October 27, 2021

David Smith of the Guardian: "Joe Biden has framed a nail-bitingly close race for governor of Virginia as a referendum on his young presidency and an opportunity to rebuke his predecessor, Donald Trump. Seemingly liberated from the formal trappings of office by a return to the campaign trail, Biden used a rally in Arlington, Virginia, to launch an unusually scathing and sustained attack on the former president. 'Just remember this: I ran against Donald Trump,' he told an estimated 2,500 people gathered in a park on a chilly Tuesday night. 'And Terry [McAuliffe] is running against an acolyte of Donald Trump.' The election in Virginia is seen as the most important of the year, offering a window on to public sentiment about Biden's first nine months in office and a preview of what to expect in next year's midterm elections for Congress.... But Biden's sinking approval rating in recent weeks makes it unclear how much of a boost he can offer McAuliffe, who also enlisted Barack Obama last weekend to help him fight apathy and election weariness among Democratic voters."

Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Senate Democrats rushed on Tuesday to nail down the details of a groundbreaking tax on billionaires' wealth, part of an elaborate menu of tax increases to finance a significantly scaled-back bill that would strengthen the social safety net and address climate change. Democrats' plans to pay for about $1.5 trillion in social policy and climate spending could prove to be the most innovative components of the party's domestic legislation, a top priority, which was once envisioned as a transformative cradle-to-grave initiative to vault a stagnant working class into prosperity. Now, even as President Biden and his allies cut down the plan to ensure it can pass even with Democrats' razor-thin edge in Congress, they are toiling to agree on new tax policies that could have far-reaching consequences. Among them is a measure Senate Democrats presented on Tuesday that would impose a 15 percent minimum tax rate on corporations based on the profits they report to their shareholders, not what they show to the Internal Revenue Service.... With Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona, a crucial holdout on Mr. Biden's plan, serving as a one-woman blockade against more conventional tax rate increases, Democrats appeared to have no choice but to turn to creative revenue measures." A CBS News story is here. The AP's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: It's not necessary a bad thing that Sinema's irrational stonewalling led to some creative thinking on how to extract more revenues from the ultra-rich & corporations, but it is unconscionable that Sinema has does nothing but stomp her shiny red heels when -- if she's so smart -- she should have been digging in & thinking up these new ways instead of forcing other senators & their staffs to do the work that may or may not placate Her Dizziness. I'll bet next session her only committee assignment is junior member of the Housekeeping Committee. Which seems appropriate inasmuch as she seems to have ridden in to the Senate on a broomstick. ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "The billionaires tax would almost certainly face court challenges.... It would for the first time tax billionaires on the unrealized gains in the value of their liquid assets, such as stocks, bonds and cash, which can grow for years as vast capital stores that can be borrowed off to live virtually income tax free. The tax would be levied on anyone with more than $1 billion in assets or more than $100 million in income for three consecutive years -- about 700 people in the United States. Initially, the legislation would impose the capital gains tax -- 23.8 percent -- on the gain in value of billionaires' tradable assets, such as stocks, bonds and cash, based on the original price of those assets.... After that, those billionaires would face an annual capital gains tax on the increase in value of their tradable assets over the course of the year.... For men like the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the Tesla founder Elon Musk, that hit would be enormous, since the initial value of their horde of stocks was zero. They would have five years to pay that sum." ~~~

~~~ Aris Folley of the Hill: "Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) voiced support for a proposal for a minimum tax on corporate profits as her party weighs the measure as a potential revenue raiser for its sweeping social spending plan." ~~~

     ~~~ Hank Stephenson in Politico Magazine: "... for those still perplexed about [Kyrsten] Sinema, her rise offers an object lesson in how to get ahead by flagrantly eschewing loyalty to one's own party.... The details of Sinema's transformation [from Green Party activist] lay in her time in the state legislature, where she learned to distance herself from progressives and made alliances with Republicans that she still leans on today.... She ... stood out immediately for her ability to make friends with the most conservative Republicans, including now-Rep. Andy Biggs, leader of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus, and Russell Pearce, [an anti-immigrant hardliner].... Her detractors say ... she's abandoned all principles she once held dear in exchange for power.... [A] former colleague says her decisions are based on cold hard political calculations — and a need to feed her hunger for attention, more than power even." MB: You know, I think we figured that out here without knowing all that much about her. ~~~

~~~ BUT THEN. Hans Nichols of Axios: "Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is telling colleagues he has deep concerns about a proposed 'billionaire tax' but is waiting for more details before making a final decision, people familiar with the matter tell Axios.... The senator's doubts reveal an uncomfortable truth for the White House and congressional leaders as they race to finish -- and pay for -- their nearly $2 trillion social spending and climate package: A tax solution designed to satisfy Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) isn't necessarily acceptable to Manchin."

