7/24/21 Rep. Cawthorn Rattles His Sword Over Fauci

“Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, and I want to say that officially,” Anthony Fauci said in a hearing only days ago, as Rand Paul flung misleading accusations at him.

In our eyes, Fauci was defending himself from a rude, interrupting windbag. Some on the right had a different reaction: How dare that 80-year-old geezer talk back to Rand Paul? He should be prosecuted!

Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) is just the one to do that prosecuting. Blond, with clean-cut looks, a good-boy haircut, and a perpetual suit jacket and tie, Cawthorn gives me the creeps, and I can't tell you why.

“I'll tell you, when we take the majority back in 2022, I'll make sure consequences are doled out,” Cawthorn said in a recent radio interview. “We want to prosecute [Fauci] to the full ability of the law." Cawthorne didn't say what the charges would be.

He continued. "And I’ll tell you, to lie to the American people just to get your name in the news, just to get your face on the cover of books, just to get fame and fortune. I’ll tell you, Dr. Anthony Fauci does not deserve either fame or fortune.”

That's classic GOP-pol doublespeak, seeing as Cawthorn was at that moment cloaking himself in the up-is-down message from the Republican spin machine. The spin is more of a spin-out, really, because there's no resemblance to truth.

And Fauci certainly doesn't need help to get on the cover of books: That would be Cawthorn himself.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/564526-gop-rep-cawthorn-says-he-wants-to-prosecute-fauci

7/24/21 "Blame the Unvaccinated!" says Governor Who Downplayed Vaccination

Kay Ivey, Republican governor of Alabama, apparently thinks she has to blame somebody for the 300%-plus bounce in COVID cases in her state.

“It’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks,” she said in a radio interview recently. “It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down."

It's not the virus itself; it's not the Chinese; it's not the bungling buffoon who handled the vaccination rollout. Nope. It's the unvaccinated.

This is a change of tune for Ivey. Alabama is tied for the lowest vaccination rate in the entire US of A. Ivey has banned "vaccine passports" in Alabama; banned businesses from asking about vaccination status; banned schools and colleges from requiring the vaccine.

Ivey also rejected President Biden's offer to have volunteers go door to door to encourage vaccination and help out people who had trouble getting one. She has turned down the American Academy of Pediatrics' request to have kids wear masks in school, too.

Have you ever heard of the old expression that every time you point a finger, three of your own fingers point back at you? Somebody ought to remind Governor Ivey.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kay-ivey-blame-unvaccinated_n_60fa39a1e4b0e92dfec18d12

7/23/21 Senate Committee Calls for Drafting Women

On Wednesday, the Senate Armed Services Committee amended the Selective Service Act to require women to register for the draft. It's part of this year's National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

When the draft for women first came up in 2016, the year women were okayed to serve in combat, the language about it was stripped from the NDAA before the bill even got to the House floor. Instead, the combined houses of Congress set up a commission to study the issue.

In 2020, the commission said that adding women to the draft was "necessary and fair." Only months ago, SCOTUS declined to hear a case brought by a men's rights group, which argued in favor of extending the draft to women. SCOTUS said it wasn't going to comment on a law that was still in process in Congress. SCOTUS hasn't considered the draft since 1981, when it ruled that the male-only draft was constitutional because women were excluded from combat.

The military says it has no plans to resurrect the draft, which was last active during the Vietnam War, but will continue with all-volunteer forces.

The law requires men aged 18 to 25 to sign up for the selective service or lose access to federal financial aid for college, among other consequences.

__________

Do you think this is the right time for women to be added to the draft?

How do you think that Republicans will react to the idea of adding women to the draft?

How do you think that Democrats will react?

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/564423-senate-panel-votes-to-make-women-register-for-draft?rl=1

7/24/21 How Do You Reach the Unvaccinated?

We liberals find it easy to believe that a "tribal right-wing identity" -- as New York Times columnist Ross Douthat puts it -- is what keeps people from getting COVID shots. It's true that the most successful vaccine initiatives are among Democrats, the elderly and educated liberals.

But neither Trump nor Fox News can account for the almost 80 million Americans who remain unvaccinated. The situation is much more nuanced than that.

