Crooked Media - What A Day: End of an error

The era of kabuki bipartisanship is almost over, raising the most important question of the year, if not our lives: Can Democrats save the country, with no votes to spare, in an era of hyperpartisanship? No pressure!

• The demise of infrastructure negotiations between President Biden and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)—who served as a proxy for Senate GOP Leadership—marked the beginning of the end. After two months and amid rising concerns that Democrats were falling into the same trap Mitch McConnell set for Democrats in the early Obama years, Biden terminated their discussions. “[Biden]... expressed his disappointment that, while he was willing to reduce his plan by more than $1 trillion, the Republican group had increased their proposed new investments by only $150 billion,” said White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
   
• That doesn’t mean Democrats are prepared to charge ahead on their own, at least not just yet. But it does seem like they’ll have to choose between “partisan something” and “nothing” sooner than later. Biden threw his support to a different bipartisan working group that includes notable suckers-for-Republicans Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) as well as Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Rob Portman (R-OH). It’s unclear whether any of the Republicans in this group are negotiating in good faith, but GOP leadership seems inclined to cut their legs out from under them if they become too cooperative. “It’s hard for me to see a scenario where even 10 Republicans would vote for something that gets very far beyond where Shelley’s discussions were with the White House,” said Senate Minority Whip John Thune. 
   
• On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer began a month-long effort to showcase Republican abuse of the filibuster by bringing legislation to reduce the gender-wage gap to the Senate floor for a test vote. (Republicans promptly filibustered it.) Manchin was “disappointed” by the filibuster, so did the natural thing and endorsed abolishing it introduced much narrower legislation to incentivize pay parity between the U.S. men’s and women’s national soccer teams. (Great news for those 23 Americans, but can we get rid of the filibuster too?) 

Now that the charades are over, will Democrats choose to govern alone? The answer is a resounding maybe!

• The good news is Democratic leadership seems to get where this is all headed. On Tuesday Biden asked Schumer to initiate the budget process—which would allow Democrats to avoid the filibuster—"so that legislation to advance the President’s economic priorities and tax reform plans could move to the Senate floor in July." As if to put a fine point on the era of bad feelings, Senate Democrats and Republicans also terminated negotiations over gun background checks that no one (well, me) even knew were happening.
   
• But filibuster or no filibuster, Manchin still won’t commit to going it alone to pass an infrastructure bill, even if Republicans prove they aren’t serious negotiating partners. “I’m not even close to the thought process on that,” he said, “we’re just trying to find an infrastructure bill we can all agree on.”

The only hope for most of the Biden agenda is to convince Manchin his position on the filibuster is unsupportable, and it’s good to see Dems demonstrate that for him. But the filibuster doesn’t apply to Biden’s economic agenda, and if Manchin wants to let Republicans dictate his position on those plans too, Dems will have to put them on the floor and make him own it.

This month, Keep It is celebrating Pride with a full month of LGBT+ guests! Special guests will include writer John Paul Brammer, musician Rostam, and writer Brandon Taylor. Don’t miss out! New episodes of Keep It every Tuesday. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Progressive frustration with Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department has begun to boil over. Since Garland’s confirmation, DOJ has repeatedly stunned observers not just for failing to expose Trump-era corruption of federal law enforcement, but in multiple cases actively embracing the Trump DOJ’s most compromised legal positions. In the most widely noted of these: Garland’s DOJ has sought to shield former Attorney General Bill Barr’s deliberations over how to falsely exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice, and announced it would argue in court, as Barr did, that Donald Trump’s defamation of columnist E. Jean Carroll (who has accused Trump of rape) was part of his official duties as president.

House Judiciary Committee Dems have requested a briefing on the Carroll case, and pressured Garland to change the department’s position on it, but the hits keep coming: In a Tuesday court filing, the department held it could “vigorously” defend a religious exemption to federal civil-rights law that serves as a loohpole for anti-LGBT discrimination. Some of this turbulence is probably inevitable when a new administration of the opposite party tries to get a handle on court deadlines, which don’t take a break for presidential transitions. But there have been enough of these centered on high-profile, scandalous, Trump-related cases, to arouse strong suspicions that something is amiss. Rachel Maddow, one of the highest-profile progressive voices in the country, devoted half of her Tuesday show to excoriating Garland’s leadership. “Under Merrick Garland," she said, "the Justice Department so far is AWOL on all of the scariest things that confront them right now.”

