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      Joe Biden needs to stand up and fight Manchin like our lives depend on it | Daniel Sherrell

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      Joe Biden needs to stand up and fight Manchin like our lives depend on itDaniel SherrellIf we are to stand any chance in avoiding climate breakdown, Biden needs to act decisively – and now A few days before Christmas, Joe Manchin appeared on Fox News to publicly retract his support for the Build Back Better Act. Even by the pathologically callous standards of Washington, it felt surreal to watch a politician jeopardize tens of millions of lives in a single 10-minute interview. But the stakes of his decision remain clear: without the act, the United States will fall far short of its climate goals, making a century of ecological collapse, economic devastation and civilizational upheaval not only more likely, but increasingly unavoidable.In the wake of the announcement, despair flickered across the internet. Friends called me in tears. My generation has watched our government fail again and again to enact meaningful federal climate legislation. But this latest betrayal is almost too much to bear. It feels like we are being forced to say goodbye: to our democracy, to our future, to the world we were told we’d inherit.If Build Back Better fails, Manchin may well be remembered as the man who killed the planet. Given the prospect of having to one day explain to his grandchildren why they can’t go outside in the summer, you think he’d at least attempt to marshal some plausible justifications. But his arguments collapse under the lightest scrutiny. His inflation fears have been thoroughly debunked, including by Larry Summers, the patron saint of inflation anxiety. His climate arguments are fundamentally unserious, anti-science propaganda copied straight from the big coal playbook.The most generous interpretation is that he’s a mulish egotist: a man who sticks to his guns, even when his guns are firing blanks. But the bulk of the evidence points to simple bad faith. Since joining the Senate, Manchin has personally grossed over $4.5m from coal companies he owns. In recent months he has received millions in campaign donations from Republican billionaires and fossil fuel executives who want to see Build Back Better die a slow, painful death. Meanwhile, he has ignored the pleas of West Virginia mothers, tuned out the counsel of his own pope and bulldozed the very coal miners he’s so often wielded as political props. In the light of day, his motives seem as obvious as they are depressing.Regardless of his true endgame, Manchin’s reversal raises a pressing question: what exactly is Biden’s strategy? He’s already forfeited his most obvious piece of leverage, allowing the bipartisan infrastructure bill to move forward without any promise of reciprocation. His “charm offensive” – an exercise in Beltway nostalgia, if not outright political delusion – has run aground on the brutal logic of contemporary petro-politics. When it comes to his signature policy agenda, his administration seems flustered, reactive and naive.And yet, the bill must not be abandoned. Executive action alone probably can’t deliver the lasting emissions reductions that climate science demands. If the first Democratic trifecta since 2009 fails to produce ambitious climate legislation, both party and planet will suffer catastrophic consequences.So Biden needs a new strategy, and fast. There are two basic options. The first is to take off the kid gloves and start playing hardball. If he doesn’t have any leverage, then he needs to get some, especially if Manchin is acting in bad faith. That means channeling Lyndon B Johnson and pairing noble intent with sharp elbows. Threaten targeted federal regulations that would cripple Manchin’s benefactors in big coal. Use the bully pulpit to call them out by name: Michelle Bloodworth, Chris Hamilton, Joe Craft, Jim McGlothlin – all the special interests ready to sacrifice my generation on the altar of their quarterly returns.Have the justice department revisit allegations that Manchin’s daughter, former Mylan chief Heather Bresch, played a personal role in criminally inflating the price of life-saving EpiPens (as if corporate fealty and misanthropic greed were a sort of family tradition). Dare him to defect to the Republican party, where he’ll either kiss the ring of the autocrat he voted twice to impeach or be eaten alive as a Republican in Name Only, or Rino.The second option is to publicly accept Manchin’s private counteroffer, get it to the Senate floor for a vote, and then dare him to renege. The $1.8tn counter-offer – which reportedly included universal pre-K, an expansion of the Affordable Care Act and $500 to 600bn in clean energy incentives – would fall short of what working people need. But it would offer some crucial support, while keeping America’s climate commitments alive.There’s a chance Biden could still circumvent Manchin on extending the child tax credit, which would lift millions of American children out of poverty. No state has benefited from the popular policy more than Utah, and Mitt Romney has indicated a willingness to negotiate. Progressives could blanket his state in ads on child poverty while the administration buttonholes him on specifics.Whichever path the administration chooses, they need to abandon their fixation on “projecting normalcy”. We are not living in normal times, and every American knows it. With each new failure, their genteel posture reads less like a steady hand and more like a form of sleepwalking.It’s time they communicated candidly with the American public and made clear what is actually happening. Manchin’s intransigence is not an unfortunate product of normal democratic deliberation. It is a perverse and dangerous attempt on the part of fossil fuel oligarchs to prevent the demos from protecting itself against climate change. Republicans’ lockstep opposition to clean energy investments supported by almost two thirds of American voters is not the product of legitimate policy disagreement, but of a party actively and transparently opposed to majoritarian democracy.As the Biden presidency enters what could be the final act of a political tragedy, the only way out is to break the fourth wall. Sound the alarm and enlist the public. Expose the actors standing between young people and a livable future; between working families and a dignified living; and between all Americans and their right to representation.If Biden wants to win the war for democracy, then he must summon the courage to name it – loudly and repeatedly. Otherwise, his base will remain as we were after Manchin’s announcement: demobilized, despairing and deeply, justifiably cynical.
