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Pete Buttigieg urges Republicans to back same-sex marriage bill Senate Democrats hope at least 10 Republicans will support Respect for Marriage Act after 157 in House voted against it More
Any Given Tuesday: Lis Smith on Cuomo, Spitzer and a political life The Democratic operative delivers a memoir and coming-of-age tale that lands punches – and sometimes pulls themWith Any Given Tuesday, Lis Smith delivers 300 pages of smack, snark and vulnerability. A veteran Democratic campaign hand, she shares up-close takes of those who appear in the news and dishes autobiographical vignettes. The book, her first, is a political memoir and coming-of-age tale. It is breezy and informative.Thank You For Your Servitude review – disappointing tale of Trump’s townRead moreFor two decades, Smith worked in the trenches. She witnessed plenty and bears the resulting scars. Most recently, she was a senior media adviser to Pete Buttigieg, now transportation secretary in the Biden administration, and counseled Andrew Cuomo, now a disgraced ex-governor of New York.According to Smith, Buttigieg made politics ennobling and fun. More important, he offered a road to redemption.“He saw me for who I actually was and, for the first time in my adult life, I did too,” Smith writes. According to exit polls in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, Buttigieg brought meaning to middle-aged white college graduates. These days, he is seen by Democrats as a possible alternative to Joe Biden in 2024.Smith dated Eliot Spitzer, another governor of New York who fell from grace.“We were like a lit match and dynamite,” she writes. Smith also gushes about Spitzer’s “deep set, cerulean blue eyes”, the “most gorgeous” such pair she had ever seen. A 24-year age gap provided additional fuel but Spitzer, once known as the Sheriff of Wall Street, spent less than 15 months in office. His administration ended abruptly in 2009, over his trysts with prostitutes.Smith can be blunt and brutal. She savages Cuomo and flattens Bill de Blasio, the former mayor of New York City, like a pancake.Smith recounts in detail Cuomo’s mishandling of Covid, the allegations of sexual harassment and his obfuscation. He “died as he lived”, she writes, damningly, “with zero regard for the people around him and the impact his actions would have on them”.As for De Blasio: “This guy can’t handle a 9/11.” He also came up short, we are told, in the personal hygiene department: a “gross unshowered guy”. De Blasio retracted an employment offer to Smith, after her relationship with Spitzer became tabloid fodder. He also coveted an endorsement from Spitzer that never materialized.“Both of us had tried to get in bed with Eliot but only one of us had been successful,” Smith brags.On Tuesday, De Blasio dropped out of a congressional primary after gaining a bare 3% support in a recent poll.Smith is very much a New Yorker. She grew up in a leafy Westchester suburb, north of the city. Her parents were loving and politically conscious. Her father led a major white-shoe law firm. He introduced his daughter to football and the star-crossed New York Jets.Smith went to Dartmouth. Not surprisingly, her politics are establishment liberal. She worked on campaigns for Jon Corzine, for New Jersey governor; Terry McAuliffe, for governor of Virginia; and Claire McCaskill, for senator in Missouri. In 2012 she earned a credit from Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.Smith has kind words for McAuliffe and McCaskill but portrays Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs chief executive, as aloof, never warming to the reality that elections are about retail politics and people. Despite this, Smith omits mention of the markets-moving failure of MF Global, a Corzine-run commodities brokerage that left a wake of ruin.“I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date,” Corzine testified before a congressional committee. “I do not know which accounts are unreconciled or whether the unreconciled accounts were or were not subject to the segregation rules.”Corzine holds an MBA from the University of Chicago.Smith is candid about the corrosive effects of the Democrats’ lurch left.“If someone doesn’t support every policy on their progressive wish list … they’re branded an enemy or a Republican in disguise. If these ideological purists think a West Virginia Democrat is bad, wait till they get a load of the Republican alternative.”But Smith also falls victim to ideological myopia. Discussing the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 and its considerable political consequences, she appears to solely blame the Ferguson police for the death of the African American teen, who she says was “shot to death in broad daylight”. Like Hillary Clinton, Smith neglects to mention that police fired after Brown lunged for an officer’s gun. She also does not mention that Brown tussled with a convenience store owner before his confrontation with the law.Inadvertently, Smith highlights the volatility of the Democrats’ multicultural, upstairs-downstairs coalition. Worship at the twin altars of identity politics and political correctness exacts a steep price in votes and can negatively impact human life. See New York City’s current crime wave for proof.Newt and the Never Trumpers: Gingrich, Tim Miller and the fate of the Republican partyRead moreSmith reserves some of her sharpest digs for Roger Stone, convicted and then-pardoned confidante of Donald Trump, pen-pal of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. She calls him a “stone-cold sociopath”. But she skates over animus that existed between Stone and Spitzer, her ex. In 2007, Stone allegedly left a threatening telephone message for Spitzer’s father, a real estate magnate. Months later, Stone told the FBI Spitzer “used the service of high-priced call girls” while staying in Florida.In the end, Smith is an idealist.“I believe in the power of politics to improve people’s lives,” she writes. “I still believe there is hope for the future.”
Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story is published in the US by Harper
TopicsBooksPolitics booksDemocratsUS politicsAndrew CuomoEliot SpitzerPete ButtigiegreviewsReuse this content More
Biden administration plans to spend $5bn to build EV charging network across USElectric vehicle stations to be placed every 50 miles along interstate highways to spur adoption of zero-emission cars The Biden administration has unveiled a plan to award nearly $5bn over five years to build thousands of electric vehicle charging stations.The nationwide network of electric vehicle charging stations would place new or upgraded ones every 50 miles (80km) along interstate highways as part of the administration’s plan to spur widespread adoption of zero-emission cars.Under Department of Transportation requirements, states must submit plans to the federal government and can begin construction this year if they focus first on highway routes, rather than neighborhoods and shopping centers, that can allow people to take their electric vehicles long distances.Start me up: ‘car guy’ Joe Biden accelerates push to turn America electricRead moreEach station would need to have at least four fast-charger ports, which enable drivers to fully recharge their vehicles in about an hour.Many technical details are to be worked out, and the administration acknowledges it will take work to persuade drivers accustomed to gas-powered cars, particularly in rural areas. The money is far less than the $15bn that Biden had envisioned to fulfill a campaign promise of 500,000 charging stations by 2030, and it may take substantial private investment to make the plan work.“A century ago, America ushered in the modern automotive era; now America must lead the electric vehicle revolution,” the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, said.Buttigieg made the announcement in front of the transportation department along with White House officials, flanked by a pair of black Ford Mustang Mach-E SUVs in the federal government’s growing electric fleet that he and the energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, drive. The vehicle’s retail price starts around $44,000 and climbs to $60,000-plus including options, and they are currently made in Mexico.Electric cars on show in Washington as Biden pushes for green revolution Read moreButtigieg made a special appeal to rural drivers, suggesting that big wide open spaces of the US no longer need to be a “valley of death” for EV drivers.“Many might think of them as a luxury item,” he said. “The reality is nobody benefits more from EVs in principle than those who drive the longest distances, often our rural Americans.”The law provides an additional $2.5bn for local grants, planned for later this year, to fill remaining gaps in the charging network in rural areas and in disadvantaged communities, which currently are less likely to own the higher-priced electric vehicles. States failing to meet all the federal requirements risk delays in getting approval from the Federal Highway Administration or not getting money at all.Biden also has set a goal of 50% electric vehicle sales by 2030, part of a broader effort to become zero emissions economy-wide by 2050.Electric vehicles amounted to less than 3% of US new auto sales last year, but forecasters expect big increases in the next decade. Consumers bought about 400,000 fully electric vehicles.Amid the petrol crisis, is it time to switch to an electric car?Read moreBiden hopes to do even more to promote electric vehicles, including a provision in his stalled social and environmental bill for a $7,500 tax credit for people who buy electric vehicles.“It’s going to help ensure that America leads the world on electric vehicles,” Biden said this week about American companies expanding EV infrastructure.“China has been leading the race up to now, but this is about to change,” he said.“Because America is building convenient, reliable, equitable national public charging networks. So wherever you live, charging an electric vehicle will be quick and easy.”Granholm described the initial $5bn investment as creating “the spine” of the national network. Jessika Trancik, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies EV charging, called the administration’s approach a good first step. She said a successful strategy to spur wider EV use would require charging stations in a host of different locations, including faster charging along highways and slower charging near homes and workplaces.TopicsElectric, hybrid and low-emission carsMotoringPete ButtigiegUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
