Crooked Media - What A Day: Full court mess

Now that democracy reform is toast, voting-rights reform is on life support, and the rest of President Biden’s agenda is in limbo, it’s time to REGROUP. Folks, it’s finally true: Democrats are in disarray!

• The crisis moment roughly divides activists on the outside, intent on doing everything in their power to prevent America from sliding into the abyss, and elected officials on the inside who seem... somewhat less alarmed. After Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced he would oppose any effort to protect democracy that Republicans (haha) don't also support (big lolz) Stacey Abrams’s group, Fair Fight Action, announced a month-long campaign called Hot Call Summer, which aims to mobilize up to 10 million voters in swing states in support of H.R. 1. 
   
• Abrams’s efforts will supplement the Poor People’s Campaign, which announced it will mobilize in West Virginia, and a full court press from major civil rights groups, whose leaders met with Manchin on Tuesday. Manchin claimed to be unmoved after the meeting, but attendees said there is still room for consensus. "Our goal was to establish and build the relationship and we accomplished that," NAACP President Derrick Johnson told NPR. "Now the real work starts because the commitment from the senator and from us is that we would maintain the dialogue and work as hard as possible to come up with a solution that can actually become policy."
   
• There are even some members of Congress who have taken a hands-on approach to the Manchin problem. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including House Majority Whip James Clyburn, have been vocally critical of Manchin. On the other side of the Capitol, Sen. Brain Schatz (D-HI) put the onus on Manchin to resolve the internal contradictions of his position: “Anyone who is defending the 60-vote threshold has an obligation to help the body to get to 60 votes,” he said.

Elsewhere, Democrats are treading much more lightly. 

• Many Senate Democrats are reluctant to criticize Manchin for fear of “poking the bear.” The party has separately shelved its main tool for protecting democracy that isn’t subject to the filibuster—using investigative and legal powers to expose Trump-era corruption, and GOP complicity in trying to steal elections. Nearly two weeks after Republicans filibustered the January 6 commission, House Democrats haven’t yet launched a dedicated investigation of the insurrection, because, according to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “we are still hoping the Senate will pass the January 6th Commission.” The Biden administration likewise continues to conceal Trump’s tax returns and Trump-era deliberations over covering up Trump’s obstruction of justice, and (most bizarrely) has adopted the Trump Justice Department’s position that the government should defend Trump in a libel suit filed by E. Jean Carroll, who has accused him of rape. 
   
• Meanwhile Republicans, who are historically favored to do well in next year’s midterms, are all but recruiting candidates who supported overturning the 2020 election and argue in effect that Democratic victories are illegitimate, “raising new doubts,” as the New York Times put it, “about whether Americans can still count on the routine, nonpartisan certification of free and fair elections.” 

We can’t know whether anything will change Joe Manchin’s mind. But either way, Democrats’ plan going forward should be simple: do as much as is in their power to do to protect democracy on every front. Aggressive oversight instead of “bipartisan” whitewashes. Accountability under the law instead of a return to a pre-Trump “normalcy” that the other party rejects. It’s an emergency, and everyone who recognizes that should act like it. 

This week on Takeline, hosts Jason Concepcion and Renee Montgomery talk to Two-Time NBA Champion Chris Bosh about his new book and being selected to the Naismith basketball hall of fame! New episodes of Takeline every Tuesday. Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

An incredible leak to ProPublica provides a more vivid illustration of American inequality, and the different rules that the ultrawealthy play by, than any we’ve ever seen. ProPublica obtained highly sensitive IRS records of America’s wealthiest tax filers, and they prove what most progressives suspected, but prominent conservatives and rich people deny: Billionaires use commonly known and obscure tax-avoidance strategies to pay close to nothing in federal income taxes. At least once in the past 15 years, billionaires Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg, Carl Icahn, and George Soros paid literally none. From 2014-2018, Warren Buffet paid a true tax rate of 0.1 percent; Bezos, 0.98 percent; Bloomberg, 1.3 percent; and Musk (a total sucker, apparently) 3.27 percent. By the end of 2018, the 25 richest Americans were worth $1.1 trillion—or about as wealthy as 14.3 million American of ordinary wealth. Yet those 14.3 million wage earners paid 75 times more in taxes than the 25 billionaires did. Whoever leaked this data did so at great personal risk, but hopefully it can lend heft to efforts to increase tax rates and enforcement on the ultrarich. As economist Gabriel Zucman, a leading authority on American and global wealth inequality, put it, “it was always clear that the top billionaires don't pay much tax. But even I am surprised at how low their effective tax rate is.”

