Good morning! Here is your news briefing for Friday June 11, 2021
1.) THE DAILY SIGNAL
June 11 2021
Happy Friday from Washington, where some lawmakers want to reduce American history to a chronology of white privilege and oppression of blacks and other minorities. In Texas, they have a better idea about teaching state history, Jarrett Stepman writes. On the podcast, talk show host Dave Rubin tells why he parted ways with the left. Plus: Star Parker isn’t buying black victimhood; reasons to care about the South China Sea; and a House Republican wants to know why the Congressional Black Caucus won’t seat him. On this date in 1944, five days after the D-Day landing at Normandy, France, five Allied groups totaling 330,000 troops form a solid front against German forces.
Rubin began to question the political left when he saw that the same people who preached tolerance weren’t willing to accept those who didn’t embrace radical ideologies.
Rep. Ilhan Omar’s original tweet about the “unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban” garnered bipartisan disapproval.
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WORDS OF WISDOM
“When you see a person without a smile, give them one of yours.”
From The Desk of Ben Stein- My Fellow American, I was recently on the phone with one of my financial advisors, and something he said struck me numb with fear. I was the most scared I have ever been in my life. Even though I’d managed to gather a respectable sized nest-egg from my years of writing for Presidents Nixon & Ford… and some of America’s largest financial publications like The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo! Finance & Newsmax. Not to mention my time spent acting in movies and TV shows…He told me my financial future was anything but secure. EVERY ONE OF US IS AT RISK from what is likely to go down in history as one of the most volatile economic times in America. Which is why I just wrote a new special report entitled “Can Your Retirement Survive?”. In this new special report, I reveal what YOU need to do to make sure your IRA, 401(k), TSP, or savings account is safe… Click Here to get your FREE copy today.
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3.) DAYBREAK
Your First Look at Today’s Top Stories – Daybreak Insider
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Florida Board of Education Bans Teaching Critical Race Theory
The vote was unanimous (Townhall). From another story: DeSantis noted that state law requires the teaching of slavery, civil rights and more and it “absolutely should be taught.” However, he argued that teachers should not go beyond the historical record and paint a portrait of a rotten nation (National Review). Many other states have done the same or are considering it (Axios).
2.
Deutsch Bank Warns U.S. is Heading for Inflation
A direct result of Feds continuing to spend long after stimulus was needed (The Hill). From the Wall Street Journal: The Labor Department’s consumer price index surged 5% year-over-year in May, the largest increase since August 2008 when oil was $140 a barrel. But don’t worry, Americans. The Federal Reserve says inflation is “transitory” and that it has the tools to control prices if they start to spiral out of control. Let us pray (WSJ). Meanwhile, California has witnessed billions vanish from the state as people bail (Washington Examiner).
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3.
Biden Abandons “America First” Policy on Initial Foreign Trip
From the story: “Diplomacy’s essential because no single nation acting alone can meet all the challenges we face today because the world is changing,” he said. “Our NATO allies have had our backs when it’s matters, just like we’ve had theirs when it mattered. And now we need to modernize our alliance, investing in our critical infrastructure, our cyber capabilities, and to keep us secure against every threat we face over the last decade and the new challenges we’re about to face as well.”
Tlaib Insists it’s Bigotry to Point Out Her Anti-Semitism
She complained “Freedom of speech doesn’t exist for Muslim women in Congress. The benefit of the doubt doesn’t exist for Muslim women in Congress. House Democratic leadership should be ashamed of its relentless, exclusive tone policing of Congresswomen of color” (Twitter). From Guy Benson: Bigot weighs in, plays all the cards. How can leadership refute it, since they play the same, cynical identity games all the time? (Twitter). Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted support of another blatant anti-Semite, Ilhan Omar, claiming the criticism puts her in danger (Twitter). A terrific Seth Mandel thread takes on the Squad, pointing out how Democrats took a chance talking to them privately about their actions only to have it backfire (Twitter).
5.
California Governor Fumes as Judge Strikes Down So-Called “Assault” Weapons Ban
Governor Gavin Newsom called the judge a “wholly-owned subsidiary of the gun lobby and the National Rifle Association” and declared “We need to call this federal judge out. He will continue to do damage. Mark my words.”
A scientific study deems hydroxychloroquine a powerful drug in treating COVID (Daily Mail). It’s particularly effective for the severely ill (Hot Air). A report found police DID NOT clear Lafayette Square so Trump could hold up a Bible in a photo op (ABC News). And, of course, much of the media now acknowledge there’s a good chance the virus began at the Wuhan lab.
7.
14-Year-Old Girl Blisters Virginia School Board for Allowing Boys in Girls Locker Room
Among the many highlights, she told the board “Now, boys are reading erotica in the classroom next to girls and you want to give them access to girls’ locker rooms and you want to force girls to call those boys ‘she.’ You do this in the name of inclusivity while ignoring the girls who will pay the price. Your policies choose boys’ wants over girls’ needs.”
Police Officer Seriously Injured Because He Did Not Want to Use Deadly Force
From the Police Tribune: A College Park police officer who was run over and seriously injured by an SUV on Saturday morning said he didn’t use lethal force to protect himself because he didn’t want to shoot a teenager (Police Tribune). From WSB-TV: College Park’s Interim Police Chief Tom Kuzniacki says officer Ivory Morris told him the teen behind the wheel intentionally ran over him (WSB-TV).
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Good morning. New ocean just dropped. Yesterday, the National Geographic Society said the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica would join the Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific as the fifth world ocean because of its unique geographic features.
And while it’s still an infant, the Southern Ocean is quickly becoming a fan favorite. “Rimmed by the formidably swift Antarctic Circumpolar Current, it is the only ocean to touch three others and to completely embrace a continent rather than being embraced by them,” according to NatGeo Explorer at Large Sylvia Earle.
Markets: The S&P notched a record close despite a new report that showed prices grew at a rapid clip in May. GameStop stock tumbled after a busy Wednesday when it announced a new executive team, a share sale, and an SEC investigation into trading activity.
Government: The US budget deficit for this fiscal year has topped $2 trillion, but the monthly deficit for May was the lowest it’s been all year. Government spending fell while tax revenue jumped the most since last July.
Yesterday, a trio of indicators showed that the US economy is waking up from its pandemic slumber with the adrenaline of someone who chased a Red Bull with a 5-hour Energy.
1. Consumerprices: They jumped 0.6% from April to May and 5% from last year, the fastest annual increase since 2008. Driving the price increases were…
Airfare, food, and beef
Household furnishings, boosted by a record price increase for floor coverings
But mostly used vehicles, which accounted for a third of May’s total price hikes
2.Labor: Jobless claims, which track the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits, dropped for the sixth straight week to 376,000. That’s the lowest number since last March, when most businesses were forced to close and unemployment spiked.
3. Wealth: US household wealth climbed to a record $136.9 trillion in Q1 thanks to rising values of stocks and homes. For perspective, that’s a 3.8% increase from the previous quarter and almost double Americans’ wealth from 10 years ago.
Could the economy use some A/C?
Headlines blaring that inflation is rising at its fastest pace in decades have set off alarm bells for consumers and some prominent economists, who warn that trillions of dollars in stimulus measures + ravenous shoppers = a recipe for runaway prices.
Many experts, however, think consumer prices have hit a peak. A few reasons why:
This inflation reading compares May 2021 to May 2020, when prices were in the dumps during the onset of the pandemic. When you compare prices to 2019, they rose just 2.5% in May.
Prices are rising the most in the sectors that got hit the worst by the pandemic (transportation, hospitality, apparel). They should eventually stabilize.
Bottom line: The economy appears to be firing on all cylinders but one: a serious worker shortage that’s led to the largest number of job openings on record.
In a memo earlier this week, Goldman Sachs told employees they had to report their vaccination status by noon yesterday. The bank has been adamant about getting people back into the office ASAP and said the only way to do that is by logging if, when, and what kind of vaccine employees got.
Is that allowed? The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has mentioned multiple times that it’s totally legal for companies to 1) require vaccines and 2) ask about vaccination status. The main reason why most companies haven’t done it is because there’s a whole mess of legal considerations and logistics that would make even the most skilled HR team shudder.
On Monday, a group of nurses in Houston staged a walkout after the hospital they work for said they would need to get the Covid vaccine or face losing their jobs.
Big picture: Other big banks like JPMorgan and Bank of America have opted to offer employees incentives to report whether they’ve been vaccinated instead of requiring disclosure.
Yesterday, President Biden arrived at the UK’s Cornish coast for the three-day G7 summit. G7 = a group of the world’s wealthiest democracies (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and US).
Besides having to pretend they enjoy the full English breakfast, these leaders also need to partake in some delicate conversations, including…
Climate change: The G7 lays the policy groundwork for October’s G20 summit, which in turn informs the UN’s big November climate conference. The G7 is reportedly discussing plans to phase out sales of new gas-powered cars by 2030, protect 30% of their lands and waters from pollution, and help lower-income countries cut emissions.
Covid: Wealthier countries are answering calls to share their vaccines. G7 leaders are expected to announce they’ll be giving 1 billion doses out in the coming year.
Geopolitics: Biden’s looking for a united front of democracies to confront the twin challenges of China and Russia. That could include an international infrastructure partnership to offset China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Looking ahead…Biden follows up the G7 with a NATO summit next week and a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he’s expected to confront on issues including cybersecurity.
In 2018, Amazon raised its starting wage to at least $15 an hour—and it’s higher in more expensive markets. That’s more than double the federal minimum wage. For many families, that increase in take-home pay means being able to pay for things like car repairs, tuition, and healthier food choices.
Take Nelly Nelson. She’s an Amazon employee in Opa-Locka, Florida—one of 8,000 Amazon employees in South Florida.
Before Amazon, Nelly worked at a home improvement store for 12 bucks an hour. For Nelly, the extra money can be the difference between eating fast food and eating healthy.
That’s why Nelly started working at Amazon Opa-locka. “$15 an hour definitely does better for me in my life,” she says.
Stat: Over the last week, China has been vaccinating an average of 20 million people a day, according to Nature. At this rate, it would vaccinate the entire population of the US in a little over two weeks.
Quote: “Probably the worst drug approval decision in recent US history.”
Harvard Medical School professor Aaron Kesselheim resigned from an FDA advisory panel after the agency approved Biogen’s potentially game-changing but also controversial Alzheimer’s drug. Three members of the advisory panel have now quit following the decision.
Read: The dark, democratizing power of the social media stock market. (New Yorker)
Hulu has live sports and HBO Max has Mare, but now Netflix has something just as powerful: merch. The streaming service launched Netflix.shop yesterday to sell Lupin throw pillows, a Yasuke clothing line, and products from other Netflix content that may pop off in the future.
Netflix has done collabs with retailers including Walmart, Sephora, and Target to sell clothes and other branded items from its most bingeable shows, but this is the company’s first step into selling those products itself.
Josh Simon, the head of Netflix’s consumer products division, told the NYT that with its own online storefront the company will be able to ship you your BoJack Horseman Prozac (pending) faster—we’re talking within days of a character trending on Twitter. To launch the store, Netflix partnered with Shopify, the titan of product drops and unwieldy checkout traffic.
Zoom out: When the home of Bridgerton released its earnings report in April, things were about as hot as Season 2 with no Duke. Dipping a toe into e-commerce is one piece of Netflix’s larger plan (like getting into video games) to stand out in the crowded streaming market.
+ For more analysis on Netflix’s merch play and retail news in general, go sign up for Retail Brew.
The US has lost $400 billion to unemployment fraud during the pandemic, experts told Axios, most of which was stolen by foreign crime syndicates.
Didi, a Chinese ride-hail giant, filed for a US IPO yesterday and reported a $1.7 billion loss last year on $21.6 billion in revenue.
Johnson & Johnson said the FDA has extended its vaccine expiration date by six weeks, which will help maintain vaccine supplies despite slipping daily vaccination rates.
Electronic Arts was breached by hackers who stole internal tools and source code for some of the company’s video games, including FIFA 21.
Earlier, we told you about Nelly Nelson. Now we’re gonna tell you about Amazon’s neighbors in Opa-Locka. François Theodore and his wife run Sylvia’s Cafe down the street from Amazon’s fulfillment center in Opa-Locka. They say they’ve been able to make it through the pandemic in part because their neighborhood Amazon employees, like Nelly Nelson, have become loyal customers. Learn more about how communities benefit from Amazon here.
BREW’S BETS
Follow Friday: Are you happy? What makes you happy? Do you have a message to tell the world? That’s all this TikTok account asks people, and their answers are inspiring.
The Euros are here: This summer’s premier soccer tournament kicks off today, and the best part? The games are during the day, which will make for excellent WFH background viewing. Here’s the schedule.
Brew mini: Practice for tomorrow’s full crossword puzzle with today’s mini puzzle.
Green thumb: Watch the transformation of a Japanese larch bonsai tree here, and if you have far, far less patience than the guy who grew it, skip ahead to the 8-, 13-, and 21-minute marks.
“We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity,” Ms. Omar said in a caption alongside a video on Monday. She added: “We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.”
…
The captions came alongside a short video in which Ms. Omar asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken why the federal government opposed investigations by the International Criminal Court into alleged war crimes. Following the comments, a group of 12 congressional Democrats released a statement saying that “equating the United States and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban is as offensive as it is misguided.”
…
“Citing an open case against Israel, U.S., Hamas & Taliban in the ICC isn’t comparison or from ‘deeply seated prejudice’,” Ms. Omar wrote [in response]. On Thursday, Ms. Omar released a new statement. “I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems,” she said.
Was the FDA correct to authorize the new Alzheimer’s drug?
[The third Food and Drug Administration adviser to resign] said the agency’s approval of the Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm, a monthly intravenous infusion that Biog…
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The fatalities rose after one of India’s poorest states, Bihar, revised its total Covid-19 related death toll on Wednesday from about 5,400 to more than 9,400, accounting for people who died at home or in privat…
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Why is fast-food chain Chipotle raising its menu prices?
Chipotle said menu prices will be raised by as much as 4% in order to mitigate the employee pay raises announced last month, which will pay employees $15 per hour by the end of June. “It made…
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YESTERDAY’S POLLShould the US ban apps by Chinese companies?
Yes
55%
No
25%
Unsure
19%
359 votes, 51 comments
Context: Biden administration reverses attempted ban on TikTok and WeChat.
HIGHLIGHTED COMMENTS
“Yes – I’m a software security engineer. It’s too easy for China to insert malicious code into these apps that are installed on your phone that have access to everything you do. As much as Google or Apple may claim they can detect this, they can’t. This could end up giving them access to monitor US citizens and we willfully brought it upon ourselves.”
“No – I believe that it is every American’s right to shoot themselves in the foot if they so choose. Maybe the Chinese government uses TikT…”
“Unsure – This is too broad a question. It completely depends on what the apps do or could do and the breadth of use….”
How serious is the link between Covid-19 vaccines and heart inflammation?
Federal health officials said they’re seeing rare but higher-than-expected cases of a heart issue called myocarditis among adolescents and young adults who received their secon…
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“Access to the free & #OpenInternet is an essential human right in modern society… unless you’re Donald Trump. Or reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Or discussing the biology of gender. Or the murderous dictator of Iran. Or a Chinese Communist Party peon lying about COVID.”
That representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) recently drew a direct moral comparison between the governments of the U.S., Israel, and Afghanistan and terrorist organizations Hamas and the Taliban is not a matter of opinion. Her own words were clear: “We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.” Left-leaning media outlets, famous for their selective sensitivity over language, have thus far avoided any suggestion that the congresswoman’s comments were not appropriate.
China, Not Climate Change, Now Officially Top Threat – Or Is It?
Something political to ponder as you enjoy your morning coffee.
There are times when it is difficult to figure out where the loyalties of America’s political leaders lie. Congress and the Department of Justice are currently focused, it appears, on bringing criminal charges against as many Trump supporters as they can for the Jan. 6 demonstration in Washington, D.C. – a day on which the only fatalities were those that resulted from police action against American civilians. Meanwhile, U.S. authorities are doing everything they can to avoid drawing connections between the COVID 19 pandemic – which has reportedly killed almost 3.8 million people worldwide – and virology research carried out by China and funded, at least in part, by U.S. entities.
Good morning and welcome to Fox News First. Here’s what you need to know as you start your day …
Kamala Harris, questioned on border crisis, snaps at TV interviewer: ‘I’m not finished’
Vice President Kamala Harris had a tense exchange with Univision anchor Ilia Calderón on Thursday over when she will visit the southern border.
During the interview, Calderón pressed Harris, who was assigned by President Biden to handle the border crisis, on how she herself has yet to make it down to the US-Mexico border to see the migrant crisis in person.
“I’ve said I’m going to the border,” Harris told the anchor. “And I-”
“When are you going to the border, Vice President?” Calderón asked during the remote conversation.
“I’m not finished,” Harris interjected, along with a brief chuckle. “I’ve said I’m going to the border. And also, if we are going to deal with the problems at the border, we have to deal with the problems that cause people to go to the border, to flee to the border. So my first trip as vice president of the United States was to go — in terms of a foreign trip — to Guatemala, to be on the ground there to address and to be informed of the root causes why are the people of Guatemala leaving.”
“Do you have a date for your trip to the border?” Calderón followed.
In other developments:
– Kamala Harris has gone 79 days without visit to border since being tapped for crisis role
– America Ferrera mocks Kamala Harris over US migrants’ comments
– Darrell Issa invites VP Harris to visit the California-Mexico border
– Lara Trump rips Kamala Harris for ‘absolute disaster’ interview on border crisis
– Case of mistaken identity during Harris news conference sets internet on fire
Trump Justice Department seized records of Schiff, other House Democrats as it searched for leakers: report
The Department of Justice under former President Donald Trump subpoenaed data from Apple belonging to a pair of House Democrats – and a least a dozen people with ties to them – as it looked into leaks of classified information, The New York Times reported Thursday.
The records pulled included those of Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee at the time, the Times reported, citing committee officials and two other people briefed on the inquiry.
At least one other Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and at least 12 individuals with ties to the committee had their records pulled in 2017 and 2018, sources told the outlet.
On Thursday night, U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., told CNN that his data had been seized as part of the probe.
While the records did not link any members of the committee to the leaks, three sources told the Times that then-Attorney General William Barr directed that the Schiff-related investigations continue.
The Justice Department was also said to have obtained a gag order preventing Apple from alerting lawmakers. Those orders recently expired.
The investigations were an attempt to identify individuals who leaked classified national security information during Trump’s administration.CLICK HERE FOR MORE.
In other developments:
– Conservative House Republican leaders meeting with Trump to chart GOP’s future
– Police did not clear Lafayette Square so Trump could pose for photo with the Bible, IG says
– House GOP reelection arm posts record-breaking April fundraising haul
Eighth-grade girl blasts Virginia school board for policy that would allow ‘boys into girls’ locker rooms’
A 14-year-old in Virginia is speaking out about what she says is a sexist move by Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) to allow “boys into girls’ locker rooms.”
The policy followed a previous one, 1040, that committed the county to providing an equitable, safe and inclusive working environment regardless of “sexual orientation, gender identity” and other individual characteristics. The more recent proposed policy – 8350 – states in a draft that “students should be allowed to use the facility that corresponds to their gender identity.”
At Tuesday’s school board meeting, Jolene Grover, who was wearing a shirt that read “Woman is female” argued: “Two years ago, I was told policy 1040 was just an umbrella philosophy and you weren’t going to allow boys into the girls’ locker rooms. But here you are doing just that.”
Grover is an eighth grader whose mom pulled her out of an LCPS school last year after seeing various controversial policies emerging. She is currently homeschooled.
“Everyone knows what a boy is – even you,” she added, looking up at the board members. “Your proposed policies are dangerous and rooted in sexism. When woke kids ask me if I was a lesbian or a trans boy because I cut my hair short, it should tell you these modern identities are superficial.”CLICK HERE FOR MORE.
In other developments:
– Virginia mom who survived Maoist China eviscerates school board’s critical race theory push
– Teacher confronts Loudoun County school board’s apparent progressive agenda in fiery speech: ‘This isn’t over’
– ‘Army of moms’ leading charge against Critical Race Theory in Virginia schools: Ian Prior
TODAY’S MUST-READS:
– CDC holding emergency meeting on heart inflammation in young males after COVID shot
– Louisiana mom accused of helping her 2 sons flee state after triple murder: reports
– Reputed MS-13 gang members get life in prison for brutal Maryland stabbing death
– Taxpayer-funded NPR mocks ‘CaPitAliSm,’ prompting calls to ‘defund’ media outlet
– TCU plan to drop ‘freshman,’ use ‘first-year student,’ draws mixed reactions: report
THE LATEST FROM FOX BUSINESS:
– First fully vaccinated cruise in North America reports 2 passengers test positive for COVID
– China’s Uber-like service eyes blockbuster IPO
– California state regulators reverse controversial workplace mask rule
– Medicare copays for new Alzheimer’s drug could soar
– Third member of US FDA advisory panel resigns over Alzheimer’s drug approval
#TheFlashback: CLICK HEREto find out what happened on “This Day in History.”
SOME PARTING WORDS
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., fell short when she tried to clarify and apologize for her “unthinkable atrocities” remarks about Israel, Fox News contributor Joey Jones said Thursday night on “Fox News @ Night” with Shannon Bream.
Bream asked Jones if Omar’s statement, that she was “in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems,” was an acceptable clarification.
“No, it’s not,” Jones replied, “and I don’t expect one. I don’t expect her to come out and say she loves this country and the people that fight for it.
“I’m not saying she doesn’t love this country,” Jones continued, “I’m just saying she doesn’t care to say things about people, like myself, who have gone and fought these people.”
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11.) AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
AEI’s daily publication of independent research, insightful analysis, and scholarly debate.
Scott Winship et al. | American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institution
This report examines patterns of multigenerational poverty for Black and White Americans across three generations. More than half a century since the civil rights victories of the 1960s, racial gaps in poverty and opportunity remain a cause for national shame.
On Tuesday, ProPublica published details from “a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years. The data provides an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of America’s titans, including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg. It shows not just their income and taxes, but also their investments, stock trades, gambling winnings and even the results of audits.” ProPublica
From the Left
The left is disturbed that billionaires are able to pay such low taxes and argues for tax reforms to reduce inequality.
“[It’s estimated] that the wealthiest Americans are holding about $2.7 trillion in wealth on which they have not paid taxes. The logic of this standard rests on a tripod of assumptions that aren’t true. The first is that an increase in asset value is in some sense unreal, or at least unusable… The reality, however, is that many wealthy Americans live lavishly by borrowing against the value of their assets. ProPublica provides the example of Elon Musk, who has pledged shares of Tesla stock worth $57.7 billion as collateral for personal loans…
“The second and very common falsehood is that people will eventually pay taxes on their wealth… [but] It is easy to accumulate wealth that is never taxed. Assets can be siloed in nonprofit foundations whose main beneficiaries may be the people who run them. Assets can also be passed on to children and grandchildren…
“The third objection is that taxing wealth is a bureaucratic nightmare. There are difficulties, such as fixing rules for determining the value of assets. There also are downsides, such as the possibility that someone might have to sell an asset to pay taxes. But we know it can be done because Americans already pay property taxes, and it seems to work fine. Even for those who aren’t ready to jump onto the wealth tax bandwagon, the data obtained by ProPublica underscores the need for a significant overhaul of the system.” Binyamin Appelbaum, New York Times
Skeptics of the wealth tax note that “If you tax the gain in an unsold stock’s value in good years, the IRS will have to pay refunds to those same taxpayers when their shares decline in bad years. And what about investments whose value isn’t so easy to determine, like non-fungible tokens or ownership shares in a startup that has yet to go public? Taxing gains when they are realized — when an item is sold or transferred — is far more straightforward…
“While the idea [of a wealth tax] polls extremely well, its constitutionality is questionable… So let’s talk about some more promising ideas. One, which Biden has endorsed, is raising the corporate income tax rate…
“We could also impose a national consumption tax. Right now, billionaires can fund lavish lifestyles by borrowing at low interest rates against their stock holdings and use this untaxed money to fund things such as mansions or yachts. A consumption tax would hit such purchases. Consumption taxes tend to be regressive, though, so other policy changes would be required to prevent hurting the poor. Then there’s Biden’s proposal to raise the top tax rate on capital gains.” Catherine Rampell, Washington Post
“The Administration wants to raise the top income-tax rate to 39.6 per cent and tax the capital gains of millionaires at that rate. Because the current tax rate for long-term capital gains is only twenty per cent, and because it’s the same for all income groups, this would make a big difference…
“And, finally, the White House wants to eliminate the notorious ‘step-up in basis’ loophole, which allows rich people to pass down property, including financial assets, to their heirs without either party paying any taxes on the appreciation in value. Under the Biden proposal, unrealized capital gains would be taxed at death…
“A skeptic might object that the ultra-rich, with their armies of accountants, will find a way to get around any tax system. That is a counsel of despair. With clear tax rules in place and a well-financed I.R.S. there to enforce them, it is perfectly possible to shift the tax burden toward the ultra-wealthy even if there is still some avoidance.” John Cassidy, New Yorker
From the Right
The right is critical of ProPublica’s analysis and calls for an investigation into the leak.