~~~ Ariel Zilber & Adam Manno of the Daily Mail & AP: " Elon Musk has slammed President Joe Biden's plan to tax billionaires' income to pay for his proposed spending bill as the Tesla CEO saw his company's value top $1trillion and his personal wealth increase by a single-day record of $36billion.... Earlier this year, it was revealed that Musk and his rival, Jeff Bezos, have in recent years paid nothing in federal income tax." MB: Elon should read Krugman, linked below. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE. Maxine Joselow of the Washington Post: "Democrats are scrambling to address centrist Sen. Joe Manchin III's (D-W.Va.) objections to a methane fee in budget negotiations..., even as they expressed confidence they've assembled a broad climate package in the bill. Senate Democrats met Monday afternoon after Manchin pushed to drop or modify the methane fee in their social spending bill, which would impose a fee on emissions of the potent planet-warming gas that can leak from oil and gas wells, according to two people familiar with the matter. White House officials convened a separate meeting Monday with leading environmental groups, where they projected optimism about brokering a deal on climate...."

Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is expected to subpoena John Eastman, the pro-Trump legal scholar who outlined scenarios for denying Joe Biden the presidency, according to the panel's chairman.... In recent months, Eastman has distanced himself from the memos, telling the National Review last week that the options he outlined did not represent his advice.... But in an Oct. 7 op-ed in the Sacramento Bee, Eastman wrote that he advised [Mike] Pence to delay counting the electoral votes to give states time to resolve concerns about voting irregularities. Asked about the work of the select committee last month, Eastman defended Trump in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody, saying 'there's evidence out there' to support the former president's baseless claims of election fraud." CNN's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ AND Tuesday night Rachel Maddow played a portion of a video interview, taped just this past Saturday, in which Eastman boasted that his memo posed a "solid" legal strategy that would have worked if only mike pence were not such an "establishment" guy & had had the balls to carry out his advice.

Kaitlan Collins of CNN: "At least five former Trump administration staffers have voluntarily spoken with the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Isaac Dovere & Jeremy Herb of CNN: "Officials and aides in secretary of state offices in Arizona and other states targeted by ... Donald Trump in his attack on last year's election results told CNN about living in constant terror.... Staff members in the offices say they're dealing with long-term emotional and psychological trauma after a year of constant threats -- in person and virtually -- to the secretaries and to themselves.... Some [threats] get very specific, citing details and specifics that leave the secretaries and their staff rushing to report them to authorities.... No systems were in place on the state or federal level to [protect them].... The Justice Department launched a new task force this summer to address the rise in threats to election officials. But there are concerns that it's not prepared to do enough.... Several state and local election officials who testified at a Senate hearing Tuesday about threats to elections and election workers, warning about the consequences of them. 'We're already seeing high turnover among elections staff, and I fear that many more will reach a breaking point and decide that this line of public service is no longer worth it,' [Arizona Secretary of State Katie] Hobbs told the Senate Rules and Administration Committee." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Gee, do you suppose it would help if Donald Trump gave a heart-felt admonition to his supporters to lay off their threats to officials? I'm so surprised he hasn't done that. His silence suggests he just might be a vicious monster.

