The past week's What the Fuck Just Happened Today, because I think I didn't post any of them this week and it's nice to have all the big stuff in one place.
[h=1]Mon-Day 153: "The path of progress."[/h]
! 1/ Nearly 10 million Americans enrolled in Medicaid during the coronavirus pandemic. Roughly 80 million people are now covered by Medicaid – nearly a quarter of the entire U.S. population. Federal health officials attributed the boost in enrollment to the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, approved by Congress in March 2020. That law gave states extra federal money to help cover Medicaid costs as long as the states didn’t remove any enrollees until after the coronavirus public health emergency was declared over. (Washington Post / The Hill / New York Times)
2/ The Biden administration is weighing whether to end a Trump-era policy that directed border officials to immediately expel the majority of immigrants crossing the border. The policy, known as Title 42, allows border agents to turn away migrants before they have the opportunity to seek asylum and was established through the CDC to prevent the coronavirus from spreading in holding facilities. The White House is considering ending family expulsions as early as July 31. (Axios)
3/ Officials in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office have reportedly grown frustrated by the lack of cooperation from the Trump Organization’s CFO. Allen Weisselberg is a key figure in prosecutors’ efforts to indict Trump due to his central role in nearly every aspect of the Trump Organization. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s investigators have been pressing Weisselberg to provide evidence implicating Trump as they scrutinize Trump’s business practices before he was president, including whether he inflated the value of assets to obtain bank loans and deflated the value of those same assets for tax breaks. Officials also believe Weisselberg continues to regularly speak with Trump. (Washington Post)
4/ The U.S. is preparing more sanctions against Russia in response to the poisoning of Aleksei Navalny. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the timing of the sanctions or what they would include would come “as soon as we develop the packages to ensure that we’re getting the right targets.” Biden imposed sanctions on Russia for the poisoning and imprisonment of Navalny, which were directed at Putin and the oligarchs who support him. (New York Times)
5/ The Biden administration will make gender confirmation surgery available to transgender veterans through Veterans Affairs health care coverage. Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough said that “for far too long, and for far too many,” respect and care “were not the norm for our LGBTQ+ community and our veterans,” adding that is why the VA is “determined to continue down that path. The path of progress.” The National Center for Transgender Equality estimates there are approximately 134,000 transgender veterans. (CNN)
6/ Trump suggested sending Americans infected with Covid-19 to Guantanamo Bay in an effort to suppress the number of cases on U.S. soil. During a February 2020 meeting as administration officials were discussing whether to bring infected Americans home for care, Trump reportedly asked: “Don’t we have an island that we own?” and “What about Guantánamo?” Trump brought it up a second time, saying “We import goods,” “We are not going to import a virus.” Aides eventually scuttled the idea of quarantining Americans on the same base where the U.S. holds terrorism suspects. (Washington Post)
7/ Joe Manchin told an electric utility trade group that the Biden administration’s pledge to cut carbon emissions is too “aggressive.” Manchin, whose home state is a major coal producer, defended coal-fired power plants at Edison Electric Institute’s 2021 conference, arguing that coal is being “singled out by environmentalists” as a polluter. “This is a global climate,” Manchin said. “Some of our environmental friends […] they make [us] believe we are polluting the whole climate.” The Biden administration, meanwhile, has set a goal to cut carbon emissions in half from 2005 levels by 2030, with a 2035 goal for the nation’s electric utilities to convert to 100% clean power. Manchin, however, told EEI that “I’ve always been very, very cautious about” transitioning to a net zero economy, adding that “you cannot eliminate your way there, [but] you can innovate your way there.” (HEATED / Utility Drive / RTO Insider)
poll/ 80% of Americans support requiring a photo ID to vote, while 18% oppose the idea. 71% support making in-person early voting easier, while 16% say it should be made harder. And, 50% said voting by mail should be made easier, while 39% saying it should be made harder. (Monmouth University)
[h=1]Tue-Day 154: "Our great democracy."[/h]