“ProPublica compared the amount of taxes paid by these people not to their earned income but to the amount their wealth grew during the period in question. That’s not an analysis of their incomes but their wealth. So, what ProPublica is engaged in isn’t a dive into our tax code but a speculative lobbying effort in favor of taxing wealth…
“ProPublica fails to note that these billionaires own vast amounts of stock in companies that pay large corporate income taxes. In a recent year, Berkshire Hathaway paid $6 billion in corporate income taxes, and Warren Buffett owns one-third of Berkshire Hathaway. So, didn’t he pay $2 billion of that corporate tax bill?” John Steele Gordon, Commentary Magazine
“Democrats used the ProPublica exposure as leverage to demand wealth taxes and more IRS resources for enforcement. That just happens to be on Joe Biden’s agenda, and undoubtedly the IRS and its employees are cheering at the mention of it. Including, almost certainly, the lawbreaker who stole that private data in the first place. This only incentivizes more manipulation of private data to serve bureaucrats’ public-policy interests…
“How difficult should it prove to find out who did it? Presumably, the IRS uses systems that logs access requests to this protected data… [Attorney General Merrick] Garland and the Department of Justice should already have a pretty good idea who leaked this. If the IRS doesn’t have such a system, that should prompt explanations from the IRS and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen as to why not. That’s even more critical in these days of ransomware hackers, not to mention penetrations by China and Russia into government systems for other purposes.” Ed Morrissey, Hot Air
“The IRS wields an extraordinary amount of power, and there will always be somebody somewhere who thinks that it should be used to advance their favorite political cause… It has long astonished me that left-leaning Americans are as bothered as they are by the PATRIOT Act — a concern I share, for the record — and yet are not only comfortable with the IRS as it exists, but, in many cases, would like to make it even more intrusive. Elizabeth Warren wants to institute an unconstitutional ‘wealth tax’ that would require high earners to invite the IRS to superintend a whole host of their quotidian transactions…
“At some point prior to the release of ProPublica’s piece, somebody was rifling through information that, as a matter of course, we all expect to remain confidential. This time, they filtered for ‘Buffett,’ ‘Bezos,’ ‘Gates,’ and ‘Musk.’ But they didn’t have to. ‘Cooke’ is just as easily found. And so, too, will be the last name of the next person who really, really, annoys the guy sitting in front of the terminal. Does that bother you? It should…
“A government that is this reckless or sinister with the information of men who are lawyered to the eyeballs is unlikely to worry too much about being reckless or sinister with your information.” Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review
Some note that “There are legitimate proposals for a flat tax, a simple calculation against total income. Americans would pay a percentage of their income regardless of age or marital status and it would eliminate other deductions to manage behavior. This tax proposal usually excludes the first $50,000 in income and imposes a 10-12% tax on the remainder and would result in a two-line tax return for everyone: total income and 10% of the total…
“Even better, let’s abolish the IRS altogether and switch to a consumption tax. Instead of taxing labor and investment, which is what income and capital gains taxes do, use a federal sales tax. This type of proposal is often called the Fair Tax and includes mechanisms for rebates to the indigent. It eliminates some of the most apparent forms of double taxation, such as the estate tax. Americans would receive their entire paycheck and pay a 23% sales tax on items they choose to buy, with specific exceptions.” Stacey Lennox, PJ Media
A libertarian’s take
“Despite ProPublica‘s best efforts to make the information enclosed within seem damning, the data tell us little we didn’t already know. For the 2018 tax year, the last year for which we have data, the top 1 percent paid over 40 percent of federal income taxes, despite earning just under 21 percent of total adjusted gross income (AGI). The bottom 50 percent of taxpayers earned 11.6 percent of total AGI, but paid less than 3 percent of income taxes…“The biggest takeaway from the ProPublica data reveal should be just how much the data lined up with what we already know. There was no exposure of secret tax evasion and fraud—just the obvious point that the wealthy have a lot of non-liquid assets, presented as a smoking gun… Taxpayers should not be fooled by this ‘exposé.’ Instead of exposing misdeeds on the part of the wealthy, ProPublica exposed the lengths to which some are willing to go to deceive the public in service of the grand progressive campaign for higher taxes.” Andrew Moyland and Andrew Wilford, Reason
Happy Friday!Smart Brevity™ count: 1,153 words … 4½ minutes. Edited by Zachary Basu.
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1 big thing: What Biden packed for Europe
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
500 million COVID-19 vaccine doses. Jill Biden’s “Love” jacket. And an updating of the Atlantic Charter that briefly let President Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson channel FDR and Winston Churchill.
Joe Biden’s first foreign trip as U.S. president is a carefully managed mix of multilateralism and message discipline — in deliberate contrast to his predecessor’s M.O. on the international stage, Axios’ Margaret Talev and Glen Johnson write.
This opener in England comes ahead of the main event — next week’s summit in Switzerland with Vladimir Putin:
Biden travels old-school — a newspaper tucked under his arm as he boards Air Force One, a notebook in hand for meetings with leaders.
What we’re watching: Aides to Biden, 78, have kept his events and pacing manageable in a way reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s travel in the 1980s.
Aides to Reagan — then the oldest American to assume the presidency — would ensure he was rested and ready on long trips to Asia by making stops in his home state of California or the mid-Pacific way station of Hawaii.
Biden has since assumed the mantle of oldest president. He made a daytime flight to Europe on Wednesday, but on Thursday had nothing on his public schedule until mid-afternoon — a buffer against jet lag.
2. Trump Justice Dept. secretly targeted House Democrats
Screenshot: CNN
House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a member of the committee, were notified last month that the Trump Justice Department secretly obtained Apple records about them in 2017-18, in what Schiff called “a body blow to our democracy.”
Schiff and Swalwellspoke on CNN after the N.Y. Times revealed (subscription) that as part of a leak investigation, the Justice Department subpoenaed, and received, Apple metadata (records but not actual content) for at least a dozen House Intelligence Committee members, aides and family members. One was a minor.
The records contained no proof of leaks. “As the years wore on, some [DOJ] officials argued in meetings that charges were becoming less realistic,” The Times reported. “They lacked strong evidence, and a jury might not care about information reported years earlier.”
Schiff, who at the time was the committee’s top Democrat under a GOP chair, told Chris Cuomo that the requests were “extraordinarily broad — people having nothing to do with … the intelligence matters that are, at least, being reported on,” and called it a “fishing expedition”:
“What they were looking for, I still don’t know. Apparently they didn’t find anything.”
Swalwell told Don Lemon that the officials and relatives “were targeted punitively — not for any reason in law, but because Donald Trump identified Chairman Schiff and members of the committee as an enemy.”
Swalwell said the subpoenas were covered by gag orders: “It looks like they were renewed a number of times and, thankfully, … it looks like [the Biden administration] did not renew it.”
“The matter’s closed,” Swalwell said. “And of course it’s closed, because we did nothing but our jobs, and we followed the rules we were supposed to follow in our investigation that showed that Donald Trump and his team sought to have assistance from Russia.”
Schiff said Trump used the Justice Department as “this bludgeon to go after the president’s enemies, and a shield to protect those who lied for him.”
“We brought about these new norms after Watergate to prevent exactly this kind of abuse. But they didn’t survive his presidency.”
3. Garland promises voting-rights fight
Attorney General Merrick Garland arrives at a Senate hearing Wednesday. Photo: Stefani Reynolds/Pool via Getty Images
Attorney General Merrick Garland will give a policy address on voting rights at 2 p.m., promising “concrete steps … to secure the fundamental right to vote for all Americans,” the Justice Department says.
Why it matters: President Biden said last week that he’s prioritizing fights for federal voting-rights protection, as Republicans in legislatures across the country pass their own election laws. Democrats’ efforts were set back Sunday when Sen. Joe Manchin said he wouldn’t support a centerpiece bill passed by the House.
A DOJ official tells me Garland “will discuss the central importance of voting rights to American democracy. He’ll announce steps the department is taking to secure and expand the right to vote for all Americans, including in states seeking to curb voter access.”
“He will also speak to the upcoming redistricting cycle, the first since 1960 to proceed without preclearance protections of the Voting Rights Act.”
4. Pics du jour: China on Mars
Photo: China National Space Administration via AP
The Chinese Mars rover Zhurong (right, and below) near its landing platform, taken by a remote camera dropped into position by the rover.
Amazon says most office workers will need to come in just three days per week, with further leniency possible, after earlier indicating it planned to return to an office-first culture, Ina Fried writes in Axios Login.
Some tech companies, including Twitter and Square, are offering workers the ability to remain fully remote. Even office-centric companies (Apple and Amazon) are recognizing the need for flex.
The bottom line: Giving workers flexibility has become table stakes in tech, where competition for talent is always fierce.
6. Inflation highest in 13 years
Consumer prices rose last month by 5% compared to May of 2020, marking the biggest year-over-year gain since August 2008, Axios’ Kate Marino writes from data out yesterday.
Prices were 0.6% higher in May than they were in April.
Used vehicle prices increased 7.3% month-over-month in May, after a 10% monthly gain in April. Since a year ago, used vehicles are up 29.7%.
7. Coming up on “Axios on HBO”: Worker shortage
Photo: “Axios on HBO”
On Sunday’s episode of “Axios on HBO” (6 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max), I ask U.S. Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Suzanne Clark: “Do you honestly think that people are staying home — not working — because of $300 a week” in supplemental unemployment?
Clark, who became CEO in March, replied: “I honestly believe it’s part of the problem. I’m hearing it too often, in too many communities across the country, for it to be made up.”
“More people have died from Covid-19 already this year [1.9 million] than in all of 2020, … highlighting how the global pandemic is far from over even as vaccines beat back the virus in wealthy nations,” The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription).
Another way to say it: “It took less than six months for the globe to record more than 1.88 million Covid-19 deaths this year” — the same as last year’s 12-month total.
9. New Netflix moves
Illustration: Rebecca Zisser/Axios
After years of owning streaming, Netflix is trying new business lines to stay out in front, Axios Media Trends expert Sara Fischer writes.
The company yesterdayunveiled an online merchandise store, Netflix.shop, that features products inspired by shows on its streaming platform.
The store marks Netflix’s first foray into commerce — something other entertainment giants like Disney and NBCUniversal have long used to make more money and expand their content franchises.
The tech giant is eyeing gaming, possibly with the launch of a suite of downloadable mobile games, per Axios’ Stephen Totilo.
It’s also pushing deeper into podcasts as a vehicle to promote its shows and movies, the L.A. Times reports.
Stadio Olimpico in Rome, which hosts today’s opener. Photo: Andrew Medichini/Pool via AP
Euro 2020 (which kept the name despite the year delay), the every-four-years European soccer championship, kicks off today when Italy hosts Turkey at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico (3 p.m. ET, ESPN), Jeff Tracy writes in Axios Sports.
The tournament will be a pan-continental affair, with Rome acting as one of 11 host cities. The others: London … Munich … Baku, Azerbaijan … St. Petersburg … Budapest … Seville, Spain … Bucharest … Amsterdam … Glasgow … Copenhagen.
Why it matters: If everything goes smoothly, AP notes, Euro 2020 will give a confidence boost for the Tokyo Olympics, scheduled to open July 23 — also a year late. Problems would be a serious setback to global reopening, with ramifications beyond soccer. Go deeper.
The move in 2018 to subpoena Apple for the data of Reps. Adam B. Schiff and Eric Swalwell, as well as the data of several of their current and former staffers and family members, came as part of an aggressive push by the Trump administration to hunt down leakers.
By Matt Zapotosky and Karoun Demirjian ● Read more »
This Father’s Day, give the gift of a good story. From a Gregg Hurwitz thriller to John Boehner’s memoir, there’s an audiobook for every dad in your life.
A rift between liberal Democrats and their more centrist colleagues was exposed again this week over comments by Rep. Ilhan Omar that many perceived as antisemitic.
The top Republicans on three House committees are ratcheting up pressure on the Biden administration after private tax information about thousands of the country’s wealthiest people was leaked to the media.
U.S. officials are concerned about the coronavirus mutation originating from India, known as the Delta variant, that is more transmissible and possibly more dangerous for unvaccinated people.
Rising inflation is creating a drag on the Democrats’ 2022 prospects, threatening to send the price of household goods skyrocketing and turn voters against the party’s thin congressional majorities.
KYEV, Ukraine — Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba sat down with the Washington Examiner recently to discuss the challenges facing his country, including a desire to join NATO to ward off Russia and his hopes for the Biden administration.
People are leaving their homes to engage in social activities at growing rates as fears of the receding coronavirus pandemic dissipate and people feel more comfortable loosening social distancing practices.
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18.) ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 11, 2021
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AP Morning Wire
Good morning. Here is today’s selection of top stories from The Associated Press at this hour to begin the U.S. day.
CARBIS BAY, England (AP) — World leaders from the Group of Seven industrialized nations are set to commit at their summit to share at least 1 billion coronavirus shots with struggling countries around the world — half the doses coming from the U.S….Read More
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department under former President Donald Trump seized data from the accounts of at least two members of the House Intelligence Committee in 2018 as part of an aggressive crackdown on leaks related to the Russia investi…Read More
BEIJING (AP) — The dusty, rocky Martian surface and a Chinese rover and lander bearing small national flags were seen in photos released Friday that the rover took on the red planet. The four pictures released by the China National Space Administra…Read More
ABI ADI, Ethiopia (AP) — First the Eritrean soldiers stole the pregnant woman’s food as she hid in the bush. Then they turned her away from a checkpoint when she was on the verge of labor. So she had the baby at home and walked 12 days to get the f…Read More
WASHINGTON (AP) — Over the past 18 months, 29 prisoners have escaped from federal lockups across the U.S. — and nearly half still have not been caught. At some of the institutions, doors are left unlocked, security cameras are broken and officials …Read More
NEW YORK (AP) — The Pulitzer Prizes in journalism and the arts will be announced Friday, recognizing the best work in a year in which people isolated themselves because of …Read More
SPRING HILL, Fla. (AP) — They say neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night will stop the U.S. Postal Service, but an alligator could get in the way. That’s what happened at…Read More
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The outgoing chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service has offered the closest acknowledgment yet his country was behind recent attac…Read More
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa has been gripped by the mystery of whether a woman has, as has been claimed, actually given birth to 10 babies, in what would then be the w…Read More
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Wow, things are moving fast. I find it fantastic, spirit-lifting and, somehow, weirdly unsettling that we across this whole great city, region and state are going to be reopening phase five fully … (checks calendar) … today.
Even though I am fully vaccinated, I’m one of those folks who will still wear a mask in public at times. I probably won’t do crowds just yet. But it takes all kinds, which really is what makes humanity great, and I know lots of you can’t wait to get back to the full, pre-pandemic life.
Wherever you fall on the spectrum of masking, vaccinating and diving back into the deep end, we’re here to help. As we put the COVID-19 pandemic behind us, our focus is on giving you the information you need to recover, rebuild and return to normal.
Wondering about restaurant etiquette? Our Social Graces experts answer your questions.
Just want to eat and drink? (Raises hand.) The best dining staff in town is at your service.
And, of course, we will always give you the latest facts, figures and developments on public health and the local and national economies.
This is a milestone day. We’re grateful for it, grateful to be able to cover it for the Chicago Tribune, grateful for all your readership and subscriber support over the last 15 months.
Let’s enjoy it.
— Colin McMahon, editor-in-chief
Here’s more coronavirus news and other top stories you need to know to start your day.
Illinois and Chicago are scheduled to fully reopen today, marking an emotional turning point in the pandemic for many who have endured loss and a lack of connection in public life.
Though the city and state have moved through different phases of curtailing and restoring activity since the initial stay-at-home order, today’s reopening also will be the first time there are no capacity restrictions or social distancing mandates for businesses and personal gatherings.
What are the guidelines for phase five in Chicago and Illinois? No capacity limits, some masking, and possible limits from individual businesses or towns. Here’s our guide.
Many pandemic-weary Illinois residents are celebrating the milestone start of phase five and a return to near-normalcy, planning a summer of travel and concerts and many of the communal events that had been on hiatus for more than a year.
Yet others express unease that COVID-19 safety measures might be dropping too quickly. Here’s why.
Heidi Stevens column: With Illinois reopening, I worry we’ve forgotten how to treat each other. But I’m finding hope … on Twitter, of all places.
As Chicago looks to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind it, residents are quickly returning to the businesses they used to frequent. But for many, the city’s dry cleaners are no longer part of the weekly routine.
The pandemic has diminished the use of professional and formal attire, leaving the dry cleaning business well below 2019 levels and causing cleaners to worry that COVID-19 has permanently altered the viability of their industry, which has struggled ever since no-iron shirts become popular. It’s a decline that hits particularly hard in the Korean American business community, whose members own the majority of the dry cleaners in the state.
Bars across Chicago and Illinois will be able to pack customers in at full capacity starting today for the first time in 16 months. Some will do it. Others will build back up. Still others will remain closed a few days or weeks longer.
While relief seems universal among bar managers and owners that they can throw their doors open wide again, it comes with a dose of apprehension — and for a variety of reasons.
As diners fill tables and booths once again, a question has hovered over the restaurant industry: Where are the workers? Here’s why some aren’t coming back.
“There still remains much work to be done,” Deputy Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said while pushing cops to better review and analyze body-worn camera footage.
“We do have the votes. … That’s why there’s all of these moves to try and … deter our colleagues from their first inclination,” Ald. Sophia King said, calling the more costly alternatives that have been suggested “kind of insulting.”
In a sealed deposition, Janice Gembara Weston said John Gembara began bringing Marek Matczuk to the bank’s annual board meeting after the ouster of a board member.
Farmers cite environmental and safety concerns. It also would tie Hopkins Park to fossil fuels and, according to one senator,‘ threatens to replace the last community of African American farmers in Illinois.’
Welcome to The Hill’s Morning Report. It is Friday! TGIF! We get you up to speed on the most important developments in politics and policy, plus trends to watch. Alexis Simendinger and Al Weaver are the co-creators. Readers can find us on Twitter @asimendinger and @alweaver22. Please recommend the Morning Report to friends and let us know what you think. CLICK HERE to subscribe!
Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported each morning this week: Monday, 597,628; Tuesday, 597,952; Wednesday, 598,326; Thursday, 598,705; Friday, 598,748.
At last, an infrastructure deal — kind of.
A group of 10 senators — composed of five members from each party — announced that they reached an infrastructure agreement on Thursday, but many questions continue to swirl about key details of the proposal, including the cost of the bill and how it would be paid for.
“Our group … has worked in good faith and reached a bipartisan agreement on a realistic, compromise framework to modernize our nation’s infrastructure and energy technologies,” the group, led by Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), said in a statement. “This investment would be fully paid for and not include tax increases.”
“We are discussing our approach with our respective colleagues, and the White House, and remain optimistic that this can lay the groundwork to garner broad support from both parties and meet America’s infrastructure needs,” the statement added.
The proposal is expected to total $1.2 trillion over eight years, with $579 billion in new funding for projects, according to The Hill’s Alexander Bolton. White House officials said on Thursday that Senate Democrats from the group briefed them on the plan, but added that “questions need to be addressed” on a number of topics, including pay-fors (The Hill).
Upshot: Thursday’s version of a plan has a long way to go to be viable. President Biden and the majority and minority leaders of the Senate have not weighed in, and there are no assurances that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her caucus would easily back a stripped-down, Senate-devised compromise at this stage.
As Axios notes, the package would be paid for through unspent COVID-19 relief aid, public-private partnerships, indexing the gas tax to account for inflation and allowing states to borrow necessary money through a revolving loan fund.
“We have a tentative agreement on the pay-fors, yes, but that’s among the five Democrats and the five Republicans. It has not been taken to our respective caucuses or the White House so we’re in the middle of the process. We’re not at the end of the process, not at the beginning but we’re in the middle,” Romney said.
The New York Times: Bipartisan group of senators say they reached agreement on infrastructure plan.
Politico: Deal or no deal? Confusion rules Senate infrastructure talks.
The developing agreement comes as Senate Democrats have grown antsy about negotiations while eyeing the legislative calendar. Democrats still expect to begin drafting reconciliation instructions, which would theoretically permit passage of legislation with a simple majority in the Senate.
As The Hill’s Jordain Carney reports, the scramble comes as Democrats privately fret about a possible repeat of their experiences in 2009 and 2010, when they believe Republicans boxed the majority in on stimulus legislation during the financial crisis as well as the narrowly enacted Affordable Care Act — and took advantage of both during the midterm elections. In 2010 under former President Obama and then-Vice President Biden, Democrats lost six Senate seats and 63 seats in the House, costing them the chamber.
The Washington Post: “Time is running out”: Democrats split over Biden’s relentless focus on infrastructure.
The Hill: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.): “Good chance” for infrastructure deal after initial talks with Republicans unravel.
Bloomberg News: Cities need more than rescue aid to fix their roads.
The Washington Post: Former Vice President Al Gore last month called Biden to insist on the inclusion of climate policies in a major bill. Gore also spoke with White House counselor Steve Ricchetti, with whom he worked during the Clinton years, to discuss climate and infrastructure.
> Police reform: Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), the lead GOP negotiator on police reform, indicated on Thursday that the two sides are still far apart on a potential accord, raising the prospect that they won’t reach one by the June deadline.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Scott said when asked if a deal would be announced this week. “We’ve got a lot of work left to do” (The Hill).
The New York Times: Policing reform negotiations sputter in Congress amid partisan bickering.
The Hill: FBI Director Christopher Wray grilled on FBI’s handling of Jan. 6.
More in Congress …Hunting down leaks in 2017 and 2018, Trump officials focused on seizing metadata records on Democratic critics in Congress, including two members of the House Intelligence Committee, California Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, as well as congressional aides and family members. Schiff, during an MSNBC interview Thursday night, called the actions by the Trump Justice Department, as reported by the Times, “maybe unprecedented” and “an abuse of power” (The New York Times).
A MESSAGE FROM FACEBOOK
The internet has changed a lot since 1996 — internet regulations should too
– Protecting people’s privacy
– Enabling safe and easy data portability between platforms
– Preventing election interference
– Reforming Section 230
LEADING THE DAY
ADMINISTRATION: Biden, appearing in Cornwall, U.K., on Thursday for the Group of Seven (G-7) summit underway today, presented the United States under his leadership as an indispensable nation and a valuable ally in times of need.
He promised the United States will donate 500 million doses over two years to help speed the pandemic’s end and he encouraged global leaders to join in sharing doses of COVID-19 vaccines with other nations struggling to defeat the virus. The president announced the commitment on top of 80 million doses he previously pledged by the end of the month (The Associated Press).
“We’re going to help lead the world out of this pandemic working alongside our global partners,” Biden said, adding that the other nations represented in Cornwall would join the United States today in outlining their vaccine donation commitments.
Today, G-7 countries, led by the United States, the United Kingdom and France, are expected to collectively pledge donations of at least 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to the world, delivered over phased timelines stretching into 2022 (The Associated Press).
The Associated Press: Celebrations (and questions) greet the U.S. vaccine donation plan.
Also today, the G-7 nations, which also include Japan, Canada, Italy and Germany, will endorse a global 15 percent minimum corporate tax and a reallocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDR), according to a White House description of details to be spelled out in the leaders’ upcoming communique.
Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday met for the first time and chose to paper over critical differences while stressing the enduring nature of the alliance between America and Great Britain. They announced a renewal of the 1941 Atlantic Charter, the World War II declaration of cooperation by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and former President Franklin Roosevelt (The New York Times).
Biden is popular in Europe, according to a survey released on Thursday by the Pew Research Center, and participates in his first overseas summit as president by explicitly abandoning the “America first” approach to international alliances associated with former President Trump.
The Guardian: Johnson calls his talks with Biden a “big breath of fresh air” and played down differences over Brexit and tensions over Northern Ireland.
The Wall Street Journal: Europe is preparing legislation that would jolt the rules of international trade by taxing imported goods based on the greenhouse gases emitted to make them, a plan that has sent shudders through the world’s supply chains and unsettled big trading partners such as the United States, Russia and China.
South China Morning Post: G-7 leaders discuss plans to push for green electric cars and a shift away from petroleum by the end of the decade as part of a package of measures to combat climate change.
The Associated Press: In a world adorned with sartorial billboards, first lady Jill Biden brought some “LOVE” with her to Cornwall, showing off a sparkly jacket for a photo op alongside her husband, plus Prime Minister Johnson and his wife, Carrie. … In comments to reporters, the first lady said her jacket, decorated on the back with the word “LOVE,” was intended to offer a “sense of hope” to a world gripped by COVID-19: “I think that we’re bringing love from America” (The New York Times).
In another example of inventive expression and overt messaging in seaside Cornwall, it was hard to miss the beachy likenesses of leaders of the wealthiest nations portrayed in two tones of sand (pictured below). (Cornwall is known for its beach art).
More administration headlines:Environmental activists are celebrating the end of the Keystone XL pipeline project, announced by the pipeline owner on Wednesday following years of controversy. Targeted next by opponents: Minnesota’s Enbridge Line 3 pipeline (The Hill). … The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday approved an Alzheimer’s drug, aducanumab, which may not actually work. Three experienced members of an FDA advisory panel quit in protest, one of whom used the phrase “sham process” (The Washington Post and The Hill). … Medicare copays for the new Alzheimer drug — which is not a cure and may not help all patients diagnosed with the disease — could reach $11,500 and could raise Medicare premiums broadly. The drug’s price: $56,000 a year. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), called the list price for the new drug “unconscionable” (The Associated Press).
IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES
CORONAVIRUS: The Biden administration on Thursday told federal agencies they no longer have to limit the number of employees allowed in the workplace, but kept in place an expansive telework policy that was instituted during the pandemic, an approach that could slow the return to federal buildings (The Washington Post).
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday that heart inflammation side effects in young people after second doses of coronavirus vaccine are rare, but greater in number than agency experts had thought. The agency said 275 reported cases of myocarditis or pericarditis, which are inflammation conditions involving the heart, in people ages 16 to 24 were reported as of May 31 tied to receipt of second doses of Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines (CNBC).
At the CDC, 33-year veteran and deputy director Anne Schuchat, 61, a public health physician and former rear admiral, will soon retire from the agency, The Hill’s Reid Wilson and Nathaniel Weixel write. Her decision to leave has been cast by the Biden administration as voluntary. Schuchat said during an interview that the U.S. will not be any better prepared for a future pandemic without consistent, long-term funding of public health.
Elsewhere on the vaccine front, Moderna said on Thursday that it submitted a request to U.S. health regulators seeking approval for its vaccine to be administered to adolescents aged 12 to 17. A green light from officials would give the U.S. a second vaccine eligible for use with children in that age range (The Wall Street Journal).
The FDA extended the expiration date of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine, stretching the shelf life of its doses by six weeks. The extension came amid reports that millions of J&J doses were on the verge of going to waste (The New York Times).
The Wall Street Journal: U.S. suspends J&J COVID-19 vaccine shipments as states face a surplus of expiring doses.
> Employer mandates: The Biden administration said on Thursday that federal agencies should not mandate that employees receive a COVID-19 vaccine as a prerequisite for them to return to the office in-person.
According to official guidance from the General Service Administration’s Safer Federal Workforce Task Force, all federal employees and contractors are strongly encouraged to get the vaccine and should receive paid time off to do so. However, vaccine status should not be required at executive departments and agencies for in-person work (The Hill).
Worth watching: Some U.S. corporations and universities are requiring COVID-19 vaccination or mandating employee reports of vaccination status, but there is confusion, a lack of uniformity, protests and even state legislative momentum to ban vaccination mandates.
The New York Times: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says companies can mandate vaccines, but few push ahead.
The Hill: Goldman Sachs began requiring its U.S. employees to report their vaccination status by a Thursday deadline this week.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin legislature steps in to ban vax mandates at state university system.
> Variants: The World Health Organization’s European director said on Thursday that the Delta coronavirus variant originating in India could potentially “take hold” in Europe. In the United Kingdom, the variant is accounting for 91 percent of new cases (ABC News).
The Hill: U.K. variant made up 66 percent of COVID-19 cases in April, according to the CDC.
The Hill: Two passengers test positive for COVID-19 on first Celebrity Millennium cruise since 2020.
****
POLITICS: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) found herself in a public feud with a group of House Democrats on Thursday after they issued a joint statement criticizing her.
A cadre of Jewish Democrats who support Israel pushed back on Omar, a Somali refugee and one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, for appearing to compare the U.S. and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban while discussing war crimes.
“Equating the United States and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban is as offensive as it is misguided. Ignoring the differences between democracies governed by the rule of law and contemptible organizations that engage in terrorism at best discredits one’s intended argument and at worst reflects deep-seated prejudice,” said the group of a dozen Democrats, led by Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), a staunch Israel ally (The Hill).