Pete ButtigiegButtigieg warns Manchin of resistance to Biden’s climate plan: ‘It will cost lives’White House has said clean energy provisions likely to be dropped from bill to secure support of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema Richard Luscombe@richluscSun 17 Oct 2021 11.43 EDTLast modified on Sun 17 Oct 2021 11.44 EDTThe transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg delivered a blunt warning on Sunday to Joe Manchin and other Senate Democrats who are forcing Joe Biden to scale back his climate crisis agenda: your resistance is going to cost lives.Manchin, senator for the coal-dependent state of West Virginia, opposes elements of the president’s clean energy performance program (CEPP), a $150bn central plank of his Build Back Better plan and $3.5tn spending bill.White House officials have acknowledged that clean energy and clean electricity provisions are likely to be dropped from the bill to secure the support of Manchin and fellow sceptic Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Both votes are critical in a divided 50-50 Senate.Buttigieg appeared to express his disappointment in Manchin’s stance on Sunday, telling CNN’s State of the Union that the holdout politicians’ stonewalling of Biden’s ambitious climate plan could be deadly.“The longer you take to do something about it, the more it’s going to cost in livelihoods as well as lives,” he said.“The administration and the president are committed to bold climate action, exactly what legislative form that takes is what’s being negotiated right now. But the bottom line is we have to act on climate for the good of our children and for the good of our economy. This is kind of like a planetary maintenance issue.”Biden is attempting to broker a deal with Manchin and Sinema that would allow the bill to pass, though the president has already conceded that cuts will be made. “I’m convinced we’re going to get it done. We’re not going to get $3.5tn. We’ll get less than that, but we’re going to get it,” Biden said on Friday.Buttigieg’s criticism was more veiled than that of the progressive Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who lambasted Manchin last week in an opinion piece in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.“Poll after poll shows overwhelming support for this legislation. Yet… in a 50-50 Senate we need every Democratic senator to vote ‘yes.’ We now have only 48. Two Democratic senators remain in opposition, including Manchin.” he wrote.“This is a pivotal moment in modern American history. We have a historic opportunity to support the working families of West Virginia, Vermont and the entire country and create policy which works for all, not just the few.”His comments drew swift rebuke from Manchin, who in a tweet attempted to portray Sanders as a socialist out-of-stater trying to “tell West Virginians what is best for them”.“Millions of jobs are open, supply chains are strained and unavoidable inflation taxes are draining workers’ hard-earned wages as the price of gasoline and groceries continues to rise,” Manchin said.“I will not vote for a reckless expansion of government programs.”Buttigieg on Sunday responded to criticisms of the administration’s handling of the supply chain crisis, telling CNN that it was caused at least partly by the success of Biden’s economic policies.“If you think about those ships waiting at anchor on the west coast, every one is full of record amounts of goods that Americans are buying because demand is up, because income is up, because the president has successfully guided this economy out of the teeth of a terrifying recession,” he said.He praised Biden’s efforts last week to ease bottlenecks, which included ordering ports in California to operate 24 hours a day, but said in a separate interview Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press that it wasn’t the government’s responsibility to solve what he said was a “very complex problem”.“You got the terminals, the rail piece, you got the warehouses, the drivers, and we’re working on all of those angles,” he said. “But these are private-sector systems, this is a capitalist country. Nobody wants the federal government to own or operate the stores, the warehouses, the trucks, or the ships, or the ports. Our role is to try to make sure we’re supporting those businesses and those workers who do.”TopicsPete ButtigiegJoe BidenBiden administrationUS domestic policyClimate crisisUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
Pete ButtigiegPete Buttigieg and husband Chasten announce birth of adopted twinsTransport secretary says ‘Chasten and I are delighted to welcome Penelope Rose and Joseph August Buttigieg to our family’ Martin Pengelly and Edward HelmoreSat 4 Sep 2021 13.52 EDTFirst published on Sat 4 Sep 2021 12.58 EDTPete Buttigieg and his husband have announced the birth of adopted twins.Trump reportedly nears DC hotel rights sale as ally says ‘I think he’s gonna run’Read moreIn a post to social media on Saturday, the US transportation secretary and former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination said: “Chasten and I … are delighted to welcome Penelope Rose and Joseph August Buttigieg to our family.”The Buttigiegs announced last month that they were engaged in the adoption process. Sharing a picture of the babies on Saturday, they said they were “beyond thankful for all the kind wishes since first sharing the news that we’re becoming parents”.One of the twins is named for Buttigieg’s father, Joseph, a Notre Dame professor who died in 2019.Buttigieg, 39, is a former mayor of South Bend, Indiana who came from obscurity to make a strong impression in the Democratic presidential primary in 2020. He is now the first out gay parent in the US cabinet, having already become the first openly gay person to be confirmed by the US Senate for a cabinet post.The Washington Post reported in July that the Buttigiegs had put themselves on lists to adopt a baby or babies abandoned or surrendered, and were preparing by “going through home studies and parenting workshops, writing up descriptions of their family values and ideal weekends”.Chasten, a part-time drama school teacher, described how he received a call about a mother in labour wanting to place her baby for adoption. The mother then changed her mind.