      Daniel Sherrell is the author of Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World (Penguin Books) and a climate activist
      TopicsJoe BidenOpinionJoe ManchinDemocratsUS politicsUS domestic policycommentReuse this content More

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      Progressives concerned as Eric Adams takes helm as New York mayor

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      Progressives concerned as Eric Adams takes helm as New York mayorHomelessness, safe housing, police brutality and racial injustice – does Bill de Blasio’s replacement have the policies to fix them? For many New Yorkers, the inauguration of Eric Adams as the 110th mayor of New York City – and only the second Black person to serve in the position – has evoked a range of feelings, from excitement at the possibility of change to confusion and concern.‘Generals don’t lead from the back’: New York mayor Eric Adams seeks bold start Read moreAdams’ rise through city and state politics was fairly typical. In addition to serving as a New York police captain, he was the Brooklyn borough president and a state senator. But he remains an unconventional, even enigmatic figure. There are questions surrounding his home address and curiosity about his plant-based diet, but information about his actual policies remain scarce.“Where Eric Adams has thrived, in many ways, is in really failing to lay out a vision,” said Sochie Nnaemeka, director of the New York Working Families party. “His transition has been defined by personality, less [by] an agenda for the city.”Progressives and advocates working across multiple sectors have voiced concerns at the slow emergence of Adams’ plans and priorities, and worry about positions he has taken including increasing the use of the heavily criticized “stop-and-frisk” policy and resurrecting plainclothes policemen units.Adams’ ascent comes at a crucial time in New York history, as the city seeks to emerge from the pandemic and the economic and social chaos that has come with it.New York’s ballooning homelessness crisis, primarily caused by a lack of affordable housing, is one of the largest issues Adam must contend with. In 2020, more than 120,000 people, including children, slept in the New York municipal shelter system, with homelessness reaching the highest levels since the Great Depression.Covid presented additional challenges, spreading rapidly among homeless populations.Advocates have widely supported Adams’ priority of increasing permanent, affordable housing in a city which has some of America’s most expensive rents. But many have raised concerns about Adams’ main plan: converting 25,000 hotel rooms into permanent apartments, noting zoning and conversion requirements many hotels do not meet.Public housing, managed by the New York Public Housing Association, is another area where Adams has faced pushback. Adams supports privatizing public housing units as well as selling air rights above public housing units. Activists have said such actions, presented as an opportunity to raise capital for blighted buildings, are ineffective and that oversight for private landlords when it comes to addressing housing issues like mold and lead paint would become even more difficult.“His focus is going to be on his big-money donors. That’s been his track record all along. That’s not a secret,” said Fight for NYCHA core member Louis Flores.“We expect him to continue down that road, and for public housing that he’s going to support policies that benefit the real estate development industry at the expense of the public housing residents.”Slice of life: New York’s famed $1 street pizza under threat from rising costsRead moreDespite ambiguities around some of Adams’ plans for addressing homelessness, some experts are hopeful delays in appointments – and Adams’ reputation for flexibility – could be an opportunity for his administration to receive input from community leaders on how to address the crisis, including through the creation of a deputy to oversee homelessness and affordable housing.”Having a bit more of a deliberative process is ultimately going to be more impactful than coming out on day one with an ambitious target for the number of units of affordable housing that should be created that might not actually have the impact of reducing homelessness and housing insecurity,” said Jacquelyn Simone, policy director at Coalition for the Homeless.Proposed changes to policing are another point of tension.Adams, who has described assault at the hands of an NYPD officer as inspiration for joining public service, has faced criticism for his plans to resurrect controversial plainclothes units, an anti-crime department in the NYPD involved in a number of shootings, and increase use of stop-and-frisk, a policy critics have condemned as racially discriminatory.While Adams and his newly appointed NYPD commissioner, Keechant Sewell, the first Black woman to lead the department, have supported these policies and vowed to use properly trained, “emotionally intelligent” officers, progressive have argued that previous training attempts have failed, with many officers continually excused for misconduct.“What does the emotional intelligence of an officer matter if he’s got you up against the wall, patting you down,” said Kesi Foster, a lead organizer with the nonprofit Make the Road New York and a steering committee member with Communities United for Police Reform.Simone said: “The ways to solve unsheltered homelessness is not through policing and pushing people from one corner to another.”Other policing initiatives Adams has sponsored have met criticism, specifically when it comes to New York’s troubled jail system.While Adams has publicly supported closing down Rikers Island, a jail with notoriously poor conditions where several people have died in pre-trial custody, he has also promised to bring back solitary confinement to Rikers, reversing a previous ban on a practice several experts have called “inhumane”.Eric Adams sworn in as mayor of New York CityRead moreAdams has publicly opposed bail reform measures, meant to curtail pre-trial detention but rolled back, citing debunked claims that releases have spurred increases in crime.“Changing the bail bill is not going to achieve the outcome the mayor wants. We’re hoping that we can convince him of that during his tenure,” said Marie Ndiaye, supervising attorney of the Decarceration Project at the Legal Aid Society.“Getting wishy-washy on bail reform is pretty scary because there’s a pretty linear correlation between the rollbacks and the jail population increasing,” said Sara Rahimi of the nonprofit Emergency Release Fund.In general, advocates contend there is more to be learned about Adams as more appointments are made, but given his comments so far, many are approaching the mayor-elect with caution and timid hope of being able to advance progressive policy.“Cautiously optimistic and cautiously pessimistic all at once would be the way to go there,” said Ndiaye.TopicsNew YorkUS politicsUS policingUS crimeUS domestic policyHomelessnessHousingnewsReuse this content More

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      Ex-NFL star Herschel Walker posts baffling video promoting US Senate run

