Crooked Media - What A Day: Gottheim where we wantheim

There are just 48 hours left before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s promise to hold a vote on the Senate infrastructure bill comes due, and it’s gonna fail unless something gives, thus rendering the BIF (hold on to your butts!) a bridge to nowhere. (Whew!)
 

• Pelosi reportedly told House Democrats that she now supports delinking the Senate infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better act, and passing the former on Thursday, which would remove conservative Democrats’ only incentive to negotiate in good faith over the bulk of President Biden’s agenda. That would amount to a broken promise to the overwhelming majority of Democrats, who understood the two bills to be linked. Dozens of House Dems thus say they will vote against the Senate infrastructure bill until the Build Back Better act is ready to go. Unless nearly all of them cave, the bill will fail. (Bernie Sanders doesn’t want them to cave.)

• Caving would be less consequential if the two centrist Senate Democrats creating the logjam—our good friends Kyrstemanchima and Joesinemin—were willing to make a public commitment to supporting a Build Back Better act of a certain size, with specific policies and revenue sources. Biden met with Kyrsten Sinema at the White House today (more than once, apparently!) seemingly in the hope of obtaining a commitment along those lines, but beyond these platitudes about “mov[ing] the ball forward” at this “pivotal moment” it’s unclear if he made any meaningful progress.

• Lastly, Pelosi could pull the bill, instead of giving it a floor vote. She has a long, unbroken streak of not losing votes on the House floor, and reiterated this weekend, “I’m never bringing a bill to the floor that doesn’t have the votes.” But the small number of House Democratic centrists she made the promise to might interpret failure to hold a vote on Thursday as a breach of that promise. And that might put their votes for the Build Back Better act at risk.

Whatever happens to the Senate infrastructure bill this week, it’ll either be a minor hiccup or the end of the line for Biden’s economic agenda. No pressure!
 

• In the most optimistic scenario, the failure of the BIF in the House would keep the fate of the two bills linked. Centrists would realize that they can’t unilaterally dictate the party's legislative agenda, and negotiations on the Build Back Better act would continue until it’s complete, at which point both bills would pass the House in tandem. Alternatively, the centrists could pitch a fit, take their toys and go home, and leave Biden with a big ol’ goose egg of a legacy.

• If somehow the House does pass the Senate infrastructure bill Thursday, Democrats might still manage to pass a Build Back Better bill, but unless Democrats get a credible commitment from the small band of centrists, they’d be taking a huge leap of faith. If the Senate infrastructure bill becomes law, and the centrists pull the rug out from under Build Back Better, Dems will have given Republicans veto power over their concurrent majorities, done next to nothing about climate change, and most likely allowed the early achievements Biden lodged in the American Rescue Plan to expire. 

All of this messiness was avoidable. But it became inevitable when centrists first insisted on splitting Biden’s agenda in two, and then tried to subvert the deal the party reached to advance the two pieces together. Now we wait to see if they get rewarded for double dealing, and what if any further damage they’ll try to do if they don’t.

If you have investments, odds are high that your money has been winding up in places you would never put it on purpose. Places like Mitch McConnell’s campaign coffers. Here’s the problem: A lot of Americans own S&P 500 index funds—these are funds made up of the 500 largest U.S. publicly traded companies available, and they collectively contain over $1.5 trillion dollars of Americans’ retirement money.

Unfortunately, when you buy an S&P 500 index fund, you’re buying stock in the following companies:
 

• AT&T, which is already back supporting the election objectors in Congress, as well as the GOP sponsors of Texas’s abortion ban and voter-suppression law. It’s also a top donor to Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham.

• ExxonMobil, which has misled the public about the dangers of climate change and spent huge amounts on Facebook ads to get Donald Trump reelected in 2020.

• Halliburton, one of the nation’s biggest defense contractors, which has funneled millions to the GOP.

• Lockheed Martin, which is one the largest weapons manufacturers in the world and one of Lindsey Graham’s top contributors.