“It’s a really weird cycle of anger and frustration and hope,” he said.Chasten and I are beyond thankful for all the kind wishes since first sharing the news that we’re becoming parents. We are delighted to welcome Penelope Rose and Joseph August Buttigieg to our family. pic.twitter.com/kS89gb11Ax— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) September 4, 2021
The couple met in 2015 on the dating app Hinge and married three years later. After being appointed to the Biden cabinet, Pete Buttigieg said: “Travel in my mind is synonymous with adventure, growth and even love, so much so that I proposed to my husband, Chasten, in an airport terminal.“Don’t let anyone tell you O’Hare [the Chicago airport] isn’t romantic. And let me take this chance to thank Chasten for all that he does, and for his sacrifices, to support me in pursuing public service.”When Pete Buttigieg announced that he and Chasten were looking to adopt, first lady Jill Biden shared his tweet and said: “Congratulations to you and Chasten! Welcome to parenthood!”The interior secretary, Deb Haaland, said: “Being a parent has been one of the great joys of my life. Congrats to you and Chasten on this terrific news!”Lis Smith, Buttigieg’s top communications adviser during his presidential bid, said: “They will be the best dads.”On Saturday the Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar, once a rival for the Democratic nomination, tweeted: “You’re both going to make wonderful parents, congrats.”TopicsPete ButtigiegUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
Republicans opposed to Joe Biden’s proposed $2tn infrastructure bill claimed on Sunday that it was effectively a partisan tax hike that allocated too much money to electric vehicles and other environmental initiatives.On CNN’s State of the Union, Mississippi governor Tate Reeves was asked if his state could use some of the $100bn Biden proposes to spend on fixing roads and bridges neglected for decades amid gridlock in Washington and paralyzed public spending.Yes, he said. But.“There’s no doubt that Mississippi could use our fair share of $100bn,” Reeves said. “The problem with this particular plan, though, is although the Biden administration is calling it an infrastructure plan, it looks more like a $2tn tax hike plan, to me. That’s going to lead to significant challenges in our economy, it’s going to lead to a slowing GDP … it’s going to lead to Americans losing significant numbers of jobs.”Biden proposes funding his plan by raising corporate tax rates and making it more difficult for corporations to utilize offshore tax shelters.Reeves had other complaints. While Biden proposes to spend billions on roads and bridges, he said, he also proposes to “spend more than that on the combination of Amtrak [railways] and public transit. And what’s even worse, [Biden’s bill] spends $100bn on clean water, which Mississippi could certainly use, but it spends more than that … to subsidize electric vehicles.“That is a political statement. It’s not a statement on trying to improve our infrastructure in America. And so it looks more like the Green New Deal than it looks like an infrastructure plan.”The Green New Deal is a set of policy priorities championed by prominent progressives including Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a way to meet looming environmental challenges while boosting the economy and reducing inequality. It is not enacted law or a formal part of Biden’s policy plans. Nonetheless, Republicans from Donald Trump down have seized on it, claiming it represents a determination to take away gas-guzzling cars and even the right to eat meat.On ABC’s This Week, the Missouri Republican senator Roy Blunt asked: “Why would you pass up the opportunity here to focus on roads, bridges, what’s happening underground, as well as above the ground on infrastructure, broadband, all of which wouldn’t be 40% of this package?