"It's also an education divide, an age divide, a gender divide, a racial divide, an urban-rural divide, an insured-uninsured divide and more," Douthat says.

An ongoing Kaiser Family Health (KFF) poll (linked below), says that 23 percent of Republicans say they definitely won’t get the vaccine, as do 22 percent of white evangelicals. That's the hard right. But 58 percent of white evangelicals have had their two jabs, while Black adults show a 60 percent vaccination rate, Hispanic people a 63 percent rate. Those two groups are hardly likely to go in for Donald Trump, (although there are right-leaning Hispanics and even, yes, Trump fans).

Douthat thinks paying vaccine skeptics is the answer -- $1000 for a two-shot course of vaccinations. "I don’t see how imposing lockdowns and long-term school closures, with all their disproportionate negative effects on lower-income workers and parents, can pass an ethical test but paying people to get vaccinated does not."

West Virginia offered $100 savings bonds as incentives. In Houston, Harris county executive Lina Hidalgo unveiled a raffle-slash-scholarship program to encourage young people to get vaccinated: Winners get $5,000 for college costs for being fully vaccinated. There are also raffles for tickets to Houston Texans games, the Houston Rodeo grounds, Monster Jam, Disney on Ice, and more. So far, it seems, corporations that require vaccinations do push the rate higher. Incentivizing Americans is a tough task.

______

Should there be $1000 incentive payments, or would that cause waiting behavior in the future -- for example, if the U.S. health advisors want people to get booster shots? What's your idea for boosting the percentage of vaccinations among minorities or dismissive young people? Bobbleheads? Stuffed animals? Gift cards? How would you reduce hesitancy based on fear? The FDA only authorized the vaccinations on an emergency basis, after all.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/20/opinion/covid-vaccine-hesitancy.html

https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-june-2021/

7/21/21 Fauci to Rand Paul: "Senator, If Anyone Is Lying Here, It Is You"

You'll recall the neighbor of Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) who tackled him one day after years of disagreement on landscaping. That man landed in jail.

If Dr. Anthony Fauci had been of similar temperament, he might have done the same thing yesterday.

In a Select Committee on Coronavirus Crisis hearing, Paul invoked a 2017 medical paper to imply that COVID19 was developed in part from funds from the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NAIAD), the agency that Fauci has headed since 1984.

“You’re trying to obscure responsibility for 4 million people around the world dying from a pandemic,” Paul told Fauci -- literally accusing him of lying.

“Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say that officially. You do not know what you are talking about, OK?” said Fauci.

At issue was "gain of function," which is the term for a virus's becoming increasingly infectious among humans. Paul, who is a medical doctor, claimed that the paper described gain of function.

Fauci disagreed. "This paper that you are referring to was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain of function,” he stated clearly. “You are implying that what we did was responsible for the deaths of individuals. I totally resent that, and if anybody is lying here, senator, it is you.”

But Paul interrupted him repeatedly. Later that day, Paul used that exchange to raise money, accusing Fauci in a tweet of "lies and obfuscations," then including a two-minute video that showed only Paul speaking.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fauci-rand-paul-coronavirus-hearing_n_60f6ebf8e4b09f2b23877e77

800 post reach

7/20/21 Two Insurrectionists Plead Guilty; One Gets Sentenced

Enrique Tarrio, one of the better-known leaders of the Proud Boys, has pleaded guilty to charges involving tearing down a Black Lives Matter flag from the Asbury United Methodist Church, an historically Black church in Washington, DC and burning it on a video on a Parler account.

Besides being a visible face of a not-so-proud right-wing terrorist group (just ask Canada!), Tarrio has also worked since 2012 as a police informant, helping bring down a local gambling ring. He'll be sentenced on August 23, potentially for 180 days in jail and/or a $1,000 fine for each offense.

Tarrio, then, is something of an expert at playing both sides against the middle. Another Trump fan, Paul Hodgkins, merely had lawyers who tried their best to butter up the judge.

“The Court has a chance to emulate Lincoln. We have the chance to be as Lincoln had hoped, to exercise grace and charity, and to restore healing for those who seek forgiveness,” attorney Patrick Leduc wrote. “Alternatively, we can follow the mistakes of our past: to be harsh, seek vengeance, retribution, and revenge, and continue to watch the nation go down its present regrettable path.”

