"Yuh-Line Niou wants to become the first openly autistic member of Congress"
Yuh-Line Niou, a New York state assemblymember, is at the front of a crowded pack of Democrats heading into the Aug. 23 primary. If she wins, Niou will make history as the first openly autistic member of Congress.
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"Justice Department Moves to Unseal Trump Search Warrant at Mar-a-Lago"
The Department of Justice has filed a motion to unseal the search warrant executed by the FBI earlier this week at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Thursday.
In a brief press conference, Garland confirmed that he personally approved the warrant, a decision Garland said he did not treat lightly.
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"Senate passes $739bn healthcare and climate bill after months of wrangling"
It was ugly. It was hard fought but it came through.
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A deep look at the new inflation reduction act, why its divisive among climate experts, and why its historic
Related, here is a piece in The Atlantic by Robinson Meyer - "The Best Evidence Yet That the Climate Bill Will Work"
The three new estimates were conducted by Energy Innovation; Rhodium Group, an energy-research firm in New York; and the REPEAT Project, a university-associated team led by Jesse Jenkins, a Princeton engineering professor. The studies represent a new spin on an old approach. Normally, when Congress considers a major piece of legislation, outside economists pore over its details, feeding them into computer models to estimate how each provision might affect GDP, inflation, and the federal budget deficit. Instead, the three groups looked at the bill’s climate effects, sketching what the bill could mean for carbon emissions, clean-energy deployment, and energy costs.
[...]
The Manchin-Schumer bill wouldn’t get all the way to Biden’s 2030 goal, Jenkins told me. But it would get close enough that states, cities, companies, and the Environmental Protection Agency could get the country over the finish line.
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"Results: Kansas voters decide 'no' on the abortion amendment"
I included the tweet when it was called yesterday, but here is a write up which delves into it deeper. And given that Kansas, a conservative state, voted this way is telling.
Edit: Originally I linked to an NPR story about this news. Switching to promote 19thnews.org, "an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy."
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"US Navy deploys warships east of Taiwan ahead of Pelosi ‘trip’"
My RSS political feeds are awash in discussion around Pelosi's trip to Taiwan and the resulting saber rattling from China. Personally, I think it's very much the correct move for the US to make these moves to show China that it can't do to Taiwan what Russia is doing to Ukraine.
I will be surprised if it escalates. China is seeing what the economic sanctions are doing to Russia and while they are much much healthier economically than Russia, it will still be a massive impact even aside from the costs of an actual war.
We'll see.
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"Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda Leader, Killed in U.S. Drone Strike in Afghanistan"
The United States killed al Qaeda’s top leader in a drone strike in Afghanistan over the weekend, U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Monday evening, dealing the biggest symbolic blow to the terrorist organization since U.S. special operators killed then-al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011.
Ayman al-Zawahiri—who, along with bin Laden, oversaw the terror attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and led the terrorist group after bin Laden’s death—was killed in a CIA drone strike in Kabul in the early morning hours of July 31.
“For decades, he was the mastermind behind attacks against Americans,” Biden said in a public address Monday evening announcing Zawahiri’s death. “Now, justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more.”
It's worth noting, The Atlantic has an article about him which notes he's been irrelevant for a while.
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"Manchin’s Inflation Reduction Act is really a climate and energy bill. What’s in it?"
More info on the bill that was announced last night. I appreciate Vox's breakdowns.
Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer claimed in their joint statement that the bill delivers enough on climate to cut pollution by roughly 40 percent by 2030. (Economic modelers at Rhodium Group said that after an initial review of the bill, the 40 percent figure was “plausible.”) The legislation helps move the US a little closer to its stated goal of cutting pollution in half within the decade.
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The Forward Party - a new Centrist third party
From their WaPo editorial today:
David Jolly is a former Republican congressman from Florida and is executive chairman of the Serve America Movement. Christine Todd Whitman is a former Republican governor of New Jersey and co-founder of the Renew America Movement. Andrew Yang is a former Democratic presidential candidate and is co-chair of the Forward Party.