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      Ex-NFL star Herschel Walker posts baffling video promoting US Senate runCritics seize on Build Back Better criticisms from controversial candidate nonetheless endorsed by Donald Trump Herschel Walker has Donald Trump’s endorsement in the race for US Senate in Georgia but the former NFL star may be struggling to counter fears from some Republicans that he could damage the party’s chances of taking back a seat lost in 2020, and with it the Senate itself.Twitter permanently suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal account Read moreIn December, the former University of Georgia and Dallas Cowboys running back admitted he does not have a college degree – having repeatedly said that he did.Then, as January began, Walker posted to social media a short but to some bafflingly phrased video.Under the message “a few things to think about as we start the New Year”, Walker attacked policy priorities championed by Democrats including Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s first Black senator who will defend his seat in November.“Build Back Better,” he said, referring to Joe Biden’s domestic spending plan, which targets health and social care and the climate crisis.“You know I’m always thinking: if you want to build back better, first you probably want to control the border, because you want to know who you’re building it for and why. Then you probably want to protect your military, because they’re protecting you against people in other countries that don’t like you.”He then shifted to a broader goal, popular among progressives.“Defunding the police? Bad idea. You want to fund the police so that they have better training, better equipment to protect the law of the land, because you don’t want people doing whatever they want to do.”Then he shifted back again.“Build Back Better. You probably want to become energy independent. Otherwise you’re going to depend on other countries for your livelihood. Build Back Better. You probably want something written, like law of the land, stating that all men are to be treated equal. Oh! We have the constitution. So you probably want to put people in charge who’s going to fight for the constitution.“Just thinking. God bless you.”Burgess Owens, a Republican congressman from Utah who once played safety for the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders, said Walker “represents what the American dream is all about: hard work, strong character, and love for our great country. I am honored to endorse Herschel for Senate and look forward to working with him!”But critics said the video – and a similarly rambling Fox News appearance – was evidence of Walker’s unsuitability for office.To some, such evidence has piled up ever since Walker signaled a shift into politics. Last summer, the Associated Press said “hundreds of pages of public records tied to Walker’s business ventures and his divorce, including many not previously reported, shed new light on a turbulent personal history that could dog his Senate bid”.The documents, the AP said, “detail accusations that Walker repeatedly threatened his ex-wife’s life, exaggerated claims of financial success and alarmed business associates with unpredictable behavior”.The day Donald Trump’s narcissism killed the USFLRead moreThe AP also reported that Walker “has at times been open about his long struggle with mental illness, writing at length in a 2008 book about being diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, once known as multiple personality disorder”.The report also quoted the Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, who said that while Walker “certainly could bring a lot of things to the table … as others have mentioned, there’s also a lot of questions out there”.In the matter of Walker touting a college degree he does not hold, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the false claim was made on a campaign website, “in an online biography advertising Walker’s book, at a campaign rally … and even during his introduction this year at a congressional hearing”.In a statement, Walker said: “I was majoring in criminal justice at UGA when I left to play in the USFL my junior year. After playing with the New Jersey Generals” – a team Trump owned – “I returned to Athens to complete my degree, but life and football got in the way.”TopicsRepublicansUS midterm elections 2022GeorgiaUS politicsUS SenateUS CongressUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      The Steal review: stethoscope for a democracy close to cardiac arrest

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      The Steal review: stethoscope for a democracy close to cardiac arrest Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague have produced an indispensable and alarming ground-level record of how Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election played out in precincts and ballot-counting centers in key statesIn their terrific new book, the veteran reporters Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague argue that the mob that invaded the Capitol in Washington almost exactly a year ago “had no more chance of overthrowing the US government than hippies in 1967 had trying to levitate the Pentagon”.From Peril to Betrayal: the year in books about Trump and other political animalsRead moreThe “real insurrection” was the one “led by Trump and his coterie of sycophants” in Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona. It “was only slightly better organized than the mob but considerably more calculated and dangerous”.That real insurrection is the subject of this timely and important volume. The authors have used a stethoscope to examine the minutia of the American election process. The result is a thrilling and suspenseful celebration of the survival of democracy.The attempted coup was led by Donald Trump. Its intended denouement, in which the vice-president, Mike Pence, would ignore the votes of the six states above plus Washington DC in order to swing the election to Trump, was outlined in an insane memo written by the lawyer John Eastman, described here as “surely the most seditious document to emerge from the White House in American history”.That final act, of course, never happened. Not even Pence, the most sycophantic vice-president of modern times, could bring himself to violate the constitution so blatantly to keep his boss in the White House.But the genuine heroes, brought to life here, were the “hundreds of obscure Americans from every walk of life, state and local officials, judges and election workers. Many of them were Republicans, some were Trump supporters. They refused to accept his slander of themselves, their communities and their workers, and they refused to betray their sworn duty to their office and their country. They were the real patriots.”Bowden and Teague – the latter a Guardian contributor – take us through six battles that lasted from the night of the election, 3 November 2020, until Joe Biden’s election was finally certified by Congress early on 7 January last year.Their book performs a vital service, demonstrating just how well our tattered democracy managed to function despite vicious partisanship and all the new challenges created by the pandemic. For the first time, I understood how brilliantly new machines used to count the votes performed, the intricacies of opening outer and inner envelopes, capturing the images of both then preserving the vital paper ballots inside, making it possible to confirm electronic results with a hand count in case of any failure in technology.In Arizona, the elections department conducted “the mandatory hand count of election day ballots from 2% of the vote centers and 1% of the early ballots as required by Arizona law and it yielded a 100% match to the results produced by the tabulation equipment”.Scott Jarrett was co-director of elections in the populous Maricopa