Hodgkins' lawyers said their client had made a series of "errors" -- the errors being every step Hodgkins had made as he went from Florida to the Trump rally and to the Capitol, entered the Capitol grounds and then the Capitol building, and then the Senate chamber, all the while keeping his freak (oops! -- Trump) flag flying.

Hodgkins pled guilty to one count of obstructing an official proceeding. Four other charges were dismissed. The lawyers thought he should get probation.

Naturally, Hodgkins himself was more sorry than he'd ever been in his life. He told the judge he was “truly remorseful,” that he had made a “foolish decision” and allowed himself to put his “passion” before his “principles.” He also said he recognizes that President Joe Biden is “rightfully and respectfully the president of the United States.” Ya think?

He was sentenced to eight months in prison, to be followed by by 24 months of supervised release.

That leaves only 530 or so more malefactors to go before 1/6 is sort of behind us.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/paul-hodgkins-capitol-attack-felony-trump_n_60f5857ee4b0a771e806bfc5

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/563765-proud-boys-leader-pleads-guilty-to-vandalism-of-historically-black?rl=1

7/22/21 House GOP Leader McCarthy Withdraws All His Picks for 1/6 Select Committee

Kevin McCarthy has snatched back the nominations of the five congressmen he proposed for the House Select Committee that will investigate the insurrection attempt of January 6. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, had set aside 5 seats so the GOP House leader could name Republicans to serve on a potentially bipartisan panel.

So far, there was just one Republican on the committee -- Liz Cheney, the Republican who gave up her leadership position in the House GOP rather than join the crowd cheering for Donald Trump and his Big Lie of a stolen election.

At first, McCarthy (R-Calif.) wouldn't bite at Pelosi's offer. After several days, though, he did come up with 5 names. Two of them were Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who have been among the most outspoken Trump advocates in the House, with Jordan in particular stating his determination to investigate irrelevant incidences of left-wing protests in other cities. Bringing up left-wing protests has been a consistent Republican response to every attempt to form a serious investigation.

Pelosi refused to seat Jordan and Banks, saying they threatened "the integrity of the investigation"-- as well they did. She offered to accept two other suggestions from McCarthy in their places.

Pelosi was willing to accept the other three, Reps. Rodney Davis (Ill.), Kelly Armstrong (N.D.) and Troy Nehls (Texas).

(We wouldn't be so happy about Nehls. He defeated WRP member Sri Kulkarni for the TX-22 congressional seat after a campaign in which Nehls granted NO interviews and held NO public events, and simply let an extreme partisan gerrymander do the work for him. But we digress.)

McCarthy wasn't having it. Take them all, or take none, he told Pelosi.

This was no tantrum. All along, McCarthy and the GOP have resisted being part of any investigation involving de facto GOP leader Donald Trump. Here, McCarthy achieved his objective of standing aside at a safe enough distance to toss barbs at the committee doing the work.

Recently, former Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor called the GOP -- "my party" -- "the No. 1 security national security threat to the United States of America.” With bobbing and weaving like McCarthy's, the statement makes all kinds of sense.

_________

What can Nancy Pelosi do to buttress the legitimacy of the 1/6 Select Committee? Given, of course, that it IS legitimate, but some Republicans are clearly planning to portray the investigation as partisan. Is there any way to work against the Republicans' plan to undercut the Committee?

If McCarthy fails to come up with names that Pelosi can accept, should she simply invite five honest conservatives to accept seats?

Do you think that the Committee will subpoena GOP leaders, including Donald Trump?

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/564138-mccarthy-yanks-all-gop-picks-from-jan-6-committee

7/22/21 Hate Crimes Charge for 18-Year-Old Patriot Front Member

This charming young man, a mere 18 years of age -- you know, the age when teens grow a beard to look like grown-ups -- has been charged with hate crimes in Haverhill, Massachusetts in connection with white-supremacist activities.

Justin Milaszewski was reportedly charged with misdemeanor counts of property damage for the purpose of intimidation, destruction/defacement of a place of worship and defacing property. He was also hit with a felony charge of assault with a dangerous weapon.