Amanda Seitz of the AP: "It had been three days since Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin [killed ... George Floyd.... A video taken by a bystander had been viewed millions of times online. Protests had taken over Minnesota's largest city and would soon spread throughout cities across America. But it wasn't until after [Donald] Trump posted about Floyd's death that the reports of violence and hate speech increased 'rapidly' on Facebook across the country, an internal company analysis of the ex-president's social media post reveals.... Trump wrote at 9:53 a.m. on May 28 from his Twitter and Facebook accounts[,] 'Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts the shooting starts!'... Facebook's own internal, automated controls, meant to catch posts that violate rules, predicted with almost 90% certainty that Trump's message broke the tech company's rules against inciting violence. Yet, the tech giant didn't take any action on Trump's message.... Twitter, meanwhile, responded quickly at the time by covering Trump's tweet with a warning and prohibiting users from sharing it any further."

Ellie Hall of BuzzFeed News: "Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, have long cited social media toxicity as a factor in their decision to step back from royal life. And now, an analysis of more than 114,000 tweets about the couple has revealed a coordinated campaign of targeted harassment of Meghan on Twitter -- and the 83 accounts responsible for approximately 70% of the negative and often hateful content. On Tuesday, Twitter analytics service Bot Sentinel released a report examining Twitter activity related to the Sussexes and found that the majority of the hate and misinformation about the couple originated from a small group of accounts whose primary, if not sole, purpose appears to be to tweet negatively about them. Bot Sentinel's analysis also revealed a level of sophistication and coordination between the accounts, who use their combined 187,631 followers to fuel a campaign of negativity against Harry and Meghan. A Twitter spokesperson told BuzzFeed News on Tuesday that they are 'actively investigating the information and accounts referenced in this report -- we will take action on accounts that violate the Twitter Rules.'"

Annabelle Timsit of the Washington Post: A woman is suing Kellogg for $5 million because there aren't enough strawberries in her so-called strawberry Pop-Tart. Marie: While this sounds like a frivolous, childish suit, she has a point. Her lawyer, BTW, is one of the suing-est lawyers around; he files two or three fraud suits a week. In the meantime, I'd suggest the lady look in the produce section for strawberries. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here. The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates for Wednesday are here: "New coronavirus infections in the United States have dropped nearly 60 percent since a September spike brought on by the more contagious delta variant, according to data compiled by The Washington Post. The seven-day average of infections stood at about 69,000 this week, figures show, reflecting a 58 percent drop from the latest surge's peak around Sept. 13, when the average for that week was 164,475. The impact of vaccinations is clear in regions with the highest uptake.... But a handful of states are still struggling to turn the tide, especially as colder weather brings more people indoors again. Those states include Montana, Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, Utah, and Vermont.

Lauran Neergaard & Matthew Perrone of the AP: "The U.S. moved a step closer to expanding COVID-19 vaccinations for millions more children as a panel of government advisers on Tuesday endorsed kid-size doses of Pfizer's shots for 5- to 11-year-olds. A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted unanimously, with one abstention, that the vaccine's benefits in preventing COVID-19 in that age group outweigh any potential risks -- including a heart-related side effect that's been very rare in teens and young adults despite their use of a much higher shot dose.... The FDA isn't bound by the panel's recommendation and is expected to make its own decision within days. If the FDA authorizes the kid-size doses, there's still another step: Next week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will have to decide whether to recommend the shots and which youngsters should get them." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Oriana Pawlyk of Politico: "A Texas judge on Tuesday dismissed a request for an injunction against an impending vaccine mandate brought by a union that represents pilots at Southwest Airlines, a significant blow against their attempt to sidestep President Joe Biden's mandate for government contractors. Federal workers and government contractors, which includes major U.S. commercial airlines, must be vaccinated by Dec. 8."

