Help us build a new kind of social media. Send your comments on our debates and News & Notes, to editors@thehustings.news…

Up next:

• Jim McCraw comments on whether the Build Back Better plan compromises will leave anyone satisfied by $1.75 trillion worth of social programs. 

•David Amaya on the future of nation building by the U.S. government.

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THU 11/4/21

•Death toll from the coronavirus has surpassed 750,000 in the U.S., WaPo reports. The majority of fatalities were unvaccinated, though Mayor-elect Eric Adams, says he plans to “revisit’ New York City’s controversial vaccine mandate. Meanwhile, the vaccine mandate for companies with at least 100 employees is set to take effect on January 4.

•Incumbent Phil Murphy narrowly edged Republican challenger Jack Ciatterelli in Tuesday’s New Jersey gubernatorial race, with the count going well into Wednesday. Murphy, who becomes the first Democrat to win re-election for the state’s governor since 1977, won by about 19,000 out of 2.4 million votes (WSJ).

•What does Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the Virginia governor’s race mean for the Democratic Party and Trump’s GOP? Read our debate with Stephen Macaulay and Bryan Williams, later today on this page.

•How about an anti-trust investigation of the entertainment industry? Read Jim McCraw’s commentary in Inquiry.

House Vote on Social Safety Net Bill by End of Week (Again?) – Speaker Nancy Pelosi has restored a provision for four weeks of paid family leave to the social infrastructure/safety net bill, based on President Biden’s Build Back Better plan – the big, $1.75-trillion bill. The full bill could be brought for a vote by the House of Representatives as early as today. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-WA, said on NPR’s Morning Edition that the House’s progressive caucus she leads is ready to forward the bill along with the $1.2-trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. 

This means bipartisan infrastructure would move to Biden’s desk for signing while the social infrastructure bill moves to the Senate without assurance from Sens. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, and Krysten Sinema, D-AZ, that they will provide the necessary votes to pass it. More likely the bill will linger in the Senate for mark-up until it is returned to the House for final approval.

Note: The wake-up buzzer has been ringing on delivering the bipartisan infrastructure bill for weeks now, but Tuesday’s statewide Virginia election victories for Republicans seems to have alerted Democrats that they have to make progress. If bipartisan infrastructure moves forward this month, it would bode well for raising the debt ceiling by its December 3 deadline and then Democrats have until next year’s midterm primaries, at least, to figure out Build Back Better.

How quickly would Build Back Better move forward after a House vote? Manchin provided a preview Wednesday, saying the “unbelievable” GOP victories in Virginia’s elections validates his concerns about inflation and pushing the $1.75-trillion in federal spending bill too quickly through Congress (The Hill). One wonders, of course, whether inflation had anything to do with the Republicans’ victories in Virginia or if this is simply Manchin making claims about things that may not be, um, accurate.

•••

Israel Passes Budget — After Three Years — As The Washington Post reports: “Exhausted lawmakers whooped and hugged following the final passage of massive funding plan by a two-vote margin at 5:30 a.m.” It is the first budget that the Israeli government has agreed to since 2018. What made the passage all the more important to Naftali Bennet, prime minister, is that there was a plan in place that would have dissolved the coalition government he heads on November 14 were this not to occur.

Note: This can’t make former PM Benjamin Netanyahu happy, as he was undoubtedly hoping he’d have a chance to get back into office.

And one thinks that perhaps something like the dissolution clause might be helpful for Democrats in Washington. . . .

•••

Federal Reserve Dials Down Economy Stimulus – The Federal Reserve is phasing out a bond buyback program launched at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic last year to stimulate the economy during the shutdown, The Wall Street Journalreports. The Fed has gone from buying back $120 billion in bonds per month during the pandemic to $15 billion per month for November and December. 

Note: The bond buyback “tapering” sets up the Fed to begin raising interest rates early next year in order to cool down inflation, which is expected to heat up as supply chains get un-stuck and in case the $17.5-trillion social infrastructure bill gets passed and does what Sen. Manchin fears. 

“We need to act in case it becomes necessary to do so,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell (who is expected to be reappointed by President Biden when his current term expires in February) said in a press conference.

•••

SCOTUS Majority Spells Trouble for New York Gun Law – The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority appears sympathetic to plaintiffs in a case that would strike down a New York State law that requires citizens who want to carry a concealed firearm to show “proper cause” for a license, according to SCOTUSblog.