And then there's that mustache, but it's not a crime under Massachusetts law.

The charges arose during late June, most of them on the day a group called Merrimack Valley Black and Brown Voices was holding a flea market. Milaszewski and two other men started handing out stickers touting the "Creative Movement," which is a white-supremacist ... something or other (the story's author jokes that it's a neo-Nazi street improv group).

Besides the noxious stickers, Milaszewski also pulled out a gun and displayed it, which, not unreasonably, scared the person he showed it to.

When police searched Milaszewski's father's home, where Justin lives, they found a "Creative Movement" flag and a Colt replica pellet handgun, along with a money order receipt from Thomas Rousseau, founder of the Patriot Front.

Said the suspect, "One sticker and I'm Hitler?"

Milaszewski was required to surrender his firearms and was then put on full-time house arrest with GPS monitoring. The designation of "hate crime" enhances the seriousness of the charges. His next court date is August 24.

https://www.theroot.com/massachusetts-white-supremacist-charged-with-hate-crime-1847337676

7/22/21 Two Leading Texas Newspapers Announce Black Women as New Top Editors

The Dallas Morning News and the Houston Chronicle both announced new editors this week -- and both are women of color. The Dallas Morning News and the Houston Chronicle are the two biggest newspapers in Texas.

The Dallas Morning News named as its Executive Editor the veteran journalist Katrice Hardy. She arrives fresh from the Indianapolis Star, which just won a Pulitzer winner for national news reporting. She starts mid-August.

The Houston Chronicle's new Executive Editor is Maria Douglas Reeve, who has been the paper's managing editor for close to two years. Reeves oversaw coverage of the COVID pandemic, the historic oil bust and the Texas blackouts — all while managing a remote staff. She has served as a Pulitzer Prize juror and has been active in the National Association of Black Journalists.

So when is the Austin Statesman going to catch up? [Checks watch.] Get with it, people!

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/local-companies/2021/07/21/dallas-morning-news-taps-26-year-veteran-as-its-next-newsroom-leader/

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Maria-Reeve-named-top-editor-at-Houston-Chronicle-16327181.php

7/20/21 Judge Sides with Indiana U Against Vax-Avoidant Students

Eight students of Indiana University recently went to court to object to the University's requirement that all students be vaccinated against COVID. They said the policy was unconstitutional, violated the 14th amendment, and violated state law.

The part of the 14th amendment they were talking about says that no state may deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

It's not clear whether it was life or liberty or property that the university was trying to deprive them of, but that's what they said.

Isn't it touching to see young folk following in the footsteps of their conservative elders? No, you say? We agree.

So did federal judge Damon Leichty, who ruled against the students, pointing out that IU students had compiled with other vaccination requirements for years -- vaccinations that have included diphtheria, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella, and meningococcal disease.

The upshot is that since the state of Indiana has banned the use of "vaccine passports," compliance is only enforced by the honor system. So it's not just that these students are idiots -- they're shout-out-loud, in-your-face idiots, just the kind you want to see sitting alongside your kid in class.

While young people generally have milder symptoms of COVID, they can and do get sick and pass along the disease, in addition to helping along the development of new strains such as Delta and Lambda.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/19/us/iu-covid-vaccine-mandate/index.html

7/19/21 Former JCOS Gives Two Enthusiastic Thumbs Up for Milley

"Very accurate and obviously incredibly disturbing, literally in every respect," is how former Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCOS) chair Admiral Mike Mullen, speaking on "Face the Nation" yesterday, described the account of White House turbulence after the 2020 election.

Mullen was talking about recent revelations that current JCOS chair Mark Milley had pushed back on Trump's -- and Trump's advisors' -- talk about using dangerous measures to try to keep Trump in office after he lost the election. Milley has said that as he listened to Trump touting election fraud allegations, he'd compared the former president's rhetoric to Adolf Hitler's and had "a stomach-churning" feeling.

Milley took political countermeasures to combat talk of using the military on American streets to enforce the "Big Lie" of a stolen election, and how they'd also considered using warlike military moves against Iran. According to the account (we wrote about it yesterday), Milley turned to having frequent phone calls, almost daily, with people who might be called upon by Trump's enablers and Trump himself.