county, and he is one of the crucial bureaucrats celebrated here: “A pale slender young man … dressed in a plain gray suit, the very picture of an earnest functionary, a man happily engaged in the actual machinery of government and quietly proud of his own unheralded importance and competence.”In a public hearing crowded with crazed conspiracy theorists, Jarrett carefully explained how only one of the two “encrypted memory cards (both with tamper-proof evidence seals)” was transported from various polling centers to the main counting location, “so that the results on one card could be double-checked against the other as well as the precinct ballot report they had generated. Backing up that memory were, of course, the actual ballots that had been run through the machines. The memory cards and the ballots were sealed and delivered by “two members of different parties”, escorted by county sheriffs.Clint Hickman, chairman of the Maricopa county board of supervisors, noted that if the eyes of some in the audience were glazing over, he just wanted “people that are watching this” to understand “we don’t glaze over”.The authors point out that Hickman was touching on a fundamental feature of The Steal, the factitious narrative concocted by Trump and his cronies: conspiracy theorists depend on ignorance.“They begin with distrust: only a sucker believes the official story. They then replace the often tedious, mundane details of an intricate process … with a simpler narrative”: theft.They invent colorful stories about a “deal struck with a late Venezuelan dictator to deliver tainted election machines, or a plot to preprint fake ballots in the dead of night”. This creates what cognitive scientists call “a community of knowledge”.The big problem that didn’t exist even 30 years ago is the speed with which such idiotic stories are spread through the internet and by the Twitter feed of a malevolent president like Trump, exploding the reach of such stories and their power to undermine democratic norms.March of the Trump memoirs: Mark Meadows and other Republican readsRead moreThe book reminds us that democracy itself depends on a modicum of trust. That is why Trump’s ability to persuade so many Americans of the truth of so many lies has had such a disastrous effect on our body politic.Bowden and Teague have performed a singular service by revealing the details that disprove Republicans’ unceasing inventions about voter fraud.The problem is that so many Republicans will continue to ignore the lessons of this book. American democracy could still be destroyed by the torrent of voter suppression laws already passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures, spurred by lies invented by Trump and amplified by insidious “journalists” like Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson, whose perfidy is brilliantly dissected in these pages.If democracy does prevail, it will survive because of the ability of authors like Teague and Bowden to make the truth even more compelling than Fox News fictions.
      The Steal is published in the US by Atlantic Monthly Press
      TopicsBooksUS elections 2020US politicsUS domestic policyUS political financingDonald TrumpTrump administrationreviewsReuse this content More

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      By ditching landmark climate legislation, America makes the world unsafe | Kate Aronoff

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      By ditching landmark climate legislation, America makes the world unsafeKate AronoffThe rest of the world needs to start treating the US as what it is: a dangerous country that needs to be reined in As the now very likely collapse of the Build Back Better Act underlines, what’s exceptional about the United States is its extraordinary ability to dole out harm. Besides its ever-ballooning military budget and foreign wars, America also makes the world unsafe thanks to the prodigious amount of fossil fuel it continues to send around the world.US ‘closer to civil war’ than most would like to believe, new book saysRead moreOil Change International, Earthworks and the Center for International Environmental Law have found that burning the oil and gas expected to be drilled in the US alone over the next decade could gobble up 10% of the entire world’s remaining carbon budget, the amount of carbon dioxide that can be released before the planet warms above 1.5C.The Build Back Better Act wouldn’t have made a dent in that drilling, of course: constraining US fossil fuel production or exports has been a political third rail on both sides of the aisle, despite John Kerry having spent months hectoring other smaller and less wealthy nations about their own fossil fuel use in the lead-up to Cop26.Just last week, energy secretary Jennifer Granholm went out of her way to assure oil executives that the administration wouldn’t reinstate the longstanding crude oil export ban, assuring them: “I don’t want to fight with any of you.”West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin – whose promised no vote on Build Back Better seems to have hammered the nail into Biden’s legislative agenda – made half a million dollars last year off his family’s coal business, and was reportedly speaking weekly with ExxonMobil lobbyists this spring. But he’s hardly the only Democrat furthering the fossil fuel industry’s interests.What the Build Back Better bill represented was a bare minimum, at best: the roughly $55bn a year the bill would spend on incentives for renewables deployment, building upgrades and electric vehicles over the next decade is roughly half of what Americans spent on caring for their pets in 2020, and pales in comparison to the $768bn one-year Pentagon budget that breezed through both chambers last week.Even the White House’s topline goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 is dangerously behind the times: that’s when the entire world should be carbon neutral. With its vast resources and outsized historical responsibility for the climate crisis, the US should get there much, much sooner. But what the United States should do to reduce emissions and what its staid, corporate-captured democratic institutions are capable of at this moment are two different things.That’s not to say the fight is over. Congressional leadership could finally call Manchin’s bluff and force a vote on Build Back Better. Biden has a slew of emissions-cutting executive actions at his disposal should he choose to use them, including the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon dioxide. And there are exciting victories at the state and local level to build on.But the road ahead is a rocky one. With a deadly Omicron surge encroaching, the child tax credit about to lapse and student loans payments starting up again in February, Democrats will struggle to point voters to success stories during next year’s midterm elections without Build Back Better in hand.They face a potential blowout in the House, where a Republican majority may well refuse to recognize that any Democrat could win the 2024 presidential election. It’s very likely that the United States, the world’s largest economy and second biggest greenhouse gas emitter, will not pass its first-ever comprehensive climate legislation for at least a decade.Should they take back control in Washington, Republicans will expand drilling as quickly as possible, rest of the world be damned. Countries committed to seeing temperatures not rise above 1.5 or 2C should start treating the US for what it is: an exceptionally dangerous country that needs to be reined in.