“There’s more in the package for charging stations for electric vehicles … than there is for roads, bridges and airports and ports. When people think about infrastructure, they’re thinking about roads, bridges, ports and airports.”The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said this week he would “fight them every step of the way because I think this is the wrong prescription for America. That package that they’re putting together now, as much as we would like to address infrastructure, is not going to get support from our side.”Democrats could attempt to pass the package using budget reconciliation, a procedure that allows for a simple Senate majority rather than 60 votes. But even if successful it would mean abandoning portions of the plan that do not impact taxes and spending.Biden has repeatedly emphasized the need for bipartisanship. Politicians from both sides have claimed willingness to reach across the aisle.Reeves told CNN he “believes we can come up with a plan” but opposes the tax-funded price-tag. Blunt said it was “very unlikely” Republicans would vote to reverse Trump’s 2017 corporate tax cuts, suggesting instead “new funding sources, figuring out how if you’re going to spend all this money on electric vehicles, which I think is part of the future, we need to figure out how electric vehicles pay for using the system just like gas-powered vehicles have always paid for it with a gas tax.”Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s transportation secretary, vowed to work with Republicans.“I’ve got a lot of respect for Senator Blunt,” he told ABC, “but I’m going to work to try to persuade him that electrical vehicle charging infrastructure is absolutely a core part of how Americans are going to need to get around in the future, and not the distant, far off future, but right now.Asked if it was “a realistic prospect to expect Republicans are going to come around”, Buttigieg said: “I think it can be. I’m having a lot of conversations with Republicans in the House and Senate who have been wanting to do something big on infrastructure for years. We may not agree about every piece of it, but this is one area where the American people absolutely want to see us get it done.”The Republican Mississippi senator Roger Wicker told NBC’s Meet the Press: “I’m all for working with the administration on an infrastructure bill. And let me tell you, I think I can work with Pete Buttigieg. I spoke to him the day he was nominated. We’ve been trading phone messages for the last three or four days in an effort to talk about this bill. I think Pete and I could come up with an infrastructure bill.”But Wicker also brought out the stumbling block to such thoughts of progress.“What the president proposed this week is not an infrastructure bill,” he said. “It’s a huge tax increase, for one thing.” More
Joe Biden began his first full day as president confronting a host of major crises facing his fledgling administration, starting with a flurry of actions to address his most pressing challenge: the raging Covid-19 pandemic.At a White House event on Thursday afternoon, Biden unveiled a new national strategy to combat the coronavirus, which has killed more than 404,000 Americans and infected more than 24 million since it first began spreading across the US one year ago, by far the highest totals in the world.“For the past year, we couldn’t rely on the federal government to act with the urgency and focus and coordination we needed,” Biden said, referring to the administration of Donald Trump, which ended at midday the day before.“And we have seen the tragic costs of that failure,” he said.Biden again braced the nation for continued hardship, saying “it’s going to get worse before it gets better” and predicting the death toll could rise to 500,000 by the end of next month.Outlining his approach, Biden told Americans: “Help is on the way.”The actions on Thursday included an order to require mask-wearing on federal property, in airports and on many flights, trains, ships and long-distance buses, and also a huge push to speed up vaccinations, which have fallen far behind the government’s own schedule.“Mask up,” he said, waving a face mask. “For the first 100 days.”Even as he charted an aggressive approach to gain control of the virus, he was met with more bad news about the economy as another 900,000 people filed for unemployment benefits last week and he inherited the worst jobs market of any modern-day president.Biden and Harris began their day joined by family at the White House, where they virtually attended an inaugural prayer service held by the Washington National Cathedral, a tradition that has been reshaped by the pandemic.The president, members of his family as well as his vice-president, Kamala Harris, and her husband sat physically distanced in the Blue Room of the White House to stream the interfaith service. Many of the speakers extended prayers and blessings to the new leaders.The Rev William Barber, a preacher from North Carolina and civil rights leader who leads an anti-poverty campaign, delivered the homily, calling on the new administration to address what he called the “five interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation/denial of healthcare, the war economy, and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism”.