The list goes on. But before you stuff all of your savings in your mattress and call it a day, you should know about DEMZ. 

DEMZ is the first investment product that allows you to get similar performance and exposure you would expect from the S&P 500,  without all the Mitch McConnell. It only includes companies who have made over 75% of their political contributions to Democratic causes and candidates. Since launching in November of 2020, DEMZ has outperformed the S&P 500 by 7 percent.

You can finally put your money where your vote is, even on Wall Street. Look for the DEMZ ticker wherever you invest, or visit DEMZ.fund to learn more. 

The Republican threat to send America into default on its debt seems like it might end in a confrontation over the filibuster. On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell objected to (i.e. filibustered) a Democratic request to allow an up-or-down, majority-rules vote on suspending the debt limit. He went on to insist that Democrats amend their budget resolution so that they can increase the debt limit with 50 votes when they pass their Build Back Better reconciliation bill. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called that a “non-starter.” McConnell’s demand would entail a lengthy series of votes in both the House and Senate which may drag past the deadline to avoid default. It would also force Democrats to rush Build Back Better to completion before mid-October, which may not be possible. And, it would reward McConnell for taking the economy hostage. The only other way to increase the debt limit with 50 votes, though, is to change the filibuster rules. Much as President Biden may hope to avoid this, we may ultimately see Schumer offer McConnell a stark choice in the not-too-distant future: Abandon this filibuster, or lose the filibuster forever.

• President Biden’s top military advisers confirmed in Senate testimony that they wanted him to leave 2,500 troops in Afghanistan; Gen. Mark Milley also testified that President Trump tried to abruptly withdraw from Afghanistan five days before inauguration (before ultimately backing down), then laid this satisfying smackdown on Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Necks). 
   
• Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has been out all week because her husband was hospitalized, but will return to Washington Tuesday night according to her spokesperson.  
   
• The Senate parliamentarian will be out for about two weeks to undergo breast-cancer treatment.
   
• The National Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Chiefs of Police issued a joint statement more or less calling Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) a liar for claiming the police-reform legislation he tanked last week would’ve “defund[ed] the police.”
   
• Why did the Department of Homeland Security tell the Pentagon there were “no major incidents of illegal activity at this time” more than 30 minutes after the Trump mob had breached the Capitol?
   
• A judge has sentenced the mass shooter who killed five people at the Maryland Capital Gazette in 2018 to more than five life sentences. 
   
• The disinformation firm CyberNinjas, which Arizona Republicans hired to cast doubts on the 2020 election, wants you to know that the Trump supporters claiming the firm recommended decertifying the election are peddling disinformation. Everyone’s got a code. 
   
• Children and adults under 40 will live to see some wild shit, according to climate scientists.
   
• NASA will NOT allow Oscar Mayer to shuttle astronauts from their crew quarters to the launchpad in a Wienermobile, for some reason.

Researchers believe even mild cases of COVID-19 can affect the human brain for much longer than infected individuals carry the coronavirus, particularly the parts of the brain that control aging and Alzheimers. An August study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, relied on a database of brain scans dating back to the years before the pandemic, which allowed researchers to compare brain images of people pre- and post-COVID. They found that patients who had tested positive for COVID demonstrated greater-than-expected shrinkage in the frontal and temporal lobes, and that the loss of brain volume didn’t vary with the severity of disease. What that means for people who contracted coronavirus is unclear and will likely remain so for a while, but will open up new fields of research on whether brains can recover from this consequence of viral infection, or whether people who recover from COVID will be likelier to age faster or develop Alzheimers at a greater rate than the overall population.

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.

It’s national voter registration day, which is particularly poignant for people with felony convictions whose franchise has been restored. Remember, no off years. 

Vaccine mandates are working.

NASA has successfully launched a satellite, Landsat 9, to monitor the Earth’s land surface and turn its guidance into recommendations for climate mitigation and adaptation.

Five zebras escaped from a farm in Maryland a few weeks ago and remain free.