The Trump White House's prioritization of election year politics over the pandemic response -- even as cases surged last fall -- is among the worst failures of leadership in American history. -- Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) ~~~

~~~ Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration was 'distracted' by last year's election and ignored recommendations to curb the pandemic, the White House's former coronavirus response coordinator told congressional investigators this month. 'I felt like the White House had gotten somewhat complacent through the campaign season,' said Deborah Birx, who ... Donald Trump chose in March 2020 to steer his government's virus response.... Birx, who sat for interviews with the subcommittee on Oct. 12 and 13, also detailed advice that she said the White House ignored late last year, including more aggressively testing younger Americans, expanding access to virus treatments and better distributing vaccines in long-term care facilities. More than 130,000 American lives could have been saved with swifter action and better coordinated public health messages after the virus' first wave, Birx told lawmakers.... Asked directly if Trump 'did everything he could to try to mitigate the spread of the virus and save lives during the pandemic,' Birx responded 'no.'" Emphasis added. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: You have two choices: (a) you fulfill the minimal requirements of your job, which may compel you to bark orders at a few more people, something you enjoy doing anyway; OR (b) you let 130,000 people die. Which do you choose? Why, (b), if you're Donald Trump. ~~~

     ~~~ Adam Cancryn of Politico: "As Covid-19 surged last winter, the Trump White House was torn between competing factions on how to manage the pandemic, including whether to let the virus spread unchecked to reach herd immunity, former coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx told congressional investigators. Birx and other doctors pressed the Trump administration to intensify efforts to control disease spread, according to portions of testimony released Tuesday by the Coronavirus Crisis Select Subcommittee. But ... Donald Trump's hand-picked coronavirus adviser, Scott Atlas, had rapidly consolidated power on a platform that downplayed the seriousness of Covid to most Americans, squeezing out Birx and other top government health officials."

Beyond the Beltway

Adam Gabbatt of the Guardian: "Of the thousands of diehard Trump supporters who gathered in Washington on 6 January, some are now beginning to emerge as Republican candidates for national and local office. The electoral chances of each person vary, but they add to the extremist political landscape, ahead of midterm elections in 2022 that could potentially see Democrats lose the House of Representatives." Read on. And if a picture is worth 1,000 words, then the photo of Pennsylvania Congressional candidate Teddy Daniels, which accompanies the article, speaks volumes.

California. Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: "The torrential rain that fell on much of California in recent days recharged rivers, filled storage tanks and prepared the ground for the next storm, providing what many climate experts say is an auspicious start to the winter. But the rainfall, which set records in some northern cities, was not nearly enough to end the state's deep drought, now affecting 37 million of California's 40 million residents.... The deficit of water from a drought now entering its third year is too great to be made up with just one storm, no matter how powerful it may have been. Compounding the problem, California's warming climate is undermining its ability to dent its droughts in the long term, even when the rains do come."

Idaho. Jesus Jiménez of the New York Times: "The lone suspect in a shooting at a mall in Boise, Idaho, on Monday that killed two people died on Tuesday of injuries he received in an exchange of gunfire with the police, according to the police. The authorities were still investigating the motive for the shooting, in which they say the suspect, Jacob Bergquist, 27, of Boise, fatally shot a mall security guard, Jo Acker, 26, of Caldwell, and Roberto Padilla Arguelles, 49, of Rupert, at Boise Towne Square. At a news conference on Tuesday, Chief Ryan Lee of the Boise Police Department said that Mr. Bergquist had frequented the mall and was known to mall security for calls categorized as disorderly conduct, trespassing and disruptive behavior."

New Mexico. Morgan Lee, et al., of the AP: "Investigators plan to discuss their initial findings Wednesday in the fatal movie-set shooting in which Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun, killing a cinematographer and wounding the director. The news conference by Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza and District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies promises the first detailed public comments by investigators about the killing of 42-year-old Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal at a New Mexico ranch." ~~~

~~~ Simon Romero, et al., of the New York Times: "The Santa Fe County district attorney said on Tuesday that she was not ruling out criminal charges in last week's fatal shooting on a film set.... The district attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies ... said that the investigation was focusing on ballistics in an effort to determine what kind of round was in the gun that killed Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer -- and who had placed the ammunition in the gun. 'There were an enormous amount of bullets on this set, and we need to find out what kinds they were,' Ms. Carmack-Altwies said. Detectives said that they recovered three revolvers, spent casings and ammunition -- in boxes, loose and in a fanny pack -- while executing a search warrant on the set, according to an inventory of the items released on Monday."