      Kate Aronoff is a staff writer at The New Republic and the author of Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet – And How We Fight Back
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionJoe BidenClimate crisisUS domestic policycommentReuse this content More

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      Schumer vows vote on Build Back Better despite ‘no’ from Manchin

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      Schumer vows vote on Build Back Better despite ‘no’ from ManchinSenate majority leader says Democrats will keep working on Biden plan ‘until we get something done’ Democrats will keep working on Joe Biden’s Build Back Better spending plan “until we get something done”, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer told colleagues on Monday – a day after a stunning move by Joe Manchin of West Virginia drew accusations of betrayal from the White House and seemed to leave the president’s agenda dead in the water.Joe Biden must use his presidential powers to deliver on his promises | Ross BarkanRead moreIn a letter to colleagues, Schumer wrote: “We are going to vote on a revised version of the House-passed Build Back Better Act – and we will keep voting on it until we get something done.”He also put senators on notice that they will “consider voting rights legislation as early as the first week back” next month, a timeline for another part of Biden’s agenda and an olive branch to disillusioned progressives.Build Back Better had been delayed as the White House and Democrats in Congress sought accommodation with Manchin and fellow centrist Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, key votes in a Senate split 50-50 and controlled by Vice-President Kamala Harris.In his letter, Schumer spoke of “moments of deep discontent and frustration” before Manchin’s decision to use Fox News Sunday to say he was a “no” on the spending plan, which is valued at about $1.75tn and would expand health and social care and seek to combat the climate crisis, among other priorities.Manchin cited the cost of the plan and worries including inflation, the debt and the Omicron coronavirus variant, and said: “I’ve always said this … if I can’t go home and explain it to the people of West Virginia, I can’t vote for it.“I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can’t. I’ve tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there … This is a no on this piece of legislation. I have tried everything I know to do.”Manchin also put out a statement. The White House responded with a fierce rebuke, accusing the senator of going back on his word – an accusation reportedly included at Biden’s insistence.In a local radio interview on Monday, Manchin said he had reached “wit’s end” over the negotiations but refused to blame Biden either for the talks breaking down or for the angry statement.“This is not the president, this is staff … they drove some things that are absolutely inexcusable,” he told West Virginia Radio, without further explanation. “I just got to the wit’s end of what happened.”Manchin also claimed to have been “far apart, philosophically” with Democratic leaders for months.“We’re in a 50-50 Senate, you all are approaching legislation [like] there is 55 or 60 Democrats,” he said.On Monday, Schumer said Manchin’s move would not “deter us from continuing to try to find a way forward”. Listing provisions including a child tax credit, he said: “We were elected to address these many needs and we will not stop fighting until we do.”Also on Monday, the progressive New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, attacked Manchin’s “betrayal of working class families” but said she did “not believe the situation is beyond repair”.Speaking to MSNBC, she said the White House and Democratic leaders had the tools to move legislation.“It’s really about time we take the kid gloves off and we start using them to govern for working families in this country,” she said.“Our leadership needs to step up. It takes the president of the United States, who I believe needs to be more forceful on the filibuster, he also needs to lean on his executive authority and say, ‘If you’re going to get in the way, we’re going to find other ways to do it. You’re either with us or not, but this train is moving.’”Ocasio-Cortez said it was a “farce” that Manchin held so much sway.“This idea that we can just go on Fox News and legislate through television … and threaten to vote no is unacceptable.”Manchin holds one card which would change the rules of the game. Should he decide to switch parties – thereby ceasing to be the only Democrat in high office in a state that voted solidly for Donald Trump – Republicans would regain control of the Senate. That would stymie Biden’s agenda for good and remove the option of a supreme court pick next year.It has happened before. Most recently, in June 2001, Jim Jeffords of Vermont changed affiliation from Republican to independent and caucused with the Democrats, giving them the majority 51-49.Some analysts doubt Manchin would take such a drastic step but concede that his stance makes it harder for Democrats to know the best way forward. On Monday, the website Axios cited “people close to” Manchin as saying if he did leave the party, he would probably become an independent but still caucus with the Democrats.In his radio interview, Manchin was asked if there was still a place for him inside the Democratic party. He said he “would like to hope there was still Democrats that I feel like I do”, but added that could change, CNN’s chief congressional correspondent, Manu Raju, tweeted.An analysis by Politico listed ways in which Build Back Better could progress, for example by breaking it into chunks more palatable to the centrists.But it also warned: “Manchin doesn’t give a lick if the Democratic party doesn’t like him. Biden lost West Virginia by nearly 40 points, and his constituents aren’t inclined to support anything with the president’s name attached to it, [so] being assailed by the left only helps Manchin politically.”White House rebukes Manchin after ‘no’ to Biden spending plan deals huge blowRead moreIn his statement on Sunday, Manchin alluded to Republican claims that Build Back Better is “socialist” in intent, saying: “My Democratic colleagues in Washington are determined to dramatically reshape our society.”On Monday, the Huffington Post cited two sources when it said Manchin told “several” Democrats “he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs instead of providing for their children”.The site also said the senator believes Americans would “fraudulently use … paid sick leave” to “go on hunting trips”.Schumer’s pronouncement that the Senate would consider voting rights legislation next month is also significant, not least because it indicates a stronger line on reforming the filibuster, which requires 60-vote majorities for most legislation. Manchin and Sinema are both opposed to changes.Schumer said continued Republican opposition to voting rights efforts – guaranteed given it is being pushed in answer to Republican moves to restrict voting and make it easier to overturn elections – would prompt consideration of filibuster reform.