• President Biden has withdrawn from infrastructure negotiations with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)—who was a proxy for the GOP leadership—and will instead engage with a different bipartisan working group, whose Republicans have never heard of Lucy or football, they swear.
   
• The Senate has passed a nearly quarter-trillion dollar piece of legislation aimed at funding research and development to help the U.S. maintain competitiveness with China. The House will have to take it up before it can become law.
   
• Joe Manchin’s pro-filibuster, anti-H.R. 1 talking points appear to be cribbed from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a Republican-aligned corporate lobbying association.
   
• Republican efforts to spread lies and sow doubt about the 2020 elections do seem to be hurting them politically, at least for now. 
   
• On the other hand, a new study of Democratic swing voters and progressive “surge” voters in swing districts, conducted by a top Biden pollster, finds they’re not sure what the Democratic Party stands for, and that the party risks a drop off in 2022 if it doesn’t make good on its promises.
   
• Democrats on the Federal Elections Commission have discovered a creative way to work around Republican efforts to defang election-law enforcement: block the commission from defending itself in court when advocates sue it for failing to do its job, creating a cause of action for those advocates to sue campaigns directly.
   
• Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) won Virginia's Democratic gubernatorial primary.
   
• Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) won’t run for Senate.
   
• Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Rioters) wants to cancel Biden’s nominee to run the government’s Office of Personnel Management because she once invited Ibram X. Kendi to give a speech at the charity she ran, and also linked to one of his articles in a blog post. 
   
• Rep. Moe Brooks (R-AL) failed to avoid a civil lawsuit for inciting insurrection by hiding from a process server, but his wife, at least, didn't go down without a fight. Bonus video. 
   
• Rep./Potential Sex-Crimes Felon Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is too toxic even for Newsmax, which denied him a job.
   
• Some guy slapped French President Emmanuel Macron, and apparently it was some kind of slapping conspiracy because two people were arrested.

The Food and Drug Administration’s decision to approve an Alzheimer's therapy promises to create a huge headache for Medicare, the public health-insurance system for seniors. Biogen claims its drug aducanumab can treat the root causes of Alzheimer’s, rather than just slow the progression of its symptoms. Sounds great, right? Except: Many dumbfounded scientists say there’s little evidence the treatment actually works, and it’s incredibly expensive. Combine that with the high incidence of Alzheimer’s among the Medicare-eligible population, and you have a recipe for this one pharmaceutical to cause Medicare prescription-drug spending to explode. That leaves Medicare administrators in the unenviable position of deciding whether to deny millions of seniors access to an FDA-approved treatment that they think might salvage their golden years, or upend Medicare’s finances to cover a dubious treatment. Option one could cause Medicare spending on pharmaceuticals to more than double, option two would upend Medicare’s general approach to covering new, unproven drugs.

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New Labor Department data shows that job openings soared to over nine million in April, and workers were voluntarily leaving their jobs in search of more lucrative or fulfilling opportunities at a historic rate.

Texas Dems have launched a comprehensive plan to register millions of voters ahead of the 2022 midterms, an explicit counter to GOP efforts to rig the state’s elections.

Support for same-sex marraige in the U.S. has reached an all time high of 70 percent, driven by increasing support among Republicans, a majority of whom now support legal recognition.

A new affordable-housing initiative of around two dozen buildings in New York City will ply savings from solar power into providing high-speed internet to low-income residents.