Crooked Media - What A Day: Awry on our own supply

 -Pennsylvania Senate Candidate Sean Parnell, on gender roles

President Biden has overseen an economic recovery so rapid that the resulting inflation now threatens to bite him in the ass, but at least we can rely on high-profile reporters to put it all in context exaggerate for effect! 
 

• Consumer prices were 6.2 percent higher in October than a year earlier, according to a Labor Department report released Wednesday. That’s the sharpest annual inflation increase since 1990, the result of high consumer demand paired with persistently wonky supply chains. The Biden administration and the Federal Reserve have argued that inflation will eventually cool off on its own, but the latest report indicates that it’s not happening as speedily as they hoped.
   
• Biden acknowledged the continuing price surge in a Wednesday statement, saying that “reversing this trend is a top priority for me,” while also highlighting some good news about falling weekly unemployment claims. Lingering inflation is as troubling for Democrats as it is for families confronting high gas and grocery prices: Recent polls show that less than 40 percent of Americans now approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, while 54 percent disapprove. 
   
• The news also gave Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) an unfortunate opportunity to Go Off about “the threat posed by record inflation,” one of his go-to faulty rationales for demanding further cuts to the Build Back Better Act, which would of course lower the costs of health care and child care. Manchin’s tweet wasn’t necessarily a sign that he intends to derail the reconciliation package—he’s been calling on the Fed to take more action against inflation for months—but it’s likely to excite GOP megadonor Ken Langone, who said earlier on Wednesday that he plans to hold a fundraiser for Manchin, whom he called “special” and “precious” and his “brave little coal boy” (only one of these is made up). 

Resolving protracted supply-chain issues will be key to bringing prices down, so it’s pretty cool that we finally made it to Infrastructure Week.
 

• Biden visited the Port of Baltimore on Wednesday to highlight how the infrastructure bill that Congress passed on Friday can help tackle inflation by reducing shipping bottlenecks. The bill allocates $17 billion for port and waterway projects, and under a new Biden administration program, ports will be able to redirect funds from other federally funded projects to address logjams more quickly. The Port of Savannah, GA, will be able to immediately reallocate more than $8 million to set up temporary storage yards and reduce congestion.
   
• Meanwhile, the cargo jams at Southern California ports that prompted White House action last month are starting to show signs of improvement. There are still dozens of container ships waiting offshore at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, but congestion on the docks themselves has begun to ease after officials voted to impose an escalating fee on containers that sit around for too long. Coming soon to terrible theaters near you, How The BIF (And Some Hefty Fines) Saved (?) Christmas.

Last week’s welcome news about strong employment gains and rising wages won’t mean much to voters if inflation keeps rising faster, but Biden’s economic plan already includes a number of measures that can offer long-term relief. Democrats’ challenge in the meantime will be to convince voters—and Joe Manchin—not to let short-term difficulties overshadow it.

The holidays are almost here and we’re dropping new merch in the Crooked Store every week of November! Pick up gifts for the holiday season including Pod Save America hoodies, Petty sweatshirts, pet accessories, and more. Shop all the new holiday arrivals now at crooked.com/store.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has rejected Donald Trump’s request to block the release of National Archives records to the January 6 committee, ruling that he can’t override President Biden’s decision to waive executive privilege over the documents. “Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President,” Chutkan wrote. That’s an important win for the House panel, but it may not be the final word. Trump immediately appealed the decision, and the case could next land in front of conservative judges that Trump himself appointed. The National Archives has indicated that it will turn over the records on Trump’s efforts to overturn the election by Friday afternoon unless a court intervenes; it’s now possible that an appeals court (or the Supreme Court) will step in before then to corruptly help Trump slow things down.

• A Capitol rioter who punched a police officer has been sentenced to 41 months in prison, becoming the first insurrectionist to be sentenced for assaulting the police.
   
• The Artist Formerly Known As Facebook plans to block advertisers from targeting groups based on identifying traits like race, ethnicity, political affiliation, religion, or sexual orientation, to the dismay of political fundraisers everywhere.
   
• Three out of four adults think Facebook is making U.S. society worse, according to a new CNN poll. (The fourth adult has an article about ivermectin they’d like you to read.)
   
• Kyle Rittenhouse’s lawyers have requested a mistrial over the prosecution’s cross-examination of Rittenhouse on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, Rittenhouse sobbingly claimed he was acting in self-defense when he shot three people after bringing his AR-15 to a protest across state lines. 
   
• The Justice Department has sued Uber, accusing it of discriminating against passengers with disabilities by charging fees when riders need more time to get in the car.
   
• The pandemic has indeed worsened the academic gap for low-income students and students of color, according to new testing data. 
   
• Moderna wants to exclude three government-backed scientists who helped develop its vaccine off of a lucrative patent, a fuck-you that NIH plans to challenge in court. 
   
• A San Francisco police officer died from COVID while on leave for not meeting the city’s vaccination deadline. 
   
• Brian Williams announced that he’ll leave NBC at the end of the year.
   
• A troll very easily convinced Instagram that its top executive was dead. What a time to be allegedly alive.

Secret recordings of NRA discussions after the 1999 Columbine school shooting show how the group developed its now-standard response to school shootings. In private meetings, shaken NRA strategists considered cancelling a planned convention and offering a sympathetic response—even potentially a $1 million fund for the victims—before deciding that a cancellation would invite attacks from the media, and that sympathy might be seen as admitting responsibility. Executives also worried about whether the organization’s more radical members (whom they called “hillbillies” and “fruitcakes”) would embarrass them after Columbine, took for granted that conservative politicians and the gun industry would do whatever the NRA wanted, and generally fretted about how much money the school shooting might cost them. It’s worth listening to the extraordinary audio, which maps out the NRA’s playbook for decades of gun massacres to come.

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.

About 900,000 kids ages five to 11 have already received their first vaccine dose.

The Biden administration has announced a deal to provide Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses to people in conflict zones and other humanitarian settings.

Vaccine mandates work, College Edition.

Oregon’s drug decriminalization initiative has redirected $300 million towards community treatment services in the year since its approval.