WASHINGTON — Rachel Paine Caufield was telling a conservative friend about her evening plans: catching up on the latest instalment of the hearings into the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots.
Sure, it’s not “Game of Thrones,” but the congressional spectacle has nonetheless made for riveting television thus far, and the Drake University politics professor wanted to be ready for questions about the potential impact on midterm elections this November.
“His response was very clear,” Caufield said, laughing at the recollection. “He said, ‘Has anyone called to ask you how $5-a-gallon gas is going to affect the midterms?’”
That, in a nutshell, is the problem for embattled Democrats: as campaign issues go, nothing — not abortion, not guns, not even a violent and potentially illegal effort to subvert the U.S. Constitution — trumps the political rocket fuel that inflation is giving their rivals.
“The general idea here is that somehow or another, a group of people who otherwise support Trump and believe that the 2020 election is a lie will suddenly change their opinion when presented with this evidence,” Caufield said.
“I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.”
On Thursday, the third public session since the select committee of U.S. lawmakers made its prime-time, made-for-TV debut June 9, there was a clear effort to resonate with viewers in a way that congressional hearings hadn’t done since Watergate half a century ago.
Slick new graphics, the seamless integration of riot footage and video testimony and a measured, well-paced narrative all gave the proceedings a sense of urgency and drama — the product, presumably, of hiring former ABC News president James Goldston to produce the spectacle.
Thursday’s episode focused on former vice-president Mike Pence, a self-described “born-again, evangelical Catholic” whose ceremonial role during the joint session of Congress on that fateful day made him the centre of attention — and the hero of the piece.
Pence, of course, had been under pressure for weeks from Trump to reject the Electoral College votes from a number of states that day on the basis of the outgoing president’s fabricated claims that the 2020 election had been stolen. His refusal to do so enraged the rioters outside.
The committee saw newly released photos of Pence, from the safety of an underground location deep in the Capitol complex, reading a tweet from Trump accusing him of betrayal, even as a mob of protesters was running throughout the building and demanding, “Bring out Pence.”
Secret Service agents, meanwhile, were rebuffed by the vice-president in their efforts to spirit him away from the complex to safety, his former counsel Greg Jacob testified.
Pence “did not want to take any chance that the world would see the vice-president of the United States fleeing the U.S. Capitol,” Jacob said. “He was determined that we would complete the work that we had set out to do that day, that it was his constitutional duty to see through.”
Every hero needs a villain, and the committee produced not Trump, but John Eastman, the law professor who put forward a now-debunked legal theory that a loosely worded constitutional amendment would give Pence the wiggle room necessary to do the president’s bidding.
Eastman’s theories amounted to little more than “constitutional mischief” that was “incorrect at every turn,” testified J. Michael Luttig, a former federal judge whose own advice on that day helped to inform Pence’s decision to stand firm.
Eastman later asked to be considered for a presidential pardon — a request that went unheeded.
But if the Democrats getting hammered in the midterms is a foregone conclusion, what’s the point of persisting? Caufield said there are likely several.
In the U.S., midterm elections always include a wide slate of state and regional contests, and Democrats may be thinking in terms of saving the furniture in those elections where President Joe Biden’s abysmal approval ratings will be less of a factor, she said.
And then there’s the money.
“I don’t think it’s the Trump supporters that the committee is trying to speak to, I think it’s a group of Republican donors,” Caufield said, reminding them that Trump’s nomination for the 2024 presidential ticket is still not a fait accompli.
“It’s kind of saying, ‘Don’t acquiesce. Here’s all the evidence. We want you to remember that there are real consequences when Donald Trump becomes the party nominee.’”
Melissa Haussman, a political science professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, suggested there may be more granular political opportunism at play among members of the select committee — particularly Rep. Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican who is persona non grata with her own party.
On Monday, Cheney and committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, disagreed publicly on the question of whether the committee’s findings with regards to Trump himself would be referred to the Department of Justice.
Thompson is trying to get re-elected in a state that “has become pretty Republican in recent decades,” Haussman said, which may be why he’s slow-walking the idea of pursuing criminal charges against the former president.
Cheney, on the other hand, is striking a different tone. Polls suggest she is trailing her challenger in advance of the Republican primary later this summer, but it’s an open primary, which means Democrats and Republicans alike can vote, Haussman said.
“In the general election, though, I think it’s looking pretty bad for the Democrats.”
The committee is scheduled to reconvene again Tuesday, when it will focus on Trump’s efforts in the days preceding the riots to convince state legislators to reject the results of the election.
The panel will hear from Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state in Georgia who famously sparred with Trump in a conference call just days before the riots, rebuffing the president’s demand to “find 11,780 votes” — one more than the margin of Trump’s defeat in the state.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 20, 2022.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
