Crooked Media - What A Day: Screwy Louis and the ruse

 -@NoLabelsOrg, Twitter account for corporate lobbyists

Little known fact: When you’re “building back better” it is customary to have no fucking clue what the blueprints say until it’s time for the groundbreaking. Fortunately, Democrats are beating that standard. Kinda.
 

• The short version of the story is that Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) continue raising objections to various provisions of the Build Back Better Act, but it’s unclear how completely Democratic leaders are caving to their demands, and there’s some indication that other, frustrated Democrats have begun to push back. 
   
• First, the annoying part. Manchin doesn’t want to expand Medicare benefits to include vision and dental care because he says that’s too expensive, and doesn’t want to close the Medicaid coverage gap in red states that rejected the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, because it’d be unfair to West Virginia, which participated in and paid for a small part of that reform. 
   
• Manchin also reportedly wants to kill the plan’s proposed fee on methane emissions, which would remove the last greenhouse-gas disincentive from the bill, and says he opposes a provision that would cut down on tax-cheating by wealthy filers by expanding bank-reporting requirements to the IRS. Between that and Sinema’s reported objections to any tax-rate increases, the duo have made paying for the bill a greater challenge than it should be.

All of this underscores the most important reason for Dems to announce a deal: So we can say for certain wtf is going on!
 

• For instance: Influential Democrats like Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) and Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA)—both of whom represent non-expansion states—say they’re pushing Manchin on a workaround for the Medicaid coverage gap. Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) says the methane fee is still on the table. And Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) says the final bill must include the Medicare expansion and a provision allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription-drug prices downward. 
   
• If Sanders sticks to his guns, a prescription-drug pricing provision would raise hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for the rest of the bill all by itself. Sinema also reportedly seems interested (somehow???) in taxing billionaire assets. She’s been working with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on one version of this; Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden has a different approach, which he’ll unveil in the coming day or two. And Republicans are already struggling with their pro-billionaire messaging.

Have you watched the latest episode of Campaign Expert React yet? In this episode, Dan and Good Luck America on Snap host Peter Hamby break down political ads from Republican Glenn Youngkin and Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the 2021 Virginia Governor's Race. Subscribe to Crooked Media’s YouTube channel to never miss an episode! 

Virginia Democrats sued the U.S. Postal Service on Friday, in a chilling reminder that the same guy who tried to sabotage the mail to help Donald Trump win re-election is still running the post office under President Biden. Democrats contend that postal-service delays (which, as you may recall, Trumpy Postmaster Louis DeJoy has engineered on purpose) threaten to disenfranchise thousands of voters from predominantly Democratic leaning counties. The suit alleges that "Thousands of ballots delivered to postal facilities by the general registrars weeks ago are still outstanding and, weeks later, have not yet even been scanned into USPS's system,” and paints the following nightmare scenario: “Even if these voters do eventually receive their ballots before Election Day, the slowdowns promise that they will not have sufficient time to send them back with assurance that they will arrive in time to be counted. And even if a ballot reaches the appropriate election official before the receipt deadline, if the official identifies any issues with it that require remediation before it may be counted, the voter will have run out of time to rectify the problem." Among other things, Democrats have asked the court to order USPS to prioritize and process election mail, and deliver it all within three days.

• President Biden has declined to assert executive privilege on disgraced former president Donald Trump’s behalf over another tranche of evidence that the January 6 committee requested. 
   
• Trump’s pandemic adviser Deborah Birx, who praised him effusively in public as he lied about coronavirus and hundreds of thousands of people died, testified to the House select coronavirus subcommittee that the Trump White House was too “distracted” by the election to protect Americans from the pandemic, leading to perhaps 200,000 excess deaths.  
   
• Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), who for fake-mysterious reasons wore body armor on January 6, says he had nothing whatsoever to do with planning the “Stop the Steal” rally in DC that day, but that his staff might’ve and if they did, he’s proud of them. 
   
• Biden has appointed Washington’s Republican secretary of state, Kim Wyman, who has publicly denounced Trump’s election lies, to be his top election-security official. 
   
• Here’s an incredible story about nepotism, racism, and violent abuse within the Louisiana State Police. 
   
• The judge in Kyle Rittenhouse’s murder trial has prohibited prosecutors from calling the men Rittenhouse killed as “victims,” but allowed Rittenhouse’s defense attorneys to refer to them as “looters” or “rioters.” 
   
• An audience member who believes the Big Lie asked Trump propagandist Charlie Kirk when Trump supporters would be justified in murdering people for "stealing" elections, prompting Kirk to briefly disavow murdering people, then repeat more election lies. 
   
• Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX), who helped Capitol police barricade House doors on January 6 and said police were justified in shooting rioters trying to enter the chamber, now pretends to think Ashli Babbitt is a martyr and scapegoats the officer who shot her. 
   
• Hundreds of vomiting buzzards that also “scatter” toxic feces like “liquid business cards” have taken up residence in Bunn, NC, in case anyone’s in the market for discount property.
   
• Must watch!

Glenn Youngkin’s latest effort to scare Virginia voters about the specter of “woke curriculum” seems to have backfired in the most hilarious possible way. Youngkin produced this ad featuring Laura Murphy, a Virginia mother who freaked out about the reading her son was assigned in high school back when Terry McAuliffe was governor. But the ad doesn’t mention a few things: 1) Murphy is a Republican activist; 2) the book she wanted to veto was Beloved by Toni Morrison, a classic work of literature; 3) she intervened to create a safe space for her son because Beloved (which millions of people have read without incident) gave him “night terrors;” 4) she discussed this all with the Washington Post back in 2013; 5) her dweeb son went on to become a lawyer for the House GOP’s election committee, and a clerk in the Trump White House. Now Youngkin is facing (and dodging) questions about whether he supports banning books including Beloved, a novel that helped inspire Oprah’s Book Club, which she later adapted into a major motion picture. Read more from our own Sarah Lazarus. 

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An FDA advisory panel has voted unanimously to recommend small doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine for children aged 5-11. 

One of the most conservative appeals courts in the country has upheld a ruling against the Texas GOP, which has been trying to get a court order to block drive-through voting in Harris County. 

Scientists at Cleveland Clinic say they’ve made progress toward a vaccine that would prevent a deadly form of breast cancer. 

NASA scientists have proposed launching a successor to the Voyager spacecraft that can travel faster and farther, possibly allowing the space agency to probe the cosmos for over a century.