Pennsylvania. Jessica Lipscomb of the Washington Post: "Ellen Greenberg died in the kitchen of her Philadelphia apartment on the afternoon of a snowstorm in January 2011.... A knife had been plunged into her chest, one of 20 stab wounds discovered on her head, neck and torso.... The death was initially worked as a suicide, then -- after an examination by the medical examiner's office -- as a homicide. But after further investigation, the final determination in March 2011 was that Greenberg had taken her own life." Greensberg's parents are suing to have the autopsy ruling overturned. MB: The article does not address the severity of the 19 stab wounds that the medical examiner apparently found not to be fatal. But unless those were shallow "practice" stabs, I don't see how Greenberg could have stabbed herself 19 times before finally killing herself.

Wisconsin. Timothy Bella of the Washington Post: "A Wisconsin judge ruled Monday that attorneys in the Kyle Rittenhouse murder trial could refer to the men the teen shot in Kenosha, Wis., last year as 'rioters,' 'looters' and 'arsonists.' They could not, however, describe Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, who were killed, and Gaige Grosskreutz, who was wounded, as 'victims' because the term was 'loaded,' the judge said.... [Judge Bruce] Schroeder said that while he advised Rittenhouse's team against using pejorative terms to describe the three men shot, such language could be used in their closing arguments if evidence shows the men participated in criminal acts.... Although such rulings are not uncommon in trials in which there is a dispute over self-defense, prosecutors suggested the judge was employing a double standard...." MB: No kidding.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Hurricane-force winds from an early-season nor'easter swept through coastal New England on Wednesday, a day after battering the New York City area, sending trees crashing onto power lines and cutting electricity to hundreds of thousands of households. The winds, which gusted to 94 miles per hour on Martha's Vineyard in the pre-dawn hours, picked up a small aircraft at the New Bedford Regional Airport, lifting it over a fence and onto a roadway, and peeled the roof off an apartment building in Quincy, Mass., snapping the eight-inch bolts that held it down."

New York Times: "Mort Sahl, who confronted Eisenhower-era cultural complacency with acid stage monologues, delivering biting social commentary in the guise of a stand-up comedian and thus changing the nature of both stand-up comedy and social commentary, died on Tuesday at his home in Mill Valley, Calif., near San Francisco. He was 94."Politico's obituary is here.

Comments

[Ken Winkes]

As he elaborates his subjects past the point of interest (or my flagging attention), I sometimes want to shake Thomas Edsall and tell him to take it easy and not to try so hard. (And how much better he would be served if he eschewed all that academic stuff he seems to love..and just say what is on his mind.)

This morning for want of anything better to do, I did.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/opinion/left-right-moral-chasm.html

"Don't wish to oversimplify an admittedly complicated subject but a few litmus tests conducted in only a few areas ought to do the trick.

In a purported democracy, is it right to exclude people from voting?

If yes, you're a Republican.

Is it right to discriminate on the basis of color or sex?

If yes, you're a Republican.

Is it OK to cheat on your taxes?

If yes, regardless of your party label, you're a Republican.

Is it OK to devise or avoid devising policy on the basis of unscientific, unmeasured, unsupported claims or urgings?

If so, you're a Republican.

Is it OK to adopt a serial liar as your party's leader?

If so....

Is it OK to practice hypocrisy as a way of life?

If it is.....

In short, while neither party is perfect, one has entirely abandoned ed its moral center and seems to have no problem at all with that."

