go, and theyre the only reason that it happened. Moderate Dems were not comfortable with the message it sent. Of course, even those progressives couldnt get Democratic leadership to use its mandate to prosecute Trump, and now those people will just return to power the old-fashioned way, and pick up where they left off.

By May, Democrats were off to the races, by which I mean abandoning their legislative ambitions at full tilt. With the anniversary of George Floyds death and a late-May deadline on police reform looming, and not long after House Democrats knelt on the floor of the Capitol Visitor Center in kente cloths in an oddball stunt signaling their support for the largest protest movement in American history, third-ranking Democrat Jim Clyburn went into undertaker mode, hitting the cable news circuit to undermine his very own Congressional Black Caucuss chief ambitions on police reform (and the party broadly). After swearing on national television that qualified-immunity reforms were not important, Clyburn armed Republican Tim Scott to renege on commitments hed already made in the bill, and condemned it to death. It would be a few months before this was acknowledged broadly, but I wrote about it in mid-May. Another mild legislative ambition rerouted to the dustbin.

While the Biden administration was showing next to no urgency in its legislative program, attention turned to its judicial appointments, another arena where Democrats swore theyd learn hard lessons from the mistakes of their predecessors. While President Obama decided the courts werent a priority, President Trump had done the opposite, stuffing the judiciary full of underqualified ideologues with lifetime appointments. Biden put out a call to his Senate contemporaries for civil rights and public-interest lawyers to help balance out an irredeemably unbalanced court system; that call was heeded only partway, a troubling sign of the widespread disrespect from Senate Democrats toward their former colleague and self-identified Senate whisperer. Of course, with his primary loyalty to norms and not an agenda, Biden just appointed those corporate lawyer nominees he had explicitly disavowed anyway.

This year featured few elections, and with congressional Democrats theoretically in the heat of the legislative process in early August, a special primary election to replace Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge in a D+60 district should have been a non-event. The Marcia Fudge/Shontel Brown race proved to be anything but. A party far more interested in quashing the ascendant progressive bloc than battling Republicans and accomplishing anything in Washington instead went all out in Cleveland. The Congressional Black Caucus, fresh off stranding police reform, went all out to push its preferred candidate, Shontel Brown, across the finish line, with the CBC endorsing Brown without her even receiving a majority of endorsements from caucus members. Browns campaign meanwhile relied on a campaign finance gambit of an extremely dubious nature, one that would have been in clear violation of the campaign finance reforms on super PAC collaboration in the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, also a priority of the CBC. Brown won, proving that congressional Dems can achieve something if they care enough. The John Lewis Voting Rights Act was not so lucky.

If Senate Democrats had no real regard for the Democratic agenda by June, House Democrats caught up in August. In this profile of New Jersey Problem Solver Josh Gottheimer, I traced how the face of legislative sabotage in the House was a true institutional make and model, a product of the Clinton administration from his first day in politicsthe very sort of centrist, lifetime Democrat who is always accusing progressives of party disloyalty. Without ever summoning an intellectually legitimate argument, Gottheimer spearheaded the corporate-funded attempt to pass a fossil fuelheavy, lobbyist-authored highway bill (bipartisan infrastructure) and untether it from the Build Back Better Act, where the entirety of the Democratic agenda resided. He didnt succeed, nor did he win any style points, but it was evidence enough of a growing appetite for self-sabotage that was ready to reveal itself months down the line.

This session, according to Nancy Pelosis own House rules, was sure to be the last with octogenarians Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Jim Clyburn in the top three ranking leadership spots. With Democrats staring down a possible House minority after 2022s midterms, the party was going to swiftly pass its ambitious agenda and allow its leaders to ride off into the sunset, with Build Back Better acting as Pelosis legacyor so she said. Of course, the bench of Democratic talent is paper-thin, and the odds-on favorite to succeed Pelosi, New Yorks Hakeem Jeffries, had spent the year engaging in internecine squabbles, settling scores with the progressive flank while arming the right-wing minority that helped sabotage Build Back Better. Not long after, Pelosi announced she did not feel comfortable handing over the reins. An aged party gets even older.

December 29, 2021

5:30 AM

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How Democrats Blew It in 2021 - The American Prospect

As 2022 is kicking off, America nears the first anniversary of Joe Bidens presidency. Following the tenures ambitious start, the last few months witnessed some serious tumult around the overall health of the United States economy, the administrations handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the tense debate around Bidens opus magnum the $1.7 trillion Build Back Better infrastructure legislation plan.