“As with BBB,” Schumer wrote, “members will be given the chance to debate on the Senate floor and cast a vote so that their choice on the matter is clear and available for everyone to see.”Numerous Republican-controlled legislatures have passed restrictive voting laws and redrawn district boundaries to make them more favorable to their party’s candidates.“If the right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy,” Schumer wrote, “then how can we in good conscience allow for a situation in which the Republican party can debate and pass voter suppression laws at the state level with only a simple majority, but not allow the United States Senate to do the same?”TopicsDemocratsUS politicsJoe BidenUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      White House rebukes Manchin after ‘no’ to Biden spending plan deals huge blow

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      White House rebukes Manchin after ‘no’ to Biden spending plan deals huge blow $1.75tn domestic spending plan all but dead in the waterSenator accused of ‘breach of commitment’ to presidentThe West Virginia senator Joe Manchin dealt a huge blow to Joe Biden on Sunday, saying “no” to the $1.75tn Build Back Better domestic spending plan. The White House issued a stinging rebuke in return, stoking a bitter war of words in a party sharply divided between moderates and progressives.Fauci: Omicron ‘raging through the world’ and travel increases Covid risksRead moreThe White House accused Manchin of going back on his word.“Senator Manchin’s comments this morning on Fox are at odds with his discussions this week with the president, with White House staff and with his own public utterances,” Jen Psaki, the press secretary, said in a statement.Adding to angry accusations of betrayal from leading progressives including Senator Bernie Sanders, Psaki said: “Weeks ago, Senator Manchin committed to the president, at his home in Wilmington, to support the Build Back Better framework that the president then announced. Senator Manchin pledged repeatedly to negotiate on finalising that framework ‘in good faith’.Citing work by Manchin on the proposed bill this week, Psaki said: “Senator Manchin promised to continue conversations in the days ahead, and to work with us to reach that common ground.“If his comments on Fox and written statement indicate an end to that effort, they represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the president and [his] colleagues in the House and Senate.”Biden and Democrats said this week they would delay the bill until next year but the president vowed it would pass and said he would continue talking to Manchin.But on Sunday Manchin used an interview with Fox News Sunday to announce his withdrawal from such talks – a hugely provocative move in a party in which he and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, another centrist, have held up Biden’s agenda to huge progressive frustration.With the Senate split 50-50 and Republicans unanimously against, Manchin’s opposition means Build Back Better is all but dead in the water.Citing the cost of the plan and economic worries including inflation, the national debt and the Omicron coronavirus variant, Manchin said: “I’ve always said this … if I can’t go home and explain it to the people of West Virginia, I can’t vote for it.”“I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can’t. I’ve tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there.”The host, Bret Baier, seemed surprised.“You’re done?” he asked. “This is a no?”Manchin said: “This is a no on this piece of legislation. I have tried everything I know to do.”01:04Manchin also issued a lengthy statement in which he cast the US debt as a spectre haunting all other concerns, domestic and foreign.“For five and a half months,” he said, “I have worked as diligently as possible, meeting with President Biden, [Senate] majority leader [Chuck] Schumer, [House] Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi and my colleagues on every end of the political spectrum to determine the best path forward despite my serious reservations.“I have made my concerns clear through public statements, op-eds and private conversations. My concerns have only increased as the pandemic surges, inflation rises and geopolitical uncertainty increases.“… Despite my best efforts, I cannot explain the sweeping Build Back Better act in West Virginia and I cannot vote to move forward on this mammoth piece of legislation.”Manchin cited a report by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office which said that if the bill’s spending increases and tax cuts became permanent, $3tn would be added to its cost. Democrats criticised the report, which Republicans requested.Psaki rejected each claim in Manchin’s statement, and said: “Just as Senator Manchin reversed his position on Build Back Better this morning, we will continue to press him to see if he will reverse his position yet again, to honor his prior commitments and be true to his word.”On CNN’s State of the Union, Sanders listed Build Back Better provisions including investment to combat the climate crisis and improve health and social care.Republicans are shamelessly working to subvert democracy. Are Democrats paying attention? Read more“I’ve been to West Virginia,” he said. “And it’s a great state, beautiful, but it is a state that is struggling.“[Manchin] is going to have to tell the people of West Virginia why he’s rejecting what the scientists, the world is telling us, that we have to act boldly and transform our energy system to protect future generations from the devastation of climate change.“… I hope that we will bring a strong bill to the floor of the Senate and that Joe Manchin should explain to the people of West Virginia why he doesn’t have the guts to stand up to the powerful special interests.