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      Huma Abedin says kiss from unnamed senator was not sexual assault

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      BooksHuma Abedin says kiss from unnamed senator was not sexual assaultClinton aide gives first interview for memoir Both/AndAbedin also discusses 2016 election and Anthony Weiner Martin Pengelly in New York@MartinPengellySun 31 Oct 2021 10.13 EDTFirst published on Sun 31 Oct 2021 08.11 EDTIn her first interview to promote her new book, Huma Abedin said she did not think an unnamed senator sexually assaulted her when he kissed her at his apartment, some time in the mid-2000s.Longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin describes sexual assault by US senatorRead moreShe also said she would “take to her grave” her part in the emails investigation which cost Hillary Clinton dearly in the 2016 presidential election, which the candidate lost to Donald Trump, though she knew it was not all her fault.Abedin describes the incident with the senator in Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds, which will be published on Tuesday. The Guardian obtained a copy and reported Abedin’s description of the kiss.After making coffee, Abedin writes, the senator sat next to her on the couch, “put his left arm around my shoulder, and kissed me, pushing his tongue into my mouth, pressing me back on the sofa.“I was so utterly shocked, I pushed him away. All I wanted was for the last 10 seconds to be erased.”Abedin does not give clues to the senator’s identity.She also writes that memories of the kiss came back in 2018, during Brett Kavanaugh’s supreme court confirmation hearings, when the judge was accused of sexual assault. In Abedin’s description, Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, was accused of “conveniently remembering” details. Kavanaugh denied the accusations and was confirmed to the court.The pressure group Rainn (the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) defines sexual assault as “sexual contact or behavior that occurs without explicit consent of the victim”.Speaking to CBS Sunday Morning, Abedin said: “I did go back to a senator’s apartment, a senator who I knew and I was very comfortable with, and he kissed me in a very shocking way because it was somebody who I’d known and frankly trusted.”Her interviewer, Norah O’Donnell, asked: “Are you suggesting that senator assaulted you?”Abedin paused, and said: “I’m suggesting that I was in an uncomfortable situation with … I was in an uncomfortable situation with a senator and I didn’t know how to deal with it and I buried the whole experience.“But in my my own personal opinion, no, did I feel like he was assaulting me in that moment? I didn’t, it didn’t feel that way. It felt like I needed to extricate myself from the situation. And he also spent a lot of time apologising and making sure I was OK and we were actually able to rebalance our relationship.”Earlier this week, Business Insider reported that senators from both parties expressed concern that the unnamed senator may have assaulted others.On CBS, Abedin was also asked what she thought Clinton most valued about her.“I think she would say her loyalty,” she said. “And I would say the same about her. I have tested that. Not intentionally, but I have tested it … I’ve made her life difficult with things that have happened in my personal life.”Abedin is estranged from her husband, the former congressman and New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, who served time in prison for sending explicit text messages to a teenage girl.A laptop belonging to Weiner and Abedin became part of Clinton’s 2016 presidential election defeat, when the FBI seized it as part of investigations into Clinton’s use of private email while secretary of state.“I think I’m going to take it to my grave,” Abedin told CBS. “It took me a while to reconcile that it was not all my fault.”She added: “I have reconciled – and it took me a while to reconcile – that it was not all my fault. I lived with that. I did. I don’t believe that anymore.“It’s more a sense of an ache in the heart, that it didn’t have to be. And also, my belief that [Clinton] would have been an extraordinary president, that she really would have, and what it meant for women and girls, not just in this country but around the world.”Asked why she wrote her book, Abedin said: “I think for most of my adult life, certainly in the last 25 years that I’ve been in public service or in the public eye, I have been the invisible person behind the primary people in my life. But what I realise is that if you don’t tell your story, somebody else is writing your history.”She also discussed Weiner and how she discovered his various infidelities. She and her husband, she said, were “just two severely broken, traumatised people”.Asked how their relationship was now, she said: “We’re good. He is my co-parent. And I learned the full truth, I processed it and moved on. I wish him well. He, I hope, wishes me well. I think he does.”Asked if she was still angry with Weiner, Abedin said: “I can’t live in that space anymore. I tried that. It almost killed me.”TopicsBooksHuma AbedinHillary ClintonAnthony WeinerUS politicsDemocratsUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

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      Why this governor’s race is shaping up as a referendum on the Biden presidency