• Progressive senators have drawn their own redline on jobs bill negotiations. In short, “no climate, no deal.
   
• ”National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists have detected more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (almost 420 parts per million) than at any point in recorded history—concentrations the Earth hasn’t seen since the sea-level was 78 feet higher than today and the Arctic tundra was covered in forest. [Literal ‘this is fine’ meme.]
   
• Here’s the 240 page transcript of former White House Counsel Don McGahn’s much-belated deposition with the House Judiciary Committee as to whether President Trump obstructed justice.
   
• The Texas state bar has been ordered to reverse course and investigate whether state Attorney General Ken Paxton’s frivolous legal efforts to throw out election results in other states constitutes professional misconduct, which carries a maximum penalty of disbarment.
   
• The Canadian entities behind the Keystone XL pipeline have pulled the plug. Or, passed the pipe, if you will. (You don't have to.)
   
• Rep. Val Demings (D-FL), a former police chief and Trump impeachment manager, will run for Senate in Florida. 
   
• Former Rep. Jim Renacci (R-OH) will primary Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH), seemingly on the grounds that DeWine didn’t do enough to infect more Ohioans with coronavirus, the way Donald Trump would have. 
   
• Watch the head of a right-wing dark money group brag about writing model voter-suppression legislation for state Republicans and laundering it through third parties, “so it has that grassroots, from-the-bottom-up type of vibe."
   
• Prominent Republican economist Art Laffer echoed the beliefs of many conservative elites yesterday when he said, “For those people...who are coming into the labor force brand fresh, not old-timers who have been around for a while—the poor, the minorities, the disenfranchised, those with less education, young people who haven't had the job experience—these people aren't worth $15 an hour in most cases.” Nothing further to add. 
   
• Cicadas swarmed the engines of President Biden’s press plane, rendering it unfit to fly, and delaying the reporters traveling to cover Biden’s first foreign trip for several hours. It's a metaphor, wrapped in an omen, covered in cicadas.
   
• A very good boy who went missing after he was ejected from a car in a crash has been found on a sheep farm herding sheep.

A new paper by economists spanning multiple organizations finds that attaching work requirements to safety net programs has no discernible effect on employment, but does an excellent job depriving income support from people who need it. By tracking able-bodied adults without dependents, as the state of Virginia dropped then reinstated its work requirement on nutrition assistance benefits, the researchers were able to quantify the effect on enrollment, and found a huge drop off—more than twice the rate estimated in other studies—accompanied by tiny-at-best increases in work. “There is a 53 percent overall reduction in program participation among adults who are subject to work requirements. Homeless adults are disproportionately screened out. We find no effects on employment, and suggestive evidence of increased earnings in some specifications.” The findings are consistent with a larger literature on using work requirements to combat the work-disincentive effect of welfare programs, but their utter ineffectiveness has done nothing to dampen Republican enthusiasm for them. It almost makes you wonder if gutting the programs and taking help away from people in poverty was the plan all along.

In 2021 mental health is finally a thing, especially as people are not feeling like their normal selves. Let’s support one another and talk openly. Whether or not therapy is your thing, knowing it’s available and affordable is important, for you or perhaps a loved one.   

Millions of people are trying and loving online therapy. It doesn’t have to be sitting around just talking about your feelings.

So, what is therapy, exactly? It’s whatever you want it to be.

You can privately talk to someone if your stress is too much to manage, you’re battling a temper, having relationship issues, anxiety, depression, etc… Whatever you need, there’s no more shame in these normal human struggles. We take care of our bodies, why not our minds, too? Without a healthy mind, being truly happy and at peace is HARD.

BetterHelp is customized online therapy that offers video, phone and even live chat sessions with your therapist, so you don’t have to see anyone on camera if you don’t want to. It’s much more affordable than in-person therapy and you can start communicating with your therapist in under 48 hours.

It’s always a good time to invest in yourself, because you are your greatest asset. See if online therapy is for you by heading to BetterHelp.com/crooked for 10% off your first month.

The Biden administration will purchase 500 million doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine and donate them to the world. 
 

The Charlottesville, VA, city council has voted to remove two confederate statues, nearly four years after neo-Nazis invaded the city.
 

The Biden administration will restore an Obama-era housing requirement that neighborhoods desegregate or lose federal funding—the rule Donald Trump falsely claimed would “abolish the suburbs.”

A Harvard-bound graduate whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Ghana asked her high school to donate the $40,000 excellence prize she won to someone in greater need who will attend community college, like her mother did.