Crooked Media - What A Day: Daunted Manchin

The S.S. Bipartisanship almost made it out of the harbor: A narrow infrastructure deal has attracted the magic number of Republican backers, and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has finished negotiating with himself on voting-rights legislation. Whether anything will actually pass still depends, somehow, on Captain Centrism himself.
 

• Eleven GOP senators have announced their support for a roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure proposal, meaning it would have enough votes to pass even if one (and only one) Senate Democrat took a pass. The deal, which includes just $579 billion in new spending, would only invest in physical infrastructure like transportation and water systems. In lieu of tax hikes on corporations, the long list of “pay-fors” includes a proposal to raise the gas tax, which would hit lower-income drivers the hardest. 
   
• Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and other progressives have made clear that they won’t support any infrastructure deal that excludes priorities like fighting climate change, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer pledged on Wednesday that they won’t have to. One path would be for Democrats to pass the dinky bipartisan deal to satisfy Manchin & Friends, then turn around and pass a broader, partisan package through budget reconciliation. The risk is that Manchin would set sail down the Potomac River after passing the measures he cares about, never to be seen again.
   
• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said on Thursday that she won’t support the bipartisan deal without a commitment from Manchin to vote for that second package, and more Democrats are likely to join her. While negotiations continue, Senate Democrats have been laying the groundwork for the reconciliation bill, and are reportedly considering spending up to $6 trillion (!). That package would include key elements of both the American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan, and potentially the Medicare expansion that progressives have been advocating for. 

Over in voting-rights land, negotiations have hit a Mitch McConnell-shaped snag.
 

• The S. 1 compromise that Manchin proposed on Wednesday, which would end partisan gerrymandering but establish a voter-ID requirement, quickly found support on the left. Stacey Abrams has backed it! Senate Democrats gave it a positive reception in Thursday’s caucus meeting! Ezra Klein wrote an op-ed titled “Maybe Joe Manchin Knows Exactly What He’s Doing,” which frankly seems like a step too far, but let’s hear him out!
   
• The key question immediately became, what will Manchin do if he can’t find 10 Republicans to support his modified version? It seems we’re about to find out. McConnell flatly rejected the proposal on Thursday, turning Abrams’s endorsement into a dog whistle: “Senate Democrats seem to have reached a so-called ‘compromise’ election takeover among themselves. In reality, the plan endorsed by Stacey Abrams is no compromise.” McConnell declared that “all Republicans will oppose that as well,” and so far, none have contradicted him.
   

In the op-ed linked above, Klein argues that maybe, just maybe, Manchin might be prepared to give Republicans an ultimatum: Pass a watered-down, bipartisan voting rights bill, or lose the filibuster as they know it, along with all of the election-rigging methods they hold dear. If bipartisanship were truly Manchin’s guiding light, it’s exactly what he would do. Let’s hope he sees it that way.

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Welcome to another edition of Good SCOTUS News, Bad SCOTUS News That Nevertheless Could’ve Been Much Worse! In the good news category, the Supreme Court has dismissed the latest GOP challenge to Obamacare in a 7-2 decision. The opinion of the court didn’t hinge on the core, absurd question of whether Congress’s elimination of the law’s penalty for failing to obtain health insurance rendered the whole ACA unconstitutional. Instead, the Court simply found that Texas and other GOP-led states didn’t have standing to bring their lawsuit. For those keeping score, Obamacare: 3, Embarrassing GOP Supreme Court Challenges: 0.

On the bad-but-not-yet-crisis-level side, the Court unanimously ruled that Philadelphia violated the First Amendment when it imposed its anti-discrimination law on a Catholic foster-care agency that refuses to consider same-sex couples as potential foster parents. It’s a painful ruling, but it’s a narrow one: The outcome hinged on specific language in the city’s foster-care contract. The justices didn’t use the case to overturn precedent and give taxpayer-funded foster agencies across the country carte blanche to discriminate based on religious beliefs, as many feared they might. But those fears weren’t unfounded: Three conservative justices were ready to go much further, and two more signaled that they’ll be on board when a stronger case comes their way.

• Israel launched additional airstrikes on the Gaza Strip on Thursday night, in response to Hamas's incendiary balloons. 
   
• The House voted to repeal the 2002 authorization for use of military force (AUMF) in Iraq, in a move to rein in presidential war powers. The bill has the White House’s support, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said he’ll bring it to the floor for a vote this year.
   
• More than eight million households face foreclosure or eviction as federal protections expire, according to a new Harvard housing report.
   
• Last week’s new unemployment claims creeped back over the 400,000 threshold, the first time initial-claims numbers have gone up since April. The four-week average for new claims continued to decline.
   
• Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) refused to shake hands with Michael Fanone, a DC police officer who was wounded by the normal tourists peacefully visiting the Capitol on January 6.
   
• The extreme western heat wave has broken hundreds of records and intensified a historically bad drought, which has in turn made the heat wave worse. It’s another beautiful-if-uncomfortably-hot day to fund some climate-friendly infrastructure!
   
• An Israeli study found that hospitalized coronavirus patients are much more likely to wind up severely ill if they’re vitamin-D deficient. It gives us no pleasure to report that when Donald Trump suggested coronavirus-ridden Americans should simply wander around in the sun……..he might’ve been onto something.
   
• A GOP House candidate in Florida threatened to send “a Russian and Ukrainian hit squad” after his primary rival. We must return to a more decent time in politics, when Florida GOP candidates relied on decent, American hit squads.
   
• Stephen Miller can't find anyone to buy his Washington, DC, condo, even though it features “sleek, wood cabinets,” and a “warm and contemporary kitchen," and a "dank, lightless hole for scheming and/or molting."

While Texans conserve power to avoid maxing out an inadequate electric grid for the second time in less than a year, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) is out here solving the real problems. On Wednesday, Abbott announced a plan to dump $250 million into building a border wall, to be paid for with crowdfunded donations. He’s also signed seven gun bills into law, including a measure allowing Texans to carry handguns in public without a permit, as well as law that will automatically outlaw abortions in the state if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. And the whole failing-electrical-grid thing? On the third day of Texans being asked to limit their use of luxury items like “ovens” and “washing machines,” Abbott insisted that the state’s power grid was “better today than it’s ever been.” A master class in governing.

It's time to fully fund true community safety and health in Black communities that helps bring the era of racist and violent policing to an end. Are you with the ACLU?

Our country needs to re-examine public safety to save Black lives and reduce racist police violence – and the critical solutions to do so are straightforward: from training civilian professionals as first responders in mental health crises to dealing with low-level offenses through tickets instead of force, arrests, and preventable death. Sign the ACLU's petition and urge President Biden to use the power and purse strings of the federal government to make sure these proven alternatives are embraced by every city across America. 

We know that real justice will only be achieved when no more Black lives are harmed or taken by the police – and the ACLU will fight to make sure that day comes. Click here to add your name today to join the fight.

The Biden administration will invest $3.2 billion in finding new antiviral drugs, both to speed the end of the current pandemic and better prepare the U.S. for the next one.

The Justice Department has issued statements of interest in two lawsuits seeking to strike down state laws that target transgender kids. 

Connecticut has become the first state to make prison phone calls free.

President Biden has signed a bill establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday, just in time to give federal workers a surprise day off. (We’ll be out on Friday, too—see you on Monday!)