Please extend the presumption of grace to BOTH Emma Vigeland and Jenna Ellis, whether you live in Redlands or Bluelands.
[INSERT SUBTLE HEAD SHAKE, AUDIBLE SIGH, AND 2-SECOND EYE CLOSE HERE]
Twitter isn’t the only venue in the nation in which our lack of grace is obvious and unfortunate, but it is a not insignificant place in the lives of many. I single out the two people above because their exchange happened to catch my eye, but they are not alone by any means in the last 48 hours in illustrating what we have become, what we are, and what we can no longer afford to be.
On that point: the Sunday publication of my remarks on “The Presumption of Grace” produced a very lovely reader reaction.
A few of you remain cynical or disheartened, but the vast majority of replies I received were from new volunteers eager to join the good Gang of Grace.
Here, courtesy of the Political Voices Network, is my full town hall meeting from last week, including my first public effort to describe the “The Presumption of Grace” and my short list of the work I see that needs to be done to put grace at the center of our society and politics.
Saint Ignatius of Loyola:
If you would like to join this effort to elevate The Presumption of Grace, please send an email to markhalperintalk@gmail.com
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On this final day for Georgians to register to vote for the upcoming Senate runoffs, it is a good time to review Halperin’s First Rule of Capitol Hill, and its corollaries:
On all difficult matters that must be addressed, Congress will only act at the last possible moment, and sometimes not even then.
At this hour, I would say the chances of a major piece of pandemic relief legislation being signed into law are declining.
As most major American media outlets largely ignore the topic this news cycle, Politico sets the scene of peril well. The bipartisan compromise bill isn’t even written yet; the negotiations over the overall government funding legislation on which the coronavirus measure plans to ride will require an extension; a liability language compromise is nowhere in sight; and, most of all, Mitch McConnell has not indicated a willingness to go up to $800 billion and Nancy Pelosi has not signaled a willingness to go down to $800 billion.
Also, does anyone but me think Donald Trump at this point would be fine with a chaos-causing holiday edition of a government shutdown?
Even I could write on the back of a Tortilla Coast napkin the substance of a plausible Pelosi-McConnell COVID compromise, but divining the route from press conferences, to floor speeches, to negotiations, to legislative language, to join whip operations, to a presidential signature seems impossible, as the Advent calendars start to reveal.
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THE COROLLARIES
On difficult matters of personnel, Joe Biden will sometimes act at the last possible moment.
With Xavier Becerra tapped for the top job at Health and Human Services, Biden has to decide if he can fill the combination of the Pentagon and the Justice Department slots with a white woman and a Black man, or whether the moment and the politics of the party require a woman of color in one of those positions.
Once Biden publicly casts his lot on these twin choices, a lot of other personnel decisions will flow.
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On difficult matters that must be addressed, Donald Trump will only act at the last possible moment, and sometimes not even then.
Yes, there is understandably a lot of attention being given to the possibility that the incumbent will announce a 2024 bid on Inauguration Day at a big counter-programming Florida rally. Could happen. But don’t let that one pending decision distract you from the reality I keep hearing about: the president is mulling some other endgame decisions that, even by the Trump standards to which we have all become familiar, could make our collective hair stand up straight.
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On difficult matters of personnel, Gavin Newsom will act whenever he feels like it.
Essential reading: Politico on the prospect that the Golden State topper will have three big statewide offices to fill in short order – and with huge implications.
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On difficult matters of personnel, Bill Barr knows that two can play at that game.
Does the question of whether the AG is still on the job on 1/20/21 feed a single hungry child or house a single family in need?
It does not.
But the “you can’t fire me because I quit” faceoff is likely to stay hot hot hot as the weather gets cold cold cold.
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On the difficult matter of how to approach 2024, Trump’s rivals can’t afford to wait until the last possible moment.
Essential reading: The Wall Street Journal does the public service of scratching the surface on the nine-dimensional chess that must be played by anyone not named “Trump” who wants to be the Republican’s presidential nominee in 2024.
At this point, unless New York prosecutors solve the problem for them, I think those who want to party to move on to other choices (and who are counting on the media losing interest in Trump) are elevating their wishes above reality.
The big question in my mind now: Who else besides Larry Hogan or Marco Rubio are even considering running in what we used to call “the Establishment lane”?
Which gives rise to this query: Is there actually going to be an Establishment lane in 2024?
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On difficult matters of how to stay on both sides of the Trump divide, Brad Raffensperger has produced an interesting playbook.
The Georgia Secretary of State displays what we call in Valdosta “ample chutzpah” by turning his guns in a Wall Street Journal op ed piece on the media and Stacey Abrams in order to explain some voters’ lack of confidence in the election results.
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TOTALLY ESSENTIAL READING
A very lovely and old-school journalism New York Times look at Wilmington, Delaware’s place in the cosmos.
Great story from start to finish, including this factoid….
Last year, taxes and fees for corporate registrations amounted to $1.45 billion, roughly 30 percent of the state’s operating budget, said Jonathan Starkey, spokesman for Gov. John Carney.
…and this new-to-me vocab word:
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