The group also called on Omar to clarify her remarks, which she did shortly after, saying that she was not equating terrorist organizations “with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems” (The Hill).
The back and forth also resulted in a response from Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Democratic leaders, who sought to calm the waters within the House majority.
“Legitimate criticism of the policies of both the United States and Israel is protected by the values of free speech and democratic debate. And indeed, such criticism is essential to the strength and health of our democracies,” the Democratic leadership team said in its statement.
“But drawing false equivalencies between democracies like the U.S. and Israel and groups that engage in terrorism like Hamas and the Taliban foments prejudice and undermines progress toward a future of peace and security for all,” the statement continued, adding that it welcomed Omar’s clarification (The Hill).
Roll Call: Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) announces Senate bid.
Politico: Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) sides against Trump in Alabama Senate race.
> Courts: A federal judge on Thursday ruled against an effort by the Job Creators Network (JCN) to move the Major League Baseball All-Star Game back to Atlanta from Denver.
The group filed the lawsuit on behalf of small businesses in the Atlanta area, saying that they will suffer major financial loss due to the decision to move the game out of the city. District Judge Valerie Caproni said that the group did not have standing, adding that while the JCN had an “intense interest” in the location of the game, it was “not at all clear why it cares more about small businesses in Atlanta than small businesses in Denver” (Reuters).
OPINION
Justice Breyer can’t save the court from politics, by Jonathan Bernstein, columnist, Bloomberg Opinion. https://bloom.bg/3pHe1nD
The pandemic’s toll on teen mental health, by Monica Gandhi and Jeanne Noble, opinion contributors, The Wall Street Journal. https://on.wsj.com/3gbD670
A MESSAGE FROM FACEBOOK
Why Facebook supports updated internet regulations
2021 is the 25th anniversary of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the last major update to internet regulation. It’s time for an update to set clear rules for addressing today’s toughest challenges.
The House meets at 11:30 a.m. for a pro forma session. Lawmakers resume legislative work in the Capitol next week.
TheSenate meets on Monday at 3 p.m. and will resume consideration of the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson, to be a U.S. Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The president begins the first of three days of discussions at the annual G-7 summit in Cornwall, U.K.
The vice president will be heard today on the first episode of podcast “Please, Go On” with James Hohmann of The Washington Post. They talk about getting women back into the workforce. Harris will also deliver remarks on child care and families at a child care center in Washington.
First lady Jill Biden will take part in welcoming events in Cornwall, U.K., at the G-7 summit. At midday local time, she will tour a preschool in Cornwall and participate in a roundtable about preschool education with Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge (CNN).
➔ INTERNATIONAL: Russia is preparing to supply Iran with an advanced satellite system (The Washington Post). … The United States, acting through the Treasury Department, on Thursday lifted sanctions on more than a dozen former Iranian officials and energy companies. Administration officials said the decision signaled a commitment to easing a broader pressure campaign if Tehran changes its malign behavior (The Wall Street Journal). … A French court on Thursday quickly sentenced a man who slapped French President Emmanuel Macron along a rope line this week to a 4-month prison sentence (The Associated Press).
➔ ECONOMY: The U.S. rebound from the pandemic is driving the biggest surge in inflation in nearly 13 years, with consumer prices rising in May by 5 percent from a year ago. The question that animates analysts, investors, businesses and economists is whether it’s a fleeting phenomenon or something more serious they need to worry about (The Wall Street Journal and The Hill).
➔ OLYMPICS (NON-TOKYO EDITION): The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is set to name Brisbane, Australia (seen below) as the host of the 2032 Summer Olympic Games when it convenes next month in Tokyo. IOC president Thomas Bach said after an executive board meeting Thursday that Brisbane will likely be handed the 2032 games at a July 21 meeting, with the Tokyo games starting two days later. The Queensland, Australia, city was put on the fast track by the committee in February, with no other city formally vying for the quadrennial event (ESPN).
And finally … Congratulations to this week’s winners of the Morning Report Quiz!
The puzzle masters who aced four infrastructure questions from history are: Ki Harvey, Patrick Kavanagh, Richard Baznik, Chuck Schoenenberger, Daniel Bachhuber, Quintin Reed, Blair Marasco, Mary Anne McEnery, Terry Pflaumer, Pam Manges, Michel Romage, Amanda Fisher, Mike McGeary, David Wiles, Luther Berg, John Donato, Joan Domingues and Guenter Koehler.
They knew that Pennsylvania dreamed up the first hard-surfaced turnpike road built by a private company.
College Park Airport in Maryland is the world’s oldest continually operating airport (it has one runway), established in 1909 when Wilbur Wright arrived at the field to train two U.S. Army officers.
Railroads primarily brought the U.S. steamboat era to an end.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush earned pilot licenses before their presidencies.
The Morning Report is created by journalists Alexis Simendinger and Al Weaver. We want to hear from you! Email: asimendinger@thehill.com and aweaver@thehill.com. We invite you to share The Hill’s reporting and newsletters, and encourage others to SUBSCRIBE!
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Via The New York Times’s Marc Santora, “The leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies are expected to pledge one billion doses of Covid vaccines to poor and middle-income countries on Friday as part of a campaign to ‘vaccinate the world’ by the end of 2022.” https://nyti.ms/2U0B80Q
SIGHTS AND SOUNDS FROM THE UK:
Jill Biden and Kate Middleton — my worlds are colliding and it’s making my head spin!: Maybe I should also wear pink today. Photo: https://bit.ly/3pQ0daz
Tidbit about the school: “They visited a state-funded school that works with students who have dealt with trauma and supports their mental health. The children are 4- and 5-year-olds and learn to care about animals as a way to develop their skills for nurturing.” (Via The Hill’s Alex Gangitano) https://bit.ly/3zdUpMt
CNN’s Betsy Klein added: “The children at this school in Cornwall have been learning about famous landmarks in the G7 countries, including the White House and Buckingham Palace” Photo of first lady Jill Biden and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, talking with the children: https://bit.ly/3wf9Phj
The first lady didn’t seem to love that question: The Daily Mail’s Nikki Schwab tweeted a tidbit from pooler Emily Goodin of The Daily Mail, “A sort of snippy answer from @FLOTUS, who was asked by pool if she asked the Duchess for any advice on meeting the Queen. ‘No I didn’t. We’ve been busy. Were you not in that room? We were talking education.’ ” https://bit.ly/3iGLf50
Happy Friday! I’m Cate Martel with a quick recap of the morning and what’s coming up. Send comments, story ideas and events for our radar to cmartel@thehill.com — and follow along on Twitter @CateMartel and Facebook.
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A MESSAGE FROM FACEBOOK
The internet has changed a lot since 1996 — internet regulations should too
Via The New York Times’s Katie Benner, Nicholas Fandos, Michael S. Schmidt and Adam Goldman, “As the Justice Department investigated who was behind leaks of classified information early in the Trump administration, it took a highly unusual step: Prosecutors subpoenaed Apple for data from the accounts of at least two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, aides and family members. One was a minor.” https://nyti.ms/3vbzExz
Including: Rep. Adam Schiff(Calif.), the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. Rep. Eric Swalwell(D-Calif.) told the Times last night that he was notified that his data had been subpoenaed as well.
In total: “The records of at least a dozen people tied to the committee were seized in 2017 and early 2018.”
“It’s one thing to view last night’s bombshell NYT story about Trump’s DOJ thru the perspective of an ex-president who’s left the political stage for good. It’s another [to] look at it with Trump remaining the GOP’s de-facto leader and 2024 frontrunner.” https://bit.ly/3xdcIiX
IN CONGRESS
How do you like them apples!?:
Via The Hill’s Alexander Bolton, “A bipartisan group of 10 senators Thursday afternoon announced an agreement on a ‘compromise framework’ to invest $1.2 trillion in infrastructure over the next eight years.” https://bit.ly/2TPZpGI
What we know about this deal: “Sources familiar with the deal said it would provide $974 billion over five years. They also said the framework is focused on ‘core, physical infrastructure’ and would not increase taxes, though it includes an option to index the gas tax to inflation. Further, it would provide $579 billion in new funding over what would otherwise be spent without any new legislation.”
WHY PROGRESSIVES SEEM WARY OF THE DEAL:
Progressives are worried that including all the bipartisan aspects to infrastructure in one bill will make it harder for Democrats to pass another piece of legislation later on. I.e.: They’ve lost all leverage that would sweeten the deal for a future package. https://bit.ly/3znaIGD
Action items that progressives are referring to: “That bigger package could include many progressive prizes, such as climate change legislation, $400 billion for long-term home care and language to lower the cost of prescription drugs.”
A MESSAGE FROM FACEBOOK
Why Facebook supports updated internet regulations
2021 is the 25th anniversary of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the last major update to internet regulation. It’s time for an update to set clear rules for addressing today’s toughest challenges.
Via The Hill’s Nathaniel Weixel and Reid Wilson, “The No. 2 official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is warning that without consistent, long-term funding for public health, the U.S. won’t be any better prepared for the next pandemic.” https://bit.ly/2U0MVMD
“In an interview with The Hill on Wednesday, Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s principal deputy director, said the U.S. was not prepared for COVID-19 due to years of inadequate investment in public health infrastructure.”
Schuchat told The Hill: “I think the critical learning about how to do better next time is the need to greatly invest in public health, and not just respond to emergencies. This is a big job, and it can’t be like Ebola or H1N1 where there’s emergency funding and then everything goes away. This needs to be sustained, or we will be exactly where we were last year.”
Keep in mind: Schuchat has been at the CDC for 33 years and is retiring this month.
Via The Hill’s Brett Samuels, “Vice President Harris will travel to South Carolina and Georgia next week, her first stops on a national vaccination tour as the Biden administration makes a final push to meet its coronavirus vaccine goal for the Fourth of July.” https://bit.ly/3geGkGX
Details, if you care: “Harris will visit Greenville, S.C., on Monday and Atlanta next Friday.”
The goal: Having 70 percent of U.S. adults at least partially vaccinated by July 4.
11 a.m. EDT: NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier testified on the defense priorities for 2022. Livestream: https://bit.ly/3wfsee6
And to get your weekend off to a great start, here is a little boy sharing the news to his siblings that he has found a heart transplant donor!: https://bit.ly/3iDVeIr
Side note: That boy is retired NFL tight end Greg Olsen’s son.
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A bipartisan group of 10 senators say they have reached an agreement on what they call “a realistic, compromise framework” for a wide range of infrastructure spending that would be fully paid for and would not include tax increases. Read more…
House Ways and Means Republicans said Thursday they couldn’t support removing a big chunk of the IRS budget from the annual appropriations process in part because of the leak of a massive trove of personal tax return information earlier this week. Read more…
The House will return to Washington next week to take on a packed June agenda, with votes teed up on repealing the 2002 authorization of military force, overturning a slate of Trump administration regulatory actions and a massive surface transportation package. Read more…
Click here to subscribe to Fintech Beat for the latest market and regulatory developmentsin finance and financial technology.
OPINION — The Biden administration’s radical policy changes have encouraged the drug cartels to smuggle more unlawful migrants and lethal, illicit substances across our southern border, Sen. Rob Portman and Rep. John Katko write. Read more…
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia L. Fudge faced questions from both parties about how she plans to replace departed staff, a personnel gap that she said has undermined the implementation of department programs. Read more…
The Senate Agriculture Committee on Thursday sent the nomination of Janie Simms Hipp to the full Senate by voice vote and with bipartisan praise. If confirmed, Hipp, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, would be the first Native American woman to become general counsel for the Agriculture Department. Read more…
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, after months of delay, released on Thursday standards to protect essential workers from COVID-19, but those policies were scaled back significantly to apply only to health care settings. Read more…
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25.) POLITICO PLAYBOOK
POLITICO Playbook: How Europe can help Biden snuff out Trump(ism)
Presented by
DRIVING THE DAY
We keep learning disturbing new details about how farDONALD TRUMP’S Justice Department was willing to go after perceived enemies it suspected were responsible for Russia-related leaks. It pursued members of the media and, according to a bombshell report by the NYT on Thursday night, Democrats in Congress and their family members, too: “As the Justice Department investigated who was behind leaks of classified information early in the Trump administration, it took a highly unusual step: Prosecutors subpoenaed Apple for data from the accounts of at least two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, aides and family members. One was a minor.
“All told, the records of at least a dozen people tied to the committee were seized in 2017 and early 2018, including those of Representative ADAM B. SCHIFF of California, then the panel’s top Democrat and now its chairman, according to committee officials and two other people briefed on the inquiry.
“Prosecutors, under the beleaguered attorney general,JEFF SESSIONS, were hunting for the sources behind news media reports about contacts between Trump associates and Russia. Ultimately, the data and other evidence did not tie the committee to the leaks, and investigators debated whether they had hit a dead end and some even discussed closing the inquiry.”
Schiff said “the Inspector General should investigate this and other cases that suggest the weaponization of law enforcement.”
WE HAVE MORE BELOW on the latest bipartisan infrastructure talks and rising Democratic tensions over Rep. ILHAN OMAR (D-Minn.). But first a dispatch from Tara, who spent years reporting on European politics for us in Brussels, on why President JOE BIDEN’S trip abroad is so important to his political prospects at home:
‘THIS IS AN ACID TEST’ — When we talk to European diplomats and officials, they all say the same thing — the Biden presidency is a “sigh of relief” after the “near-death experience” of Trump.
The past five years have made them acutely aware of U.S. domestic politics — specifically an American electorate that’s drifted away from the internationalism of BARACK OBAMA toward Trump’s isolationism. Trump’s lost, but his America-first message will be front and center in Republican politics, whether it’s Trump as messenger or someone else. And Democrats will need to have a credible response.
This week we checked in with the former U.S. ambassador to the EU,ANTHONY GARDNER, about Biden’s first foreign trip. Gardner has a unique perspective: He was widely respected in Brussels during Obama’s second term and advised Biden’s 2020 campaign by serving as co-chair of the EU working group.
Gardner had some tough advice for Europe if they really want to avoid a Trump comeback:Give Biden a win on China. Not mushy assurances of cooperation or niceties about the change in tone from America — a tangible victory that he can use to neutralize Trump’s message.
“There’s always that risk, that’s what democracies are about,” Gardner told Playbook, referring to a Biden loss in 2024. “That’s exactly why you in Europe should think about how you can contribute to the success of the administration.”
Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN said in March that the U.S. won’t make its European allies choose between “us-or-them” on China. But Gardner sees it differently.
There’s a short window for Bidenand the Democratic Party to prove to voters that Europe is worth our time and preferable to Trump’s go-it-alone policy on China. That means working together on trade, using the power of the WTO to close off their markets to Chinese exporters, and getting tough on Chinese subsidies and IP violations. These are issues Gardner believes Biden could sell at home to working- and middle-class voters.
“We cannot afford to go through the motions,” Gardner said. “We need to make clear to our electorate and our voters that working multilaterally, with rules and institutions, yields better results, and that communiques are no substitute for results.”
He added: “Some Europeans won’t like it to be put this way. But this is the acid test. This is the reality today. What good is Europe if it’s not going to work with us on this issue?”
Europeans aren’t sure they’re ready to trust the U.S. wholeheartedly again. It was Trump’s abandonment of Europe that essentially pushed them into China’s arms. That split European countries into two camps: those that rely on the U.S. for security and defense and agree with Gardner that the way forward is to help Biden domestically; and others like France and Germany that want to tread cautiously so as not to alienate China, in case they have to prepare for a world order without the U.S. at the top.
“Some [Europeans] thought the China problem was basically just a Trump thing, underestimating the bipartisan basis in Washington for criticism of Beijing,” said ANTHONY TEASDALE, director general of the European Parliamentary Research Service. “The reality is that most Americans feel threatened by China’s challenge to their status as global No. 1. This isn’t just a Trump thing, it’s an American thing. Realizing this has disoriented some European leaders, who are having to get up to speed with a longer-term shift in U.S. foreign policy.”
THE CAPITOL RIOTER NEXT DOOR — Imagine learning that someone you’ve known for 18 years is alleged to have been responsible for some of the worst violence on Jan. 6. How do you square that? In this week’s episode of “Playbook Deep Dive,” RACHAEL and journalist MELANIE WARNER dive into the story of JEFFREY SABOL, one man whose alleged activity on Jan. 6 left many in his life confused and grappling for answers — about how a highly educated, middle-aged man with so much to lose could participate in what FBI Director CHRISTOPHER WRAY called “domestic terrorism.” What does his story tell us about the Capitol insurrectionists, and how everyday Americans became the new face of extremism?Listen and subscribe here
BIDEN’S FRIDAY:
— 12:15 p.m. British Summer Time: The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief.
— Noon: First lady JILL BIDEN and the Duchess of Cambridge KATE MIDDLETON will tour a preschool in Cornwall and participate in a roundtable on early childhood education.
— 1:55 p.m.: Biden will depart St. Ives en route to Carbis Bay, where he will arrive at 2 p.m. and greet British PM BORIS JOHNSON and his wife, CARRIE, at 2:10 p.m.
— 2:20 p.m.: Biden will participate in a family photo with other G-7 leaders.
— 2:45 p.m.: The president will attend the G-7 Summit Session 1.
— 4:25 p.m.: Biden will depart Carbis Bay en route to St Ives, where he will arrive at 4:30 p.m.
— 5:40 p.m.: The president and first lady will depart St Ives en route to Bodelva, Cornwall, where they will arrive at 6 p.m.
— 6:15 p.m.: The Bidens will participate in a reception, family photo and dinner with other G-7 leaders and the Royal Family.
— 9:10 p.m.: The president and first lady will depart Bodelva en route to St Ives, where they will arrive at 9:30 p.m.
HARRIS’ FRIDAY: VP KAMALA HARRIS will deliver remarks on child care and families at 10:30 a.m.
THE SENATE is out. THE HOUSE will meet at 11:30 a.m. in a pro forma session.
PLAYBOOK READS
INFRASTRUCTURE YEAR
UNDERSTANDING THIS NEW BIPARTISAN DEAL: The group of 10 centrist senators scrambling to save infrastructure talks announced a framework for a deal: $1 trillion over five years, or $1.2 trillion over eight years, including $579 billion in new spending. The agreement is substantially more money than the final offer Sen. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO (R-W.Va.) made to Biden before talks fell apart — though still $400 billion less than Biden asked for.
But take this with a grain of salt for three reasons:
— One of their pay-fors includes indexing the gas tax with inflation, which would obviously increase the tax over time. The idea has been a major no-no for Biden, who vowed not to raise taxes on people making under $400,000 a year. In fact, our transportation reporter SAM MINTZ scooped Thursday that the White House “considers indexing the gas tax to inflation to be a violation of Biden’s pledge … and is not willing to include it in an infrastructure package, according to a source familiar with President Biden’s thinking.” Later, the White House released a statement saying “questions need to be addressed, particularly around the details of both policy and pay fors, among other matters.”
— Only five Republicans had their name on this agreement. But the chamber won’t get the 10 GOP senators needed for passage without Minority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL. We’ll have to see what the Kentucky Republican says about this.
— This alsoassumes every Senate Democrat would swallow a deal that’s a far cry from the bold vision they want. In just one warning sign this week, climate advocates are growing increasingly alarmed at suggestions that their pet issue may fall by the wayside.
WaPo’s Jeff Stein, Juliet Eilperin and Tyler Pagerreported Thursday night that AL GORE called Biden to implore him to tackle climate head on. And Senate Finance Chair RON WYDEN (D-Ore.) told the trio he would oppose any infrastructure deal that didn’t address climate or hike taxes on multinational corporations.
SO WHAT NOW? Don’t expect Democratic leaders to immediately pan the deal. Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER intends to let this process play out so his moderate members get a chance to make the bipartisan deal they’ve been hoping for — or at least try. In the process, they’ll either learn it can’t be done or they’ll succeed. Either way, Schumer can push forward anything they can’t pass with Republicans, via reconciliation.
— “Dem leaders look to deescalate Omar drama,”by Sarah Ferris: “Top Democrats on Thursday attempted to quickly defuse a fraught dispute within their caucus after comments by Rep. Ilhan Omar that compared war crimes committed by the U.S. and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban incensed some Jewish Democrats. Speaker NANCY PELOSI’S leadership team took the unusual step of issuing a statement that both rebuked Omar for her comments and thanked her for later clarifying her remarks — taking a more nuanced approach than the last major uproar over the Minnesota Democrat’s comments on Israel that escalated into a days-long political crisis for her party.”
— In response to leadership’s statement Omar, however,Rep. RASHIDA TLAIB (D-Mich.) tweeted a rather astounding rebuke of senior Democrats, suggesting this drama isn’t over yet: “Freedom of speech doesn’t exist for Muslim women in Congress. The benefit of the doubt doesn’t exist for Muslim women in Congress. House Democratic leadership should be ashamed of its relentless, exclusive tone policing of Congresswomen of color.”
DEATH AND TAXES
— “Billionaire Tax Leak Referred to FBI as Probe Grows, IRS Says,”Bloomberg: “The disclosure of the personal income and tax data of some of the wealthiest Americans has been referred to additional federal investigators to probe the leak of confidential information, an Internal Revenue Service official said.”
— “Republicans use leak of billionaires’ tax secrets to attack Biden’s plan to boost IRS,” by Aaron Lorenzo: “Ways and Means Committee Republicans on Thursday said the leak of tax information on rich Americans like JEFF BEZOS, ELON MUSK and other billionaires erodes trust in the IRS and should disqualify President Joe Biden’s proposals to boost agency enforcement. GOP members of the panel — without citing evidence — blamed IRS insiders for the criminal breach of private taxpayer data, and suggested the timing was fishy.”
FLOTUS FILES
— “Jill Biden wants to share the ‘LOVE’ overseas,” by Eugene: “The day that she departed with her husband for his first foreign trip as president, the first lady’s office sent out a picture that encapsulates how Dr. Jill Biden thinks about her new role. She’s sitting at a desk in a cornflower blue jacket, poring over a huge binder with stacks of papers all around.
“The message: Jill Biden is not here to just focus on the frilly aspects of the first lady gig, she’s a woman of substance and wants the public to know it. In some ways the veteran political spouse is a return to more traditional, non-controversial first ladies after one — MELANIA TRUMP — who enjoyed celebrity status but spent most of her time as a partisan lightning rod. … For this first presidential trip abroad, the first lady is working on cementing her independent, ‘Jill from Philly’ image by setting up her own schedule during the G7 summit in Cornwall, England, primarily highlighting her main initiative on military families.”
— London Playbook: “Prez and PM punching: Pretty much all the British papers splash on the Carrie Johnson/Jill Biden photo-op — and it sounds like the president was a fan too. Joe Biden laid it on thick at yesterday’s brief appearance in front of the press, telling the PM: ‘I’m thrilled to meet your wife. I told the prime minister we have something in common: we both married above our station.’ Newlywed Johnson responded: ‘I’m not going to disagree with the president on that or anything else.’ (H/t POLITICO’s White House correspondent Anita Kumar.)”
POLITICS CORNER
BUCKING THE BOSS — “Shelby sides against Trump in Alabama Senate race,” by Burgess Everett: “Republican RICHARD SHELBY is backing his former chief of staff KATIE BOYD BRITT in the race to succeed him in the Senate, siding against former President Donald Trump’s favored candidate, Rep. MO BROOKS. ‘She’s like family. She’d make a good candidate. She’s probably the best-qualified candidate to come along in a long time,’ Shelby said in an interview. ‘I’d support her, I’d vote for her.’”
2022 WATCH — “Mark Brnovich, Arizona’s attorney general, launches U.S. Senate campaign,” Arizona Republic: “Arizona Attorney General MARK BRNOVICH announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate race’s Republican primary in 2022, jumping into what is expected to be a hotly contested battle to challenge incumbent Sen. MARK KELLY. Brnovich, a libertarian-leaning Republican who has served as the state’s top prosecutor since 2015, becomes the third Republican to get into the race and the most well-known politically.”
FOR THE RECORD — Post and Courier’s JAMIE LOVEGROVE (@jslovegrove): “Asked by @postandcourier if he will run for reelection next year, [Rep. JIM CLYBURN] says, ‘Not just yes, but hell yes.’ He has represented #SC06 since 1993 and will be 82 by the time of the 2022 midterms.”
— Roll Call’s Lindsey McPherson tweeted this context: “This is interesting. Alot of people thought Clyburn would retire when Pelosi did. While Pelosi has not committed to retiring, she made a promise in 2018 not to run for speaker again in 2022. And Clyburn has said he’s not interested in replacing her. So what’s his plan?”
HOW RED — REBA MCENTIRE will be a special guest at a fundraiser for South Dakota Gov. KRISTI NOEM this weekend, per Stephen Sanchez.
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
WHAT BERNIE IS READING — “These businesses found a way around the worker shortage: Raising wages to $15 an hour or more,” by WaPo’s Eli Rosenberg: “Across the country, businesses in sectors such as food service and manufacturing that are trying to staff up have been reporting an obstacle to their success — a scarcity of workers interested in applying for low-wage positions. The issue has raised concerns about the strength of the country’s recovery as coronavirus cases abate, with the economy still down more than 7.5 million jobs compared with before the pandemic.”
GONE BIBI GONE
STOP US IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE — “Israel’s Netanyahu lashes out as end of his era draws near,” by AP’s Josef Federman in Jerusalem: “In what appear to be the final days of his historic 12-year rule, Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU is not leaving the political stage quietly. The longtime leader is accusing his opponents of betraying their voters, and some have needed special security protection. Netanyahu says he is the victim of a ‘deep state’ conspiracy. He speaks in apocalyptic terms when talking about the country without his leadership.”
DESSERT
HIGH, HOW ARE YOU — NATALIE FERTIG (@natsfert): “Me: ‘I work at POLITICO, I’m the cannabis reporter.’ @BernieSanders: ‘You’re the cannabis reporter?’ Me: ‘I’m the cannabis reporter.’ Sanders: ‘Are you stoned right now?’ Me: ‘I am not stoned right now.’ Sanders: ‘Is that a requirement to be…?’ Me: ‘It’s actually not.’”Audio of the exchange, via POLITICO Dispatch
TV TONIGHT — PBS’ “Washington Week,” with Yamiche Alcindor moderating from Cornwall, England, and Ed O’Keefe co-moderating from D.C.: Jonathan Martin, Anna Palmer and Vivian Salama.
SUNDAY SO FAR …
ABC
“This Week”: Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas). Panel: Rick Klein, Michèle Flournoy, Will Hurd and Amna Nawaz.
FOX
“Fox News Sunday”: Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) … Mike Pompeo. Panel: Marc Thiessen, Catherine Lucey and Harold Ford Jr. Power Player: Donna de Varona.
MSNBC
“The Sunday Show”: Kimberly Atkins Stohr … Michael Gerson … Chris Matthews … Yamiche Alcindor … Katty Kay … Helene Cooper.
CNN
“Inside Politics”: Panel: Olivier Knox, Laura Barron Lopez, Melanie Zanona, Vivian Salama and John Harwood.
CBS
“Face the Nation”: Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) … Andy Slavitt … Scott Gottlieb.