And here is their one-sheet touting this party's priorities
Free People. Revitalize a culture that celebrates difference and individual choice, rejects hate, and removes barriers so that each of us can rise to our full potential.
Thriving Communities. Reinvigorate a fair, flourishing economy and open society where everyone can live a good life and is safe in the places where we learn, work, and live.
Vibrant Democracy. Reform our republic to give Americans more choices in elections, more confidence in a government that works, and more say in our future.
Maybe I'm cynical, but I will be shocked if this works. In college I thought of myself as libertarian (small l, though I did cast some votes for big Ls.) I still like the libertian utopic vision where people take care of people and government can be small - but it simply isn't true.
As for the reality of a third party in American politics - we've had buzzing gnats of third parties for years but no one comes close to competitive in size. This just feels to me like a big swing in hopes of hitting a home run when the odds are heavily saying they're going to be another strike out against the political Ohtanis of the world.
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Manchin finally agrees to a bill, surprises everyone
The new compromise bill includes $430 billion in new spending on energy, electric vehicle tax credits and health insurance investments. It more than pays for itself by raising minimum taxes for big companies and enforcing existing tax laws, Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.
The bill would impose a 15% minimum tax on corporations with profits over $1 billion, raising $313 billion over a decade, they wrote. Companies could claim net operating losses and tax credits against the 15%.
The U.S. corporate tax rate dropped to 21% from 35% after a 2017 tax cut pushed by then-President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans, but many companies pay much less than that, and some of the largest pay no federal taxes, research groups including the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy have found.
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Take it with a grain of salt, but 538 has switched to believe Democrats will win the Senate in the midterms
It is far from a big win, but they now project a 51-49 split in favor of the Dems. And, as always, it's a projection based on polling data, it could still be wrong.
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"Trump conduct, conversations part of Justice Dept. investigation"
As soon as I send the evening's newsletter I see this headline. Oh boy, that's some spice. We'll see if anything comes of it.
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Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R, IL) gives some very frank insight into the progress of Jan. 6 Subcommittee and calls out the sudden resistance to testify by some individuals
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An interesting tidbit from the Axios newsletter:
Nielsen says 17.7 million viewers watched Thursday's hearing — down from the 20 million who watched the other prime-time hearing, on June 9, AP's David Bauder reports.
An estimated 13.6 million of Thursday's hearing viewers — 77% — were age 55+. Only 705,000 viewers were 18 to 34.
The six daytime hearings averaged 11.2 million viewers, with a peak audience of 13.2 million on June 28, when Cassidy Hutchinson testified.
705,000 is 4% of the viewership for Thursday's broadcast. My wife and I fell into the unmentioned 19% that are between 34 and 55.
I had seen the 17.7M viewers number, but only out of context of the viewership of other panel sessions.
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Vox's Five Main Takeaways From Yesterday's January 6th Hearing
I only caught the latter half of the hearing but it was still enough to set my blood boiling at the absolutely disgusting filth who was our 45th President.
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"DC police officer corroborates story that Trump got in ‘heated argument’ in vehicle on Jan. 6"
While the corroboration doesn't talk at all about lunging for the wheel, it confirms that the President was adamant about going to the Capitol and angry when it was not done.
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"Schumer's legal weed bill is finally here"
Interesting, the article notes that part of the obstacle in getting votes comes from an area I hadn't consciously considered:
But the votes aren’t yet there to pass Schumer’s bill on Capitol Hill.
That’s in part because many lawmakers from states with legal markets don’t yet support substantial changes to federal law. Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, for example, represents a state where weed is legal — Montana — and says he does not support federal decriminalization. A handful of other Democrats told POLITICO that they are against legalization or are undecided, including Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.). Schumer would need all Democrats, plus ten Republicans, to get the bill over the finish line.
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"Want change at the Supreme Court? Congress should offer justices buyouts for early retirement"
I cannot imagine this going over well. The Republicans would lose their mind at tax dollars being spent to pay to rebuild the Supreme Court. And any Justice who does take it would be harangued endlessly for selling out.
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