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      The ObserverVirginiaWhy this governor’s race is shaping up as a referendum on the Biden presidency The president won the state by 10 points but Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe has acknowledged Washington politics could hurt his campaignDavid Smith in Arlington, Virginia@smithinamericaSun 31 Oct 2021 02.00 EDTScott Knuth was dwarfed by the 16ft x 10ft flag that he waved to and fro on a street corner in Arlington, Virginia. “Trump won,” it falsely proclaimed, “Save America.”But Donald Trump was not coming to town. Instead his successor, Joe Biden, was about to take the stage in a campaign rally at a dangerous inflection point in his young presidency.Biden’s agenda remains unrealized as Democrats fail to close deal againRead moreBiden was speaking on behalf of Democrat Terry McAuliffe who this Tuesday takes on Republican Glenn Youngkin to become governor of Virginia. But he was keenly aware that the race will represent the first referendum on his White House tenure and a potential preview of next year’s crucial midterm elections for Congress.The Virginia contest also takes place against the backdrop of Biden’s ambitious, would-be historic legislative agenda stalling in Washington as his Democratic party goes to bitter war with itself over a huge social and environmental spending bill.The president reportedly told Democratic members of Congress on Thursday: “I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that the House and Senate majorities and my presidency will be determined by what happens in the next week.”With his approval rating sagging after a coronavirus surge and chaotic retreat from Afghanistan, Biden is badly in need of a win or two. Failure in Virginia, where no Democrat has lost a statewide election for 12 years, and continued paralysis on Capitol Hill would represent a crushing double blow.Protesting outside last Tuesday’s McAuliffe rally in Arlington, Trump supporters were eager for signs of weakness and confident of a Republican fightback.Carrie Johnson, 45, a merchandiser clutching a Stars and Stripes flag, said: “The Biden presidency has been an absolute dumpster fire. Our borders are wide open. Inflation is running wild. He’s trying to strip us of our freedoms. His approval rating is falling by the day.”About 2,500 people attended the rally, according to the White House, far fewer than a typical Trump event. Supporters of McAuliffe, 64, were aware that the closely and bitterly contested race has national implications.Lisa Soronen, 46, a lawyer who brought with her eight-year-old daughter Sasha despite the evening chill, said: “If McAuliffe loses, it will be seen as a victory for Donald Trump, whether it is or not. A lot can happen between now and the midterms but this is seen as the bellwether.”Evidently aware of this, Biden used an 18-minute speech to directly compare his record against that of his predecessor on coronavirus vaccinations, the stock market and jobs growth. Then he sought to tie Trump to Youngkin, a 54-year-old businessman and political neophyte.“Terry’s opponent has made all of his private pledges of loyalty to Donald Trump,” Biden told the crowd. “But what’s really interesting to me: he won’t stand next to Donald Trump now that the campaign is on. Think about it. He won’t allow Donald Trump to campaign for him in this state. And he’s willing to pledge his loyalty to Trump in private, why not in public? What’s he trying to hide? Is there a problem with Trump being here? Is he embarrassed?”Indeed, if the McAuliffe campaign has one message in this race, it is that Youngkin, for all his his fleece jacket suburban dad demeanor, is a mini-Trump and therefore anathema to the most liberal state in the south. In one of the Democrat’s ads, Trump is heard endorsing the candidate, then Youngkin says Trump “represents so much of why I’m running”; no further comment is required.Republicans insist the effort is doomed. Patti Hidalgo Menders, president of the Loudoun County Republican Women’s Club in Ashburn, said: “Donald Trump is no longer in office. I think that’s a lost cause for McAuliffe.”For his part, Youngkin has relentlessly pushed a culture wars message that Virginia’s schools are under existential threat from “critical race theory”. The fact that critical race theory – an analytic framework through which academics discern the ways that racial disparities are reproduced by the law – is not taught in Virginia does not seem to matter to him.One Youngkin ad features a mother who once sought to ban Beloved, a classic novel by the African American author Toni Morrison, from classrooms. Her effort led to state legislation that would have let parents opt out of their children studying classroom materials with sexually explicit content; it was vetoed by McAuliffe when he was governor. Democrats seized on the issue to accuse Youngkin of trying to ban books and “silence” Black authors.What these very different campaign pitches have in common is a laser focus on the suburbs, where Trump fared poorly against Biden in last year’s presidential election but where parental anxiety over school curriculums and virus precautions is seen as ripe for exploitation. Both parties are monitoring closely which message will prevail as they prepare to campaign for the November 2022 midterms.The Virginia election may well be won and lost in the suburbs of the state capital, Richmond, once the seat of the slave-owning Confederacy where a statue of Gen Robert E Lee was last month removed after 131 years. Yard signs for both McAuliffe