“No, America has never yet been all that she has hoped to be,” Barber said. “But right here, right now, a third reconstruction is possible if we choose.”And on Thursday morning John Kerry warned, in his first remarks as the US’s new climate envoy, that the world was lagging behind the required pace of change needed to avert catastrophic impacts from the climate crisis.Kerry, the former US secretary of state in the Obama-Biden administration, acknowledged that America had been absent from the international effort to contain dangerous global heating during Donald Trump’s presidency but added: “Today no country and no continent is getting the job done.”The FBI director, Christopher Wray, will remain in the role, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said on Thursday. During her first press briefing on Wednesday, Psaki raised speculation that his job was in jeopardy when she declined to publicly state whether Biden had confidence in him.“I caused an unintentional ripple yesterday, so wanted to state very clearly President Biden intends to keep FBI Director Wray on in his role and he has confidence in the job he is doing,” she said in a tweet on Thursday.Wray took the helm at the agency in 2017 after Trump fired his predecessor, James Comey, just four years into what is traditionally a 10-year term. Wray’s future had been in doubt for much of the past year, as Trump openly criticized the director and the agency.Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Biden’s nominee for transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, appeared at his Senate confirmation hearing while the House prepared to initiate Trump’s second impeachment trial.In an opening statement, Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who ran against Biden for the Democratic nomination, said there was a “bipartisan appetite for a generational opportunity to transform and improve America’s infrastructure”.The Senate, which officially switched to Democratic control on Wednesday after the swearing-in of three new senators, two from Georgia, has never held an impeachment trial for a former president.Some Republicans have argued that it is not constitutional to try an official who has left office, but many scholars disagree. Democrats say they are ready to move forward as negotiations continue between the chambers over the scope and timing of a trial.After impeaching Trump for an unprecedented second time last week, the House has yet to transmit to the Senate the article charging Trump with “incitement of insurrection” over his role in encouraging a crowd of loyalists that attacked the US Capitol on 6 January in an effort to stop the certification of his defeat.At a press conference on Thursday, Pelosi refused to say when the House would send the article beyond that it “won’t be long”. More
Key events
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2.42pm EST14:42
Texas AG files antitrust lawsuit against Google
1.35pm EST13:35
Early afternoon summary
1.11pm EST13:11
Kamala Harris urges faith in coronavirus vaccine
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Biden said signs of agreement on new coronavirus economic relief bill “encouraging”
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Biden introduces Buttigieg as his nominee for transportation secretary
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Harris impatient over stimulus bill – says “people are suffering”
10.52am EST10:52
Secretary of State Pompeo to isolate over contact with Covid-positive person
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The availability of intensive care unit beds in the San Francisco Bay Area fell below 15% on Tuesday, the threshold that triggers a regional stay-at-home order.
Much of the Bay Area had preemptively enacted the stay-at-home order earlier in the month, but three counties did not. They will now have to enact the stricter rules by midnight Thursday.
At 12.9%, ICU bed availability in the Bay Area is still better than in Southern California (0.5%), the San Joaquin Valley (0%) and greater Sacramento (14.1%). The only region that will not be under stay-at-home orders as of Friday will be rural Northern California, where just 1.7% of the state’s approximately 40m people live, according to the state’s health department.
The remaining 39.4m Californians are barred from holding private gatherings of any size and required to wear a mask. Almost all of California is also under a curfew requiring residents to stay home between 10pm and 5am.
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A major winter storm heading for the eastern seaboard could delay shipments of the coronavirus vaccine, Alexandra Villarreal reports for the Guardian US:
Treacherous weather could bury parts of the eastern US in snow, ice or flooding and cause power outages, hazardous travel conditions, or even tornadoes on Wednesday and Thursday, according to the National Weather Service, threatening all forms of transportation being used by the vaccine manufacturing facilities, centered in Michigan, as they fly and truck vials around the country.
It is set to be a record storm for December. Meanwhile the first Covid-19 vaccinations got underway at nursing homes, where the virus has killed more than 110,000 people in the US. Elderly and infirm people in long-term care have been among the most vulnerable and residents in nursing homes in Florida and Virginia have been among the first people being inoculated in the US this week.