But even as the Democrats ability to maintain undivided power after the 2022 midterm elections can raise doubts, the partys prevailing view of crypto has become more consolidated than ever. The incumbent presidents party will be setting the tone of the regulatory discussion for at least three more years, so a thorough look at the fundamental premises and potential directions of its emerging crypto stance is in order.

The path that mainstream Democrat thinking on crypto has traveled over the last three years is perfectly captured by an anecdote featuring two crypto-related public statements made by a Clinton. One is by the 42nd U.S. president, Bill Clinton, then 72, who said at Ripples Swell Conference in October 2018 that the "permutations and possibilities" of blockchain were "staggeringly great.

Three years later, speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore, Bills wife and ex-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, though calling the cryptocurrencies an interesting technology, warned about their power to undermine the U.S. dollar and destabilize nations perhaps starting with small ones but going much larger.

This startling difference in opinion within the power couple reflects the recent evolution of the Democratic party, itself from a third way, business, tech and finance-friendly centrism of its 1990s generation to the newfound statism with a heavy emphasis on redistributional justice and big government projects. By current standards, the former first lady sounded rather balanced in comparison to her party comrade Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has famously lashed out at the crypto market after the volatility outburst in early September:

Warren berated crypto on numerous occasions, calling it a fourth-rate alternative to real currency that is unsuitable as a medium of exchange; a lousy investment, that has no consumer protection; and a tool that makes many illegal activities easier.

The negative sentiment is largely shared by Senator Sherrod Brown, which is arguably even more unsettling given his status as chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Browns opening statements at Congress hearings have never been amicable towards crypto. Their overall spirit can be summarized in the introduction that opened the July hearing entitled Cryptocurrencies: What are they good for?

Brown blamed the cottage industry of decentralized financial schemes for an attempt to create a parallel financial system with no rules, no oversight, and no limits, calling it a shady, diffuse network of online funny money, with nothing democratic or transparent about it. The lawmaker repeatedly rejected the notion that crypto could be an alternative to legacy money last time at a December Congress hearing:

Its not all dark, though. One figure that represents a more moderate, if not pragmatic approach to crypto Congresswoman Maxime Waters would also play a major role in any future outcome for the industry. As a chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, she initiated the Digital Assets Working Group of Democratic Members with a mission to ensure responsible innovation in the cryptocurrency and digital asset space and meet with leading regulators, advocates, and other experts on how these novel products and services are reshaping our financial system.

Related: Lines in the sand: US Congress is bringing partisan politics to crypto

Sen. Waters has publicly recognized that Americans are increasingly making financial decisions using digital assets every day, and affirmed that her Committee will explore the promise of digital assets in providing faster payments, instantaneous settlements and lower transaction fees for remittances.

The good news is that underneath the redoubtable oratory, there is a keyword: regulation. It is clear, at this point, that a China-style total war on crypto isnt an option in the U.S. Therefore, what drives the heated activity of congressional committees and federal agencies in recent months is a clear intention of the Democratic establishment to sort out the rules of the game before the next presidential election.

Part of this effort of the Biden administration is the launch of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, a superhero team composed of the SEC, CFTC, OCC, FDIC and Federal Reserve System executives, with the secretary of the Treasury Department leading the group.

So far, the key product of the Working Group is a 26-page report on stablecoins, which advises Congress to designate some stablecoin-related activities such as payment, clearing and settlement as systemically important (which would inevitably lead to a tighter oversight) and limit stablecoin issuance to insured depository institutions, i.e., banks.

As in the pre-Biden era, the main problem lies with the core classification of digital assets. The PWG report failed to propose a novel interpretation and give precedence to a single regulatory body, thus perpetuating a situation where a variety of regulators oversee different types of crypto-related activity.

In October, Rostin Behnam, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and a member of the Democratic Party, claimed that as much as 60% of digital assets can be classified as commodities, which amounts to proposing that the agency become the lead U.S. cryptocurrency regulator. He also further stated that his agency, as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission, would likely need a regulatory structure for both securities and commodities. How exactly that would help the ongoing patchwork approach to regulation is still a mystery.

There are several reasons to believe that the largely proclamatory activity of 2021 will be followed up by some real action in the following year. The first is the general idealistic mindset of U.S. Democrats. For example, the drive to aggressively regulate Big Tech is part and parcel of this mindset.

While President Barack Obama and some regulators worked alongside Google and Twitter to facilitate the growth of internet businesses, Joe Bidens administration came to power amid the wave of popular anxiety over international cyberattacks, personal data leaks, Metas crisis mismanagement and the overall outsize influence on the political process accumulated by tech goliaths.