! 1/ Senate Republicans blocked debate on the For the People Act, an amended version of the voting rights legislation that passed the House in March. The vote to start debate on the voting legislation, failed 50-50 on party lines — 10 votes short of the supermajority needed to advance the bill and begin open debate in the Senate. Mitch McConnell called the bill, which would expand early voting, end partisan gerrymandering, make it easier to vote by mail, and make Election Day a federal holiday, a “partisan power grab.” Hours before the vote – and after weeks of saying he would vote against election reform unless it had bipartisan support – Sen. Joe Manchin finally agreed to vote to begin debate on the legislation in a show of unity against the GOP move, saying he reached a compromise with the other members of his party “to ensure every eligible voter is able to cast their ballot and participate in our great democracy.” Republicans, however, were unwilling to even debate voting rights. Earlier in the day, Biden urged the Senate to pass the voting rights bill, saying “we can’t sit idly by while democracy is in peril — here, in America. We need to protect the sacred right to vote and ensure ‘We the People’ choose our leaders, the very foundation on which our democracy rests.” White House press secretary Jen Psaki added that “this fight is not over, no matter the outcome today, it’s going to continue.” (Politico / Bloomberg / New York Times / Washington Post / ABC News / CNN / Wall Street Journal / Associated Press)
2/ Sen. Kyrsten Sinema defended her opposition to nixing the 60-vote legislative filibuster, saying “we will lose much more than we gain.” In an op-ed, Sinema – choosing to defend the filibuster over democracy – argued that eliminating the legislative filibuster would weaken “democracy’s guardrails” by “cementing uncertainty, deepening divisions and further eroding Americans’ confidence in our government.” Sinema also warned that a majority-rule Senate would lead to “ricochet” legislating, suggesting that Republicans would roll back any Democratic policy gains. Joe Manchin has also said he opposes getting rid of the filibuster. Following the failed vote on the For the People Act, Manchin was asked about the possibility of reforming the filibuster. He laughed and
: “No guys, listen, I think you all know where I stand on the filibuster.” (Washington Post / The Hill / New York Magazine)
3/ The White House does not expect to meet Biden’s goal of having 70% of all adults at least partially vaccinated by July 4. The U.S., however, has hit the vaccination target among adults ages 30 and older, and is expected to reach that threshold for those 27 and older by Independence Day. More than 175 million Americans have received at least one shot, and more than 150 million Americans are fully vaccinated. About one-third of Americans say they have no immediate plan to get vaccinated. (NBC News / CBS News / New York Times)
4/ The highly contagious coronavirus Delta variant is spreading in under-vaccinated pockets and will likely become the predominant strain in the U.S. within weeks, according to a new analysis. The variant, first identified in India, accounts for at least 14% of all new infections in the U.S. and studies suggest it’s around 60% more transmissible than the original strain that emerged from Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Dr. Anthony Fauci called the Delta variant the “greatest threat” to the nation’s attempt to eliminate Covid-19. (Bloomberg / NPR / CNBC)
5/ Trump asked aides in 2019 to look at what the Justice Department and the FCC could do to punish “Saturday Night Live” and other late-night shows for mocking him. After watching a rerun of SNL in March 2019, Trump tweeted that the episode was “not funny/no talent” that kept “knocking the same person (me), over & over, without so much of a mention of ‘the other side.’” He then asked: “Should Federal Election Commission and/or FCC look into this?” According to people familiar with the matter, Trump then asked advisers and lawyers about what the FCC, the courts systems, and the Department of Justice could do to investigate the shows. Trump reportedly had to be repeatedly advised that the shows are satire, a form of protected speech. (Daily Beast / Business Insider)
poll/ 43% of Iowans approve of the job Biden is doing as president, with 52% disapproving. (Des Moines Register)
poll/ 26% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing – down 10 points from March. (Gallup)
[h=1]Wed-Day 155: "Pursuit of truth."[/h]
! 1/ Nancy Pelosi plans to appoint a select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol after Senate Republicans blocked the creation of an independent, bipartisan commission. While Pelosi has not formally announced the committee, she suggested during a House Steering and Policy Committee meeting that she would move forward with plans to form an independent panel modeled after the 9/11 Commission in “pursuit of truth.” The House passed legislation last month to establish a bipartisan commission, but Senate Republicans filibustered the bill. (Politico / CNN)