Gray TV
“Full Court Press”: Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) … Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).
“Miller’s company is currently developing a social media platform that is being considered for use by Trump. People familiar with the discussions stress that no final decision has been made by the former president about which platform he will use. … The aide is expected to remain with Trump’s team, but not in a full-time, day-to-day role, according to a person familiar with the plans.”
PENCE’S NEW PALACE — “Mike Pence buys $1.9M Indiana home packed with amenities,” N.Y. Post: “Property records reveal that Pence, 62, bought a seven-bedroom, 7½-bathroom house in the upscale location of Carmel — known as the luxury pinnacle in his state of Indiana. …
“Spanning a massive 10,300 square feet, the estate sits on five acres of land and comes with all the amenities your heart desires. Built in 2008, the home offers a fitness room, an indoor basketball court, a handcrafted bar, a media room, a study, and several living spaces throughout. Outdoor features include a dock looking out onto a large pond, an in-ground pool and an expansive screened porch.”
CRINGE-WORTHY TV —Jeffrey Toobin is back on air with CNN eight months after he was fired from The New Yorker and took leave from the TV network for getting caught masturbating on a Zoom call. Host Alisyn Camerota didn’t mince words Thursday, describing his act before asking Toobin, “What the hell were you thinking?”
MEDIAWATCH — This year’s National Magazine Awards were announced Thursday, with top honors going to The New Yorker, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Audubon and Stranger’s Guide. The full list of winners
SPOTTED: Pete and Chasten Buttigieg dining with Pete’s mother, Jennifer Anne Montgomery, at The Duck & The Peach on Thursday night. Pic…Another pic … Bret Baier and Paul Ryan at Cafe Milano for lunch on Thursday.
SPOTTED at an event at Australian Ambassador Arthur Sinodinos and Elizabeth Sinodinos’ residence for the outgoing Deputy Ambassador Katrina Cooper on Wednesday night: DNI Avril Haines, Kurt Campbell, Julie Smith, Michèle Flournoy, Jill Tiefenthaler, Jean Baderschneider, Amanda Nguyen, Lisa Truitt, Laura Rosenberger, Singaporean Ambassador Ashok Mirpuri, Jane Duke, Dan Feldman, Harold Koh, Suzanne Spaulding, John Negroponte, Margo Smith and Paula Dobriansky.
FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — The Commerce Department is adding a slate of senior staff: Liani Balasuriya is now executive secretariat, Jenny Kaplan is senior adviser for private sector engagement, Caitlin Legacki is senior adviser for strategic comms,and Scott Mulhauser has taken a temporary leave from Bully Pulpit Interactive to serve as a senior adviser to Secretary Gina Raimondo.
TRUMP ALUMNI — Christopher Ford is now senior adviser for geopolitical policy and strategy at MITRE Laboratories. He most recently performed the duties of the undersecretary of State for arms control and international security.
TRANSITIONS — Francesca Craig is now acting as social secretary at the British Embassy. She most recently was director of special projects for the Motion Picture Association and is also the former social secretary to the French ambassador. … Chanse Jones is now senior director of public affairs at Forbes Tate Partners. He previously was senior manager of media relations and external comms at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. … Michael Feldman is now director of public affairs at CISA. He previously worked on the Biden campaign. …
… Ilse Zuniga is now press secretary for Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). She most recently was press secretary for Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.). … Ryan Shay is now legislative director for Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.). He most recently was senior legislative assistant for Rep. André Carson (D-Ind.). … Schroeder Stribling will be president and CEO of Mental Health America. She currently is CEO of N Street Village, a D.C. housing nonprofit.
WEDDING — Geoff Burgan, comms director for Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and a Biden campaign alum, and Farah Melendez, campaign manager for Virginia A.G. Mark Herring and political director at the Democratic Attorneys General Association, got married May 20 in Salt Lake City in front of a small group of family and friends. Pic
WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Hannah Bruce Huey, principal at Molly Allen & Associates, and Daniel Huey, a partner at Something Else Strategies, on Wednesday welcomed Henry Burtch Huey, who came in at 7 lbs, 13 oz and 20.5 inches.Pic
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Jennifer Rubin … Tad Devine of Devine Mulvey Longabaugh … Greta Van Susteren … Kim Oates of the House Radio/TV Gallery … J Street’s Jeremy Ben-Ami … Cisco’s Michael Timmeny … Lindsey Williams Drath … Cesar Gonzalez of Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart’s (R-Fla.) office … Deputy CIA Director David Cohen … TJ Adams-Falconer … DNC’s Lucas Acosta … Will Rahn … Jessica Franks Owens … Antonio De Loera-Brust … Eric Lieberman …Pentagon’s Jamal Brown … Duke’s Mike Schoenfeld … APCO Worldwide’s Penina Graubart … Treasury’s Arian Rubio … Lorissa Bounds … Alexa Papadopoulos … Kristen Thomaselli … Mary Kate Cunningham … Salesforce’s Tom Gavin … Matthew Campbell … Google’s Ramya Raghavan … Tom Alexander … Marty Kearns of Netcentric Campaigns … POLITICO’s Denis Manevski … Emily Dobler … former Reps. Mike Conaway (R-Texas) and Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) (91) … Ashley Mocarski … former South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard … Jennifer Budoff of the D.C. City Council
Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Mike Zapler, deputy editor Zack Stanton and producers Allie Bice, Eli Okun and Garrett Ross.
“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it,” (1 Corinthians 10:13, ESV).
Kelvey Vander Hart: On June 10th, 1964, members of the Democratic Party ended their filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. They would like us to forget.
Victoria Sinclair: We should all consider the power social media giants like Facebook have over our lives and the very content that we as a society discuss.
Summary: President Joe Biden will receive his daily briefing, participate in a G7 session, a pair of photo opps, have dinner, and then return to his overnight accommodations. President Biden’s Itinerary for 6/11/21: All Times EDT // Local 7:15 // 12:15 PM Receive daily briefing9:20 AM // 2:20 PM Participate …
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation’s Samantha Renck about his recent article on natural immunity and COVID-19, how ignoring it impacts underprivileged groups and more. WATCH: Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any …
The radical left has been using many new terms in the past few years to help push their causes of social justice. Terms like ‘decolonization’ and ‘systemic racism’ have become more mainstream topics in recent years as Antifa and Black Lives Matter continue to push the radical agenda. One group …
EDINBURG, Texas – U.S. Border Patrol agents disrupt four stash houses and arrest 68 migrants in the Rio Grande Valley. Monday morning, Rio Grande City Border Patrol Station (RGC) agents, in coordination with Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and Starr County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) responded to a residence in …
Cicadas for the win! Cicadas have been in the news recently. Once every seventeen years, the cicadas hatch and emerge to enjoy the summer. The insects lay their eggs, die off, and begin the seventeen year cycle anew. This year they are ready to rumble. They don’t call them the …
Citizens in a suburban town are demanding meetings to split from Atlanta and create their own police force in response to rising crime rates, according to Fox News. The Buckhead City Committee, made up of “lobbyists, attorneys, legislators and experts,” want to more efficiently prevent crime by establishing their law …
In the latest suggestions by the woke of the world, one charity is suggesting that white women are the actual cause of sexual violence and are contributing to white supremacy. These ridiculous ideas are being suggested by Oxfam, a global charity that suggests its mission is fighting poverty and injustice …
The husband of the woman shot and killed during the Capitol riot asked a court Wednesday to force police to turn over information on the officer who shot her, according to CNBC. Aaron Babbitt, Ashli Babbitt’s husband, filed a request for records under the Freedom of Information Act, demanding access …
Kamala Harris is failing so miserably on all fronts that she is trying to hide behind her hideous black mask. Unfortunately for our Vice President, the mask and matching poorly fitting black pantsuit have become her identity. She cannot hide. We see her clearly, and she is in way over …
The world’s largest meat supplier paid out an $11 million ransom in bitcoin to hackers following a cyberattack, the company said Wednesday. JBS USA was the victim of a ransomware attack last week that forced it to shut down plants processing around 20% of the country’s meat supply. The company …
As I struggle to write what I hope to be a series of articles focused on some of the larger, enduring myths surrounding the American Civil War, I am reminded of the little details which have been allowed to perpetuate in the history books. For example, what comes to mind …
Democrats love nothing more than to rail against special interest groups such as the NRA. They say that these groups are too powerful and that they diminish democracy. Well, at least they say that if it’s an organization they don’t agree with. If it is the National Abortion and Reproductive …
MIAMI — During a Monday interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation, Gov. Ron DeSantis joked that the media elevates the wrong heroes “basically” to “sainthood” in order to combat figures like former President Donald Trump. The Florida Republican sat down for an interview with the DCNF’s Mary Margaret Olohan …
Happy Friday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. I’m leading a jam-making and drum circle retreat this weekend. For myself.
Now that I’ve put that out in the universe that’s probably how my weekend is going to feel. It’s OK, a little weirdness can often be a good thing.
There are too many weeks where the news seems like it’s the same five stories over and over. Very few of them good, I might add. It’s kind of refreshing when the occasional bit of the unexpected shows up.
The Democrats are generally a hive mind. Dissension in the ranks isn’t tolerated over there in Dem Land, especially in the parts of it that are controlled by Nancy Pelosi. That’s why it has been a bit of a shock to see how much Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her Squad get away with.
Well, all but one of them.
Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar is so rabidly anti-Semitic that she prompted action by House Democrats to address it when she hadn’t even been in office for two months. Bear in mind that most Democrats have a fair amount of anti-Semitism coursing through them, so it has to be really over the top if they take offense.
The hateful terrorist sympathizer is at it again, going so far over the line that Granny Boxwine and Co. have had to respond.
On Thursday, senior Democratic leaders issued a unified statement denouncing comments made by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) earlier this week when she equated so-called “crimes against humanity” by the United States and Israel to “unthinkable atrocities” by the Taliban and Hamas.
Here’s what got the ball rolling:
We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity.
We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.
That’s right, this psychopath sees no difference between Hamas, the Taliban, and the country whose constitution she’s taken an oath to defend and uphold.
That was a bit too much for most of her Democratic colleagues.
More from Matt:
“Drawing false equivalencies between democracies like the U.S. and Israel and groups that engage in terrorism like Hamas and the Taliban foments prejudice and undermines progress toward a future of peace and security for all,” read the statement from Nancy Pelosi and five other House Democrat leaders. “We welcome the clarification by Congresswoman Omar that there is no moral equivalency between the U.S. and Israel and Hamas and the Taliban.”
Could this mean that the Democrats aren’t lost forever?!? Probably not. The party has been moving Squad-ward for a long time. It’s going to get there soon.
Speaking of the Squad, the wretchedly awful Rashida Tlaib rushed to Omar’s defense and claimed that “freedom of speech doesn’t exist for Muslim women in Congress.” Apparently, the congresswoman doesn’t read very well. If she did, she’d understand that Pelosi’s statement didn’t say Ilhan Omar didn’t have the right to express her opinion, it said that the opinion was wrong.
The Squad chicks should probably toughen up a bit if they want to continue being controversial loudmouths.
And un-American terrorist sympathizers.
Everything Isn’t Awful
Some Good News out of Brazil – congratulations, Gabriel!
PJ Media senior columnist and associate editor Stephen Kruiser is a professional stand-up comic, writer, and recovering political activist who edits and writes PJ’s Morning Briefing, aka The Greatest Political Newsletter in America. His latest book, Straight Outta Feelings, is a humorous exploration of how the 2016 election made him enjoy politics more than he ever had before. When not being a reclusive writer, Kruiser has had the honor of entertaining U.S. troops all over the world. Follow on: Gab, Parler, MeWe
Other countries likely view U.S. as having ‘a bunch of clowns in charge,’ congressman says . . . The Missouri congressman says, “It shows a weakness of our leadership team with Harris and Biden.” Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) criticized the leadership of the Biden administration, saying that other countries have “got to look at us and say, ‘Well, you’ve got a bunch of clowns in charge of your country right now.'” “It shows a weakness of our leadership team with Harris and Biden,” Luetkemeyer said on the “John Solomon Reports” podcast. “I think she’s sitting there like a teenager, sort of laughing and chuckling and trying to hope that ‘you don’t ask me a really tough question and hope you think my smile and my little giggle here is going to get me off the hook.’ Just the News
White House tells federal agencies to prepare return-to-work plans . . . The White House on Thursday lifted a cap on employees working in federal buildings and directed agencies to prepare plans to allow employees to return to work in-person. The move is the latest sign of conditions in Washington returning to normal as more and more people get vaccinated against COVID-19 in the United States. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memo sent to agency heads directs them to complete plans for “reentry” by July 19 that detail when and how an increased number of employees can return to in-person work. The Hill
Maybe the apparatchiks ought to just stay at home and “telework.” Better for all of us. Safer for the country.
Politics
Biden opens European tour with slap at Brits . . . The president is reviving the National Lampoon series on his trip to England for the G-7 summit. Like the Griswolds’ summer vacations, these trips are planned to the last detail, only for everything to go wrong. On Wednesday night, as President and Dr. Griswold bedded down on Air Force One, the British papers broke the story that Yael Lempert, the new American ambassador to the UK, had issued Boris Johnson’s government with a demarche. A demarche is diplo-speak for putting your enemies on notice. Or, as in this case, insulting your closest ally and making a delicate situation worse. Last week, Lempert warned that Johnson and Brexit were “inflaming” tensions in Northern Ireland. She conditioned a US-UK trade deal on Britain surrendering to the European Union’s terms as Britain and the EU haggle out the details of their economic relationship. New York Post
Biden greets G-7 with global minimum tax push in hand . . . President Biden will meet with Group of 7 finance leaders on Friday, where they will make a push for global economic fairness through his proposed global minimum tax. The White House said in prepared remarks that leaders will endorse a “strong global minimum tax of at least 15%,” after finance ministers reached an agreement on the policy last weekend. “This U.S. priority is a critical step towards ending the decades-long race to the bottom that pushes nations to compete over who can offer the lowest tax rate to large corporations at the expense of protecting workers, investing in infrastructure, and growing the middle class,” the White House said in a press release. Fox News
Al Gore lobbied Biden to not scale back climate plans in infrastructure deal . . . Former Vice President Al Gore reportedly urged President Biden in private to keep climate-focused policies in his expansive infrastructure bill as he struggles to shore up GOP support for the bill. Gore, an extremely prominent environmentalist, made the call to Biden last month after being encouraged to do so by former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta. Gore also asked Biden to block the planned Byhalia Pipeline, which transport crude oil through predominantly Black neighborhoods in Memphis and could potentially affect drinking water. The former vice president also spoke to Biden aide Steve Ricchetti about climate and infrastructure. The Hill
Kamala Harris snaps at Univision anchor while pressed on when she’ll visit border: ‘I’m not finished’ . . . Vice President Kamala Harris had a tense exchange with Univision anchor Ilia Calderón over when she will visit the southern border. During an interview on Thursday, Calderón pressed Harris, who was assigned by President Biden to handle the border crisis, on how she herself has yet to make it down to the US-Mexico border to see the migrant crisis in person. “I’ve said I’m going to the border,” Harris told the anchor. “And I-” “When are you going to the border, Vice President?” Calderón asked during a remote interview. Fox News
The Partisan Bureaucracy . . . Would the IRS violate your privacy to further Democratic policy objectives? The lesson of this week’s leak of billionaires’ tax returns isn’t that taxes are too low, the rich should pay more or any of the other claims the leak was designed to support. The lesson is that Republicans must realize that Democrats are no longer their only political foe. They face an equally potent and dangerous federal bureaucracy—committed to destroying GOP officials and propelling a liberal agenda. Opinion.Wall Street Journal
‘Hundreds’ of Whistleblowers Say Military Forcing ‘Anti-American Indoctrination’ on Them . . . Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) told Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on June 10 that “hundreds” of military whistleblowers have reported being forced to receive “anti-American indoctrination” training, including critical race theory (CRT). In a Senate hearing with Austin, Cotton claimed that within the military, there’s “plummeting morale, growing mistrust between races and sexes where none existed just six months ago and unexpected retirements and separations based on these trainings alone.” One whistleblower, Cotton alleged, said that military history training was replaced with training about police brutality, “systemic racism,” and “white privilege.” Another said that his unit had to read “White Fragility” by feminist author and critical theory proponent Robin DiAngelo. In May, the Space Force confirmed it relieved Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier, a former instructor and fighter pilot, as commander of the 11th Space Warning Squadron. Epoch Times
The other day, I had lunch with one of my DIA buddies who has recently retired. In his retirement, my friend, bravely blasted DIA leadership for insulting the entire US military with accusations of extremism, racism, and other garbage. My friend is a honorable American, a former missilier, who during the Cold War guarded U.S. nukes, sitting deep underground in a capsule, ready, if ordered, to unlock the keys, in order to protect America from the Russian nuclear attack. He felt insulted by SECDEF Austin’s ‘woke’ policies, poisoning US military and intelligence. I am proud of my former colleague.
Joint Chiefs Chairman Clarifies Biden Remark That Global Warming Is ‘Greatest Physical Threat’ To America . . . America’s top military officer said Thursday that China and Russia remain the greatest military threats to America after President Biden said that the Joint Chiefs told him that the greatest physical threat facing America was global warming. “Climate change does impact, but the president is looking at a much broader angle than I am. I’m looking at it from a strictly military standpoint. And from a strictly military standpoint, I’m putting China, Russia up there,” Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a congressional panel Thursday morning. Daily Caller
Yep.
National Security
Biden won’t build the wall, so Texas Gov. Abbott will . . . With President Biden having put a stop to construction of the border wall, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has decided to seize back common sense. “I will announce next week the plan for the state of Texas to begin building the border wall in the state of Texas,” Abbott said.
“The border crisis is no laughing matter,” he said. “It’s not a tourism site for members of Congress to visit and then return to D.C. and do nothing.” White House Dossier
You go, Sir!
Wray grilled on FBI’s handling of Jan. 6 . . . FBI Director Christopher Wray was largely on the defensive Thursday as lawmakers and Democrats in particular picked apart the bureau’s actions surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, as well as its approach to domestic extremists. Wray’s appearance before the House Judiciary Committee follows a report from senators investigating widespread failures across a number of intelligence and law enforcement agencies ahead of the riot. The Hill
Jan. 6 video mystery: Senator asks about officer ‘gesturing toward’ doors as intruders file past . . . The top Republican on one of the Senate’s most powerful investigative panels says video footage from the Jan. 6 riot shows more than 300 people gained unauthorized access to the Capitol through a single doorway, and he is demanding answers from the police officers who were nearby.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), the top Republican on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent a letter late Thursday to U.S. Capitol Police Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman divulging the findings of his security footage review and asking whether the officers present during the episode have been interviewed. Just the News
Top CDC official warns US not ready for next pandemic . . . The number two official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning that without consistent, long-term funding of public health, the U.S. won’t be any better prepared for the next pandemic. On Wednesday, Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s principal deputy director, said the U.S. was not prepared for COVID-19 due to years of inadequate investment in public health infrastructure. Schuchat is set to retire this month after 33 years at the agency.
Well, why WOULD we be prepared? The mission of the country’s readiness for national security disasters belongs to the government, right? What was the lady doing for 33 years in the bureaucracy? Perhaps if we didn’t fund the Wuhan Lab’s virus “research” with U.S. tax payers’ money, we could have used some to prepare for fighting off pandemics? Just saying.
Biden Removes Chinese Military Tech Company from Blacklist . . . President Joe Biden issued an executive order dropping a ban on investment in a Chinese technology company known for its cooperation with the Chinese military and the surveillance of Uyghur Muslims. Sugon, a Chinese company blacklisted by the Trump administration in November 2020, did not appear on the updated blacklist of Chinese companies announced by the White House this month. The United States had prohibited Americans from investing in Sugon over the company’s sale of supercomputers to the Chinese military for nuclear weapons research. The company’s cloud computing and facial recognition technology has reportedly been used for the surveillance of Uyghur Muslims. Washington Free Beacon
Ransomware Attack Roiled Meat Giant JBS, Then Spilled Over to Farmers and Restaurants . . . While plants were closed, prices of beef and pork climbed and farmers sought new buyers for their livestock. Employees at the U.S. division of JBS, the world’s largest meat company, noticed something wrong in their computer systems over Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial kickoff for the busy summer grilling season. The culprit, a ransomware attack, didn’t just hit its target—it roiled the U.S. food industry, from hog farms in Iowa to small-town processing plants and New York restaurants. The hack set off a domino effect that drove up wholesale meat prices, backed up animals in barns and forced food distributors to hurriedly search for new suppliers. The attack was the latest clash between cybercriminals and companies integral to the functioning of the U.S. economy. Wall Street Journal
Keith tells me I’ve got too much national security-related news in CTTN, probably because, as a former intel officer, this is my professional interest and passion. I can’t do much about the Biden Administration’s weakness that is provoking all kinds foreign adversaries and non-state actors to attack America. If you think CTTN is becoming overly focused on national security, at the expense of other important topics, please drop me an email. Thanks in advance for your feedback.
International
Russia fined Facebook, Telegram for unlawful content . . . Russia has fined social media platform Facebook and messaging app Telegram for not taking down content the government deems unlawful. Tt is unknown what content the apps failed to remove, but the Russian government has recently been going after content that is anti-government. Facebook was fined $236,000 and Telegram was fined $139,000. Russia has a long history of speech suppression, including censoring social media and messaging platforms like Facebook, Telegram and Twitter. Russia went after social media companies early in the year as they were being used to organize protests for the arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Putin has escalated his anti-Navalny actions to gain negotiated leverage over Biden during the upcoming summit on July 16. When Biden starts lecturing the Russian Spy Master about human rights, Putin may release Navalny from prison, like he did with Khodorkovsky. He will look magnanimous to the starry-eyed Western leaders while giving nothing to the U.S. in return.
We’ve got two jailed U.S. marines rotting in Russia, on trumped-up charges. Biden should bring these men back home. Unfortunately, having pegged this U.S. president as weak, Putin is unlikely to give in. Unless Washington releases a notorious Russian cyber criminal, who is ‘not rotting’ so much in an American jail. See, our leaders often care more about the human rights and sovereignty of foreign citizens and countries than those of our own. Imagine that.
Iran to acquire Russian satellite for tracking Mid-East military targets . . . A Russian-made advanced Kanopus-V satellite able to track Israeli and US military targets across the Middle East will soon be in Iran’s hands. This was disclosed by the Washington Post on Friday, June 10 shortly before President Joe Biden was to meet Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Geneva. While the Kanopus-V is marketed for civilian use, leaders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have made several trips to Russia since 2018 to help negotiate the agreement. “This capability will allow Iran to maintain an accurate target bank, and to update that target bank within a few hours” every day, said a Russian official. DEBKAfile
In addition to the Russian Doctrine & Strategy, space warfare doctrine was my account at the Defense Intelligence Agency. While I can’t provide detailed comments on this issue, Kanopus-V, and Russia’s entire space order of battle present a major threat to the U.S., including our troop movements.
I can’t tell you how many times I had debates with the Russia “experts” in the Intelligence Community, trying to convince them that civilian and military use of space assets, when it comes to the Russian Doctrine, is largely a false distinction. This similarly applies to the Russian Cyber Doctrine. I routinely faced the same type of obstinance and incompetence that likely drove the Biden Administration to conclude that Putin’s recent cyber assault on our burgers and gas pumps was staged by Russia-based hackers. These are the type of clowns who are ‘safeguarding Amerca’s security.
The Ruthless Hackers Behind Ransomware Attacks on U.S. Hospitals: ‘They Do Not Care’ . . . A ransomware attack on a national hospital chain nearly brought Las Vegas hospitals to their knees. Another attack in Oregon abruptly shut down alerts tied to patient monitors tracking vital signs. In New York, one county’s only trauma center briefly closed to ambulances, with the nearest alternative 90 miles away. Multiple attacks were carried out in recent months against U.S. hospitals, suspending some surgeries, delaying medical care and costing hospitals millions of dollars. An Eastern European group known as Ryuk has hit at least 235 facilities, raking in more than $100 million. The Wall Street Journal tracked the most disruptive attacks to one group: a notorious gang of Eastern European cybercriminals once called the “Business Club,” with ties to Russian government security services, according to threat analysts and former law-enforcement officials who closely follow Eastern European cybercrime operations. Wall Street Journal
How dare the WSJ contradict the Biden Administration’s official conclusion that it was just ‘Russia-based’ hackers, who have nothing to do with Putin?! De-platform the WSJ for spreading misinformation!
Coronavirus
Fauci: Le Science, c’est moi . . . Mr, Fauci needs to have a thicker skin. He chose to be a public official, no doubt enjoys being a grand authority, and needs to understand that criticism comes with the territory. Instead, he chooses to attack his critics as anti-science because they disagree with him and they point out what they see as his inconsistencies. “A lot of what you’re seeing as attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science,” the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director told Meet the Press Daily on Wednesday. White House Dossier
Précisément!
Legal watchdog sues DNI, State Dept. for coronavirus origin documents . . . Two lawsuits seeking documents from the State Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on the origin of the COVID-19 virus have been filed. Judicial Watch announced the lawsuits Thursday, saying they were filed after document requests under the Freedom of Information Act had been ignored. The lawsuits are seeking all documents held by intelligence agencies and cables from the State Department since 2017 on the Wuhan Institute of Virology, increasingly suspected as being a virus origin point. The group also wants documents related to intelligence on the virus origin. Washington Times
Money
The Biden economy: Inflation soars to highest rate in 13 years . . . The reasons for the growing and sustained, at least for now, inflation rate are complex and debatable. But there are a number of Biden administration policies that could be contributing to it, including massive government “stimulus” spending and wage increases caused by disincentives to work, like $300 weekly unemployment checks. Companies have to offer people more money to get them back in the labor force, and the cost is passed on to consumers. Similarly contributing to labor costs is the nationwide drive backed by Democrats for a $15 minimum wage. Whether inflation will come down again or start to become a permanent feature, like it was in the 1970s before it was painfully driven out of the economy by Fed chief Paul Volker and his tight money policies, is anyone’s guess. U.S. consumer prices continued to climb strongly in May, surging 5% from a year ago to reach the highest annual inflation rate in nearly 13 years. White House Dossier
Half of the pandemic’s unemployment money may have been stolen by criminals, funneled out of the country . . . Unemployment benefits handed out by the federal government over this past year may have been largely stolen by criminals. As much as half of the coronavirus-related stimulus aid intended for people in the United States never reached them. Instead, it was pocketed by crime syndicates who mostly took the money and fled the country. Haywood Talcove, the CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions, a company that provides predictive insights and fraud prevention, said most of those stolen funds, at least 70%, were then sent to criminal networks in other countries, including China, Nigeria, and Russia. Washington Examiner
Anything the government touches, turns into a pile of .