"General Milley, I thought, really did the right thing on both fronts, quite frankly," said Admiral Mullen. "I don't think he was alone with respect to Iran. But I think on the internal potential for a coup, really, really stood up, did the right thing, and I think made the case that he was the right officer to have in the right job at the right time in a very, very difficult, stunning and unprecedented situation." 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/admiral-mike-mullen-donald-trump-white-house-mark-milley/

7/18/21 JCOS Chair Mark Milley Went on High Alert After Trump's Election Failure

It was right after the 2020 election that Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, started to get vocal -- discreetly -- about what Donald Trump might do in reaction to losing.

Milley had had some time to think it over since the day, in June 2020, that he'd been suckered into backing Trump at his church-steps photo-op -- the one that involved dispersing Black Lives Matter protesters by force. Milley called it his "Damascus moment" (from the Biblical story about how Paul saw Jesus as God as he recovered from being temporarily blinded.)

Milley saw two possible scenarios. The first was that Trump might try to use the military against Americans to force them to accept his claim of a stolen election. The second was that Trump would start hostilities with Iran. That option came up repeatedly by Trump advisors in White House meetings, and Milley repeatedly argued against it. "You're going to have an [effing] war," Milley would say.

New Yorker writer Susan B. Glassner says that Milley believed the U.S. had already come close to a conflict with the Islamic Republic. Ultimately, Milley feared that Trump would create a crisis from which he, Trump, could then save the nation. It would parallel a moment in Hitler's journey to power -- a "Reichstag moment." After January 3rd, Milley finally convinced Trump that the costs and dangers were too high.

Late in 2020, Milley started having phone meetings frequently, in the mornings, with Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He called them "land the plane" meetings, as in "it's an emergency in the air -- and we've still got to land the plane."

He also held frequent, private meetings with the Joint Chiefs to tell them to contact him immediately if Trump made a demand that wasn't legal. He told Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and some Biden administration staffers that if Trump tried to attempt a coup, the military would not help him.

Unsurprisingly, there's a book coming out about this period. Trump's reaction to the news was "If I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is General Mark Miley."

_____________

Why would Trump and his advisers expect to remain in power after starting a war with Iran? Was Milley doing the right thing? Did he miss signals about the insurrection attempt? Should Milley have had plans in hand for an event like Trump-backers' attack on the Capitol?

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/youre-gonna-have-a-fucking-war-mark-milleys-fight-to-stop-trump-from-striking-iran?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_071621&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5ed3f9576950ac793e321838&cndid=25724484&hasha=e14e37b58b6aec9b5347b8dfc441e60c&hashb=b00cbe6935a67d29b5fb6e18d3061c1eb9a8237f&hashc=288145b72138d7acc1f2b7349955610c06ee808b5015f2c8e27e8595090e7854&esrc=Auto_Subs&utm_content=B&utm_term=TNY_Daily

7/16/21 Capitol Rioter is in Jail After Harassing his Probation Officer

A Capitol rioter seems to be breaking new ground in bizarre and dimwitted behavior, even by insurrectionist standards.

Until yesterday, Brandon Fellow was on bail despite a five-count indictment that included a felony charge. On 1/6, Fellow got as far as the office of Senator Merkley (D-Ore.).

The female probation officer who was stuck with this genius endured sexual harassment by phone for several months, with Fellow leaving voicemails that ranged from ramblings and innuendoes to bragging about the size of his penis.

Fellow even called the probation officer's mother. No, he didn't call the officer "mother" in some weird brain glitch -- he called the mother of the officer. For you guys in the back row, that means he deliberately found out the mother's phone number in advance and thought about what he would say. Both women were creeped out, big time.

The officer, Kendra Rennie, testified on Wednesday before a judge who had already twice refused to revoke Fellow's bail when prosecutors asked. This time, the judge saw the light about Fellow's behavior.

Prosecutors offered Fellow a plea deal that could sentence him to as little as 15 months in prison. There's no word yet on Fellow's response.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/563318-accused-capitol-rioters-bail-revoked-after-leaving-lewd?rl=1

7/17/21 DACA Hopes Dashed by Troglodytic Federal Judge

As if we haven't had enough bad news out of Texas, a federal judge there has ruled that DACA is illegal and must be halted at once.