2/ Biden’s Justice Department could end up defending Trump in lawsuits seeking to hold him accountable for the Jan. 6 attack, including one filed by two U.S. Capitol Police and one filed by Rep. Eric Swalwell, which alleges that Trump incited the riot in an effort to stop Congress from certifying Biden as the election winner. In an unrelated defamation case against Trump by author E. Jean Carroll, who contends that Trump raped her 25 years ago and then lied about it while in office, the Biden DOJ argued that presidents enjoy immunity for their comments while in office, including the right to a defense by government lawyers. The Biden Justice Department, meanwhile, declined to comment on whether it would use the same legal rationale of presidential immunity as the basis for intervening in other lawsuits Trump faces. (Reuters / Vanity Fair)
3/ Attorney General Merrick Garland backed away from a comprehensive review of actions by the Trump Justice Department, calling it “a complicated question.” Garland noted, however, that the department’s independent inspector general was already investigating related issues, including leak hunts, attempts to overturn the election, and whether Trump had improperly used the department’s powers to investigate and prosecute. (New York Times)
4/ Four Saudi operatives who killed journalist Jamal Khashoggi received paramilitary training in the U.S. a year before. The training of the Saudi Royal Guard was approved by the State Department and provided by Tier 1 Group, an Arkansas-based security company, under a license first issued in 2014, which continued through at least the first year of Trump’s term. Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered in 2018 after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. The CIA concluded that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman directed the operation. Trump later bragged that he protected the prince from Congress after ordering the assassination of Khashoggi. (New York Times)
5/ A Navy counterterrorism training document suggests that socialism is a “terrorist ideology.” A section of the training document, titled “Introduction to Terrorism/Terrorist Operations,” groups anarchists, socialists, and neo-nazis into the same “political terrorist” ideological category. The training document is designed for masters-at-arms, the Navy’s internal police. (The Intercept)
6/ Roughly 900 Secret Service employees tested positive for the coronavirus since March 2020. More than half – 477 – were responsible for protecting Trump and Pence, as well as their families and other government officials. More than 11% of Secret Service employees were infected. (Associated Press / Washington Post)
7/ Biden will replace the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Supreme Court ruled that Biden had the authority to replace the agency’s director, Mark Calabria, who was appointed by Trump. (Bloomberg / New York Times / NBC News)
8/ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation requiring the state’s public colleges and universities to survey students, faculty, and staff about their political views. As part of his push against the “indoctrination” of students, DeSantis threatened to cut funding from state universities that he determines doesn’t promote “intellectual diversity.” DeSantis also signed two other education bills mandating new civics and “patriotism” education requirements in K-12 schools, including teaching about the “evils” of communist and totalitarian governments. (Tampa Bay Times / Business Insider)
9/ Texas Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed a bill that would require schools teach children about domestic violence and child abuse. Abbott said the “bill fails to recognize the right of parents to opt their children out of the instruction.” Abbott also vetoed a bill that would have banned the use of heavy chains to tether dogs outside and leave them without drinkable water, adequate shade or shelter. (Texas Tribune / The Hill / The Guardian)
[h=1]Thu-Day 156: "Root causes."[/h]
! 1/ Biden agreed to a bipartisan infrastructure deal after meeting with a group of senators at the White House. “We have a deal,” Biden said, endorsing the roughly $1 trillion infrastructure plan by a group of 10 senators. Under the framework, the bipartisan package would include about $579 billion in new spending to overhaul the nation’s transportation, electric utilities, water, and broadband infrastructure. The Senate, meanwhile, has started to work on a budget resolution that would allow Democrats to pass a second, much larger package of spending and tax increases unilaterally. Chuck Schumer said the Senate will simultaneously move forward with both the bipartisan agreement and the reconciliation bill. Nancy Pelosi told House Democratic leaders that the House won’t take up the bipartisan agreement until the Senate approves a package through reconciliation. (Bloomberg / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / New York Times / Politico / CNN / NBC News / CNBC)