Not an exhaustive list I know, but it should have been enough to give Mr. Edsall the idea...

[Marie Burns]

@Ken Winkes: You're right about Edsall. As a seasoned journalist, he should know what makes for compelling writing of newspaper columns. An op-ed column is not -- as you say -- supposed to be an academic exercise, and newspaper readers are not geared to reading long-winded treatises.

It's one thing to sit down on a leisurely Sunday to read a feature or two, or to sit down with a magazine like the New Yorker or the Atlantic to read longer pieces, but few newspaper readers start out their weekday mornings with a yen to plow through a long series of scholarly findings. The op-ed editor should give Edsall some guidance. He needs it. (If Krugman can do it right -- and he can -- so can Edsall.)

[P.D. Pepe]

One of my favorite scenes in "Private Benjamin" is when Eileen Brennan who plays Capt. Lewis, first confronts Judy Benjamin and says to Sgt. L.C. Ross, who is by her side:

"Will you LOOK at THIS, Sergeant!" and he replies: "I've seen it, M'am."

Yesterday our favorite gal of the Arizona Cactus showed once again her thorny snit during a congressional session. She was presiding over the procedure, gravel in hand but Lordy, Lordy, what was she wearing? A denim vest and a short tee, looking for all the world like a cow-girl wanna be. She might as well have raised her middle finger. And on the senate floor you could hear:

"Will you look at that!!!" Grumble, grumble---how dare she desecrate the senate procedure this way.

Twitter took care of her in a nano second, surpassing Capt. L.C. Ross' reduction of Judy as an "IT"–––but it won't bother Ms Sinema cuz she be outstanding in a field of her own and no one is going to force her to clean toilets with her own toothbrush.

and so it goes~~~~~~ so far.

[P.D. Pepe]

Ken: Edsall is one of my favorite reads but I agree--much too heavy laden for newspaper columns. Liked your list a lot. No middle finger for you, my friend.

[dbtexas]

"...we will take action on accounts that violate the Twitter Rules.'” Yet, I was temporarily banned for referring to Tomi Lahren as a blond bimbo. And I thought I was being nice!

[Ken Winkes]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/us/politics/manchin-billionaires-tax.html

So, Joe, what are you for? You're already pretty good a what you're against.

And isn't the class war that the ninety plus percent are losing just a little "divisive?"

And @dbtexas: A sorta thanks. There's so much I don't know. Had to look that Toni Lahren up. Can't say my life is better for it, but that's not your fault.

And she sure is blonde enough.

[Marie Burns]

@Ken Winkes: Yeah, I heard Manchin being interviewed this morning & he said he was against expanding Medicaid because he didn't want to pass the cost on to his grandchildren. This is the phoniest of arguments. Although it's true that about 1/3 or the U.S. debt is being "bought" by foreign entities (on accounta the supposed credibility of the US dollar), that means about 2/3rds is being purchased by Americans like Lonesome Joe, who of course profits from the interest -- profits he will likely be passing on to said lucky-ducky grandchildren. IOW, they ain't losing much.

Meanwhile, the biggest purchaser (or one of the biggest) of US debt is the Social Security Administration. Joe said in the same interview that he's also way worried that Social Security will run out of money when his grandchildren need it. Not likely, kids.

So that would be B.S. arguments 1 and 2. Nice try, Joe. If I get time, I'll find me a W.Va. Zip code & send him a letter.

[unwashed]

So, the US military budget for fiscal year 2020 was $725B and Manchin/Sinema are apoplectic about an additional $175B x 10 years for the BBB plan?

[Ken Winkes]

And, Marie, if Joe is really worried about Social Security running out of money there's an easy fix for that: Scrap the Cap.

[Marie Burns]

@Ken Winkes: Very good point. Social Security is progressive -- for every wage-earner who earns less than $143K/year ($147K next year). For those with incomes greater than that, it's a free ride from there.