Crooked Media - What A Day: Exception improves the rule

Democrats are running out of time to install democracy guardrails before the 2022 midterms, but at least their plan to sail to re-election on Productive Bipartisan Compromise is...hmm, also not in the best shape. Well, hey, there are a few days left to turn this around!
 

• On Tuesday, the Texas Democrats blocking voter-suppression legislation with a cross-country walkout implored Senate Democrats to take similarly decisive action at the federal level. State Rep. Chris Turner echoed Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) in calling to establish a filibuster exception for voting rights legislation: “If you can have a carveout for a right-wing Supreme Court Justice, why can't you have a carveout to protect the very fundamentals of our democracy?” (“Because only GOP majorities should be able to accomplish their priorities, of course,” answer Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, implicitly.)
   
• President Biden called for nothing of the kind during his highly anticipated speech on voting rights in Philadelphia, even as he called the GOP assault on ballot access “the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War.” Instead, Biden urged Congress to pass legislation that has no chance of going anywhere until that filibuster carveout happens, and called for a broad new coalition of activists, students, and community leaders “to overcome this un-American trend and meet the moment as far as turnout and voter education.”
   
• Meanwhile, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) has pledged to arrest Democratic lawmakers upon their return to Texas. The state's House Republicans also voted to authorize state troopers to track down Democrats and bring them back “under warrant of arrest if necessary”—a purely symbolic measure, since Democrats plan to stay out of Texas law enforcement’s jurisdiction through the end of the special session. That would successfully block the voter-suppression bill for now, but Abbott has vowed to call as many special sessions as it takes to prevent people from voting.

(Natalie Portman meme) But voters across the country will be motivated to overcome all obstacles when they see Biden’s agenda pass with bipartisan support, right?
 

• There are yet more indications that this may not be a foolproof strategy. Six of the 11 GOP senators who had signed onto the bipartisan infrastructure deal are now laying the groundwork to withdraw their support, over Very Real Concerns like the financing mechanisms that they already agreed to, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s promise not to pass the bipartisan bill unless it’s accompanied by a broader reconciliation bill. 
   
• As Republicans prepare to pull away the football in slowest-possible motion, Democrats’ reconciliation package is starting to take shape, with an initial framework that would allocate more than $3.5 trillion for climate and caregiving priorities. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) came out of a Monday meeting with President Biden saying that he was still pushing for a larger proposal that would expand Medicare, but that he and Biden were on the same page about pursuing a “transformative” party-line bill. 

It’s great that Biden is now describing the Republican threat to democracy in the urgent language it demands, but until he follows it up with a call for the Senate to reform the filibuster, progress toward a solution is at a standstill. And not only do bipartisan negotiations with the GOP undercut Biden’s warning of a radicalized party, they don’t seem likely to translate into midterm-winning legislation. It sure seems like there’s exactly one way forward.

This week on America Dissected, host Abdul El-Sayed is joined by actor, comedian, and host Wayne Brady to discuss his journey with mental health and how toxic masculinity changed the course of his career. Listen to new episodes of America Dissected every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

The GOP-run Tennessee Department of Health has fired the state’s top vaccine official over her efforts to vaccinate teenagers, as Tennessee Republicans prioritized a self-serving culture war over protecting their constituents from a preventable disease. “I’m afraid for my state.” Michelle Fiscus said that she was ousted after writing a memo for vaccine providers on the legality of vaccinating minors without parental consent, based on Tennessee Supreme Court case law. Under pressure from Republicans, the Tennessee Department of Health will now halt all vaccine outreach to kids—for all diseases—and will end all coronavirus vaccine events at schools. On the other side of what should not be a battle, the White House has begun pushing back more aggressively on right-wing vaccine misinformation and fearmongering, directly calling out the offenders. President Biden also hosted Olivia Rodrigo at the White House on Tuesday to help raise vaccine awareness among the Youngs, and to help political reporters realize they are Olds. 

• The Russian ransomware group behind some of the largest recent cyberattacks has gone offline, shortly after President Biden warned Vladimir Putin that the U.S. would take action against the hackers if the Russian government didn’t. It’s not yet clear if those events are connected.
   
• The indicted Trump Organization has removed its indicted CFO Allen Weisselberg as an officer at some of its subsidiaries, replacing him with Trump’s as-yet-unindicted sons at at least one company.
   
• A coalition of health-care organizations has called on medical facilities to issue vaccine mandates for their employees, under the medical profession’s age-old “come on now” principle. Over the weekend, Anthony Fauci advocated for more vaccine mandates at the local level. 
   
• More than 100 people have been arrested in Cuba or are missing after rare widespread protests, according to activists. Internet blackouts have made it difficult to see the full scope of the government response, but there are some troubling glimpses, like Cuban police arresting a government critic from her home in the middle of a live TV interview.
   
• One of the suspects in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was once a DEA informant, according the agency.
   
• A California judge ruled that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) can’t list himself as a Democrat on the gubernatorial recall ballot after his election attorney bungled a filing deadline last year, marking another blessed day to not be Gavin Newsom’s election attorney.
   
• Former Social Security commissioner Andrew Saul, a Trump appointee who announced that he would remain in his job after President Biden fired him last week, has been locked out of the agency’s computers. 
   
• Drug dealers have started trying to sell British liberals “woke coke,” when the only truly ethical cocaine is that which has been pilfered from Donald Trump Jr. 

Inflation surged in June at the fastest pace in 13 years as the economy continued to recover, according to a new Labor Department report. Consumer prices rose in June by 0.9 percent from May and 5.4 percent over the past year, as increased demand ran up against supply shortages. Price spikes in just a few categories have driven up the inflation numbers: Used cars have gotten astronomically expensive thanks to microchip shortages that have limited production of new cars, and prices for airline fares, hotel rooms, and apparel have also gone up significantly over last year. The Federal Reserve and the White House have both maintained that the current inflation is a temporary hiccup that doesn't require intervention, but the longer it sticks around, the more likely that consumers will expect prices to continue getting higher and buy more plane tickets and novelty bucket hats now—thus driving up inflation.

California has allocated $156 million for non-carceral approaches to fighting anti-Asian violence.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is set to unveil a comprehensive marijuana reform bill—possibly on Wednesday.

The NAACP has offered to pay bail for Texas Democrats if Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) makes good on his threat.

Mj Rodriguez has become the first trans performer to be nominated for an Emmy in a major acting category.