December 17th, 2021: New Details on Jan. 6th, 800k COVID-19 Deaths, and Combating Inflation

For whom the bell tolls — 800-thousand covid victims in the U-S — and counting.

I’m Paul Brandus — you’re listening to West Wing Reports— it’s Friday, December 17th.

It has been nearly a year now since the U-S Capitol — your Capitol — was attacked by pro-trumpets who broke in, assaulted numerous police officers, set up a gallows, and went hunting for everyone from Vice President Mike Pence to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Their ultimate goal was certainly to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.

In the year since, information about that dreadful day has come out in bits and pieces.

This week — some of the most important info yet. A PowerPoint showing just how the White House could flip the election turned up — AND while the pro-Trump crowd was rampaging through the Capitol — top Republican officials, Fox News personalities — even Donald Trump Jr. desperately sought to stop it. They texted Mark Meadows — at the time, the White House chief of staff.

We know this because Meadows turned this information over to the bipartisan committee investigating the January 6 attack.

Here’s one Republican ON the committee — Wyoming’s Liz Cheney:

Let’s go a bit deeper here, add some context. And for that I called an old friend, Joe Walsh — a former Republican Congressman from Illinois.

The bells of Washington National Cathedral — tolling 800 times this week — a grim reminder that more than 800-thousand Americans have now died of Covid-19. Cases are on the rise once again — the Delta variant remains dominant, but this new strain is spreading rapidly as well. All together, the Centers for Disease Control reports more than 120-thousand new cases a day — that’s up some 70-percent since early November.

President Biden says for the UN-vaccinated — the winter will be deadly:

The surge — is causing holiday travelers, businesses — everyone, really — to reevaluate their plans — and the Biden administration— as always — is urging all Americans who are eligible to get vaccinations and booster shots. On THAT front— federal officials are recommending the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines over the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because of a rare but potentially serious side effect.

The pandemic has now killed one of every 100 Americans over the age of 65 — about 3/4 of the nearly 800,000 people who have died overall.

In contrast, about 1 in 14-hundred Americans UNDER the age of 65 has died. A large subset of these: folks who don't believe in vaccines and masks.

That data, by the way -- from the C-D-C.

President Biden’s poll numbers have been sliding for months — ever since he took office really — though bottomed out in mid-November — and have moved up a couple of points since — according to Real Clear Politics and 538 — which aggregate all recent polling data.

One thing that MAY be giving the president a lift is the passage of his big infrastructure bill — and in turn one big part of THAT — is the replacement of lead pipes in millions of homes and schools. We got new details this week on the administration will take this gift task on. As Vice President Kamala Harris explained — it’s a deeply personal issue for parents:

This isn’t a partisan issue — lead pipes cause a lot of damage — the only downside here is that replacing these millions of pipes — an estimate ten million, in fact, will take years. But that job is about to begin.

On the economic front — what do you want first — the good news or the bad news? OK — the good news. The Federal Reserve, in a switch, now says it’s looking to raise interest rate three times next year. That’s good, because higher rates will help curb inflation.

Now the bad news — The Federal Reserve, in a switch, now says it’s looking to raise interest rate three times next year. That’s bad, because higher rates COULD slow economic growth. In other words, higher rates are both good and NOT so good.

An increase in rates is why Fed chairman Jay Powell says the Fed is cutting next year’s estimate for economic growth to four percent — still good — but its previous estimate was five-and-a-half percent.

Higher interest rates are sort of like chemotherapy — hopefully the chemo will kill cancer — but it weakens the patient. And hopefully, higher rates will kill inflation — but it weaken the economy. And that’s where we are.

What’s causing the inflation, by the way? Here’s Powell at a news conference — I’ll translate it into layman’s terms on the other side:

As you just heard, one problem with bureaucrats is that they have a hard time explaining stuff in simple terms for regular folks. What Powell — the chairman of the Federal Reserve, is really saying here — is “hey, the pandemic has really screwed up the global supply chain — and we didn’t think it would last this long.”

Tine now to open up the West Wing Reports archives — and see what made history this week in the past:

1799 — with just days left in the 18th century, the greatest American OF that century died: It was George Washington of course. The first president, led the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War — called, and rightly so, the father of his country.

A 2021 CSPAN survey of historians — I was honored to be one of them — ranked Washington as our second-greatest president.

1950 - Harry Truman declared a national emergency following the surprise, massive entry of Communist China into the Korean War. Truman was so worried that he considered using atomic weapons against China — Nine were reportedly sent to the region

Nearly seven years after President Nixon's historic trip to Communist China, President Carter said U.S. would grant full diplomatic recognition to it - and end formal ties with Taiwan. Carter also ended a treaty obligating the U.S. to defend Taiwan if it were attacked by China — that’s a very big issue in the news THESE days, of course.

Want more history? Check out my books on Amazon — I’ll sign ‘em for you too — just shoot me an email: [email protected].

That’s p-b-r-a-n-d-u-s. pbrandus@evergreen podcasts.com. And need a speaker for your event? I do that too — current events, economics, analysis — history — I connect the dots — would love to hear from you.

Speaking of books — I’ll send you one — IF you download my new app — it’s called — West Wing Reports — available in the Apple and Android stores — just download it on your phone or tablet — there’s a button called “What’s on your mind?” All you do is push, talk and send. That’s it. And the question I have for you: “How do you rate President Biden's performance so far?" He’s been in office nearly a year — how’s he doing? Leave a comment — and your name goes into a drawing for any of my books — your choice.

I like to end each week with a quote — something you might find thoughtful: This week: it’s from Ronald Reagan:

Quote: Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”

Think about it.

That’s all for this week. Here’s my email — [email protected].

West Wing Reports is a production of Evergreen Podcasts.

Special thanks to CSPAN for the audio clips.

Our producer and sound designer and engineer: Noah Foutz

Executive producers: Michael D’Aleoia and Gerardo Orlando.