and Youngkin are visible in the suburb of Short Pump, which has a lively shopping mall, well-regarded restaurants and excellent government schools.Resident Beth O’Hara, 46, a lawyer, said: “I think the suburbs are really going to make the difference and there are people I know who really distrusted Trump and did not vote for his re-election but are planning to vote for Youngkin. That tells me people view him in a much more moderate way.”But O’Hara will vote for McAuliffe. “It’s difficult for me to imagine, after some progress over the last couple of years in Virginia, going back to a place where we have a Republican governor who has at least suggested further restrictions of abortion. I’m kind of done seeing us backslide on that particular issue.”Seventy miles away is Charlottesville, where a white supremacist march in 2017 galvanised Biden to run for president in what he called a battle for the soul of the nation. Now Charlottesville will render its own verdict: McAuliffe has acknowledged that Biden’s dip in the polls, and Democrats’ inertia in Washington, could hurt his campaign.Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, said: “This is going to be a test case that Republicans will use in 2022, whether Youngkin wins or not, because it’s clearly going to be close. The fact that he could turn a +10 Biden state, with Biden’s help and the congressional Democrats’ help, into a close contest tells you that some of the social and cultural issues, however outrageous they are, are working.”Sabato added: “Critical race theory doesn’t even exist in this state. We don’t teach it. I just can’t tell you how many people come up to me, in stores and gas stations and so on, and say, ‘Why are we teaching this race thing?’ I tell them it’s not taught. They say, ‘Well, that can’t be because I heard Mr Youngkin talk about it.’ He talks about it every day about 10 times. You can create an issue out of nothing.”Democratic voters in Charlottesville are appalled by Youngkin’s reversion to dog-whistle politics in a state that has been trending Democratic in recent years with strict gun laws, loose abortion restrictions, protections for LGBTQ+ people, the abolition of the death penalty and the legalisation of marijuana for adult recreational use.Andrea Douglas, executive director of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, said: “If Virginia becomes a Republican state, all of the work that we have done over the course of the last few years in Charlottesville and just generally trying to move Virginia towards being a progressive state, all of that will be turned back.“Seeing the kind of work that has been done in the state to re-engage our students with African American history in the face of critical race theory backlash, the last thing we need is a Republican governor. From the perspective of not just being a person of color, but being a woman of color, he is a dangerous, dangerous person. His positions on abortion, his positions on education.”Youngkin has been walking a political tightrope, seeking to play down his links to Trump in Democratic-held cities while embracing the former president in his old strongholds in the hope of reactivating his base of support.Meanwhile, McAuliffe has rallied with Vice-President Kamala Harris and former president Barack Obama in an attempt to whip up enthusiasm in an election-weary electorate. One of the biggest challenges facing Democrats is apathy from young voters, and voters of color, disenchanted by Biden’s failure to deliver on promises on the climate crisis, immigration reform, racial justice in policing and voting rights.There is also frustration over his stalled legislative agenda. This week Biden announced a pared down social and environmental spending package worth $1.75tn, which was half his original proposal and dropped paid family leave, lower prescription drug prices and free community college.As.the president flew off to Europe for Cop26 and meetings with Boris Johnson and other world leaders, it remained unclear whether progressives in the House, or the conservative Democratic senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, would explicitly back the new framework.This could leave Biden in a damaging limbo, with Republicans likely to claim a moral victory even if they narrowly lose Virginia, paving the way for success in the midterms and then for another Trump presidential run in 2024.Democrat Juli Briskman, a district supervisor in Loudon county who is campaigning for McAuliffe, said: “If we don’t win, unfortunately, that will give the right their playbook because they have been trying hard to confuse parents and confuse voters with false narratives over our school system and false narratives over our voting system. If those false narratives succeed then that gives them a playbook for the ’22 and ’24 elections.”She warned: “We are the testing ground, we are the proving ground, and we just simply have to hold the line.”TopicsVirginiaThe ObserverUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansJoe BidenfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Resilience: the one word progressives need in the face of Trump, Covid and more | Robert Reich