“… If he doesn’t have the courage to do the right thing for the working families of West Virginia in America, let him stand up and tell the whole world.”Analysts would counter that Manchin is the only Democrat in major office in a state which voted solidly for Donald Trump, cuts his cloth accordingly and could easily switch allegiance, putting the Senate back in Republican hands.In his statement, Manchin echoed Republican claims that Build Back Better is “socialist” in intent, saying: “My Democratic colleagues in Washington are determined to dramatically reshape our society.”Sanders, a self-identified democratic socialist, promised to make Manchin’s stance an election issue, saying: “I think … that right up to the 2022 election [we ask]: ‘Which party is prepared to do the right thing for the elderly, for the children?’“By the way, we talk about kids, I want everybody out there to know if Manchin votes no, those $300 tax credits that have gone a long way to reducing childhood poverty in America? They’re gone. That’s all. We cut childhood poverty by 40%, an extraordinary accomplishment. Manchin doesn’t want to do that.“Tell that to the struggling families of West Virginia.”In the 50-50 Senate, Manchin has gained huge power. He voted for coronavirus relief and a bipartisan infrastructure bill, big-ticket spending items. But he has opposed reform to the filibuster, the rule that requires a supermajority for most legislation, even in answer to Republican moves to restrict voting among Democrats.How a reboot of Trump’s Remain in Mexico plan isn’t the solution migrants are hoping forRead moreThe infrastructure bill was “decoupled” from Build Back Better to ensure passage through the Senate. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, one of six House progressives who voted no on infrastructure despite assurances from Biden that he would get all senators on board for Build Back Better, refused to blame the president for Sunday’s disaster.“My lack and deficit of trust was about Senator Manchin,” she told CNN. “He’s continued to move the goalposts. He has never negotiated in good faith, and he is obstructing the president’s agenda, 85% of which is still left on the table. And in obstructing the president’s agenda, he is obstructing the people’s agenda.”Pressley was asked if Build Back Better might be split into smaller bills, to attract moderate Republicans.She said: “I remain focused on keeping the pressure on Senator Manchin, the White House using the full weight of this presidency to lean on this senator to show solidarity with this Democratic party and with the American people and to stop obstructing the president’s agenda, which is the people’s agenda.“This is a mammoth bill to address. Let’s get it done.”TopicsJoe ManchinBiden administrationJoe BidenDemocratsUS politicsUS SenateUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      March of the Trump memoirs: Mark Meadows and other Republican reads

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      March of the Trump memoirs: Mark Meadows and other Republican reads The former chief of staff has written the most consequential Trump book – if not, thanks to the revelation of the great Covid cover-up, in quite the way he planned. In contrast, McEnany, Navarro and Atlas just play fast and loose with the truthThe Chief’s Chief is the most consequential book on the Trump presidency. In his memoir, Mark Meadows confesses to possibly putting Joe Biden’s life in jeopardy and then covering it up – all in easily digested prose and an unadorned voice. If nothing else, the book has provided plenty of ammunition for Donald Trump to have concluded that Meadows “betrayed” him.Trump tested positive for Covid few days before Biden debate, chief of staff says in new bookRead moreTrump has trashed The Chief’s Chief as “fake news”, derided Meadows as “fucking stupid”, and falsely claimed that the book “confirmed” that he “did not have Covid before or during the debate”.Actually, when it comes to events in Cleveland on 29 September 2020, Meadows writes: “We’ll probably never know whether President Trump was positive that evening.” But we know he very well might have been.And to think Trump gave Meadows a blurb for his cover: “We will have a big future together”. Hopefully, Meadows received at least 30 pieces of silver as an advance.By the numbers, Trump came in contact with approximately 500 people between the time he received his first positive test, which was followed by a negative one, and his announcement that he did indeed have Covid. Not surprisingly, Trump blamed others for giving him the virus, even intimating that gold star military families did it.Last week, after the Guardian broke news of Meadows’ book, Michael Shear of the New York Times recalled: “Hours after he received the call from Meadows informing him of a positive test, Trump came to the back of AF1 without a mask and talked with reporters for about 10 minutes.”“Several days later”, Shear himself tested positive.The 45th president looks like “patient zero”, a one-man super-spreader.Switching topics, Meadows tags Biden for getting overly handsy and says Andrew Cuomo ogled Hope Hicks. Unsurprisingly, Meadows omits mention of allegations against his own boss. Just one example? E Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against Trump, arising from an alleged rape in a department store dressing room.Turning to Republican politics, Meadows, a former North Carolina congressman, accuses John Boehner, once House Speaker, of acting like a “Mafia Don”. Again, Meadows does not mention the boss’s behavior.As reported by Joshua Green in Devil’s Bargain, Trump once laced into Paul Manafort, his sometime campaign manager, thus: “You treat me like a baby! Am I like a baby to you … Am I a fucking baby, Paul?”Manafort was convicted on bank and tax charges in 2018. But he stayed a loyal foot soldier and received a pardon from Trump.With Christmas just weeks away, Meadows throws in the following Trump quote as a holiday bonus: “I’m the only one who can save us.”Meadows isn’t the sole Trump administration alum doing his darnedest to portray their guy as America’s saviour. But he is the only one who lets us know Trump tested positive before he tested negative. And that makes his book one for the ages.Other would-be stocking stuffers by Trump insiders convey that they were either in the dark about that fateful Covid test or took care not to share. Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s final press secretary; Peter Navarro, an economics adviser; and Scott Atlas, a Covid adviser, are out with books of their own.Kayleigh McEnany’s book claims don’t stand up to assurances that she didn’t lieRead moreIn her non-tell-all, McEnany makes sure we know of her academic credentials and reiterates her claim that she never lied to reporters. After all, she writes, her education at “Oxford, Harvard and Georgetown” meant she always relied on “truthful, well-sourced, well-researched information”.She doesn’t mention her time at the University of Miami much. But no matter. Elite degrees say more about future earnings and marriage prospects than a penchant for truth. Trump attended the University of Pennsylvania. Boris Johnson, Oxford. Richard Nixon went to Duke and Bill Clinton is a graduate of Yale.Nixon was disbarred, Clinton’s law license suspended. Boris is Boris.McEnany thanks the deity repeatedly. Her title, For Such a Time as This, riffs off the Book of Esther. She stays on message for more than 200 pages, lauding Trump for standing for “faith, conservatism and freedom”. But that first positive Covid test, on 26 September, described by Meadows and since confirmed by Maggie Haberman and other pillars of the Washington press? Nada.McEnany writes that on 1 October 2020, two days after the Trump-Biden debate, she learned for the first time that Trump and Melania had “tested positive for Covid-19”. On 2 October, Trump was helicoptered to hospital. On 5 October, McEnany was told she had the virus too. She does not draw a line to Trump’s recklessness.“Thankfully,” she writes, “everyone in the White House made a full and complete recovery, including me.”Not true. McEnany does not mention Crede Bailey, head of the White House security office. When she was Trump’s press secretary, she did.Asked about Bailey at a briefing, McEnany said: “Our heart goes out to his family. They have asked for privacy. And he is recovering, from what I understand. We are very pleased to see that. But he and his family will be in our prayers.”On a GoFundMe page set up to help pay for Bailey’s treatment, a friend wrote: “Crede beat Covid-19 but it came at a significant cost: his big toe on his left foot as well as his right foot and lower leg had to be amputated.” Bailey also suffered long-term lung, heart, liver and kidney damage. According to his family, Trump has never publicly acknowledged Bailey’s “illness”.McEnany delivers a bouquet to Meadows.“You were a constant reminder of faith,” she gushes. “Thank you for being an inspiring leader for the entire West Wing.”Navarro would probably disagree. In fact, it’s a good bet he would concur with Trump’s new assessment of Meadows’ intelligence.In his book, In Trump Time, Navarro repeatedly takes Meadows to task for insufficient loyalty and accessibility. According to Navarro, after Trump lost to Biden, the White House chief of staff’s heart and body were too often not at the White House.“Wherever the heck” Meadows was, Navarro says, he sounded “like Napoleon after Waterloo, getting ready to be shipped out to Elba”.Navarro also blames Meadows for failing to heed a purported warning in 2019 from Cleta Mitchell, a Republican activist and lawyer, that the Democrats “were getting ready to steal the election”. When Meadows was pressed in September 2020 about his failure to act on this tip, Navarro says, all he could muster was, “It just didn’t happen.”The fact that both the House and Senate have documented Meadows’ efforts to put the squeeze on Republican election officials fails to impress Navarro.The Chief’s Chief may have also waived Meadows’ claim of executive privilege. Either way, Meadows’s latest about-face on cooperating with the House select committee investigating the events of 6 January is unlikely to alter Navarro’s impression of him.As for Mitchell, she resigned from her law firm over her role in an infamous call between Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state.On top of pushing the line that the Democrats stole the election, Navarro lambasts numerous officials for failing to confront China, Mike Pence among them. Significantly, as he goes after Trump’s star-crossed vice-president, Navarro sounds a now-familiar trope of the anti-democratic right.He brands Pence a treacherous “Brutus” who betrayed Trump, an “American Caesar”. Did Navarro forget those gallows bearing Pence’s name? Regardless, the shoutout to a murdered Roman emperor is meant as a full-throated compliment.During the 2016 campaign, Paul LePage, then governor of Maine, thought Trump needed to show some “authoritarian power”. Last May, Michael Anton of the rightwing Claremont Institute pondered whether the US needed a caesar. Anton was joined on air by Curtis Yarvin, AKA Mencius Moldbug, a self-described monarchist and pillar of the Dark Enlightenment, a take embraced by the alt-right.Navarro demands “full forensic audits” of the 2020 election and posits that the 6 January insurrection may have been “perpetrated by those who sought to provoke an attack on our Capitol as a means of derailing” a Trump electoral college win.In A Plague Upon Our House, Scott Atlas goes after Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci for grabbing headlines but ignores both Trump’s prediction that Covid, “one day – it’s like a miracle – it will disappear” and his admission to Bob Woodward that Covid would be worse than he told the public.Former Trump adviser claims to ‘expose unvarnished truth’ of Covid in new bookRead moreCovid has killed nearly 800,000 Americans – and counting. The US faces another Covid winter, with more than 100,000 new cases daily and the Omicron variant looming. Vaccine resistance and Covid deaths have become red-state hallmarks.Atlas is a radiologist and a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He joined the Trump White House in August 2020 and resigned after the election.As a Covid adviser he opposed expanded testing and isolation, calling such measures “grossly misguided”. Rather, he argued that the virus could be stymied and herd immunity attained once 20% to 25% of the population contracted it. In his book, he appears to discount the impact of long Covid.Confronted by an open letter from Stanford faculty, challenging his credentials, Atlas threatened legal retaliation. Marc Kasowitz, Trump’s lawyer, demanded immediate retraction. None followed.Atlas, however, did get one big thing right: opposing school closures, which he characterized as an “egregious and inexplicable” policy failure. Closures helped cost the Democrats Virginia. Glenn Youngkin’s win in that race for governor was about more than critical race theory.Trump and Trumpism will remain a force in the Republican party in the years to come. Meadows, McEnaney, Navarro and Atlas are counting on it.Earlier this month, however, Chris Christie spoke at a dinner of DC poohbahs.“I gave Donald Trump my undying loyalty,” he said. “And as we learned this week, he definitely gave me Covid.”Just a reminder, folks.TopicsBooksRepublicansDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS politicsPolitics booksCoronavirusfeaturesReuse this content More