The judge, Andrew Hanen, is known for raining down fire, brimstone, and mean-spirited decisions on immigrants. His ruling said that DACA was “illegally implemented," and that “the public interest of the nation is always served by the cessation of a program that was created in violation of law and whose existence violates the law.” Well, excuuuuse us!

How the case wound up in Hanen's lap is not all that clear, but nine states have been actively working to end the program. Trump almost managed to do it, but Biden re-upped DACA in January.

The legal issue is DACA's creation by President Obama. Opponents of all things nonwhite say the program should have been created by Congress as a law. They're hoping to ride that hobbyhorse to the Capitol, or at least to the Supreme Court, where they think that a conservative SCOTUS, followed by a GOP blockade in the Senate, will slice DACA’s head off, snicker-snack.

Hanen's ruling pretty much guarantees that SCOTUS will have to rule on the case. When Trump tried to end DACA, the Supreme Court justices ruled that Trump wasn't following proper procedure in ending the program. Instead, Trump closed the program to new applicants and cut renewals to a single year instead of two.

Fortunately, the current 616,000-plus DACA recipients will be unaffected. It's future DACA applicants who have to worry. At least, so far.

____________

What do you think of this tactic by conservatives to undercut DACA by appealing to the most unappealing federal judge in the entire US of A? (The only one worse, we'd say, is the guy who nixed California's assault weapons ban.) What chances do you give DACA if it has to be re-legitimized by going through the Congress's legislative process? Is it possible that the program could be approved by the Supreme Court?

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/16/987132269/federal-judge-rules-daca-unlawful-but-current-recipients-safe-for-now

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/judge-suspends-daca-immigration_n_60f1f3f0e4b0b2a04a23b3c4

7/14/21 Senate Democrats Reveal a Budget Bill of $3.5 Trillion, and It Includes Tons of Good Stuff

“Let me be clear — this is a huge bill," Senator Bernie Sanders said, describing the budget bill on Wednesday. "This is a complicated bill. This is a transformative bill.”

Then the progressive stalwart added, “Compromises have to be made.” Sanders was in the thick of the negotiations, so he knows what he's talking about. Even so, it's an unusual remark from Vermont's old man of the political mountain.

The budget bill that the Senate unveiled today was created just by the Democrats. That's because Democrats used the byzantine rules of the Senate's "reconciliation" process so that the bill could pass with only 51 votes (including Kamala Harris's). It's a filibuster-busting process. But you already knew that.

In general, Democratic legislators were thrilled to have their concerns addressed for the first time since President Obama left office. As it's currently written, the bill would:

--Expand Medicare to cover dental, vision and hearing services. (Loss of hearing hastens dementia in the elderly.)

--Fund health care for the poor in GOP-led states that won't expand Medicaid.

--Fund universal pre-kindergarten and child care subsidies.

--Fund more help for food, leaves of absence, and housing for those with low incomes.

--Raise the maximum for Pell Grant loans for lower-income college students.

--Extend the Child Tax Credit, which is getting underway just this week, to a maximum of $3,600 a year for young children and $3,000 for older kids -- and continue other tax breaks that include the Earned Income Tax Credit -- for households of modest income. (Democrats want to make the Child Tax Credit permanent. If employers aren't going to pay fair wages, and if Republicans won't raise the minimum wage, someone else has to help out!)

--Include funds for immigrants to provide Dreamers and pandemic "essential workers" with a path to citizenship.

There is a nascent plan for cutting prescription drug prices too, which Elizabeth Warren said would be addressed later in the year.

The overall price tag for this is $3.5 trillion. Herbert Hoover would need smelling salts. A lot of moderate Democrats aren't happy with the prospect of being labeled the "tax and spend" party. To pay for the bill, the Dems have committed to raising taxes only on people taking in $400,000 a year and up, but it's still a lot of money.

In addition to the $3.5 trillion, Democrats aim to push through a $1.7 trillion infrastructure bill.

It's worth noting one key problem with writing the budget: Many programs that are entitlements (meaning, in government-speak, that they're financial obligations) have only moderately predictable costs because they are pegged to economic measures -- notably, gross domestic product -- that can vary from year to year. The Office of Management and Budget can make predictions, but ultimately, the cost of the bill isn't known right away.