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      OpinionUS politicsResilience: the one word progressives need in the face of Trump, Covid and moreRobert ReichThe climate crisis, the economy, Biden’s struggle to enact his spending agenda. The list goes on. The lesson? Be strong Sun 31 Oct 2021 01.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 31 Oct 2021 01.09 EDTI often tell my students that if they strive to achieve full and meaningful lives, they should expect failures and disappointments. We learn to walk by falling down again and again. We learn to ride a bicycle by crashing into things. We learn to make good friends by being disappointed in friendship. Failure and disappointment are prerequisites to growth.‘A deliberate, orchestrated campaign’: the real story behind Trump’s attempted coupRead moreThe real test of character comes after failures and disappointments. It is resilience: how easily you take failures, what you learn from them, how you bounce back.This is a hard lesson for high-achievers used to jumping over every hoop put in front of them. It’s also a hard lesson for people who haven’t had all the support and love they might have needed when growing up. In fact, it’s a hard lesson for almost everyone in a culture such as ours, that worships success and is embarrassed by failure and is inherently impatient.Why am I telling you this now? Because we have gone through a few very difficult years: Donald Trump’s racist nationalism and his attacks on our democracy, a painful reckoning with systemic racism, angry political divisions, a deadly pandemic accompanied by a recession, and climate hazards such as floods and wildfires.We assumed everything would be fine again once these were behind us. But we now find ourselves in a disorienting limbo. There is no clearly demarcated “behind us”. The pandemic still lurks. The economy is still worrisome. Americans continue to be deeply angry with each other. The climate crisis still poses an existential threat. Trump and other insurrectionists have not yet been brought to justice. Democracy is still threatened.And Biden and the Democrats have been unable to achieve the scale of change many of us wanted and expected.If you’re not at least a bit disappointed, you’re not human. To some, it feels like America is failing.But bear with me. I’ve learned a few things in my half-century in and around politics, and my many years teaching young people. One is that things often look worse than they really are. The media (including social media) sells subscriptions and advertising with stories that generate anger and disappointment. The same goes for the views of pundits and commentators. Pessimists always appear wiser than optimists.Another thing I’ve learned is that expectations for a new president and administration are always much higher than they can possibly deliver. Our political system was designed to make it difficult to get much done, at least in the short run. So the elation that comes with the election of someone we admire almost inevitably gives way to disappointment.A third thing: in addition to normal political constraints, positive social change comes painfully slowly. It can take years, decades, sometimes a century or longer for a society to become more inclusive, more just, more democratic, more aware of its shortcomings and more determined to remedy them. And such positive changes are often punctuated by lurches backward. I believe in progress because I’ve seen so much of it in my lifetime, but I’m also aware of the regressive forces that constantly threaten it. The lesson here is tenacity – playing the long game.The US should cut the Pentagon budget to fund social | Emma Claire FoleyRead moreWhich brings me back to resilience. We have been through a difficult time. We wanted and expected it to be over: challenges overcome, perpetrators brought to justice, pandemic ended, nation healed, climate saved, politics transformed. But none of it is over. The larger goals we are fighting for continue to elude us.Yet we must continue the fight. If we allow ourselves to fall into fatalism, or wallow in disappointment, or become resigned to what is rather than what should be, we will lose the long game. The greatest enemy of positive social change is cynicism about what can be changed.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionUS domestic policyJoe BidenBiden administrationDemocratsDonald TrumpRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

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      Democratic leaders want House votes on Biden domestic agenda by Tuesday

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      Biden administrationDemocratic leaders want House votes on Biden domestic agenda by TuesdayAnonymous sources outline ambitious timetable for spending plan so far stymied by centrist senators Associated Press in WashingtonSat 30 Oct 2021 16.01 EDTDemocratic leaders are hoping for House votes as soon as Tuesday on the two pillars of Joe Biden’s domestic spending agenda, two Democrats said Saturday, as the party mounted its latest push to get the long-delayed legislation through Congress.Joe Manchin single-handedly denied US families paid leave. That’s just cruel | Jill FilipovicRead moreTop Democrats would like a final House-Senate compromise on Biden’s now $1.75tn, 10-year social and environment plan to be written by Sunday, the Democrats said.Talks among White House, House and Senate officials were being held over the weekend, said the Democrats, who described the plans on condition of anonymity.An accord could clear the way for House passage of that bill and a separate $1tn measure funding road, rail and other infrastructure projects, the Democrats said.It remains unclear whether the ambitious timetable can be met. To clear the Senate, any agreement