While Meta and Google have been fighting federal and state regulators in courts over allegations of anticompetitive conduct for a while, Bidens team also pledged to hold tech companies to account for toxic speech they host and strengthen policing anti-competitive practices.

However, in 2021, we havent witnessed any significant policy steps in this direction. Neither of the two major legislative proposals Amy Klobuchars bill, which would bar big tech platforms from favoring their own products and services, and a bill by House Democrats that seeks to remove some protections afforded tech companies by Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act has become law.

The second reason behind the Democratic rush to put crypto within the regulatory perimeter is pragmatic: The Biden administration and its allies on Capitol Hill need money. Bidens first-term agenda relies heavily on ambitious Roosveltian infrastructure projects. While the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act managed to get bipartisan support and was signed into law on November 5, the Build Back Better Act, which now hangs by a thread after Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin had announced his opposition to the current draft, would cost nearly $2 trillion.

By some estimates, should it make it to the presidents desk, the spending program would increase the deficit by $360 billion over 10 years, making it urgent to raise more tax revenue. This is what makes a thriving crypto industry an important battlefield for Democrats, who see the possibility of harvesting some cash from it and an urgency to prevent tax evasion via digital tools.

Theres no doubt that the Biden administration will continue to pursue a strict regulatory agenda in 2022. We will see more Congressional hearings next year, but even more consequential negotiations will be taking place behind closed doors, where Democrats will have to finally decide whether the SEC, CFTC or any other body should dominate crypto oversight. Despite Sharrod Browns recent with or without Congress remarks, it is also hard to believe that Republicans will let their opponents single-handedly decide the fate of the industry.

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How the Democratic Party didnt stop worrying and fearing crypto in 2021 - Cointelegraph

In 2020, riots wreaked havoc across the country. In Denver, rioters lit fires around the state capitol and smashed windows like those of the popular sandwich chain Quiznos. As cities were burned and looted, far-left Democrats pushed the dangerous and wildly out-of-touch effort to defund the police.

In Colorado, violent crimes in 2020 increased 6.5 percent to a rate of 423 per 100,000 people, versus the national average of 398. This represents the states highest level of violent crime in 25 years. We saw a 29 percent increase in homicides, an 18 percent increase in aggravated assaults, and a 51 percent increase in homicides in the Denver metro area.

In 2021, rather than fight the crime wave, Democrats doubled down with policies that made the lives of criminals easier, and the lives of law enforcement harder.

READ:Colorado Sun opinion columnists.

During the 2021 legislative session, despite an outcry of opposition from law enforcement, Colorado Democratic lawmakers introduced Senate Bill 273, a radical bail-reform law that would have eliminated bonds for class 4, 5, and 6 felonies the tier of lesser felonies.

Colorado Springs Police Chief Vince Niski warned that the proposed law completely takes away our discretion in dealing with repeat offenders and unfortunately while these crimes are labeled lower-level, they affect thousands of crime victims. The House never voted on the bill, and it did not become law.

Though they failed to pass SB21-273, Democrats did pass six other anti-police bills during the 2021 legislative session including;

To make matters worse, the problems have been exacerbated by the The Denver County Court and District Attorney releasing a record number of individuals who were arrested with either low or no bond. The problem has gotten so bad that the Denver Police Chief has turned to federal agents for help. It seems to be that with fewer officers intercepting crime, and no punishment from the state to hold criminals accountable, the moral obligation to follow the law is diminishing.

Clearly, the results of the anti-police rhetoric and subsequent policies were predictable.

In the year that just ended in Colorado, the average monthly crime rate was 15 percent higher than 2019, and nearly 30 percent higher than a decade ago. Violent crime was up 35 percent since 2011, while nationally the increase was only 3 percent. Of the people being arrested for these crimes in Denver, 70 percent had prior arrests, 30 percent had 5 or more, and 54 percent had multiple arrests in the same year.

In 2021 we saw a 38.6 percent increase in motor vehicle theft and a 2,600 percent increase in the theft of catalytic converters since 2019. Colorado leads the nation in the rate of auto thefts and saw the largest increase in property crime rates in the country.

The results of these record high numbers are damaging to communities, individuals, businesses and the state economy. Chris Brown, the vice president of research and policy at The Common Sense Institute, who collected data on arrests and court records, said rising crime has a high price tag, the research shows: $27 billion in total, an amount equal to 77% of the state budget, which works out to an average cost of $4,762 a year for every Coloradan.

As if those numbers were not enough, Colorado Democrats want to restrict your right to defend yourself and your family, passing no fewer than six gun-control laws this same session.

Ivory tower leftists like Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Cori Bush (D-MO) dont feel the impact of a crime surge. They can afford to pontificate on the evils of policing while they themselves spend thousands of dollars on security services.