2/ The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff pushed back against suggestions from a Republican congressman that the military was becoming too “woke” for teaching critical race theory at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Gen. Mark Milley called the accusations from Rep. Michael Waltz “offensive,” saying that studying institutional racism could be useful in understanding what “caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America” during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Milley added that military university graduates should be “open-minded and be widely read,” adding: “I’ve read Mao Zedong. I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin. That doesn’t make me a communist. So what is wrong with understanding — having some situational understanding about the country for which we are here to defend?” The exchange came at a House Armed Services Committee hearing to discuss the 2022 Defense Department budget. (New York Times / Reuters / NPR)
3/ Rudy Giuliani was temporarily barred from practicing law in New York and faces disbarment for making “demonstrably false and misleading statements” while helping Trump challenge to the 2020 election results. The New York State appellate court temporarily suspended Giuliani’s law license, saying Giuliani represented an “immediate threat” to the public and had “directly inflamed” the tensions that led to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. “The seriousness of respondent’s uncontroverted misconduct cannot be overstated,” the court said. “This country is being torn apart by continued attacks on the legitimacy of the 2020 election and of our current president, Joseph R. Biden.” (New York Times / USA Today)
4/ The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly concerned about the conspiracy theory that Trump will be reinstated as president in August. In a private briefing with the House Committee on Homeland Security, the department’s top counterterrorism official told members that it was monitoring discussion of the topic among online extremist communities and that the department was concerned the false narrative that the election was rigged would trigger violence. Trump, meanwhile, has been telling acquaintances he expects to be reinstated as president by the end of the summer. (Politico)
5/ Nancy Pelosi announced the creation of a select committee to examine the January 6 attack on the Capitol, saying “It is imperative that we establish the truth of that day, and ensure that an attack of that kind cannot happen.” Pelosi said the investigation would take “two paths”: looking at the “root causes” of the attack, and the failures in security of the Capitol. Last month, Senate Republicans blocked the creation of an independent, bipartisan commission. (CBS News / Washington Post / Politico / New York Times / The Guardian)
6/ The Biden administration extended the national moratorium on evictions to help millions of tenants unable to make rent payments during the coronavirus pandemic. The nationwide ban on evictions was scheduled to expire on June 30, but Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, extended the moratorium until July 31. The CDC said “this is intended to be the final extension of the moratorium.” (New York Times / Associated Press)
[h=1]Fri-Day 157: "Particular cruelty."[/h]
! 1/ The Justice Department filed a federal lawsuit against Georgia, alleging that the restrictions from its new voting law purposefully discriminate against Black Americans. Georgia’s Election Integrity Act, which was passed the Republican-led state legislature on a party-line vote and signed into law by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in late March, changed how voters can cast their votes, imposed new limits on the use of absentee ballots, made it a crime for outside groups to provide food and water to voters waiting at polling stations, and handed greater control over election administration to the state legislature. “Our complaint alleges that recent changes to Georgia’s election laws were enacted with the purpose of denying or abridging the right of Black Georgians to vote on account of their race or color, in violation of Section Two of the Voting Rights Act,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said. Kristen Clarke, the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said several of the law’s provisions “were passed with a discriminatory purpose” that would disproportionately “push more Black voters to in-person voting where they will be more likely than white voters to confront long lines.” (Washington Post / New York Times / Politico / Wall Street Journal / ABC News)