will need the backing of centrist Democrats Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema, of Arizona.The two senators have forced Biden to retreat from his plan for a $3.5tn social and environment bill and to remove some initiatives from the measure.Republican opposition to the social and environmental bill is unanimous. Democrats hold the House and Senate but in the latter are 10 votes short of the necessary super-majority to pass legislation.They must therefore use reconciliation, a process for budgetary measures which allows for a simple majority. As the Senate is split 50-50 and controlled via the casting vote of Vice-President Kamala Harris, Manchin and Sinema have a tremendous amount of power.The Senate approved the infrastructure bill in August on a bipartisan vote. House progressives have since sidetracked that bill, in an effort to pressure moderates to back the larger social and environment bill.TopicsBiden administrationJoe BidenUS domestic policyUS politicsDemocratsJoe ManchinUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      Senate’s 50-50 split lets Manchin and Sinema revel in outsize influence

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      DemocratsSenate’s 50-50 split lets Manchin and Sinema revel in outsize influence Joe Biden, whose Build Back Better bill has been slashed by the two holdouts, said with ‘50 Democrats, every one is a president’David Smith in Washington@smithinamericaFri 29 Oct 2021 14.46 EDTLast modified on Fri 29 Oct 2021 15.11 EDTJoe Biden recently summed up his problems getting things done.In an America where the US Senate is split 50-50, then effectively any single senator can hold a veto over the president’s entire agenda. “Look,” laughed Biden at a CNN town hall, “you have 50 Democrats, every one is a president. Every single one. So, you got to work things out.”Joe Manchin single-handedly denied US families paid leave. That’s just cruel | Jill FilipovicRead moreIt explains why the most powerful man in the world is currently struggling to get his way in Washington – and why two members of his own party, Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, are standing in his way.Such is the distribution of power that American presidents can only impose their will up to a point if Congress refuses to yield. While the White House can do much with executive orders and actions, major legislation must gain a majority of votes in the House of Representatives and Senate.Democrats do currently control both chambers – but only just. The Senate is evenly divided between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, meaning that Vice-President Kamala Harris must cast the tie-breaking vote. That means all 50 Democratic senators must be on board in the face of united Republican opposition – an increasingly safe (and bleak) assumption in polarised era.By contrast, President Franklin Roosevelt’s Democrats reached 59 seats in the then 96-member Senate, while President Lyndon Johnson’s Democrats had 68 in what by then was a 100-seat chamber. Biden is trying to match the scale of both men’s ambition with no room for error.This is why his agenda – huge investments in infrastructure and expanding the social safety net – depends on the blessing of Manchin and Sinema in what might seem to the watching world as a case of the tail wagging the dog.Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont defeated by Biden in last year’s Democratic primary, tweeted earlier this month: “2 senators cannot be allowed to defeat what 48 senators and 210 House members want.”But the cold reality is that, after months of painful wrangling and concessions, Manchin and Sinema have almost single-handedly narrowed the scale and scope of Biden’s grand vision.This week it emerged that Build Back Better plan would be halved from $3.5tn to $1.75tn, axing plans for paid family leave, lower prescription drug pricing and free community college. Sanders’s dream of including dental and vision care also failed to make the cut.Biden insists that the framework still represents the biggest ever investment in climate change and the greatest improvement to the nation’s healthcare system in more than a decade.He said at the White House on Friday: “No one got everything they wanted, including me, but that’s what compromise is. That’s consensus. And that’s what I ran on. I’ve long said compromise and consensus are the only way to get big things done in a democracy, important things for the country.”But what makes it especially galling for many is that opinion polls show the eliminated measures are highly popular. Manchin and Sinema have ensured that the US is destined to remain one of seven countries – along with the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea and Tonga – without paid leave for new mothers, according to UCLA’s World Policy Analysis Center.Biden met late on Tuesday evening with both senators at the White House. Countless newspaper columns and hours of airtime have been expended trying to understand the motives of the two holdouts, who can effectively decide whether Democrats keep their campaign promises – with huge implications for next year’s midterm elections.Manchin is not so mysterious. He hails from coal-rich West Virginia, a conservative state that Donald Trump won twice in a landslide, and once ran a campaign ad in which he shot a rifle at a legislative bill. He owns about $1m in shares in his son’s coal brokerage company and has raised campaign funds from oil and gas interests.Critics