It is everyday Americans that feel the impact. Small businesses, families, and communities are experiencing the devastating effects of anti-police rhetoric and police department budget cuts.

Voters are growing weary of abysmal crime policy.

Anti-police rhetoric and policies are wildly unpopular, and voters are making it known. So far, Democrats have not indicated that they are going to reverse course and stop instigating rising crime. If they dont, the crime wave will be followed by a red wave in 2022.

Mary Bradfield, of Colorado Springs, represents the 21st District in the Colorado House of Representatives.

Note: The original version of this column erroneously asserted that Senate Bill 273 was passed into law. The bill did pass the Senate, but it did not receive a vote in the House, where it was referred to a committee and postponed indefinitely. The correction was made Jan. 2 at 1:36 p.m.

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Opinion: Crime is up, and Democratic lawmakers aren't helping - The Colorado Sun

I am rounding out my first term in the Montana Legislature and have spent the past year thinking about hope: where we find hope, how we create it, what is both feeding and eroding it, and the future of hope within our democratic institutions. I am writing to share one of the conversations on hope Ive been having with myself.

I recently returned from a legislative leadership academy with a bipartisan group of state lawmakers from across the West. We gathered to learn about the history of state legislatures, how to negotiate and build consensus, communicate effectively, and find common ground.

We also spent time together studying the history of democracies the Athenian democracies and Greek republics all of which came to an end after several centuries, driven, in part, by disregard for political norms and violent rhetoric.

These history lessons made me think about Montanas 2021 Legislative Session. As a Democrat in the deep minority, I watched how our caucus was marginalized and side-lined without adherence to process. Over the course of the session, I imagined that if Democrats were in the majority, we would treat the minority party with the graciousness and integrity we did not receive. But in conversations with my colleagues from the legislative academy, Republicans in the minorities in Oregon, Washington, and Colorado, they told me their Democratic colleagues treated them just as we were treated.

These stories make me feel disheartened. We are working within a system that dehumanizes people and belittles efforts toward kindness and recognition of our humanness. I am disappointed in our bipartisan behavior toward the other that seems to come as a reflex of unexamined power. I also recognize thoughtfulness around power opens up space to include everyone in the work of building an ethic of love in politics. This work takes discipline and a caring for each other and the integrity of our democracy.

It is challenging to run a campaign on a platform of curiosity, generousness, middle-ground, and thoughtfulness. The messaging doesnt come easy. This kind of campaigning demands more time, attentiveness, listening, asking the questions, and a rejection of the reductive soundbites and slogans we are accustomed to in politics. But campaigns built on disparaging or distancing ourselves from each other make it hard to serve with a spirit of partnership and decency.

Despite all of that, a beautiful thing about politics is that the closer we get to the people, moving from national to state to local public service, the more our partisan divides diminish and the easier it is to find common ground, shared values, and consensus. I find hope in We, the people. I find hope in public servants who are meeting people where they are and doing the work that directly improves the lives of those in their communities. I will continue to search for hope in democracy by showing up with love, integrity, and humanness.

Rep. Alice Buckley, D-Bozeman

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The future of hope within our democratic institutions - Daily Inter Lake

WATAUGA Watauga County and other portions of the High Country will get the first real snow of the season on Sunday night into the early morning and afternoon on Monday.

A winter storm warning will be in effect from 10 p.m. Sunday night to noon on Monday, Jan. 3, according to the National Weather Service out of Blacksburg, Virginia.

Heavy snow is expected with total snow accumulations of 5 to 6 inches possible with locally higher amounts along the ridges, according to NWS. Winds gusting as high as 35 mph are also possible.

The gusty winds and wet snow could cause limbs to snap, especially along the higher elevations, which could result in power outages, according to NWS.

If someone must travel, NWS states they should keep keep an extra flashlight, food and water in their vehicle in case of an emergency.

NWS stated a slow moving front will stall across the Tidewater of Virginia, Southwest into Georgia. Meanwhile, a secondary low will form on this front this evening while colder air from an upper level disturbance moves across the southern Appalachians. These two will bring a changeover of rain to snow starting in the mountains by midnight, reaching the piedmont by dawn. The system exits by early Monday afternoon.

Community members can report snow accumulations via email at rnk.skywarn@noaa.gov or by calling the National Weather Service toll free at 1 (866) 215-4324. Leave a message with the observation and the specific location where it occurred. Community members can also post their report to National Weather Service Blacksburg Facebook page and on Twitter.

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Winter weather: First real snow of season expected in Watauga as winter storm set to move through the area Sunday night - Watauga Democrat