You should also know
Eighth-grade girl blasts school board for policy that would allow ‘boys into girls’ locker rooms’ . . . A 14-year-old in Virginia is speaking out about what she says is a sexist move by Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) to allow “boys into girls’ locker rooms.” The policy followed a previous one, 1040, that committed the county to providing an equitable, safe and inclusive working environment regardless of “sexual orientation, gender identity” and other individual characteristics. The more recent proposed policy – 8350 – states in a draft that “students should be allowed to use the facility that corresponds to their gender identity.” Grover is an eighth grader whose mom pulled her out of an LCPS school last year after seeing various controversial policies emerging. She is currently homeschooled. Fox News
Even for an eighth-grader, it’s a no-brainer that boys have no business roaming around girls’ bathrooms. Why do our politicians find it such a hard concept to grasp?
Former Vice President Mike Pence buys $1.93 million mansion in home state of Indiana . . . Former Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, purchased a 10,349-square-foot home for $1.93 million on the outskirts of Carmel, Indiana, at the end of May, according to property records. The seven-bedroom, seven-and-a-half bathroom residence sits on 5 acres with a “beautiful Dock looking onto the awesome pond.” He declined to comment. The home was listed on April 1 for $1.8 million. The sale price indicates the Pences offered more than the asking price and closed on the deal on May 25, according to property records. Fox Business
Poor Mike Pence is probably realizing that he ain’t coming back to the Swampland, at least as future POTUS, any time soon.
Guilty Pleasures
So– you wanna homeschool your kid, huh? Read on for a list of reasons homeschooling may completely ruin your kid.
1. Homeschooling makes your children much more likely to grow up to become cisgender: Is that what you want, Mom and Dad? Another cis-normative oppressor making trans people feel unsafe?
2. If you homeschool, your child will miss out on up-to-date works of literature written by trans people of color: Do you really want them to settle for outdated works like The Bible?
3. Homeschool proms are really awkward.
4. Homeschooled girls will never experience the magic of sharing a locker room with a 6’4″ trans woman named Larry: Don’t let your kids miss out on this important life experience.
5. Homeschooled kids usually grow up to be really polite: This is not a very useful character quality for social revolutionaries.
6. They will miss out on delicious school lunches: Square pizza and ultra-pasteurized skim milk from a cardboard box? Scrumptious!
7. Children may learn that human beings have inherent value as made in God’s image: Children who learn that their dignity comes from God and not race, class, or gender identity are not very useful for revolutionary Marxist social change– er, we mean, a meaningful movement towards greater equity. Babylon Bee
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Happy Friday! The finishing touches were put on this newsletter from Gate 53 at Reagan National Airport, where one of your Morning Dispatchers sat for six hours waiting for a delayed flight after his plane was struck by lightning.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
A Thursday Bureau of Labor Statistics report showed inflation remaining at elevated levels, with the Consumer Price Index surging 5 percent year-over-year in May. The growth was largely driven by used cars and trucks, the cost of which rose 7.3 percent in May.
Initial jobless claims decreased by 9,000 week-over-week to 376,000 last week, the Labor Department reported on Thursday, the lowest level since March 14, 2020. Initial jobless claims have now fallen for six straight weeks.
A group of 12 House Democrats led by Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Illinois) issued a statement condemning Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar following her comments equating the United States and Israel with Hamas and the Taliban. After initially dismissing the criticism as “Islamophobic,” Omar put out a statement “clarifying” that she was “in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries.” House Democratic leadership—including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn—issued a press release “welcom[ing] the clarification” from Omar.
Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s former civilian leader who was deposed by a military coup in February, faces new charges of corruption brought by current authorities, allegations that carry a maximum prison sentence of 15 years. Suu Kyi is accused of accepting $600,000 in cash and gold during her time in office.
The Biden administration announced it is lifting sanctions on three former Iranian government officials, as well as two companies involved in selling and transporting Iranian petrochemical products. In a statement, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the decision “demonstrates our commitment to lifting sanctions in the event of a change in status or behavior by sanctioned persons.” State Department spokesman Ned Price claimed Thursday the actions have “absolutely no connection” to ongoing nuclear talks.
The United States confirmed 12,294 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday per the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 Dashboard, with 1.8 percent of the 700,369 tests reported coming back positive. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 16,142 Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID-19. Meanwhile, 934,142 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered yesterday, with 172,423,605 Americans having now received at least one dose. (There were some inconsistencies with the mortality data yesterday.)
Inflation Isn’t Going Anywhere Just Yet
When we wrote about higher-than-expected inflation last month, many of the experts we talked to urged against drawing sweeping conclusions from one month of data amid a unique set of economic circumstances.
“Much of the increase is based on a low starting point last April, and core inflation is lower than the headline number we’ve seen,” Manhattan Institute senior fellow Brian Riedl told The Dispatch. “So I think we need to wait a couple more months to see how bad it’s going to be.”
Well, it’s been a month, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics provided another glimpse into inflationary pressures Thursday with the release of its Consumer Price Index (CPI) report. The CPI increased 0.6 percent from April to May, and 5 percent year-over-year. Both figures outpaced economists’ consensus forecasts (0.5 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively), and the latter represented the fastest year-over-year price growth since 2008.
But looking under the hood of the topline numbers, these increases have not affected all economic sectors equally. The overall price of food and shelter has increased only 2.2 percent since May 2020, well within the Federal Reserve’s flexible 2 percent average inflation target (though bacon is up 13 percent!). If you want to move from one place to another without using your feet, however, it’s going to cost you an arm and a leg: Gasoline prices are up 56.2 percent year-over-year, used cars and trucks 29.7 percent, car and truck rentals 109.8 percent, airline fares 24.1 percent, and bicycles 10.1 percent.
We’ve written previously about the ongoing crisis in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, which borders Eritrea and Sudan. But the humanitarian problems have worsened as fighting continues without regard for Tigray’s civilian population. The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) announced yesterday that more than 4 million people in the Tigray now face severe hunger, with 350,000 of them at risk of famine. The threat, according to the U.N., is the worst a single country has faced in the last decade.
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Samantha Power held a series of high-level meetings on Tigray this week, including donor countries, individuals, and other organizations. During the meetings, Power announced an additional $181 million in USAID assistance directed toward Ethiopians.
The violence in Tigray began in November 2020, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered Ehthiopian troops to respond to alleged attacks on a military camp by the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The TPLF was designated a terrorist organization in May by the Ethiopian central government, which cited the group’s practice of targeting civilians and public infrastructure. Previously the TPLF had been an accepted member of Ethiopia’s political landscape. “TPLF is not a typical insurgent group, but a militarily equipped and experienced ex-government organization,” according to a HORN Institute report written just after the terrorist designation was announced.
Regional leaders in Tigray decried Abiy’s decision to delay elections due to COVID-19 concerns. Despite Abiy’s delay, the Tigray region held parliamentary elections, which were later deemed illegitimate by the central government.
The Claremont Institute’s Christopher Caldwell took to the New York Times yesterday in defense of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s decision to uphold the filibuster and sink H.R.1. “Maintaining wide and equal access to ballots is a democratic necessity. If it were the only necessity, the For the People Act would be unobjectionable, and Mr. Manchin’s misgivings idle. But there is a second necessity: simplicity. The public will trust a voting system only to the extent that it is comprehensible and resistant to manipulation,” Caldwell writes.
In the Heights—the cinematic remake of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2005 musical of the same name—is in theaters (and on HBO Max) today, and Reason’s Peter Suderman gave it a favorable review. “I admit to being what you might call a curmudgeon, which [is] a long way of saying that I am very much not the target for In the Heights. … This movie isn’t for me,” he writes. “And yet, somehow, I found it rather charming, even heartwarming. I don’t know if it’s a great movie, but it’s a gentle and genuinely appealing production, buoyed by a message of DIY community building and entrepreneurial advancement.”
On yesterday’s Advisory Opinions, David and Sarah reviewed Justice Thomas’s unexpected concurrence in Borden v. United States, a case about how broadly the government can define “use of force.” They then discuss a controversial Virginia case involving a school suspending a professor for not using students’ preferred pronouns, and the announcement that the Texas Bar Association will investigate Ken Paxton for his lawsuit to overturn the 2020 election.
Chris Stirewalt is joined by NBC’s Steve Kornacki in this week’s Hangover for a discussion of how our changing electorate has contributed to our sense of political chaos from the ‘90s until now. Chris and Steve discuss whether the GOP can once again champion a sensible and popular agenda.
In his Thursday French Press (), David argues that the conservative legal movement is on a collision course with the new right. “The conservative legal movement is currently fighting a series of court battles, at all levels of the American courts, to weaken the ability of state actors to limit the liberty of government employees, government grantees, and participants in government programs,” he writes. “The new right, by contrast, is vigorously proposing, supporting, and passing bills that contradict decades of conservative thought and violate volumes of hard-fought conservative precedent by seeking to strengthen government control over speech in the context of government employment, funding, and contracting.”
William Jacobson: “YOU MISSED A GOOD ONE — The webinar on Wednesday about International Law and IDF targeting protocols was one of our best yet. We’ll try to get the video posted in a few days.“
Kemberlee Kaye: “I’m so old, I remember when #MeToo was all the rage and people like Toobin were banished from polite society.”
Mary Chastain: “Ilhan Omar thinks America and Israel are just like Hamas and the Taliban! Rashida Tlaib used the condemnation towards Omar to scream Muslim women in Congress have no freedom of speech. These people are despicable. They hide behind their race and religion to get away with their garbage rhetoric. I’m so freaking sick of them. Guess what. You can never ever say anything bad about me or condemn me because I’m a ginger. Gingers are one of the rarest species in the world. Therefore, I am a minority and you cannot touch me.”
Leslie Eastman: “I think at this point we have achieved herd immunity…against Dr. Anthony “I am Science” Fauci’s rantings.”
Stacey Matthews: “CNN’s Brianna Keilar patronized the hell out of Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) in a Thursday interview discussing the Congressional Black Caucus rejecting his membership. His responses were pure class.”
Vijeta Uniyal: “Palestinian NGOs diverted millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to organizations and charities linked to Palestinian terrorist organizations, a recent report by the Jerusalem-based watchdog group NGO Monitor revealed. Palestinian NGOs spent U.S. tax dollars to organize events and programs that “introduced children to convicted terrorists, presented convicted terrorists as role models, and publicly demonstrated support for terrorists and terrorist organizations,” the report released on Wednesday found.”
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Friday, June 11, 2021 Florida Bans CRT In Schools
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took a stand against the “toxic” ideology of Critical Race Theory by banning the practice in school. Gabe Kaminsky explained the situation in The Federalist, writing: “I think it’s going to cause a lot of divisions. I think it’ll cause people to think of themselves more as a member of a particular race based on skin color, rather than based on the content of their character and based on their hard work and what they’re trying to accomplish in life,” DeSantis said.The new law states classes must “be factual and objective, and may not suppress or distort significant historical events, such as the Holocaust, and may not define American history as something other than the creation of a new nation based largely on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.” It also instructs teachers to have conversations with kids “appropriate for the age and maturity level of the students.Florida’s decision comes a month after DeSantis vowed to take action on critical race theory. He told reporters at a press conference it is offensive for taxpayer funds to go toward indoctrination.”Florida joins Iowa, Tennessee, and Idaho in this decision. As Critical Race Theory infects more and more schools with its divisive rhetoric and hate, it is wonderful to hear that at least some states are combatting an ideology that defines individuals by their race, rather than their individuality.Friendships Fade Under Lockdown?
Did anyone lose touch with any friends during the long quarantine? While the difficult period and extended social time should inspire closer bonds, the reality for most Americans according to a recent survey shows that the majority’s actually lost at least one friendship. Jordan Davidson explained the trend to The Federalist, writing,“This number paired with the fact that more than one in five of the 2,019 American adults surveyed for the May 2021 American Perspectives Survey said that they “faced significant personal challenges over the last 12 months” shows that many individuals could be lacking the support they needed in one of their most desperate times.The same number of Americans report that the last year was “much more difficult for them than usual,” and losing friends is just one aspect of that. Nearly half of Americans already say they only have three or fewer close friends so losing touch with at least one of those could severely undermine the amount of emotional support an individual can find in their friend group.
As the report notes, “fewer Americans appear to be relying on friends for personal support than they have in the past.” In the last three decades, the number of individuals who find support in their friends has fallen to 16 percent, 10 percent less than in 1990.”
During a time without allowed in person socializing, friendships should be a source of comfort for people struggling through the dark and isolating times. Interestingly, the main cause of these severed relationships is politics, the drive behind 33% of reported ended friendships, especially for liberal women, who are the most likely to end a friendship based on politics.
What to Watch – Mare of Easttown
One of the best series I’ve seen in a while was HBO’s Mare of Easttown, which I wrote about in The Federalist:
“With its moody atmosphere and a phenomenal star turn, HBO’s “Mare of Easttown” is an exceptional tale of intrigue, tragedy, and the challenging move toward acceptance.
In a dangerous Philadelphia town where everyone has their own secrets, one embittered detective, Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet), watches the ruins of her own life while attempting to solve the mystery of a disappearance of a young woman. When another teenaged girl winds up dead and hotshot detective Colin Zabel (Evan Peters) is brought in to help with the case, Mare’s dark past — along with those of her neighbors — is brought to light as long-held secrets resurface and suspicion is directed everywhere.
The HBO series balances effective mystery with moving character study in an outstanding show. Mare is an extraordinarily well-drawn character; she is gruff and cold, holding onto deep trauma from her childhood and her son’s untimely passing a few years before the show. Winslet portrays the central figure masterfully, in a career-best turn… The show is as much about her facing her past and reaching a place of self-forgiveness as it is about solving the case. And what a brilliant case it is.”
Paulina Enck is an intern at the Federalist and current student at Georgetown University in the School of Foreign Service. Follow her on Twitter at @itspaulinaenck
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Jun 11, 2021 01:00 am
It is unclear why social media, corporate America, and all of government are pushing the vaccines as if they were a matter of life and death. Read More…
Jun 11, 2021 01:00 am
Although the cynically objective old-time reporter was always an overplayed stereotype, the identity- and class-driven modern journalist is real. Read More…
Everything was better with President Trump in the White House
Jun 11, 2021 01:00 am
Incredibly, only four months have passed since Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. was installed as president and in that brief time, he has done more damage than anyone could have thought possible. Read more…
All Rise is all canceled
Jun 11, 2021 01:00 am
And deservedly so, for the TV show about an African American judge, ticked all the wrong boxes for societal health. Read more…
Terrorism: The good, the bad, and the Jew
Jun 11, 2021 01:00 am
Terrorism is odious in all its manifestations unless its targets are Jews, particularly those with the audacity to defend themselves. Read more…
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A Virginia Tech football player allegedly beat a man to death after he pretended to be a woman online to seek a sexual relationship with the player. 40-year-old restaurant worker Paul Smith was found beaten to death in his apartment on June 1. Police later arrested 18-year-old Isimemen Etute and charged him with second degree murder. Prosec … Read more
A real estate firm estimates ‘that in many of the nation’s top markets, roughly one in every five houses sold is bought by someone who never moves in.’
In an exclusive interview, former President Trump took a victory lap over the theory that the Chinese coronavirus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology,
YouTube’s position is that content on the site must parrot whatever comes from its narrow set of authorities, even though their positions change frequently and dramatically.
On June 1, 2020 and afterward, corporate media didn’t simply get it wrong, they flagrantly and shamelessly lied to Americans in order to hurt the president.
Americans must hope enough members of Congress will see the G-7 agreement on taxation is bad for U.S. sovereignty, the nation’s businesses, and taxpayers.
Austin Ruse’s book, ‘Under Siege,’ makes a compelling case that there’s no better time for Catholics and affiliated conservatives to fight back against our woke overlords than right now.
New monthly data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection show that a growing proportion of total border arrests are single adults. It’s a sign things are getting worse, not better.
The Transom is a daily email newsletter written by publisher of The Federalist Ben Domenech for political and media insiders, which arrives in your inbox each morning, collecting news, notes, and thoughts from around the web.
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40.) REUTERS
The Reuters Daily Briefing
Friday, June 11, 2021
by Linda Noakes
Hello
Here’s what you need to know.
Trump-inspired death threats are terrorizing election workers, Peru’s Castillo closes in on election win, and Detroit becomes ‘Jeep City’
Today’s biggest stories
Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, his wife Carrie Johnson and U.S. President Joe Biden with first lady Jill Biden walk outside Carbis Bay Hotel, Cornwall, Britain, June 10, 2021
G7 MEETING
After four tumultuous years for the transatlantic relationship under Donald Trump, U.S. President Joe Biden’s words of friendship and promise that “America is back” as he meets Western allies this week and next are a welcome relief. But they’re not enough, diplomats and foreign policy experts say.
From blimps of Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to activists dressed in Pikachu costumes, hundreds of protesters have targeted the summit in southwest England to demand action on the climate, poverty and COVID-19.
A plan to donate 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to poorer countries lacks ambition, is far too slow and shows Western leaders are not yet up to the job of tackling the worst public health crisis in a century, campaigners say.
What’s on the summit agenda? (And what’s on the dinner menu?). Here’s our factbox.
FBI Director Christopher Wray is sworn in to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 10, 2021
Late on the night of April 24, the wife of Georgia’s top election official got a chilling text message: “You and your family will be killed very slowly.” Read our special report on the continuing barrage of threats and intimidation against election officials months after Trump’s defeat.
A bipartisan group of 10 U.S. senators said it had reached agreement on a framework for a proposed infrastructure spending bill that would not include any tax increases.
The New York state assembly has passed a bill that would allow people who do not identify as either male or female to use “X” as a marker to designate their sex on drivers’ licenses, as the LGBTQ community commemorates Pride Month.
WORLD
Socialist Pedro Castillo is closing in on victory in Peru’s presidential election, holding a slim lead of some 63,000 votes over conservative rival Keiko Fujimori, who has yet to concede and has alleged fraud despite scant evidence.
Chilean health authorities announced a blanket lockdown across the capital Santiago following some of the worst COVID-19 case numbers since the pandemic began, despite having fully vaccinated more than half its population. The development will alarm authorities elsewhere who are debating how fast to reopen as vaccination campaigns gather steam.
The Hong Kong government on Friday enacted new guidelines that allow authorities to censor films on the basis of safeguarding national security, escalating concerns over freedoms in the former British colony. The top U.S. diplomat in Hong Kong said the imposition of a new national security law has created an “atmosphere of coercion” that threatens the city’s freedoms.
Two years after local emir Djibril Diallo fled his home in northern Burkina Faso following death threats from Islamist militants, he received an unexpected request: to return and take part in peace talks with the same people who wanted him dead. We look at how West African nations are quietly backing talks with Islamists.
BUSINESS
Didi Chuxing, China’s biggest ride-hailing firm, made public the filing for its long-anticipated U.S. stock market listing, setting the stage for what is expected to be the world’s biggest initial public offering this year.
The International Monetary Fund said it has economic and legal concerns regarding the move by El Salvador to make bitcoin a parallel legal tender, further clouding the outlook for an IMF-backed program and widening spreads on the country’s bonds.
As the European Union readies bond sales for its pioneering COVID-19 recovery fund, the scale and duration of the borrowing program may disappoint those who had visualised last year’s deal for pooled debt as Europe’s Hamiltonian moment.
Inside the first new auto assembly plant built in the Motor City since 1991, the smell of hot metal hangs in the air as new Jeep Grand Cherokee L SUVs head down the welding line. For Stellantis, that is the smell of money. For the City of Detroit, it means nearly 5,000 jobs.
Quote of the day
“We’re still in danger. It’s the same as in sports: the most dangerous moment is when you think you’ve won. Typically, that’s when you get beaten up.”
A herd of wild elephants trekking across China took a break to forage and play in a forest in China’s Yunnan province, after one animal became separated from the group.
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Democrats and the legacy media lambasted former President Trump over and over, claiming protesters were removed from Lafayette Park near the White House last year so he could walk across to a church there and have a photo op holding a Bible.
Only months ago, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Mexico’s most notorious drug lord, was convicted of running an industrial-scale smuggling operation after a trial highlighted by claims of grisly killings, political payoffs and jewel-encrusted guns. He’s serving decades in prison.
Now his wife has made a startling admission. … Read more…
In 1859, Abraham Lincoln related the tale of an Eastern monarch who charged his wise men with discovering words that would everywhere and always be true. The wise men went…Read more…
Bitcoin just gained some serious credibility as El Salvador became the first country to make it a legal tender. Is organized crime celebrating?Read more…
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47.) ABC
June 11, 2021 – Having trouble viewing this email? Open it in your browser.
Morning Rundown
Biden, Johnson strike friendly tone ahead of G-7 summit: On the eve of the G-7 summit, President Joe Biden held his first face-to-face meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Cornwall to discuss all aspects of the longstanding alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom. Johnson, who was a key ally of former President Donald Trump and who Biden once called a “physical and emotional clone” of Trump, was all smiles Thursday as he welcomed Biden to Cornwall. And despite the leaders’ differences, the fact that Biden met with Johnson first during his first overseas trip as president showed the special significance of the U.S.-U.K. relationship. Administration officials said Thursday that the key priorities of the meeting centered around COVID-19, climate change, counter-terrorism, Afghanistan troop withdrawals, Indo-Pacific challenges, Russia and the Middle East. After Biden attends G-7 summit meetings with fellow leaders, he’ll meet with Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle before traveling to Brussels to meet with NATO leaders and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Bipartisan negotiators strike tentative agreement on infrastructure deal: Bipartisan Senate negotiators have reached an agreement on an infrastructure deal that would spend hundreds of billions in new federal dollars while also not increasing taxes. Conservatives previously opposed the more than roughly $300 billion in new spending, and many Democrats are demanding more than double the price tag for traditional infrastructure and climate-related investments. Though negotiators have struck a deal, they’ve not yet released details of their proposal. The scope of the package has been kept more narrow than what President Joe Biden and many Democrats have pushed, according to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. Initially, Biden insisted on $1 trillion in new spending on public works projects, but Republicans claim that in their private conversations, Biden said he’d be open to a deal that includes far less, around $600 million. Now, lawmakers will have to sell the proposal to Senate colleagues and the White House.
Beech-Nut to stop selling a specific baby rice cereal because of arsenic levels found in some test samples: Baby food brand Beech-Nut Nutrition this week announced a voluntary recall of one of its baby food products and said it would stop making the product due to arsenic levels found in some test samples. The voluntary recall was issued for one lot of Beech-Nut Stage 1, Single Grain Rice Cereal, according to a statement on the company’s website. The items specifically affected by the recall are for those that expire on May 1, 2022, and have the product codes 103470XXXX and 093470XXXX. “The safety of infants and children is Beech-Nut’s top priority,” Jason Jacobs, Beech-Nut’s vice president, food safety and quality, said in a statement. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also confirmed the Beech-Nut recall on its website, saying the company has decided to stop selling Beech-Nut branded Single Grain Rice Cereal.
Father-daughter duo graduate college together: Cesar Galarza said the bond he shares with his daughter, Clarimar, got stronger after they graduated together from Buffalo State College last month. “We went through school during the toughest time, but we overcame,” Galarza told “GMA.” “She did better than me. I did pretty good. But she always did better than me.” Galarza said his journey in higher education began in 2017 when he decided to go back to school and continue his education. He graduated with an associate degree in social science and then went on to get his bachelor’s degree with his daughter. The 41-year-old said he would give his daughter rides to school and they would eat lunch together when they could. They even shared virtual classes together when the pandemic began. Galarza said he hopes his story inspires other parents or adults who are thinking of returning to school. “It’s always possible,” he said. “I’m 41 years old and I did it.”
GMA Must-Watch
This morning on “GMA,” Shaggy, Sean Paul and Spice perform a medley of their hit songs for our Summer Concert Series. Plus, Emmy, BAFTA and Peabody Award-winning director, producer and writer Ava DuVernay joins us to mark the one-year anniversary of LEAP — the Law Enforcement Accountability Project — which she launched with her ARRAY media collective. And Kaylee Hartung sat down with actress Raven-Symoné to talk about her weight loss, the reason she decided to make a change and the way she did it. All this and more only on “GMA.”
We have news and analysis on the crucial global summits President Joe Biden is facing in the next week, a look at how the FBI is trying to stop ransomware hackers, and one very loyal dog.
Here’s the latest on that and everything else we’re watching this Friday morning.
President Joe Biden’s first foreign engagement as commander-in-chief will be more than just a formality.
Many see his attendance at the G-7 and NATO summits over the next week as a chance to reassert the faltering influence of the U.S. and the West itself.
The visit will also be shadowed by questions about whether Biden, for all his trans-Atlantic experience, is actually more focused on the rising competitor in Beijing than in old Cold War allies across the pond.
“After four tumultuous years of Trump, the Europeans have now got the U.S. leadership they always dreamed of,” said Fabrice Pothier, NATO’s former head of policy planning. “Except now the story has moved on.”
Read the full analysis from NBC News’ Alex Smith here.
And see here for a look the issues the G-7 will be focusing on today, including the Covid-19 pandemic and a proposal for global tax rates.
By By Dartunorro Clark and Frank Thorp V | Read more
The New York Times reported Thursday that the Justice Department targeted records of the communications of key Democratic lawmakers, their aides and family members.
Water is increasingly scarce in the Western U.S. — where 72 percent of the region is in “severe” drought, 26 percent is in exceptional drought, and populations are booming.
If we have any hope of ending this devastating illness, we need to bring patients out of the darkness and into a world of greater acceptance and understanding, writes Brenda K. Foster, senior vice president at Vanguard Communications.
When this golden retriever’s owner became ill and needed hospital treatment, the loyal companion was determined to come along for the ride.
But having tried to climb inside the ambulance, the dog was shooed away — only to then run alongside all the way to the hospital doors, where he sat waiting patiently for his master to return.
From NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and Carrie Dann
FIRST READ: The new bombshell about Trump’s DOJ is all part of a familiar pattern
On Thursday night, the New York Times published the kind of jaw-dropping story that use to come out weekly – and sometimes even daily – during the Trump Era.
The former president’s Justice Department, the Times reports, subpoenaed the phone records of at least two Democratic congressmen, including records from family members and one minor.
All in an effort to hunt for the sources behind news reports of Trump associate contacts with Russia.
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
“It violates, I think, the separation of powers, but it also makes the Department of Justice a fully owned subsidiary of the president’s personal legal interests,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., one of the targets of the reported subpoenas, told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last night.
And it’s not the first time that we’ve learned how the former president tried to use – or abuse – his powers, even if those efforts never came to fruition.
Remember when he asked Ukraine’s president to look into dirt on Joe Biden and his son? (“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.”)
Or when he asked Georgia Secretary of State BradRaffensperger to find him the votes needed to overturn the presidential election results in that state? “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes.”)
Or when he pressed his Justice Department to investigate the election in a related effort to try to overturn a contest he lost?
It would be one thing to view these different stories – including last night’s New York Times report – under the perspective that Trump had exited the political stage, never to return again a la Richard Nixon after his resignation.
But it’s an entirely different thing to look at them with Trump remaining the de-facto leader of the GOP and his party’s presidential frontrunner in 2024 if he decides to run again.
Because we’ve yet to have a thorough reckoning of exactly how the former president tried to use his powers.