2/ Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 22 years and six months in prison for murdering George Floyd. Chauvin was convicted in April on charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. He faced up to four decades in prison – prosecutors had asked for 30 years – and could get out on parole after serving two-thirds of his sentence, or about 15 years. Judge Peter Cahill went beyond the 12 1/2-year sentence prescribed under state guidelines, citing “your abuse of a position of trust and authority and also the particular cruelty” shown to Floyd. Separately, Chauvin and the three other former officers present for Floyd’s murder are also facing federal civil rights charges. (Associated Press / NPR / Bloomberg / New York Times / Washington Post / Axios / Wall Street Journal)
3/ The bipartisan infrastructure deal is now in jeopardy after Republicans complained they were “blindsided by Biden’s efforts to simultaneously pursue both the bipartisan deal and a package of Democratic priorities that can pass via reconciliation without GOP support. Yesterday – when Biden announced the bipartisan infrastructure deal – he said that if this “is the only one that comes to me, I’m not signing it,” adding that the deal is contingent upon it passing “in tandem” with a broader package of priorities. Several of the 11 Republicans who signed off on the bipartisan deal were described as “stunned,” “floored,” and “frustrated” that Biden later put conditions on accepting their deal, privately warning that they could walk away and torpedo the $1.2 trillion deal. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said senators shouldn’t be surprised by the two-track strategy, saying “That hasn’t been a secret, [Biden] hasn’t said it quietly, he hasn’t even whispered it.” Sen. Lindsey Graham, meanwhile, claimed that Biden duped the GOP senators who negotiated the deal, saying “most Republicans could not have known” about the two-track strategy. “There’s no way. You look like a fucking idiot now.” (Politico / Associated Press / The Hill / CNN / Business Insider)
4/ The Manhattan district attorney’s office informed Trump’s lawyers that it is considering criminal charges against the Trump Organization. Cyrus Vance Jr. could announce charges against the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, as soon as next week in connection with fringe benefits Weisselberg received from the company. Investigators have also been probing Matthew Calamari – Trump’s Trump bodyguard who’s now the company’s chief operating officer – over whether he received tax-free fringe benefits from the company. It would be unusual to indict a company only for failing to pay taxes on fringe benefits. (New York Times / NBC News)
5/ Nearly all Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. now are among people who weren’t vaccinated. About 63% of eligible Americans 12 and older have received at least one dose, and 53% are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. “Breakthrough” infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 853,000 Covid-19 hospitalizations – about 0.1%. (Associated Press)
6/ The House voted to repeal a Trump-era rule that rolled back regulations of methane emissions from oil and gas industries. The final vote was 229-191 and now heads to Biden’s desk for his signature. The Senate passed the resolution at the end of April under the Congressional Review Act. (CNN / Washington Post)
poll/ 41% of Americans ages 18-34 have a positive view of socialism – up from 39% in 2019. 49% of Americans ages 18-34, meanwhile, have a positive view of capitalism – down from 58% in 2019. (Axios)
Also, one from last Thursday that caught my attention
A Florida GOP congressional candidate threatened his Republican opponent with “a Russian and Ukrainian hit squad” that would make her “disappear.” During a 30-minute call that was secretly recorded, William Braddock repeatedly warned a conservative activist not support Anna Paulina Luna in the Republican primary for a Tampa Bay-area congressional seat. Braddock called Luna “a fucking speed bump in the road. She’s a dead squirrel you run over every day when you leave the neighborhood.” In the recording, Braddock added: “I really don’t want to have to end anybody’s life […] But if it needs to be done, it needs to be done.” (Politico / Washington Post)
And another from Tuesday's that caught my eye for how it highlighted Trump's pettiness:
Trump asked aides in 2019 to look at what the Justice Department and the FCC could do to punish “Saturday Night Live” and other late-night shows for mocking him. After watching a rerun of SNL in March 2019, Trump tweeted that the episode was “not funny/no talent” that kept “knocking the same person (me), over & over, without so much of a mention of ‘the other side.’” He then asked: “Should Federal Election Commission and/or FCC look into this?” According to people familiar with the matter, Trump then asked advisers and lawyers about what the FCC, the courts systems, and the Department of Justice could do to investigate the shows. Trump reportedly had to be repeatedly advised that the shows are satire, a form of protected speech. (Daily Beast / Business Insider)