accuse him of putting personal and local concerns ahead of his party, the nation and the world. The USA Today newspaper wrote in an editorial: “It’s no stretch to conclude that Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin is risking the planet’s future to protect a dwindling pool of 14,000 coal mining jobs in his home state of West Virginia.”Sinema, however, has been described as enigmatic, sphinx-like and whimsical. In 2018 she became Arizona’s first Democratic senator for more than two decades and, despite progressive credentials and a flair for fashion statements, has taken conservative positions on several issues.She also provokes the left with stunts such as a thumbs-down gesture on the Senate floor when she voted against raising the federal minimum wage and, on Thursday, a parody of the TV comedy Ted Lasso with the Republican senator Mitt Romney. Perhaps tellingly, Sinema raised $1.1m in campaign funds in the last quarter with significant donations from the pharmaceutical and financial industries.In a divided Senate, where Republicans are consumed by Trump’s election lies, this duo holds the fate of Biden’s presidency in their hands. The haggling could go on for weeks more, granting Manchin and Sinema continued outsized influence and guaranteeing that their every move and word will be avidly scrutinised.Joe Lockhart, a former White House press secretary, tweeted: “My dream? Democrats pick up a few more Senate seats in 2022 and when Joe Manchin holds a press conference to declare what he can live with and what he can’t, nobody shows up.”TopicsDemocratsUS politicsUS SenateJoe BidenUS domestic policyUS CongressfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Biden’s agenda remains unrealized as Democrats fail to close deal again

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      US politicsBiden’s agenda remains unrealized as Democrats fail to close deal againPelosi forced to postpone infrastructure vote on Thursday ahead of Biden’s meeting with world leaders in Rome Lauren Gambino in Washington@laurenegambinoFri 29 Oct 2021 13.53 EDTLast modified on Fri 29 Oct 2021 14.31 EDTJoe Biden’s nearly $3tn domestic agenda remains unrealized after an 11th-hour push to rally Democrats around a pared-down package that he framed as historic, failed to close the deal in time for his meeting with world leaders in Rome at the G20 summit.Capitol attack panel faces pivotal moment as Trump allies stonewallRead moreBut after a dramatic Thursday of bold promises and dashed hopes, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, was forced to postpone a vote on a $1tn infrastructure bill for a second time in a month, as progressives demanded more assurances that a compromise $1.75tn social policy plan would also pass.It was a setback – though perhaps only a temporary one – for Democratic leaders, who had hoped to hand the president a legislative victory that he could tout during his six-day trip to Europe for a pair of international economic and climate summits.The delay underscored the depth of mistrust among Democrats – between the House and Senate, progressives and centrists, leadership and members – after a lengthy negotiating process yielded a plan that was about half the size of Biden’s initial vision.Biden’s proposal includes substantial investments in childcare, education and health care as well as major initiatives to address climate change that, if enacted, would be the largest action ever taken by the US Congress. Revenue would come from tax hikes on corporations and the wealthy.But in concessions to centrists like the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin and Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema, paid family leave, free college tuition and efforts to lower prescription drug prices were stripped from the latest iteration of the plan. Progressives were left disappointed by the cuts but their desire to pass the legislation ultimately held little leverage to force major changes.In a speech before departing for Europe, Biden acknowledged the bill fell short of his legislative ambitions, but reflected the limits of what was politically possible given Democrats’ narrow governing majorities and unified Republican opposition.“No one got everything they wanted, including me,” he said. “But that’s what compromise is.”As lawmakers and activists digested the newly released details of the plan, there seems to be a growing consensus among progressives that, while insufficient, the plan makes critical investments in many of their top priorities, especially in the field of tackling the climate crisis.“The newly announced Build Back Better Act can be a turning point in America’s fight against the climate crisis – but only if we pass it,” leaders of the climate advocacy group Evergreen Action wrote in a memo on Friday.Julian Zelizer, a historian at Princeton University, said unified control of the White House and Congress can, perhaps paradoxically, make governing harder. Because these moments are rare and often fleeting, there is a rush by the president and his party to pursue an ambitious, legacy-defining agenda, he said.“But the challenges of legislating don’t go away,” Zelizer said. “And in some ways, the tensions within the party are exacerbated by the stakes being so high.”Some have argued that scaling back key programs could make it harder for Americans to feel the impact of the new benefits, despite the substantial size of the legislation. That could make it difficult for Biden, whose approval ratings have slid in recent weeks, to sell the plan he told House Democrats would determine the fate of his presidency and their political futures.TopicsUS politicsJoe BidenDemocratsHouse of RepresentativesUS SenateNancy PelosiRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Joe Manchin single-handedly denied US families paid leave. That’s just cruel | Jill Filipovic