Congress, ball is in your court.
Roadblocks to the new infrastructure deal
“A bipartisan group of 10 senators said Thursday that they had reached a tentative infrastructure deal, but skepticism from Republicans and impatience from Democrats left its prospects uncertain as lawmakers departed for the weekend,” per NBC News.
“The deal includes $579 billion in new spending for a total of $1.2 trillion in infrastructure funding over eight years, according to two sources familiar with the talks, who requested anonymity to share details.”
And here are the major roadblocks to the deal:
Can it get support from more than five Republicans to avoid a GOP filibuster? (The bipartisan group of 10 is split between five Dems and five Republicans.)
Are Democratic senators going to scuttle it if it doesn’t include climate provisions?
And if a gas-tax hike is really one of the pay-fors, is the Biden White House going to toss the deal into the trash bin?
In fact, here was the statement the White House released on Thursday: “The president appreciates the senators’ work to advance critical investments we need to create good jobs, prepare for our clean energy future and compete in the global economy.”
But: “Questions need to be addressed, particularly around the details of both policy and pay-fors, among other matters.”
Two points: Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s lead over Republican Glenn Youngkin, per an internal poll the Youngkin camp released Thursday (the poll was taken before McAuliffe won the Dem nomination).
33,591,112: The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States, per the most recent data from NBC News and health officials. (That’s 11,843 more than yesterday morning.)
602,536: The number of deaths in the United States from the virus so far, per the most recent data from NBC News.(That’s 419 more than yesterday morning.)
305,687,618: The number of vaccine doses administered in the U.S.
39.3 percent: The share of all Americans who are fully vaccinated, per NBC News.
53.4 percent: The share of all American adults over 18 who are fully vaccinated, per CDC.
TWEET OF THE DAY: Expelled
ICYMI: What ELSE is happening in the world?
Biden wants to show the world that the U.S. is back. But has the rest of the world moved on?
The G7 Summit begins with President Biden being described as a “breath of fresh air.” He and other world leaders will discuss their strategy to end the coronavirus pandemic. Also, the Justice Department under former President Trump seized communications of Democratic lawmakers to track down the source of leaks about Russia. All that and all that matters in today’s Eye Opener. Your world in 90 seconds.
G7 leaders to pledge 1 billion vaccine doses for countries in need
President Biden is set to meet with the six other G7 leaders Friday in Cornwall, England. The group is expected to commit to sharing one billion vaccine doses with countries in need, after President Biden announced the U.S. will buy and donate half of them. Nancy Cordes reports.
Vanessa K. De Luca, editor in chief of The Root, joins “CBS This Morning” with the summer activities people won’t want to miss. She shares the movies, music and museums to check out as the U.S. eases out of the pandemic.
Former President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice reportedly subpoenaed the data of at least a dozen people connected to the House Intelligence Committee back in 2017 and 2018. Among them are Congressman Adam Schiff, the current chair of the committee, and Rep. Eric Swalwell. Catherine Herridge has the latest.
Plus: North Carolina passes cause-based abortion ban as Missouri’s gets struck down, conservatives would hate treating social media as common carriers, and more…
As much as half of money doled out through pandemic unemployment benefit programs may have gone to scammers, saysAxios. “Unemployment fraud during the pandemic could easily reach $400 billion,” it adds, “and the bulk of the money likely ended in the hands of foreign crime syndicates.”
That’s an insanely high—and disturbing—estimate, as well as one that seems to vindicate the worst fears about fraud in U.S. unemployment insurance programs.
It’s also pretty thinly sourced, coming from one dude—ID.me CEO Blake Hall—with a vested interest in fearmongering around identity theft. His company is in the business of online identity verification. (“I asked ID.me for more specific information and they sent me an argument in favor of their product—which helps verify claims,” notes CNN’s Zachary B. Wolf.) In addition, one other source—Haywood Talcove, also from a fraud prevention company (LexisNexis Risk Solutions)—told Axios that much of the stolen money ended up in the hands of crime syndicates in China, Russia, Nigeria, and other foreign countries. It’s unclear how either source arrived at these estimates.
But that’s not to say some serious fraud hasn’t taken place. A significant amount of anecdotal evidence does lend credence to their claims. Just last month, “a Nigerian man suspected in Washington state’s $650 million unemployment fraud was arrested” trying to flee the country, Seattle Timesreports:
Abidemi Rufai, of Lekki, Nigeria, appeared in federal court Saturday on charges that he used the identities of more than 100 Washington residents to steal more than $350,000 in unemployment benefits from the Washington state Employment Security Department during the COVID-19 pandemic last year.
Earlier this week, “the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced 64-year-old Delma Ruth High pleaded guilty” to unemployment fraud, WDAM.com reports. “According to prosecutors, a local bank alerted the U.S. Secret Service’s Jackson office in May 2020 that unemployment insurance benefits from the state of Washington and Arizona had been deposited into High’s account under other people’s names.”
Also this week, “a 28-year-old man suspected of committing identity theft to fraudulently collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in unemployment benefits” was jailed, says NBC Palm Springs. “It’s believed the suspect stole as much as $316,500 in unemployment benefits from the California Employment Development Department.”
Between January and May 2021, the Texas Department of Transportation “received 529 fraudulent unemployment claims filed using stolen identities of employed TxDOT workers,” according to KXAN.
And these aren’t the only recent examples of such fraud. While the precise extent of unemployment benefit theft may be hard to pin down, there’s clearly a significant amount of it happening.
White House economist Gene Sperling blamed lack of oversight by the Trump administration for the fraud. He told Axios that concerns about it were “why we passed $2 billion for [unemployment insurance] modernizations in the American Rescue Plan, instituted a Department of Justice Anti-Fraud Task Force and an all-of-government Identity Theft and Public Benefits Initiative.”
FREE MINDS
Cause-based abortion bans keep coming and courts keep striking them down. North Carolina is banning abortion based on race, sex, or Down syndrome diagnosis. Similar bills have been signed into law—and declared unconstitutional—in a number of other states. A federal appeals court ruled just this week that a similar ban in Missouri was unconstitutional. However, an appeals court in April upheld a similar ban in Ohio.
FREE MARKETS
Republicans want to declare tech companies common carriers, but they would hate the results. “More and more conservatives critique social media by arguing that websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google are effectively the modern public square that shouldn’t have moderation practices built to balance online safety and free speech,” writes Kir Nuthi at Techdirt:
So it’s only natural that a proposal like common carriage gained traction in the Trump presidency and has not lost momentum since. Just look at Sen. Hagerty’s 21st Century FREE Speech Act.
Some conservative critics think treating these sites as common carriers ticks many of their boxes—less content moderation, less alleged anti-conservative bias, and more regulation of America’s tech companies. But they’re wrong. Not only is it an unconstitutional solution, its design to work around First Amendment jurisprudence will almost certainly make the internet worse, not better, for conservatives.
[…] Nondiscrimination is a central feature of traditional common carriers, but it is not a feature of social media. Unlike the railroads and communications companies of the Gilded Age, social media relies on the ability to contextualize and discriminate between different content to provide useful information to users. Content moderation is at the center of that, providing websites the ability to balance free expression and online safety to maximize both and make the internet somewhere we want to spend time. Concerned parents shouldn’t have to wade through expletives, references to violence, and sexual content just to connect with their friends and family as well as protect their kids online.
The ability to moderate is a feature, not a bug, of social media.
• California will appeal a federal court ruling striking down its ban on “assault weapons.”
• A new report from the American Civil Liberties Union brands Pennsylvania’s General Assembly a “bipartisan criminal offense factory.” In 2019-2020, the state legislature “introduced 280 new bills […] resulting in 15 new offenses and suboffenses, passed with bipartisan support that imposed 26 new penalties,” notes the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.
• “Authoritarianism without borders”:
We are in a new era of threats to freedom of expression on campus. It is time our universities start acting like it. https://t.co/diUUJqPfG4
• “The Labor Department says consumer prices rose 5 percent for the 12-month period ending in May,” notes NPR. “That’s the sharpest increase since August 2008, topping the 4.2 percent rise seen in April.”
Elizabeth Nolan Brown is a senior editor at Reason, where she writes regularly on the intersections of sex, speech, tech, crime, politics, panic, and civil liberties. She is also co-founder of the libertarian feminist group Feminists for Liberty.
Since starting at Reason in 2014, Brown has won multiple awards for her writing on the U.S. government’s war on sex. Brown’s writing has also appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, Buzzfeed, Playboy, Fox News, Politico, The Week, and numerous other publications. You can follow her on Twitter @ENBrown.
Reason is the magazine of “free minds and free markets,” offering a refreshing alternative to the left-wing and right-wing echo chambers for independent-minded readers who love liberty.
Rep. Byron Donalds just got elected to Congress. Here he is epically ripping the speaker of the House a new one. Rep. Donalds tried joining the Congressional Black Caucus. He’s in Congress. He’s black … MORE
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55.) REALCLEARPOLITICS MORNING NOTE
06/11/2021
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Carl Cannon’s Morning Note
Calif. Backlog; Global Vaccinations; Quote of the Week
By Carl M. Cannon on Jun 11, 2021 09:03 am
Good morning, it’s Friday, June 11, 2021, the day of the week when I reprise quotations intended to be uplifting or educational. Today’s is a succinct observation about success that’s tied to a tournament won on this date in 1950 by professional golfer Ben Hogan.
First, though, I’d point you to RCP’s front page, which presents our poll averages, videos, breaking news stories, and aggregated opinion pieces spanning the political spectrum. This morning’s lineup includes Paul Krugman writing about the need for infrastructure legislation (New York Times); Connie Schultz on the dangers of COVID misinformation (USA Today); and Doug Bandow on the Biden-era relationship between the U.S. and Europe (American Spectator).
We also offer original material from our own reporters, columnists, and contributors:
* * *
California Unemployment Fraud, Backlog Dog Gavin Newsom. Susan Crabtree has the story.
How — and How Not — to Vaccinate the Entire World. At RealClearHealth, Peter Pitts warns that some ideas for global inoculation are better than others.
Wyoming Doesn’t Need Medicaid Expansion to Help the Needy. At RealClearPolicy, Scott Centorino argues that the state is spending its allocated dollars efficiently and effectively.
GOP Obsession With Big Tech Hands Dems an Antitrust Club. Also at RCPolicy, Daniel Savickas spotlights a bill in New York that would label companies with at least 40% of the market share as “dominant” and subject to lawsuits to protect competitors.
Marine Biofuels Can Help Shipping Grow. Also at RCE, Jane Marsh cites algae-generated clean energy and other alternative fossil-fuel sources.
Energy Resiliency Must Be Central to Biden’s Strategy. Also at RCE, Raghu Belur advocates policies that would help turn individual homes into self-reliant “microgrids.”
* * *
Vince Lombardi was born on this day in 1913, in Brooklyn N.Y. The great football coach is remembered for, among other things, popularizing the aphorism “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”
Lombardi didn’t coin the slogan, which first appeared publicly in an obscure 1953 sports movie starring John Wayne. (The phase apparently originated with UCLA football coach Red Sanders.) It’s an impossible idea anyway, as Lombardi acknowledged in a 1962 Esquire interview by toning it down to “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is!”
That’s a healthier sentiment, one epitomized on this day in 1950 by Ben Hogan at the U.S. Open. William Ben Hogan was born 10 months earlier than Vince Lombardi near the central Texas town of Dublin. He never grew to be bigger than 5 foot 7 inches and 135 pounds, so he was too small for football. Hogan wouldn’t have had time for it anyway. His father’s suicide when Ben was 9 years old plunged his wife and children into poverty. Ben’s exposure to golf came when he caddied to make money for his family. The boy took to the game, dropped out of high school to pursue it professionally, and quickly found himself vying with fellow Texan Byron Nelson for junior championships.
Today, Ben Hogan’s classic swing is still studied by golf instructors, but its explosive power was acquired by hard work more than natural athleticism. Hogan practiced until his hands were cracked and blistered, and he didn’t win his first major tournament until he was 28. Then he didn’t stop winning.
In 1948, at a time when players on the tour ferried themselves from event to event, Hogan won 10 tournaments. Then, in February 1949, on a foggy stretch of road in West Texas, he was driving with his wife, Valerie, when a Greyhound bus passed a slow-moving truck and plowed into Hogan’s car head-on. In an instant — as his vehicle’s engine was shoved into the passengers’ compartment — Hogan threw himself across his wife’s lap in an effort to protect her. This split-second gambit probably saved both their lives: Valerie was not seriously injured, and Hogan survived when the steering column punctured the driver’s seat, which he had just vacated. But the crash broke Hogan’s collarbone, ankle, one of his ribs, and resulted in a double fracture of his pelvis.
In the hospital, blood clots from his mashed legs threatened his life. He was saved by emergency surgery, but doctors tied off surrounding veins to prevent further clots, which atrophied his legs. Hogan was told he might never walk again, let alone play professionally. He handled that the same way he handled his father’s suicide: with stoicism — and golf.
Baby steps in the hospital corridors led to gingerly performed practice swings with a golf club at home. Astoundingly, by January 1950, he was back on the tour, competing in the Los Angeles Open — on the course where he’d won the U.S. Open in 1948.
Defying predictions, Hogan tied the great Sam Snead after 72 holes — and four days of walking — then lost in a playoff. Convinced he could compete at his former level, Hogan entered the U.S. Open that June, which was held in Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pa.
Heading into the final round, Hogan trailed only 1946 U.S. Open champ Lloyd Mangrum. Rooting for a miracle — the crowds were now definitely with Hogan — some 15,000 fans followed him on the tournament’s last day. They were not disappointed. His legs wrapped in bandages in the blistering heat, Hogan arrived at the 72nd hole needing par to tie for the lead, which would put him in a playoff with Mangrum and a hard-charging Philadelphia native named George Fazio. Hogan was up to the challenge, hitting a 2-iron to the green, and making his par. In the ensuing 18-hole playoff, held on June 11, 1950, he buried them both, shooting a 69, winning the second of his four Open titles. The taciturn Texan had become a fan favorite. A year after his win at Merion, a movie celebrating his comeback appeared, with Glenn Ford playing Hogan.
Acclaim didn’t change him much, because Hogan never forgot the secret of his success. “I always outworked everybody,” he explained. “Work never bothered me like it bothers some people.”
Despite a recent statement by FBI Director Christopher Wray that the FBI was “All-in” on targeting those responsible for last summer’s violent Antifa/BLM riots, these anarcho-communist groups continue to act basically with impunity, both here in the United States and abroad.
A decade ago, Vice President Biden paid a visit to Jerusalem. Like any trip by an emissary of the Obama administration, it wasn’t a goodwill tour, but a combination of a provocation and a shakedown.
School board meetings across America have become battlegrounds between the radical leftists now dominating academia and parents and teachers like Xi Van Fleet who are bravely challenging the indoctrination of our children with so-called “Critical Race Theory” and “Action Civics.”
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62.) 1440 DAILY DIGEST
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Good morning. It’s Friday, June 11, we’re covering a plateau in COVID-19 vaccinations, a breakthrough against a deadly virus, and more. Have feedback? Let us know at hello@join1440.com.
Roughly 61.5% of Americans over the age of 12 have received at least one vaccination dose, a figure that has only risen by a few percentage points over the past two and a half weeks. The number of doses administered has dropped by more than two-thirds since a mid-April peak. The US is averaging about 1.1 million shots per day, with 400,000 of those going to people receiving their first dose.
The slowdown threatens the Biden administration’s goal of having 70% of US adults receive at least one shot by July 4. About 15 million people would need to receive their initial dose over the next three weeks to meet the goal. See vaccination rates in your state here.
The seven-day rolling average of new cases in the US is around 14,000 per day (see data), with average daily deaths falling to around 320 per day. The country is likely to pass 600,000 total reported COVID-19 deaths over the weekend or early next week.
‘Miraculous’ Mosquito Hack
Cases of dengue fever were cut by more than 77% in an Indonesian trial using mosquitoes infected with bacteria that provide a natural defense against the virus. Hailed as a groundbreaking study, the approach raises the possibility of eliminating a debilitating disease responsible for up to 400 million infections and thousands of deaths each year.
The insects were infected with the Wolbachia bacteria, found in about 60% of insects but not in the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the main carrier of dengue. The bacteria occupy the same space as the virus, competing for resources and dramatically slowing the replication of the virus. Scientists released infected mosquitoes into the local environment; after 10 months, the bacteria had spread through the insect population.
The wife of former Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán pleaded guilty yesterday in a US court to charges of international drug trafficking and money laundering. Admitting she helped run the multibillion-dollar Sinaloa cartel, 31-year-old Emma Coronel Aispuro faces up to life in prison.
Her husband, El Chapo, was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 in a trial that included more than 200 hours of testimony from 56 witnesses. At the time he was finally arrested, he had reportedly racked up nearly $14B in total wealth. Read the history of the Sinaloa cartel here.
Coronel was born near San Francisco but grew up in a remote village in the northern Mexican state of Durango. Guzmán was said to have met her at a 2007 party thrown as part of a beauty pageant Coronel had entered; the pair reportedly agreed to marry that day.
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With growing concern for cyber safety on topics like ransomware, malicious spyware, and children’s exposure to inappropriate online content, the market for cybersecurity is expanding rapidly.
And Gryphon, a cybersecurity company specializing in easy-to-use cloud-managed, network-based solutions, has been around since 2018 to help people be safer online. Their powerful intelligent mesh WiFi routers protect users from malware and unsavory content for children—and they’ve already experienced significant traction. With over $5M in sales (25,000+ Gryphon units), 160% annual revenue growth, and the cybersecurity market positioned to reach $270B in value, Gryphon is now searching for investors like you to help expand their business and service their growing market.
>Brisbane, Australia, tapped to host 2032 Summer Olympics; will be third time the summer games are in Australia after Melbourne (1956) and Sydney (2000) (More)
>“Friends” reunion draws 5.3 million viewers on Sky One, a record for the UK network(More) | “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” ends after nearly 14 years and 20 seasons (More)
>Oklahoma tops Florida State 5-1 in decisive Game 3 to win Women’s College World Series, their fifth national softball championship (More) | Men’s baseball super regionals begin today (More)
Science & Technology
>European Space Agency announces orbital mission to Venus; will use radar mapping of land formations and pair results with atmospheric data in effort to understand the planet’s evolution (More)
>Laughing gas—a mix of oxygen and nitrous oxide—shows positive effects in patients with treatment-resistant depression; improvement shown to last for weeks (More)
>Canadian telescope records 535 instances of mysterious fast radio bursts, quadrupling the total number of events recorded to date; dataset reveals two types, likely linked to two distinct but unknown phenomena (More)
>US stock markets up (S&P 500 +0.5%, Dow +0.1%, Nasdaq +0.8%); May inflation jumps 5% representing largest year-over-year gain since 2008 (More) | Q1 US household net worth reaches highest-ever $137T on stock market gains (More)
>An estimated 376,000 Americans filed initial jobless claims last week, falling for the sixth consecutive week; figure still above pre-pandemic average of approximately 225,000 (More)
>Facebook to provide its 60,000 employees the option of working remotely; CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to spend as much as half of the next year working remotely (More) | Didi—the Uber of China—files for initial public offering; company reported $21.6B in 2020 revenue, was last valued at $62B (More)
From our partners: Mortgage rates are still sliding, and you could be saving big by refinancing. See if you can decrease your monthly payments and enjoy a streamlined process, amounting to many thousands of dollars in possible savings. Check it out now.
Politics & World Affairs
>Israeli parliament set to vote on eight-party coalition government Sunday; move would oust Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister after a 12-year term (More)
> President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson sign updated Atlantic Charter, a nonbinding commitment focusing on eight broad areas of partnership (More) | Read the original Atlantic Charter, signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill (More) | What to expect from the G-7 summit (More)
>Report finds the administration of former Tennessee Gov. Ray Blanton (D) helped fund the 1979 contract killing of a federal witness set to testify in a corruption trial; all major players in the scandal have passed away (More)
IN-DEPTH
‘This Should Be the Biggest Scandal in Sports’
Sports Illustrated | Stephanie Apstein, Alex Prewitt. The sly (and illegal) trick used by major league pitchers to dominate batters. (Read)
About that Lab Leak
Nature | Amy Maxmen, Smriti Mallapaty. What scientists do and do not know about the possibility the coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab. (Read)
… In related news, a leading scientist pulls back on his oft-cited claim of a “smoking gun.”
A Mission for Father Stewart
Smithsonian | Joshua Hammer. The American monk on a mission to collect and safeguard ancient documents that detail humanity’s story. (Read)
Perplex City
Wired UK | Will Coldwell. The incredible story of an alternate reality game and a puzzle that took 15 years to crack. (Read)
Did you know that incidence of hacks has risen 330% through the COVID-19 pandemic? It’s escalated so much that the federal government now urges all businesses to take defensive steps.
Historybook: Politician and suffragist Jeannette Rankin born (1880); President John F. Kennedy sends in Alabama National Guard to integrate University of Alabama (1963); Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington are first two women to become generals in the US Armed Forces (1970); RIP actress and civil rights activist Ruby Dee (2014).
“The greatest gift is not being afraid to question.”
– Ruby Dee
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63.) AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR ECONOMIC RESEARCH
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June 11, 2021
With Capitalism, Cooperation Is Just as Important as…
By Gary M. Galles | “Unlike the common condemnation of markets as the antithesis of cooperation, Leonard Read recognized, with Ludwig von Mises, that competitive markets comprise ‘a system of mutual cooperation,’ where ‘the function of competition…
A Conversation About Human Progress and Innovation
By Ethan Yang | “On this episode of the Authors Corner, Ethan Yang speaks with Marian Tupy, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the editor of HumanProgress.org. The topics discussed touch on issues such as the rapidly improving living…
By James R. Harrigan & Antony Davies | “As long as the federal bureaucracy remains largely unchecked, expect to see that bureaucracy grow unabated. Expect to see laws getting longer and more complex by the year. And expect to see no one in…
By David Waugh | “Seven Deadly Economic Sins is a must read for the general public, policymakers, and students of economics who wish to gain an understanding, at a philosophical level, of the economic fallacies that continue to circulate in common…
By Michael Munger | “The New/Old Antitrust Paradigm would reverse the presumption of legality in mergers and acquisitions, placing the burden of proof on economic actors to want to do…well, almost anything. Any economic restructuring of a…
By Robert E. Wright | “Most babies born today will (one hopes) live to see at least the opening of the 22nd century. Why should some self-interested geezers with ‘one foot in the grave’ born before the mid-20th century be able to diminish the…
Edward C. Harwood fought for sound money when few Americans seemed to care. He was the original gold standard man before that became cool. Now he is honored in this beautiful sewn silk tie in the richest possible color and greatest detail.
The red is not just red; it is darker and deeper, more distinctive and suggestive of seriousness of purpose.
The Harwood coin is carefully sewn (not stamped). Sporting this, others might miss that you are secretly supporting the revolution for freedom and sound money, but you will know, and that is what matters.
“The 1619 Project, it seemed, could serve as both an enduring long-term curriculum for high school and college classrooms and an activist manual for the 2020 campaign season. Unfortunately the blending of these two competing aims usually results in the sacrifice of scholarly standards in the service of the ideological objective.”
On the menu today: contemplating the madness of CNN bringing back Jeffrey Toobin; wondering whether Europe is destined to drift toward China; and the shutdown of a massive port in southern China offers more evidence that the country’s COVID-infection statistics are distant cousins to reality at most.
What Is CNN Thinking?
Bringing back and re-featuring Jeffrey Toobin is the worst thing that CNN has done since . . . I would say Chris Cuomo helping his brother Andrew with the spin response to his sexual harassment accusations, but that was just late last month.
Why? We’re in this giant national argument, often furious and vicious, about what kind of behavior gets you “canceled” and in many cases fired from your job, expelled from your college or university, and dismissed from polite society. The standards seem more nebulous than ever. Idiots are demanding authors change what they wrote in past books … READ MORE
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told Steve Bannon on his podcast that she does not believe in evolution, preferably accepting the teaching of the Bible instead.
Said Greene: “I don’t believe in evolution… I don’t believe in that type of so-called science. I don’t believe in evolution. I believe in God.”
“Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) raised $1 million for her nascent Senate bid in the day after she announced that she plans to challenge Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in 2022,” The Hill reports.
“The $1 million figure is staggering for a candidate, especially in a year without any regularly scheduled federal elections.”
Rebekah Jones said she was just making a point by announcing her run against Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), WFLA reports.
Wrote Jones on Instagram: “In suggesting a run in Florida 1, I was pointing out the hypocrisy in DeSantis writing a law to prevent the silencing of government critics, while simultaneously celebrating my suspension for sharing a news article that exposed the lies he made that cost so many Florida lives.”
In light of last night’s blockbuster story suggesting an abuse of power at the Trump Justice Department, then-Sen. Kamala Harris questioned Attorney General William Barr at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on May 1, 2019:
HARRIS: Has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested you open an investigation into anyone?
BARR: …ah…
HARRIS: Seems like something you should be able to answer.
“President Biden is increasingly unlikely to get his corporate or individual tax hikes, at least without reconciliation, and most venture capital firms are keeping their fingers crossed instead of prepping tax avoidance strategies,” Axios reports.
“VC lawyers and CFOs have spent the past couple of months discussing new fund structures that could offset the elimination of carried interest’s beneficial tax treatment, as proposed last month by the U.S. Treasury Department.”
“The most popular suggestion is to create special purpose vehicles for a fund’s nonmarketable securities, contributed in-kind via general partners, thus effectively locking in the carried interest. This would essentially be a tax deferral scheme, with the hope that a future president would reverse the carried interest move and/or lower capital gains rates.”
Reuters: “A third member of a panel of outside advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has resigned in protest over the agency’s decision to approve Biogen Inc’s Alzheimer’s disease treatment despite the committee’s recommendation against doing so.”
“The 11-member committee voted nearly unanimously in November that Biogen’s drug should not be approved, citing inconclusive evidence that the drug was effective.”
Ron Brownstein: “While Sen. Joe Manchin is demanding that both parties agree on any further federal voting-rights legislation, a new study quantifies how completely Republicans have excluded Democrats from the passage of the restrictive voting laws proliferating in red states.”
“In places such as Florida, Georgia, Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, and Montana, the most restrictive laws approved this year have passed on total or near-complete party-line votes, with almost all state legislative Republicans voting for the bills and nearly all Democrats uniting against them.”
“That pattern of unrelenting partisanship has left many state-level Democrats incredulous at the repeated insistence by Manchin, a conservative Democrat from West Virginia, that he will support new federal voting-rights legislation only if at least some Republican senators agree to it.”
The Oregon House voted 59 to 1 to expel Rep. Mike Nearman (R), the first time it has ejected a sitting representative, the Oregonian reports.
“Lawmakers removed Nearman because he let far-right demonstrators, some of whom were armed, into the Capitol on Dec. 21 while lawmakers were holding a special session. The Capitol was closed to the public due to the pandemic and remains so.”