Read the full report here:
3.43pm EST15:43
An investigation into allegations that managers at a Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Waterloo, Iowa, placed bets on how many of their workers would contract Covid-19 “found sufficient evidence” to fire seven managers on Wednesday, the Des Moines Register reports.
The allegations of the betting pool emerged in a wrongful death lawsuit filed in November by the family of Isidro Fernandez, a Tyson Foods employee who died in April after contracting the coronavirus.
More than 1,000 workers out of about 2,800 tested positive for Covid-19 before the plant closed down in early May to implement new safety measures. At least six employees died during the pandemic.
Tyson Foods enlisted the former US attorney general Eric Holder to investigate the allegations of a “cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool” among managers and supervisors.
“We can tell you that Mr Holder and his team looked specifically at the gaming allegations and found sufficient evidence for us to terminate those involved,” a company spokesman, Gary Mickelson, told the Des Moines Register.
Sarah Beckman
(@SarahBeckman3)
INBOX: @TysonFoods fires 7 plant management employees at its Waterloo location after an investigation of claims they bet on how many employees would test positive for #Covid_19. Full statement here: pic.twitter.com/meOf3geqhe
December 16, 2020
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Hello everyone, this is Julia Carrie Wong in Oakland, California, picking up the liveblog for the next few hours.
A bit of catharsis for the end of the year: the mayor of Atlantic City plans to auction off the chance to blow up the former Trump Plaza casino as a fundraiser for the local Boys & Girls Club, the AP reports.
The former casino opened in 1984 and closed in 2014, one of three casinos that Donald Trump owned in the New Jersey resort town, alongside the Taj Mahal and the Trump Marina. The building has stood vacant for years and become a public safety hazard. It is slated for implosion on 29 January.
“Some of Atlantic City’s iconic moments happened there, but on his way out, Donald Trump openly mocked Atlantic City, saying he made a lot of money and then got out,” mayor Marty Small told the AP. “I wanted to use the demolition of this place to raise money for charity.”
Details of the auction will be announced at a press conference tomorrow, according to the Press of Atlantic City. If you have $1m and a burning desire to press a button and make something that used to belong to Trump go boom, you can tune in here at 11am EST Thursday.
Press of AC
(@ThePressofAC)
Want to press the button and implode Trump Plaza? Atlantic City may offer that chance https://t.co/Zaw9kIhzFX
December 16, 2020
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A top Trump appointee in the health and human services department urged top health officials in July to take on a “herd immunity” approach to combating the Covid-19 pandemic, saying in emails describing young Americans: “we want them infected.
Paul Alexander, a former aide to the health department official Michael Caputo and a known “herd immunity” advocate, wrote in an email to Caputo that “there is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD.”
The emails were released as part of a House investigation, led by Democratic Representative James Clyburn, into the White House’s attempts to interfere with the work of career scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Infant, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions, etc have zero to little risk … so we use them to develop herd … we want them infected,” Alexander wrote in an email.
Politico reported that Alexander had the support of the White House when making his recommendations, though Trump officials have denied that they wanted to embrace the herd immunity strategy.
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2.42pm EST14:42
Texas AG files antitrust lawsuit against Google
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton just announced his office is filing an antitrust lawsuit against Google for its “anti-competitive conduct, exclusionary practices and deceptive misrepresentation” around advertising, Paxton said in a video announcing the lawsuit.
Texas Attorney General
(@TXAG)
#BREAKING: Texas takes the lead once more! Today, we’re filing a lawsuit against #Google for anticompetitive conduct.This internet Goliath used its power to manipulate the market, destroy competition, and harm YOU, the consumer. Stay tuned… pic.twitter.com/fdEVEWQb0e
December 16, 2020
“Google repeatedly used its monopolistic power to control pricing, engage in market collusions to rig options in a tremendous violation of justice,” he said. “These actions harm every person in America.”
Paxton said other states have joined the lawsuit, though it is unclear how many states have joined.