Joe Biden made a visit during lunch to the Democratic caucus on Wednesday, saying "We're going to do this!" We kinda-sorta believe it! ______________

How would you like to negotiate a bill like that? Do you agree with the priorities that the Democrats have put in the budget? What kinds of objections to the budget do you expect to hear in coming weeks?  

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/14/progressive-highlights-democrats-budget-499678

7/13/21 Texas Voting Bill Revives Every Damn Thing You Can Think Of -- and That's Why We Have to Fight It

Maybe there are a few items on the GOP voting-law dream list that aren't in the current bills. There aren't any Jim-Crow poll taxes. And the most recent bills no longer limit Sunday voting hours to halt "souls to the polls" efforts by Black churches.

But there's still more than enough ugly stuff to prompt the Texas's Democratic legislators to flee to Washington, DC this week to prevent the bills from coming to a vote in Austin.

Here are the restrictions that both the House and Senate GOP agree the voting bill should do:

---Ban drive-thru voting (an innovation by Lina Hidalgo, Houston's celebrated, progressive, young county executive)

---Ban 24-hour voting by setting time constraints

---Prevent county election officials from sending absentee ballot applications to any voter who has not requested one

---Require partisan poll watchers to be allowed "free movement" to observe election activities at polling sites and central vote counting areas (That is, allow GOP poll watchers to intimidate voters at the polls -- and yes, there's an article citing one GOP official who said that out loud)

-- Ban absentee ballot drop boxes, requiring voters to mail in completed absentee ballots or deliver them to an election official

---Require a person requesting an absentee ballot to provide a driver's license number or Social Security number to get one

---Ban vote harvesting, defined as a third-party group helping a voter fill out absentee ballots in order to benefit a specific candidate

The Senate version adds these:

---Authorizes state election officials to compare Department of Public Safety driving records with voter rolls to find potential noncitizen voters

--- Requires any person who transports three or more voters other than family members to the polls to fill out a form (imagine filling out a form just to drive three friends to the polls!)

Yes, that's plenty too much. Worse, GOP legislators are expected to add multiple additional restrictions during the floor vote.

That's why 51 of the Dems in the Texas lege are fleeing the state, and 16 more are -- well, they're not telling. No quorum, no vote. Hooray for voting rights!

It worked once, in May, when the Democratic legislators walked out rather than vote on the voting bill -- they would have lost to the majority Republicans. Governor Abbott, in response, actually suspended lawmakers' pay for that stunt. (For real!)

In May, there wasn't significant pressure by the House Speaker, Dade Phelan, to rein in the Democratic stampede out the door. This time, he says, “My Democratic colleagues have been quoted saying that all options are on the table. Respectfully, all options are on the table for myself as well.”

He'd have a tough time outdoing the efforts of Congressional Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Ca.), who hired a private investigator to serve a subpoena about the Jan. 6 insurrection attempt to House member Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) less than two months ago.

Huffpo adds, "The walkout [by Texas Democratic lawmakers] is expected to prevent the GOP from progressing bills that would block transgender youth from sports, strengthen cash bail requirements and crack down on access to medication abortion, among a litany of other hotly contested measures."

As of now, the GOP is tut-tutting about how the Democratic lawmakers taking a bus to the airport are NOT WEARING MASKS.

______________ What should Biden do to attempt to rein in this disastrous state voting bill -- while he also reins in the GOP Senators who are blocking the federal voting bills?

What can voting rights activists do? Texas progressives kept the TX House up literally all night during the comment period on the voting bill. Other progressives stood at the airport with signs and cheered to thank the Democrats on their way to Washington. What else is possible?

Texas increasingly seems to fall under erratic leadership, especially since a power outage during a cold snap in February that killed at least 200 people, including 100 in blue-voting Houston. The governor not only failed to fix the grid in any way, but he recently undercut alternative forms of energy in favor of oil and gas ... excuse me -- a bit worked up here. The question is: Do you ever wonder whether the federal government should take over the state's government? It's not as if Texans haven't been expecting it for decades.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-democrats-leave-state-voting-bill_n_60ec79e4e4b01f1189518a28