“Longtime senior Donald Trump adviser Jason Miller is taking over as chief executive officer of a tech startup company that could be used by the former president,” Politico reports.
“Miller’s company is currently developing a social media platform that is being considered for use by Trump. People familiar with the discussions stress that no final decision has been made by the former president about which platform he will use.”
Associated Press: “In what appear to be the final days of his historic 12-year rule, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not leaving the political stage quietly.”
“The longtime leader is accusing his opponents of betraying their voters, and some have needed special security protection. Netanyahu says he is the victim of a ‘deep state’ conspiracy. He speaks in apocalyptic terms when talking about the country without his leadership.”
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) is backing his former chief of staff Katie Boyd Britt in the race to succeed him in the Senate, siding against former President Donald Trump’s favored candidate, Rep. Mo Brooks, Politico reports.
Said Shelby: “She’s like family. She’d make a good candidate. She’s probably the best-qualified candidate to come along in a long time. I’d support her, I’d vote for her.”
Bloomberg: “The disclosure of the personal income and tax data of some of the wealthiest Americans has been referred to additional federal investigators to probe the leak of confidential information, an Internal Revenue Service official said.”
Politico: “Ways and Means Committee Republicans on Thursday said the leak of tax information on rich Americans like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and other billionaires erodes trust in the IRS and should disqualify President Joe Biden’s proposals to boost agency enforcement. GOP members of the panel — without citing evidence — blamed IRS insiders for the criminal breach of private taxpayer data, and suggested the timing was fishy.”
Asked by the Charleston Post & Courier if he will run for re-election next year, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) said: “Not just yes, but hell yes.”
Lindsey McPherson: “This is interesting. Alot of people thought Clyburn would retire when Pelosi did. While Pelosi has not committed to retiring, she made a promise in 2018 not to run for speaker again in 2022. And Clyburn has said he’s not interested in replacing her. So what’s his plan?”
Most Americans believe it’s important for young people to work during the summer, and don’t think it will be very difficult for teens to find jobs in the current economy.
Economic confidence fell to 118.8 in this month’s Rasmussen Reports Economic Index, down nearly five points from May, the first decline following three consecutive months of rising confidence.
Update (2000ET) : The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that it will convene an “emergency meeting” of its advisers on June 18th to discuss rare but higher-than-expected reports of heart inflammation following…
Having been slapped in the face by an unemployed fan of medieval swordsmanship who said he is a right-wing sympathiser yesterday, French President Macron was back at work today, making headlines in his latest press conference. Building…
Authored by Dinesh D’Souza, op-ed via The Epoch Times, It can now be said publicly: The massive public campaign to convince and even compel the world to accept the idea that SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19, arose naturally from…
Authored by Mark Curtis via Consortium News, The UK government has authorized the sale of £2.6-billion worth of military and civilian equipment with potential military use to China in the past three years , government figures show . Last…
Oil is a natural resource formed by the decay of organic matter over millions of years, and like many other natural resources, it can only be extracted from reserves where it already exists. The only difference between oil and every other…
Much of the Western half of the US is in a severe drought , and parts of the Southwest are “exceptionally dry,” the worst category, according to US Drought Monitor. Taking this into account, the iconic Hoover Dam has just recorded the…
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Passengers aboard the first 100% vaccinated North American cruise tested positive for Covid-19. Two passengers on the Celebrity Millennium, which…Read more…
Federal prosecutors have obtained a conspiracy indictment against 6 men who self identify as “Three Percenters” or “California Patriots” over…Read more…
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In his latest economic policy proposals, President Biden has laid out a wish list of tax increases to help pay for his administration’s proposed massive spending increases. His rhetoric, which accuses “corporate America and the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans” of not paying their “fair share,” is a well-worn page from the class warfare playbook. Unfortunately, it perpetuates many misconceptions about the U.S. tax system and ignores the extreme negative effect that these tax hikes would have on investment, work and wages.
It is often said that the Covid pandemic is ‘unprecedented’. It is true that societies across the globe have never been shut down to this extent, in an attempt to contain a virus. But in many ways, Covid-19 itself just another entry on the long list of human catastrophes.
This spring’s spurt of inflation clearly already means one thing: The end of “the end of inflation.” For 25 years inflation has seemed stuck on a downward trend. Those of us who worry about it seemed like end-of-the-world sign-holders that couldn’t leave the 1970s behind. It’s hard to buck the trend. A famous economist advised me to give up studying inflation — inflation is 2%, he said, that’s all you need to know. Apparently a new constant of nature.
[Subscription Required]On again, off again for years, the security grouping known as the Quad appears in recent months to be gaining purpose at last. Not least, the two members who are not part of the g7, Australia and India, have been invited to attend that club’s summit in Britain between June 11th and 13th, joining the two who are, America and Japan.
With this year’s release of Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights, written by Hoover research fellow Ayaan Hirsi Ali, join the author in a discussion to explore the reconciliation of women’s rights on the international stage in Western countries, especially in cities experiencing mass immigration where several million migrants—most of them young men—come from Muslim-majority countries on Friday, June 11, 2021, at 12 NOON PDT.
Why would bankers not want to take any amount of deposits, park them in reserves at the Fed or short term Treasury bills, charge fees and a slight interest spread, and sign up for an early tee-time at the local golf club? Sure “net interest margin” or other metrics might not look good, but money is money and more money is more money.
Here are some puerile comments from a Sarah Jeong 2018 rant on social media. She was appointed for a while to the New York Times editorial board, which is usually and otherwise bothered by racial venom.
A crisis like a pandemic can spark unpredictable changes in trends and behavior, like widespread mask wearing in the United States. But it also can accelerate changes that were already underway but otherwise would have taken root much more slowly.
The Hoover Institution Library & Archives and Hoover Institution Press Present the Fanning the Flames Speaker Series in Celebration of the Publication Fanning the Flames: Propaganda in Modern Japan edited by Kay Ueda.
The second session highlights “War Fever” as Fueled by the Media and Popular Culture: The Path Taken by Meiji Japan’s Policies of “Enrich the Country” and “Strengthen the Armed Forces” on Thursday, June 10, at 4:00 pm PDT.
Hoover Institution fellow Raghuram Rajan talks about risks to financial stability that lay ahead and how the dramatic shift in favor of fiscal activism is affecting advanced economies. Rajan also discusses whether Big Tech is helping or hindering innovation as well as the place of social institutions in the economy.
A recent surge in inflation likely heralds a decades-long trend of rising prices, fueled by a retreat in globalization, the aging of populations in China and developed countries and the costs from servicing swelling government debt and adapting to climate change, economists said in an American Enterprise Institute webinar.
The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hoover Institution or Stanford University.
Good morning, it’s June 11, 2021. On this day in history, five days after D-Day, the five Allied landing groups linked up in Normandy to form a unified front across northwestern France (1944); facing National Guard troops, Alabama Gov. George Wallace ended his blockade of the University of Alabama and allowed two African American students to enroll (1963); and the Six-Day War between Israel and Arab neighbors ended with a United Nations-brokered cease-fire. The outnumbered Israel Defense Forces achieved a swift and decisive victory, more than doubling its territory and seizing Jerusalem from Jordan (1967).
TOP STORIES
CHOP in Seattle Was Far From the Peaceful Safe Haven the Media Portrayed
In the midst of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations last summer, protesters decided to seize an area of land in the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Seattle. They called this “cop-free haven” “CHOP” — Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone.
Former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best recently offered a broader view of what was really going on in CHOP. She spoke to Jerry Ratcliffe in a podcast called “Reducing Crime,” to paint a fuller picture of the CHOP protesters’ destructive behavior. This unlawful and dangerous activity and assault on law enforcement was mostly ignored by the press.
“I would read stories about the peaceful protests. I go, ‘Well, part of it was peaceful.’ But I was standing 20 feet away from a hail of rocks. I was looking right at them, hail down feet from me. I was behind a telephone pole,” Best said.
She went on to explain how law enforcement did their best to come across as non-threatening to the already agitated crowds. But at a certain point, when rocks and bottles were flying and lives were at stake, she had an obligation to take action to protect her officers. Occasionally, that meant tear gas or pepper spray, but in her words, their use was “not arbitrary.”
Best has a highly accomplished resume that helped her land a job as the first African American police chief in Seattle. She left the police force when the Seattle City Council voted to cut millions of dollars from the police budget.
Best explained her reason for leaving on her Twitter account, stating the decision was based on “the disrespect shown to all SPD officers.”
It’s most certainly Seattle’s loss.
Oh Look, Portland Homicides and Gun Violence Rates are Up — Go Figure!
Portland, Oregon, has been seeing a massive increase in homicides across the city. More Portland residents have been murdered so far this year than in all of 2019. The city is not off to a great start.
Residents are so frustrated that they decided to launch a protest (Yep, it’s Portland, so of course there’s a protest involved) called “March Against Murder.”
According to the Associated Press, “More people died of gunfire last year in Portland — 40 — than the entire tally of homicides the previous year. The number of shootings — 900 — was nearly 2 1/2 times higher than the year before. The spike has continued this year, with more than 150 shootings, including 45 people wounded and 12 killed so far.”
Not long ago, we reported about the city’s decision to slash police funding and abolish the Portland Police’s unit dedicated to reducing gun violence. Last June, the Gun Violence Reduction Team was eliminated from the force in the wake of the George Floyd protests.
Mayor Ted Wheeler was quick to defend his city stating, “I believe if (the Gun Violence Reduction Team) were (around) today, we would still see a substantial, if not identical, increase in shootings in Portland,” Wheeler said. “This is clearly part of a larger national trend.”
Card players call this “passing the buck.”
Nevertheless, Wheeler did request to “re-fund” the police department during a speech in May. Fox News reported that, “The mayor of Portland, Ore., called for nearly $2 million in additional funding for the city’s police force and other agencies Friday, citing a rise in homicides and other violent crime.” It’s unclear whether or not the city council will actually approve his request.
Wheeler continues to have his hands full with ongoing violent demonstrations still taking place downtown on a nightly basis.
And the Parent of the Year Award Goes to … Not This Guy
Recently a Florida man took his 10-year-old son on a “drive-by” shooting with his paintball gun. It didn’t end well.
When Michael Williams’ son asked his father to take him on a “drive-by shooting” with his paintball gun, the 26-year-old father obliged.
So Williams loaded his son, some ski masks, and paintball rifles into the car and drove by a crowd of people while his son peppered them with paintballs. It was reported that at least one of the victims in the crowd thought the gun was real, so he pulled out his actual handgun and fired a single bullet, wounding the young boy.
We are all asking the samequestion as Maurice Adams, a nearby resident, “Why would a parent do that with their kids? That’s crazy … especially in this day and time. I wouldn’t do something like that.”
Police say the man in the crowd who opened fire, wounding the child, was under the impression that his home and family were under attack.
Adams agreed, “He fired back not knowing what was going on so he wasn’t aware that they were doing this. He just saw somebody pull up with a cargo van and open the doors, and they started to shoot so … he fired back to protect his family.”
Adams lamented the situation, comparing it to his own youth. “We played baseball with tennis balls in the street. We never had to worry about anything like this. This is crazy.”
Williams has been charged with child neglect with great bodily harm as police say he “acted recklessly by agreeing to conduct a drive-by paintball shooting,” according to theMiami Herald.
The Daily Intelligence Brief, The DIB as we call it, is curated by a hard working team with a diverse background of experience including government intelligence, investigative journalism, high-risk missionary work and marketing.
From All Things Possible and the Victor Marx Group we aim to provide you with a daily intelligence brief collected from trusted sources and analysts.
Sources for the DIB include local and national media outlets, state and government websites, proprietary sources, in addition to social media networks. State reporting of COVID-19 deaths includes probable cases and probable deaths from COVID-19, in accordance with each state’s guidelines.
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Welcome to the FEE Daily, your go-to newsletter for free-market news and analysis, authored by FEE.org Policy Correspondent Brad Polumbo. If you’re reading this online, click here to make sure you’re subscribed to the email list.
Good afternoon! I hope you’ve all got great plans for this weekend. I have my sister visiting from out-of-town, so we’ve got some fun planned. So, too, the European Championships (soccer tournament) starts today, and I’m thrilled to tune in. All that’s separating us from the weekend is a few iced coffees and one corrupt governor. Let’s dive in!
‘This Disease Has Not Been Extinguished’: CA Gov Gavin Newsom Still Won’t Give Up His Emergency Powers
Image Credit: Flickr
With one of the lowest COVID-19 case rates in the country, a 70+ percent adult vaccination rate, and widespread reopening set for June 15, the pandemic is finally on the wane in California. But Governor Gavin Newsom is still refusing to give up his “emergency powers.”
“California is set to end most coronavirus restrictions on June 15, but Gov. Gavin Newsom is not lifting the state of emergency,” local media outlet KCRA3 reports. “Newsom is keeping emergency powers given to him by a court in his back pocket ‘in case things go south.’”
“We’re still in a state of emergency,” the governor said. “This disease has not been extinguished. It’s not vanished, it’s not taking the summer months off.”
The extent of the emergency powers here is genuinely breathtaking. Per KCRA3, Newsom’s emergency declaration has allowed him to unilaterally allocate billions in “emergency spending” and change or suspend more than 200 state laws and regulations.
It’s perhaps unsurprising that the governor doesn’t want to give up such vast and unchecked power. However, with this forever-emergency mentality, Newsom is stretching state law so far he deserves an Olympic gold medal in gymnastics.
Under California law, the governor can declare a state of emergency only amid “conditions of disaster or of extreme peril” that are so grave as to “likely to be beyond the control of the services, personnel, equipment, and facilities of any single county, city and county, or city.” State law further requires the governor to “proclaim the termination of a state of emergency at the earliest possible date that conditions warrant.”
Of course, upon doing so, Newsom’s emergency powers go away. His political critics are crying foul.
“If Newsom believes the state is safe enough to reopen, then it’s safe for people to be able to make decisions for themselves without his arbitrary and capricious rules,” said Scott Wilk, the top Republican in the California State Senate. “I believe it is time for him to hang up his crown and restore our democracy.”
Indeed, any acute period of true emergency during this pandemic passed many months ago. Many problems linger, yes, but the coronavirus and ensuing economic decline have become manageable parts of everyday life—not a bona fide emergency like a hurricane or earthquake.
But Newsom is setting a timeline on his “emergency” powers that could let him hold onto them for years or even the rest of his time in office. Insisting that the state of emergency can only lapse when the coronavirus is “extinguished” or “vanished” gives the governor license to cling on to his expanded powers essentially forever.
It’s unlikely we’ll have zero coronavirus cases in the near future, but a few dozen infections in a population where almost all vulnerable people have been vaccinated does not an emergency make. And it’s even possible that the coronavirus could become a recurring seasonal part of life like the flu.
So, Newsom is setting standards that could allow him to never “hang up his crown.” This is an unacceptable act of authoritarianism that has no place in a free society.
“This isn’t a game,” the Orange County Register’s editorial board concluded. “The deliberative legislative and regulatory processes that the governor considers an impediment to necessary orders are, in fact, the protection of the rights of all Californians from arbitrary government actions.”
Critics are right, and we should all hope that Newsom’s tyrannical power grab isn’t allowed to stand. But the takeaway here is broader than any governor, state, or even the coronavirus. Time and time again, we see that “emergencies,” both real and manufactured, are used as cover for would-be tyrants in government who want to break the crucial restraints on their power that keep us free.
“‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded – and once they are suspended it is not difficult for anyone who has assumed emergency powers to see to it that the emergency will persist,” Nobel-prize-winning economist F.A. Hayek famously wrote.
So, don’t just look at what Newsom is doing in California right now with horror. Remember it next time an emergency comes around and your politicians promise that if you consent to their power grabs it will just be “temporary.”
Data of the Day: New figures show the federal government has already run up a record-breaking $2.1 trillion budget deficit just in the first 8 months of this fiscal year. What could possibly go wrong?
You don’t always have time to read a full in-depth article. Thankfully, FEE Fellow Patrick Carroll is here to give you the key takeaways from one highlighted article each day.
Though many are praising the FDA for its expedited approval of COVID-19 vaccines, the agency is hardly the savior it’s made out to be. In reality, they have gotten in the way of the pandemic response at almost every turn, from banning private testing kits to enforcing a host of regulatory hurdles.
But their interference in the pandemic response is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, treatments for heart disease, cancer, and pretty much every other ailment are regularly held up by the FDA, often for years, as they go through lengthy approval processes. On top of adding time, FDA regulations also make drugs more expensive, stifle innovation, and deny patients the freedom to choose their own treatment.
But as Al Musella and Bartley J. Madden explain in their latest article on FEE.org, new legislation recently introduced in the Senate may be able to change that. The Promising Pathway Act would offer an alternative to the conventional regulatory process by introducing a provisional approval process. Under this system, patients with serious diseases could try drugs five to seven years earlier than normal.
Aside from increasing access to new treatments, one of the benefits of this process is that drug makers could get data from a heterogeneous group of patients, giving them a better indication of how the drug works with different kinds of people.
The new process would also lead to lower development costs, better research, and more competition, accelerating and improving the research and development process at every step.
In sum, this legislation would be a win for patients, doctors, and drug companies. Indeed, freedom often has a way of making things better. And in this case, it could literally save lives.
“My Back Pages”: The Bob Dylan Song That Can Guide a Generation Lost in Protest
by Jon Miltimore
Ever the artist, Bob Dylan expressed his disenchantment with the protest movement in one of the last songs he recorded for his 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan.
Historians say the song left many diehard fans horrified for its seeming refutation of the Jester’s earlier protest ballads.
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SecondStreet.org recently partnered with a few public policy organizations to create a FREE eBook that discusses the problems that Canada faces (government debt, unemployment, healthcare waitlists, etc.) and put forward solutions. You can download their eBook for FREE here!
BIDINFLATION: Prices of goods and services skyrocket yet again
The US is experiencing the highest inflation rate in almost 13 years, with US consumer prices rising 5 percent from just a year ago.
REVEALED: Progressive Wash state politician threatened to blow up school bus, called children ‘cowards’ as they fled
When the driver told Gardheere to leave the bus she said, “You need to calm yourselves down ’cause I could have a bomb. Look how loose my clothes are.”
WATCH: Expert warns that parental rights are under threat by state-enforced gender ideology
“In Canada, we see where this could all be headed,” Ingraham said, The Post Millennial is reporting that a warrant was issued by a judge for the arrest of a father” who didn’t use his child’s preferred pronouns.
FAKE NEWS: MSNBC, CNN laugh off IG report that proves Trump did not clear park for ‘photo op’
“And I have to say,” Jim Acosta said, “y’know, when I read through this report it sounded like the Inspector General was auditioning to become the Inspector General at Mar-a-Lago.”
Biden in England to media: ‘I don’t want to go home’
President Joe Biden, upon arriving in St. Ives, Cornwall for the G7 summit, commented to the press, when asked if he liked the town, “It’s gorgeous. I don’t want to go home.”
WATCH: CNN goes soft on Toobin, disgraced pundit returns to network after Zoom masturbation incident
“You were on a Zoom call with your colleagues from the New Yorker magazine. Everyone took a break for several minutes during which time you were caught masturbating on camera,” Camerota recapped.
Welcome to the Friday edition of Internet Insider, where we dissect the week online. Today:
President goes full bitcoin meme bro after historic cryptocurrency legislation passes
Woman dumps her entire friend group after TikToker overhears them saying mean things about her
TikToker points out how ‘different’ Nerf guns look now
BREAK THE INTERNET
President goes full bitcoin meme bro after historic cryptocurrency legislation passes
El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender on Wednesday after the nation’s legislature voted overwhelmingly in favor of the proposal.
Lawmakers in the country’s Congress passed the so-called Bitcoin law by a “supermajority” with 64 votes out of a possible 84. The legislation was opposed by 19 members while three abstained.
President Nayib Bukele, who helped bring the bill to Congress, celebrated the victory shortly after on Twitter. In the wake of the news, Bukele also changed his profile picture on Twitter to make his eyes appear to be glowing blue in what is commonly referred to as “Bitcoin Laser Eyes.”
The law will mandate that all businesses accept Bitcoin in exchange for goods and services, but, according to CoinDesk, “the government will act as a backstop for entities that aren’t willing to take on the risk of a volatile cryptocurrency.”
Proponents argue that the law will help bring greater financial mobility in a country where only 30% of citizens currently have access to financial services. Opponents, however, argue that Bitcoin’s value is much too volatile and could throw the country’s financial systems into chaos.
Bitcoin, which recently lost nearly half of its value after reaching a high of $64,829.14 in April, has risen by roughly 12% in the last day to a value of $36,291.92.
Cutting back on your grocery bill and making your dollars work smarter (not harder!) is a lot easier than you might think. Like dieting, it’s all about making small changes that eventually blossom into big ones. And best of all, it’s easier than polishing off a box of Girl Scout cookies in one sitting with the Sam’s Club Mastercard. Here are five helpful hacks to help you save on your next trip to the store.
Woman dumps her entire friend group after TikToker overhears them saying mean things about her
A New York woman has cultivated an entirely new community of friends after a TikToker overheard her old friends shit-talking her.
The Daily Dot previously reported that TikToker @drewbdoobdoo, or Drew, shared a TikTok video to let Marissa Meizz, a woman in New York, know that her friends were specifically making plans without her.
“I hate to be the one to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong, but if your name’s Marissa, please listen up,” he says in the video. “I just walked by your friends, and I need to tell you that the weekend you’re away is not the only time that they could do their birthday party. They are choosing to do it the weekend you’re away, and you need to know.”
She responded with her own video recently, saying that she had been sent Drew’s video repeatedly. She had gone out of town that weekend, and a friend would not reschedule a birthday party, she said.
Just one day after Meizz responded to Drew’s call to find her and tell her that her friends were being deceitful, they met and declared themselves besties for life.
The reason they didn’t want her at the party is even less friendly.
“They wanted the boys at the party to be interested in them and not me (I think that’s a terrible reason to not invite someone),” Meizz told BuzzFeed.
When other users expressed that they’d had similar experiences with bad friends, Meizz created Marissa’s Friend Club, an Instagram account with the handle @nomorelonelyfriends, which connects people who have bad friends and organized meetups.
TikToker points out how ‘different’ Nerf guns look now
Have you purchased a Nerf gun lately? Do they look a little different than when you were a kid? One TikToker recently pointed how how much more realistic the “toy” has become.
“Nerf guns are different now,” says TikToker batmanpooppants, in a video that now has more than 2 million views. “Something happened to Nerf guns.”
He points out that “old-school Nerf guns” would typically just “fart out” ammo, which was made of foam. But the modern Nerf gun has evolved, and not in a good way. The caption of the video reads: “I accidentally bought a riot control weapon.”
Many commenters agreed, or shared their own memories of getting blasted with one. “RIGHT LIKE THEY ARE ACTUALLY SCARY NOW… i got shot in the face with a MEGA one and i cannot tell you how bad it hurt,” said one. Another commenter mentioned that there’s a whole genre devoted to modifying Nerf guns to turn them into, say, an AR-15.
Over the last decade, as mass shootings have become more and more prevalent, Nerf guns have been scrutinized by concerned parents and anti-gun groups. While they are still classified as toys, Nerf products have become increasingly complex. Do kids really need a Nerf tactical vest?
It seems Hasbro is trying to capture Gen Z’s attention: In March, Nerf put out ajob listing for a Chief TikTok Officer. That same month, police in North Carolina reportedly found real firearms in a man’s home disguised as Nerf guns during a drug search.
To YOUR Health,
Dr. Steve KlaymanP.S.If you want to rid yourself of agonizing blood sugar worries and restore the health you had in your youthful years, check out this video before it’s gone.
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The long-term global domination plan has always been for China to invade and conquer the continental United States by launching attacks from Mexico, while Russia plans to attack and take Alaska, then proceed to conquer Canada.
What has changed recently in all this, however, is that China has sharply accelerated its timetable of attacking America due to emerging revelations about the origins of the covid-19 biological weapon, which was developed under the supervision of the communist Chinese military.
China now knows it must attack and attempt to destroy America before these investigations show China deliberately built the bioweapon and released it on the world.
Today’s feature article covers the shocking revelations gleaned from an interview with JR Nyquist, and we post his full interview, and my podcast analysis, both in article and podcast form.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that it will convene an “emergency meeting” of its advisers on June 18th to discuss rare but higher-than-expected reports of heart inflammation following doses of the mRNA-based Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.
Texas governor Greg Abbott announced Thursday that the state will begin erecting its own border barriers because the Biden administration is failing “to do its job” on the border and protect Americans from lawlessness.
Is humanity aware of the multivariate methods of contact tracing beyond the toggle switch in iOS and Android? And just how do the methods being used by the Anglo-American Establishment at Oxford University in the above Telegraph story differ from those being dreamt up by Silicon Valley?
Kamala Harris informed Spanish-language media outlet EFE on Thursday in so many words that all her tough talk telling migrants “do not come” was just to placate the American public.
accine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say there has been a higher-than-expected number of cases of a heart ailment among young people, most often males, who’ve recently received their second doses of the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines. The CDC says the reports of the ailment are “rare” and that “most patients who received care responded well to medicine and rest and quickly felt better.”
How does a school committee respond to a year of remote student learning? How will the Springfield, MA School Committee respond to post-COVID schooling? Now that public schools are reopening (just in time for summer vacation) what are officials worried about? Is it face-to-face learning? Is it in-person interactions with students? Nope, it is mass surveillance and how to let Real-Time Crime Centers (RTCC) monitor students under the guise of public safety,
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81.) THE WESTERN JOURNAL
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Breaking News Alert
This is a breaking news alert which we send infrequently to update you on emerging breaking stories.
Well, Hunter Biden and his disgraceful (alleged) personal communiques are in the news again, and by that I mean, of course, that they’ve been conspicuously absent from headlines and social… Read more…
A Trump-era proposal to close a food stamp program loophole has been killed by the Biden administration. This is the second time in the early months of the Biden administration… Read more…
Former President Donald Trump issued a statement Thursday in response to investigations against him, calling them “illegal witch hunts.” “Now that I have been totally exonerated on the Mueller Witch… Read more…
Democrats so far haven’t suitably explained why a fee to exercise Second Amendment rights is acceptable but a fee to exercise free speech or voting rights isn’t. Read more…
This anti-Trump lawsuit is so weak that Biden’s Justice Department finds themselves defending the former president despite their hatred for him. Read more…
‘This is devastating news for our economy, jobs, environment and national security – and it’s entirely President Biden’s fault,’ Senator Steve Daines wrote in a statement. Read more…
One caller asked, ‘I was just wondering if you still feel like Michael Avenatti is the greatest thing in the world and should run for president of the United States. My suggestion is, whatever CNN says, do the opposite and you’ll do fine.’ Read more…
‘Certainly the incentives are there for the smugglers to keep trying to get people over here, they make six to $8,000 per person,’ Cueller said. Read more…
‘All anyone would have to do decades from now to understand the 2020 election is watch the footage of the first debate between Trump and challenger Joe Biden.’ Read more…
‘Ms. Cooper was fired less than 24 hours after the incident came to light through a viral video that became one of the most significant social memes of the past few years.’ Read more…
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82.) CNN
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Friday 06.11.21
It’s here! It’s finally here! “In the Heights,” the film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical of the same name, is hitting theaters and streaming. Here’s what else you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On With Your Day.