The Texas attorney general is just coming off of the lawsuit he filed against four states, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, for allegedly mishandling the election, an 11th-hour, baseless attempt to help Donald Trump keep the White House after his loss to Joe Biden. The Supreme Court quickly threw out the lawsuit last week.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement this afternoon affirming her support in Joe Biden selecting US Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico to lead the Interior Department.
Previous reports have said Pelosi and her second-in-command, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, warned the Biden-Harris team against picking another sitting Congressional Democrat as Haaland was rumored to be Biden’s top pick for interior secretary.
“Congresswoman Deb Haaland is one of the most respected and one of the best Members of Congress I have served with,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Congresswoman Haaland knows the territory, and if she is the President-elect’s choice for Interior Secretary, then he will have made an excellent choice.
Heather Caygle
(@heatherscope)
Here’s full statement: pic.twitter.com/9yYegtabPy
December 16, 2020
Haaland, who is a member of the Laguna Pueblo people, was one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress, along with Sharice Davids, who was also elected in 2018. The interior department is responsible for preserving federal lands and resources and is home to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which works with the country’s recognized Native American tribes.
Updated
at 2.24pm EST
1.59pm EST13:59
A top Trump appointee repeatedly urged top health officials to adopt a “herd immunity” approach to Covid-19 and allow millions of Americans to be infected by the virus, according to a new report by Politico today, which cited internal emails obtained by the House Oversight committee and shared with the news outlet.
Politico reports that:
“There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD,” then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote on July 4 to his boss, Health and Human Services assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, and six other senior officials.
“Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…” Alexander added.
“[I]t may be that it will be best if we open up and flood the zone and let the kids and young folk get infected” in order to get “natural immunity…natural exposure,” Alexander wrote on July 24 to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, Caputo and eight other senior officials. Caputo subsequently asked Alexander to research the idea, according to emails obtained by the House Oversight Committee’s select subcommittee on coronavirus.
Senior Trump officials have repeatedly denied that herd immunity — a concept advocated by some conservatives as a tactic to control Covid-19 by deliberately exposing less vulnerable populations in hopes of re-opening the economy — was under consideration or shaped the White House’s approach to the pandemic. “Herd immunity is not the strategy of the U.S. government with regard to coronavirus,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar testified in a House Oversight hearing on October 2.
In his emails, Alexander also spent months attacking government scientists and pushing to shape official statements to be more favorable to Donald Trump.
You can read more here.
1.35pm EST13:35
Early afternoon summary
It’s been a lively morning in US political news as we await agreement on a deal for a new round of coronavirus economic relief legislation on Capitol Hill. Stay tuned!
Here’s what’s occurred so far today:
Joe Biden said it seems coronavirus stimulus negotiators are “very, very close” to reaching a deal and that the new coronavirus economic relief package looks “encouraging”. He added that the bill would be a “down payment” to “what’s going to have to be done” when he enters office in January.
Biden and his vice-president elect, Kamala Harris, presented Pete Buttigieg as the incoming administration’s nominee to become transportation secretary. Biden described Buttigieg, who ran for the party nomination eventually won by Biden, was a policy wonk with a big heart and would be the first openly-gay cabinet member in US history to be confirmed (assuming that happens) by the Senate.
Outgoing secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is in quarantine after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus. Pompeo’s most recent test showed he was negative for Covid-19.
After months of roller coaster negotiations, it looks as though a new, compromise coronavirus economic relief bill is close to agreement on Capitol Hill.
1.11pm EST13:11
Kamala Harris urges faith in coronavirus vaccine
Kamala Harris, the Democratic Senator from California and now US vice-president elect, earlier today urged Americans to wear masks and take the coronavirus vaccine when it becomes available to them.
In more from her interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, Harris also spoke about one of Joe Biden’s earliest statements as the transition from the Trump administration to the Biden administration began, that he would ask all Americans to wear a face mask for the first 100 days of the Biden-Harris White House.
“The hundred days of the mask, he is urging, like, there is no punishment, they don’t have to, but he is saying as a leader, ‘please everybody, work with me here, for the first 100 days, let’s everybody wear a mask’ and see the outcomes there,” Harris said.
She added: “Because of course the scientists and the public health officials tell us there will be really great outcomes if people wear a mask when they’re in public.” More