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      OpinionJoe ManchinJoe Manchin single-handedly denied US families paid leave. That’s just cruelJill FilipovicAll of America’s economic peers have a paid family leave policy. Why would a Democrat oppose such a basic measure? Fri 29 Oct 2021 06.30 EDTLast modified on Fri 29 Oct 2021 16.40 EDTAmericans will remain some of the last people on the planet to have no right to paid leave when they have children, and for that, you can thank Joe Manchin.Biden pitches $1.75tn scaled-down policy agenda to House DemocratsRead moreManchin, the Democratic senator from West Virginia, tanked the paid leave portion of an increasingly narrow domestic policy package. Manchin had already gotten Democrats to make what was once a sweeping and ambitious bill smaller and less effectual. Even though the Democrats control the House, the Senate and the White House, and are not expected to maintain control of Congress after this year’s midterm elections, they still can’t get it together to deliver what the American people put them in office to do. And that’s because of Manchin, as well as his fellow centrist holdout, Kyrsten Sinema.To be fair, 50 Republicans are to blame for this as well. All 50 of them oppose Biden’s paid family leave plan, and none were expected to vote for this bill. If even a few of them had been willing to cross the aisle to support parents and new babies – to be, one might say, “pro-life” and “pro-family” – then Manchin would not have the power he does to deny paid family leave to millions of American parents. So let’s not forget this reality, too: most Democrats want to create a paid family leave program. Republicans do not.But Manchin’s actions are particularly insulting and egregious because he is a Democrat. He enjoys party support and funding. He benefits when Democrats do popular things. And now, he’s standing in the way of a policy that the overwhelming majority of Democrats want, and that is resoundingly popular with the American public, including conservatives and Republicans.Paid family leave brings a long list of benefits to families, from healthier children to stronger marriages. And it benefits the country by keeping more working-age people in the workforce – when families don’t have paid leave, mothers drop out, a dynamic we’ve seen exacerbated by the pandemic. By some estimates, paid family leave could increase US GDP by billions of dollars.This is good policy. But it’s also a policy that is, in large part, about gender equality. While paid leave is (or would have been) available to any new parent, the reality is that it’s overwhelmingly women who are the primary caregivers for children, it’s overwhelmingly women who birth children, and it’s overwhelmingly women who are pushed out of the paid workforce when they have kids.As it stands, many well-paid white-collar employees do get some paid leave. It’s working-class parents who often don’t – and who can’t afford to take several weeks off of an hourly-wage job, even to recover from childbirth or to care for a brand-new infant who needs 24/7 attention. These workers, and particularly the women among them, are put in an impossible bind: money but no ability to care for a child, or caring for a child and no money. A paid family leave program would put an end to that particularly American cruelty.We are one of the most prosperous societies in the history of the world, and yet our lack of paid leave policies means that new mothers are back working at fast-food restaurants days after having major abdominal surgery, leaving their infants home with whoever is free to watch them. Or, our lack of paid leave policies mean that new mothers simply quit their jobs, pitching themselves into financial precarity at the exact moment they need greater stability, more money and less stress.It’s astoundingly cruel. And it’s entirely unnecessary – all of America’s economic peers have a paid family leave policy, and most of them have policies that are far more generous and far more sensible than even the plan Democrats were debating. This is not a mysterious or unsolved problem; every other wealthy and developed country on Earth has largely solved it. We are an outlier because we are simply choosing to make life unnecessarily brutal for families, and for women in particular.And this week, it’s Joe Manchin in particular who is choosing, single-handedly, to continue making life unnecessarily brutal for families, and for women in particular. He’s not the only bad actor, but right now, he’s the most powerful one.And he’s using his political power not to advocate for what his constituents want and need, but simply to demonstrate that he has it – to show that he is more influential than the American president, that American social and economic policy lies in his hands.It’s a pathetic, petty little narcissistic display. And it’s American families, and particularly American mothers, who suffer so that Joe Manchin can feel like a big man.
      Jill Filipovic is the author of OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind
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