By Harmeet Kaur
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and President Biden meet in England ahead of the G7 summit.
We know vaccines are incredibly effective at stopping the spread of Covid-19 among older age groups. Now, the FDA’s vaccine advisers are debating how urgent it is to inoculate kids younger than 12 against the virus. Most seem to agree that getting the vaccines authorized soon for kids is a good idea, given that the virus could make a comeback in the fall or winter. Meanwhile, FDA officials have agreed to extend the shelf life for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine after some states said they had doses on hand that were set to expire. It’s also likely some J&J doses will be shipped overseas, a White House official said. In other news, a coronavirus variant first detected in India, known as the Delta variant, has now gone global.
Capitol riot
Six men from California connected to a right-wing militia face new conspiracy charges from the Justice Department for their alleged role in planning the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Since the insurrection, prosecutors have charged numerous members of far-right extremist groups in connection with the riot. This latest case is the first against multiple people said to be involved with the Three Percenters. The head of the FBI said he expects more serious charges related to the attack, though he added that he wasn’t aware of any such investigation involving former President Trump.
Ethiopia
More than 350,000 people in Ethiopia are experiencing dire hunger, with millions more facing “high levels of acute food insecurity,” according to a new report from the United Nations and other aid groups. The famine in the country’s Tigray region stems from a conflict that began in November between Ethiopian government troops and the region’s former ruling party. The fighting has resulted in “population displacements, movement restrictions, limited humanitarian access, loss of harvest and livelihood assets, and dysfunctional or non-existent markets,” the report said. The situation is expected to worsen through September.
Western US drought
The US West was already facing a severe drought, but dry conditions and temperatures well above average this week have made it worse. All of California, Oregon, Utah and Nevada are now in drought, with nearly 2 million people in the Bay Area under a water shortage emergency. Forecasters worry these dry conditions will lead to an especially intense wildfire season, something many states are already beginning to experience. In Oregon, the crisis has exploded into a water war, pitting farmers against Native American tribes, government agencies and conservationists. By this point, it should come as no surprise: The manmade climate crisis is to blame.
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, in announcing that his state plans to build its own border wall and will arrest migrants who trespass on private property beginning next week
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Treat yourself — it’s Friday
We made it to the end of the week, and it’s time for some ice cream. Perhaps one of these seven variations from around the world? (Click here to view.)
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It promotes the ridiculous and false narrative of America being little other than a land of “systemic racism” and “white privilege.”
Today’s Opinion
ERICK ERICKSON
The Death of Democracy Is Overstated
It has become dogma of the left and many members of the press that the Jan. 6 incursion is the worst.
NEIL PATEL
Why Are American Leaders Not Protecting Our Interests When It Comes to China and COVID-19?
It’s almost unimaginable that every single American would not want to find out the truth.
JOSH HAMMER
Make Communist China Pay for COVID-19
If American-led investigations credibly conclude that the virus was intentionally developed and weaponized as a Chinese bioweapon, then even the most dovish of foreign policy hands will be forced to conclude that a formal declaration of war must be considered.
DAVID LIMBAUGH
Kamala Harris Just Keeps Getting Worse
How can we possibly rely on the White House to enforce the border when it’s signaled in every imaginable way that it is ideologically opposed to protecting our sovereignty?
DAVID HARSANYI
The Democrats’ Filibuster Con
If Democrats truly believe that voter-integrity laws in Georgia or Texas are unconstitutional and a threat to democracy, they should take those states to court, where these issues could be adjudicated, rather than trying to upend the system in a power grab.
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Gunman kills a woman and toddler at a Florida store, the G-7 summit gets going and more news to start your Friday.
Welcome to Friday, Daily Briefing readers. In tragic news yesterday, a man shot and killed a woman and a toddler before taking his own life in a Publix supermarket in Florida. The G-7 summit begins in England – and Britain’s royal family will even make an appearance. And on the lighter side, the film version of “In the Heights” hits theaters today. Will you be watching?
The latest issue of American Airlines’ inflight magazine features a story on LGBTQ neighborhoods across the country and the Colorado River
American Airlines
It’s time for USA TODAY’s weekly quiz! How well have you been following the news this week? Test your knowledge here.
On today’s 5 Things podcast, hear what issues world leaders will focus on as the G-7 summit begins. You can listen to the podcast every day on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your smart speaker.
Man kills woman, toddler at Florida Publix supermarket, authorities say
A man fatally shot a woman and a toddler before taking his own life in a Publix supermarket in Royal Palm Beach on Thursday morning, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said. The shooting happened inside the store near the produce section just after 11:30 a.m. at a Publix located in a strip mall that also houses small shops and restaurants. The agency said late Thursday it would not identify either the woman or the toddler, who would have turned 2 years old this month. It said their family had invoked its rights under a 2018 amendment to the state constitution, modeled on California’s Marsy’s Law, that allows crime victims and their families to withhold their names from public reports.
G-7 summit featuring Biden, other world leaders, to begin in England
President Joe Biden and other G-7 leaders will have a lot to discuss when they gather in Carbis Bay in Cornwall, England, for their seaside summit , starting Friday. Climate change, defense and security and getting the global economy back on track in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic are all on the agenda. The countries announced last week that they agreed to back a minimum global corporate tax rate of at least 15% – a landmark deal that would mean multinational companies would pay more taxes in the countries where the operate. Besides the United States, the G-7 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the U.K.
What else people are reading:
Two-time Olympic medalist drops out: Swimmer Madeline Groves announced this week that she will not compete at the Australian Olympic trials, citing “misogynistic perverts” in the sport.
“The individuals are asymptomatic and currently in isolation”: Two passengers who shared a room onboard Celebrity Cruises’ Celebrity Millennium ship have tested positive for COVID-19.
Chicago revises foot-chase policy following fatal police shootings
Months after a pair of high-profile killings by officers in pursuit drew national attention and prompted protests, Chicago police are adopting a new foot-chase policy . Adam Toledo, 13, was fatally shot on March 29 after an officer chased him down an alley. Two days later, Anthony Alvarez, 22, was running with his back facing an officer who fired multiple times at him. Under the new policy, foot pursuits are “appropriate only when there is probable cause for an arrest or it is believed an individual has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime.” The policy prohibitsfoot pursuits stemming from minor traffic offenses or for criminal offenses less than a Class A misdemeanor, “unless the person poses an obvious threat to the community or any person.”
Newsmakers in their own words: Graduate gives away surprise $40K scholarship
Verda Tetteh at her graduation in Massachusetts
Photo courtesy of Verda Tetteh
Verda Tetteh could have added to her collection of scholarships to pay for her Harvard education. Instead, she asked her high school in Massachusetts to give a $40,000 scholarship she received to someone who needed it more. It will be split into multiple awards that will be bestowed over the next four years to students attending community college.
2020 European Football Championship finally kicks off
The 2020 UEFA European Championship finally is here. Delayed a year by the coronavirus pandemic, the ambitious continent-wide tournament will take place in 11 countries separated by four time zones. The tournament will begin Friday and go through July 11. Portugal, led by Cristiano Ronaldo, is the defending champion, but this time around, France is the betting favorite. The event will be broadcast on ESPN and ABC, with games available to be streamed live on ESPN+. Spanish-language broadcasts will be available on Univision and TUDN. Games also are available on fuboTV.
‘Don’t want Bruce to die’: Boy does what it takes to save his dog
At the request of her friends, Kimberly Woodruff, Bryson’s mother, set up a GoFundMe called “Just a boy trying to save his dog” and it had received over $23,200 in donations as of Friday morning. The family has also received messages of support and generous gifts from people around the world.
Bryson Kliemann sits with his dog, Bruce. When Bruce got sick, Bryson decided to sell his prized Pokémon cards to save his dog’s life.
Kimberly Woodruff
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s ‘In the Heights’ hits theaters, streams on HBO Max
Before there was “Hamilton,” there was “In the Heights.” Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Tony-winning musical portrays the bustling New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights. The movie version (in theaters Friday and streaming on HBO Max now) stars Anthony Ramos as a bodega owner who dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic. USA TODAY movie critic Brian Truitt writes: “What makes ‘In the Heights’ so joyfully infectious … is marrying his songs with director Jon M. Chu’s uncanny knack for pulling off massive production numbers.”
ICYMI: Some of our top stories published Thursday
First overseas trip: President Joe Biden points to the G-7 summit, NATO and his coming meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin as a ‘defining’ moment for democracy.
Photo of the day: Goodbye, ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’
A photo from Season 12 of ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians,’ the family’s hit E! show. From left: Kendall Jenner, Rob Kardashian, Scott Disick, Kourtney Kardashian, Lamar Odom, Khloe Kardashian Odom, Kim Kardashian, Bruce Jenner, Kris Jenner and Kylie Jenner.
E! Entertainment
It’s over! Sparking joy in some and despair among others, E!’s “Keeping Up With the Kardashians”ended its 20-season run Thursday. But fans of the clan need not worry – the KarJenners are working on new programming for Hulu, starting this fall.
In the meantime, you can check out our gallery of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” through the years.
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President Trump did not order U.S. Park Police to disperse protesters in and around Lafayette Park in Washington DC on June 1, 2020. That’s the finding by a recent Inspector General report. After several days of violent and destructive rioting in late May 2020 following black suspect George Floyd’s arrest and death in police custody, […]
The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld a law barring illegal immigrants from applying for permanent residency on the basis of Temporary Protective Status (TPS). TPS is sometimes given to foreigners who enter the US unlawfully if they’re from a country ravaged by war or natural disaster. TPS status protects them from deportation and allows them […]
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is seeking clarity from U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland about Garland’s recent press release announcing a plan to reduce violent crime. Grassley points out that Garland’s press release uses vague terms like “invest[ing] in prevention” and “target[ing] enforcement efforts and priorities” without clear explanation of what that looks like. Grassley says […]
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) has sent a letter to the U.S. Capitol Police asking how and why a key door to the Capitol that was initially locked, became unlocked, allowing hundreds of unauthorized people to enter the Capitol on January 6. According to the letter, Johnson and his staff have reviewed security camera videotape showing […]
The University of Florida, in Gainesville, just leaked research linking one of today’s most popular cooking oils to higher risk for heart attack, stroke, and even early death.
When they tested it under high heat, they discovered it was loaded with “trans-fats” – the deadliest fat source in existence.
Can you guess which one it is so you can avoid it?
Once you choose your answer, just click here to see if you’re right.
You’ll probably be shocked when you find out what it is.
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The Tolkien Society goes full woke, bows to the will of Sauron in unbelievable new summer seminar
There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of Men for this treachery, or for the crippling horrors of the woke mind virus:
South African mom gives birth to TEN BABIES, passing previous world record of 9 set only last month
In 2009, the infamous “Octomom” made headlines, setting the record for most children born at one time.
Watch: Hero cops pull unconscious man from truck engulfed in flames, become incredibly popular with the ladies in the process
Here’s your daily dose of courage:
Texas Christian University will no longer call students “freshmen” because misogyny
The change in terminology from “freshmen” to “first-year students” will go into effect on August 21. Because TCU’s first-year students are neither all fresh, nor all men, the phrase freshmen is obviously sexist, and likely racist too.
New York Times columnist “really disturbed” to see pickup trucks and American flags on Long Island and I’m starting to think she doesn’t get out of the city much.
Put yourself in Mara Gay’s shoes. She’s possibly never seen a pickup truck in real life.
Did you know apple pie is racist? Because they’re now telling us apple pie is racist.
As a SJW, what do you see when you look at apple pie? Racism and genocide, of course.
Up to HALF of all pandemic unemployment funds may have been stolen by criminals, as much as $400 BILLION
Do you have any concept of how much money $400 billion dollars is??
Biden’s Secretary of Education says we “have a responsibility to protect the civil rights” of biological males who want to play girls’ sports
Yup, this made its way onto the wokest of the woke sports networks, ESPN:
Economy Update: Inflation rose 5% last month and Starbucks is running low on supplies
Do you ever get the feeling that we might be in deep trouble?
Remember how the media said Trump cleared out protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets for a Bible photo op? Yeah, turns out that never happened.
First things first: Trump did awkwardly hold up a Bible last year outside the White House and it was pretty cringeworthy.
People now want cows to wear masks.
Cows across Europe may need to start masking up. No, not because of COVID. But because of the next hot topic — climate change.
Here’s Kamala rolling her eyes again when asked about the inhumane crisis at the border
She just can’t help herself:
This raw video of a perp shooting two Chicago cops shows how fast violent encounters happen
Police body cam footage captured a violent encounter with a criminal in Chicago who refused to take his hands out of his pockets when police approached him on May 16:
Canada announces Pride month isn’t enough, will now celebrate “Pride Season” from June to September
Is this starting to smell like state-sponsored religion to anyone else??
How can Kamala Harris be this bad at politics?
It’s one of those predictions that I still can’t feel proud of, even if it largely did come true. Sometime in the summer of 2019, I wrote an article making my best guess that then-Senator Kamala Harris was going to be the Democrat nominee in 2020. Though that technically didn’t happen, there are more than a few folks within the Beltway who treated her as the de facto president from the moment President Biden chose her to be his running mate.
Watch: Virginia mom who survived MAO’S CHINA torches school board for pushing “Marxist” critical race theory
LISTEN to this woman…
Watch 7 massive hammerheads circle 3 women stuck on an inflatable raft
This sunny girl’s day at the beach quickly turned into a scene straight outta “Jaws”:
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97.) US NEWS & WORLD REPORT
06/11/2021
View in Browser
Coronavirus Bulletin
TOP CORONAVIRUS NEWS
Schools Near Return to Normal
The country’s public school system closed in on nearly 100% of K-8 schools offering some type of in-person instruction in April, according to new federal data. Read more.
U.S. to Purchase 500M Vaccine Doses for Globe
The United States will purchase half a billion COVID-19 vaccine doses for lower income countries with no strings attached, President Joe Biden said on Thursday. Read more.
India’s COVID Death Toll Surges After Audit
The audit was ordered amid allegations that India’s Bihar state government was hiding the scale of COVID-19-related deaths. Read more.
Moderna Seeks Vaccine Approval for Teens
The FDA expanded the emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine to kids as young as 12 last month. Read more.
WHO: 90% of Africa to Miss Vaccination Goal
About 90% of African countries will miss a September target to vaccinate at least 10% of their populations against COVID-19, a WHO official said on Thursday. Read more.
Find the Latest Coronavirus Information by State
Each state, plus U.S. territories and Washington, D.C., has online resources about COVID-19. Here’s a guide.
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99.) MARK LEVIN
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June 10, 2021
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On Thursday’s Mark Levin Show, America is getting a clear-eyed view of what it’s like to partner with our enemies and weaken our own economy and turn America into an un-developing country! A look at what it’s like to falsely use critical race theory disguised as diversity to breed American-hating, Jew-hating Marxists! The Democrat Party does nothing to stop the radicalization of their Party when their members of Congress compare America to the Taliban. They hold on to bigotry to promote their political agenda while resurrecting “Jim Crow.” Yet, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden say nothing to stop Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, or the other ‘birthing people of color’ because they are afraid of them. Then, $400 Billion have been ciphered from the U.S by unemployment fraud. But, Biden is parading through Europe saying that white supremacy is the greatest threat that America faces while the country faces inflation. From milk to cars Americans will spend five percent more. This is the fastest rise of goods since the Great Recession of 2008. Later, the media describes the dispute between the anti-Semite ‘birthing people’ and the Marxists concocting an entire nation of White supremacists that don’t exist. American patriots are the counter-revolution in this culture war. While Nancy Pelosi calls federal police the old Nazi term “Storm Troopers” moms are attending school board meetings to tackle critical race theory because the Marxists will destroy this country Americans of all races. Afterward, more than 100,000 border crossers gained entry into the United States. Biden and Harris know what’s happening at the border that’s why they don’t want to go to the border. FBI Director Christopher Wray says there’s no question that drug cartels are pouring across the border.
If a patriot or moral American so much as breathes, they are canceled, smeared, defamed and libeled. But Democrat perverts, pedos, Jew haters, racists, rack smoking criminals are given money, power and senior postions in the “Biden” admin and …
Linda Sharia Sarsour keynoting CUNY and now this. Democrat-run Academia has made Jew hatred and genocide their raison d’être. These are dark days, my friends, and getting darker.
The jihadists “burned almost everything [– houses, the market, the school and the dispensary…” Genocide. The sharia-compliant Democrat media complex sees no, hears no, speaks no Islamo–criticism.
No outrage. No recrimination. No criticism of the most brutal ideology on the face of the earth. Islam trumps all, Christian lives don’t matter – whatever their colour.
There is a vicious dichotomy between reality and what the Democrat ministry of propaganda is beating us over the head with. The 1.8 million viewers that Newsmax garnered does not include the hundreds of thousands of viewers of RSBN, OANN, The Sun, …
An executive producer at America’s largest owner of radio stations, iHeartMedia, advertised a job Thursday by stating “we are looking at only diverse hires at this time.” Molly Socha, executive producer of custom podcasts at iHeartMedia, made the statement in an email sent to a listserv interested in the New York City radio industry…
The mission of the Media Research Center is to create a media culture in America where truth and liberty flourish. The MRC is a research and education organization operating under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and contributions to the MRC are tax-deductible.
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson to Appear on Unfiltered With Dan Bongino
Set your DVRs – North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson will be this week’s guest on “Unfiltered With Dan Bongino,” which airs on Fox News at 10PM ET.
Report Shows Some Red State Economies Are Stronger Than They Were Before COVID-19
The effects of strict lockdowns implemented in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and the reluctance of Democrat governors to ease them can still be seen despite the nation being in the “end stage” of the pandemic.
USAID funded teens meeting with convicted Palestinian terroristsLegal Insurrection reported the story of a U.S.-funded NGO linked to PFLP terrorist group “ran a program that arranged meetings between teenagers and convicted Palestinian terrorists.” The revelation originally comes…
Fighting the Maoist cultural revolution in the USAA parent who grew up in Maoist China told her school board in Virginia that the cultural revolution now going on in the United States is exactly like the Chinese…
Great moment at the Islander – Bruins gameAs soloist Nicole Raviv began to sing the Star Spangled Banner during the Islanders-Bruins game last night, the entire audience sang with her. She stopped singing at one point and…
CNN brings back Jeffrey Toobin and they chat up his masturbatingCNN officially had Jeffrey Toobin back on-the-air today. Without any trace of self-respect, Alisyn Camerota discussed Toobin’s masturbating on the Zoom call. Just in case you missed it. She asked…
So far, Illegal crossings up 674% in a yearIllegal border crossings explode by 674% in a year: Migrant crisis saw 180,000 apprehensions in May. This is the extremely predictable result of implementing catch-and-release and forcing agents off the…
Bidenomics: 5% inflation last month, prices soarProfessor Campbell Harvey of Duke University believes inflation is here to stay and may top 4% this year alone. We haven’t had inflation for thirty years, but it’s back. Last…
Jill Biden went to HarlemWith all the talk about Trump supporters not getting vaccinated, the big hold-up is actually in the black community. Only 29 percent of black New Yorkers received at least one…
America-hating Rep. Omar introduces communist UBIIlhan Omar, D-Minn., the anti-America, anti-Semitic representative, said on Wednesday that she will introduce a universal basic income (UBI) program. Universal Basic Income is communism. She said the plan will…
Congress ends the week with several different groups taking a shot at forging a deal on infrastructure. But most of them don’t want to talk about the most important issue (money). This is your weekly free edition of “Regular Order” for June 11, 2021. Upgrade your subscription in order to get daily updates on Congress – and support independent journalism on Capitol Hill in the process!
FRIDAY HILL HIGHLIGHTS:
+ Top intelligence community officials testify before House panel. 11 am.
+ House hearing on possible hurdles to voting. 11 am.
+ House hearing on “Building Climate Resilient Communities.” 12:30 pm.
+ House panel looks at influence of corruption on border security. 2 pm.
INFRASTRUCTURE. A group of 10 Senators – five from each party – announced on Thursday that they had reached an agreement on an infrastructure package reportedly worth $1.2 trillion over eight years, which represents $579 billion in new spending. But no details were offered on how it would be paid for.
MONEY MONEY MONEY. “This investment would be fully paid for and not include tax increases,” the group of Senators said in a written statement. “We are discussing our approach with our respective colleagues and the White House and remain optimistic that this can lay the groundwork to garner broad support from both parties and meet American’s infrastructure needs.”
FINE PRINT. Nothing against any of those involved, but let’s face it – the devil is in the details on infrastructure – especially on the issue of paying for it.
ALASKA PLAN. Also checking in with a new infrastructure plan was Rep. Don Young (R-AK), the sponsor of the infamous ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’ which turned many Republicans against home state earmarks. Young has proposed a $1.25 trillion package, $500 billion for ‘hard’ infrastructure, and $750 billion for broadband, renewable energy, and transportation projects backed by individual lawmakers.
FUNDING. Unlike the Problem Solvers and the Group of Ten in the Senate – which both avoided any of the messy details of how to pay for infrastructure – Rep. Young of Alaska produced a plan to pay for the extra spending, which takes a little from both sides of the political football.
TAXES. Young would support a one-time increase of four percent in the corporate tax rate (something President Biden wants to use), but the Alaska Republican would also tweak the federal gas tax (something floated by GOP Senators). It’s a reminder that funding doesn’t magically appear for new roads.
HOUSE PLAN. Whether or not there’s a deal on a broader infrastructure package this month, House Democrats are planning to vote on a $547 billion surface transportation plan the last week of June. That bill is the one stuffed with over 1,400 local road, bridge, and transit projects from members of both parties.
MARKUP. The House Transportation committee approved that infrastructure bill early on Thursday morning, after a 19 hour session. The big question is can Democrats get any GOP support for the bill on the House floor – even from those Republicans who have local projects in the package?
EARMARKS. That’s the subject of my column in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this week. It’s an old page in the playbook that Democrats are using. But can it work in 2021? “There’s certainly evidence that parochial projects helped grease the skids for securing votes for broad national legislation in the past,” said Sarah Binder of the Brookings Institution.
FBI OVERSIGHT. It was a lengthy day in the witness chair for FBI Director Chris Wray, as he appeared before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday. As expected, Wray faced complaints from GOP lawmakers about how the feds have handled the investigation into the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
GOP. Once again, there were Republicans who sought to compare and contrast the FBI response to the Capitol Attack versus the response to urban unrest last summer. “Comparatively, little or no attention is paid to violent BLM and Antifa extremism,” said Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL), a charge Wray dismissed.
WRAY. The FBI Director accurately pointed out that pretty much every illegal act in the Capitol Attack is a violation of federal law – which would involve the FBI – while state and local laws were much more likely to be violated during protests over the police killing of George Floyd. Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) went to Twitter to continue his complaints in Thursday’s hearing.
CHINESE RADIOS. One of the ironies of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump is that many used walkie-talkie radios made in China by Baofeng. The feds released more evidence of that on Thursday in a new indictment.
THREE PERCENTERS. The feds have already shown how the Proud Boys used Baofeng radios for communications on January 6. Now a group of ‘Three Percenters’ charged on Thursday also were using FM radios to coordinate their actions around the Capitol.
FREQUENCIES. The Proud Boys were on 477.985 MHz. The Three Percenters were on 142.422 MHz. It points to a rather notable level of organization – for a bunch of ‘tourists.’ It also raises the question – was any federal agency recording those frequencies on January 6 in D.C. with a wide band signal receiver.
LEAK PROBE. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has asked the Inspector General of the Justice Department to investigate why phone records of House Intelligence Committee Democrats and staffers were secretly seized by the Trump Administration. The New York Times reported last night it was part of a leak investigation – all coming during the midst of the controversy over the Mueller Investigation.
SCHIFF. “The politicization of the (Justice) Department and the attacks on the rule of law are among the most dangerous assaults on our democracy carried out by the former President,” Schiff said in a Thursday night statement. “Though we were informed by the Department in May that this investigation is closed, I believe more answers are needed,” Schiff added.
DEFENSE BUDGET. GOP Senators used a hearing on Thursday with the Secretary of Defense to voice their opposition to President Biden’s budget plans for the military. “This is an inadequate defense budget,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), “it is our obligation to defend this nation and this proposed budget does not do so.”
DEFENSE SPENDING. At $754 billion, the Biden defense budget number really isn’t that different from the final Trump defense budget, as it increases by 1.6 percent. That’s what Republicans don’t like – they want more defense spending and less of an increase for domestic programs.
DEFICIT. The budget deficit number for May was bad, but not terrible, as Uncle Sam ran up almost $132 billion in red ink last month. The total deficit for the current fiscal year now stands at $2.06 trillion. The deficit for all of 2020 was $3.13 trillion.
REVENUES. One thing that caught my eye was the revenues coming into Uncle Sam. In April and May, they totaled $900 billion. Go back one year to the same time in 2020 and those two months brought in $415 billion. Part of that is a delayed tax deadline. Part of is also the economic impact of the virus.
IN THE BLACK. For those wondering, the last time there was a monthly federal budget surplus was in September of 2019, when the feds had a surplus of $82.8 billion. The last time there was a yearly budget surplus was in the four year stretch of 1998-2001.
HOUSE. Democrats on Thursday found themselves pointing fingers at each other again over statements on Israel by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). A day after a group of Jewish Democrats rebuked her, Omar tried to soften her remarks critical of Jerusalem, but watched as colleagues publicly jabbed at each other.
ISRAEL. The first salvo was led by Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), who joined others in urging Omar to “clarify her words placing the US and Israel in the same category as Hamas and the Taliban.” Omar’s allies in Congress were aggravated.
OMAR. “Stop attacking us,” tweeted Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO). “I’m not surprised when Republicans attack Black women for standing up for human rights. But when it’s Democrats, it’s especially hurtful. We’re your colleagues.”
FIRST JUDGE. The Senate on Thursday voted 81-16 to confirm Zahid Qurashi as a federal judge in New Jersey. The historic part of the vote is the Qurashi will be the first Muslim-American federal judge in U.S. history. “He is a patriot to this country,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) said of Qurashi, whose family is from Pakistan.
MUSE OF HISTORY. June 11, 1884. On this date, the Senate Committee on Elections and Privileges moved to reprint its report on racial violence in Danville, Virginia, where four black men were shot and killed just before Election Day in 1883. The violence was part of a broader movement by white Democrats in Virginia to overcome a unique post-Civil War political alliance of blacks and Republican voters, known as the Readjusters. Senators had taken testimony earlier in 1884 about the violence in Danville, and whether it was simply aimed at discouraging black voters from going to the polls in upcoming state and local elections. The final report was classic Congress, as Republicans argued the killings were political, while Democrats rejected the assertion that whites were to blame for the violence.