“But the justices’ eventual ruling might be a narrow one focused on New York law (and others like it),” Amy Howe writes in her analysis of two hours of oral arguments before SCOTUS, Wednesday, in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. The court, Howe continues, would save questions of the right to carry a concealed firearm by the Second Amendment for a later case. In requiring “proper cause,” the New York law requires applicants to prove the need to defend themselves, rather than simply to protect themselves or property. 

•••

Single Black Juror in Arbery Murder Trial – A single Black man is in the jury of 16 in the trial of Greg McMichael, Travis McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia. “Sparks flew” when prosecutors accused defense attorneys of striking a disproportionate number of jurors because of their race, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. The three defendants, all white men, are accused of shooting Arbery, who was Black, as he was out for a jog in their suburban neighborhood.

The 16-person jury panel includes 15 white jurors and one Black man. Twelve will serve on the trial, with the four others as alternatives. The initial pool consisted of 36 white, and 12 Black individuals. Prosecutors accused defense attorneys of using their allotted strikes to eliminate 11 of the 12 Black pool members. 

Note: Black people make up one-quarter of Glynn County’s population, where the shooting occurred and the trial is being held, NPR says. That’s equal to the percentage of Black people in the initial jury pool, though the trial jury and alternatives selected is only 1/16 Black. 

•••

No Laws Broken in Drone Attack – No laws were broken in an August 29 drone attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed 10 civilians, seven of them children, the U.S. Air Force’s inspector general said, according to Roll Call. 

“I didn’t find violations of the law or of the law of war,” Lt. Gen. Sami Said told reporters Wednesday. The Defense Department’s classified investigation of the drone attack, which occurred days after a suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport where U.S. troops were evacuating Americans and Afghanis who helped in the 20-year war effort as the Taliban was re-taking the country reviewed data and intelligence used by the Air Force team that conducted the strike. 

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash

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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2021

•The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 5 to 11.

•Russia has left 90,000 troops deployed near the Ukrainian border, Ukraine’s defense ministry says, after having completed military exercises (The Hill).

•The Supreme Court hears arguments today in a major Second Amendment case. The question is to what extent Americans have the right to carry and conceal loaded firearms restricted by New York City laws (WaPo).

Off-Year Elections Lean Red – In a likely harbinger for the November 2022 midterm elections, conservative Republicans won the most closely watched elections, including Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin. A roundup of the major elections:

•Virginia: Republican Glenn Youngkin won 50.7% of the vote to Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s 48.6%. Republican Winsome Sears won the lieutenant governor’s seat and will serve as the tie-breaking vote in the state’s House of Delegates, where the GOP gained two seats for a 45-45 split. Republican Jason Miyares will be the next attorney general in a state that had gone deep blue the last decade. (The Washington Post)

Note: Youngkin already was gaining in the polls on McAuliffe, former governor in the commonwealth where incumbents cannot run for a second consecutive term, when the Democrat said in a debate, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Youngkin’s campaign pounded McAuliffe on the statement and tied it to the issue of critical race theory, a college-level study not taught in Virginia schools. The Youngkin campaign also was successful in portraying the former executive for The Carlyle Group as a fiscal conservative in line with Donald Trump on tax cut issues.

•New Jersey: The New York Times is calling the New Jersey gubernatorial race “too close to call.” By late morning Wednesday, incumbent Democrat Phil Murphy took a thin lead over Republican Jack Ciattarelli, a former state legislator, with 90% of the vote counted. 

Note: This could be another disappointment for Democrats, who were expecting Murphy to become the party’s first incumbent Democratic New Jersey governor [CD1] to win re-election since 1977.

•Minneapolis: Voters rejected by a 12-point margin a proposal to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a public safety agency to be determined by the city council (Star Tribune). Mayor Jacob Frey had a “commanding lead” in his re-election, and another charter amendment shifting certain powers to the mayor from the city council also was approved.

Note: This is the latest victim of the misguidedly named “defund the police” movement. The vote came nearly 18 months after Derek Chauvin was video-recorded choking George Floyd to death. 

•Ohio: Shontel Brown easily won a special election for the 11^th Congressional District seat vacated by President Biden’s Housing secretary, Marcia Fudge, Newsweek reports. She defeated Republican Laverne Gore for the seat covering deep-blue Cleveland but must run for re-election next November and already has several challengers for the Democratic primary. In the race to replace 15^th District Rep. Steve Sivers, a Republican who retired in May to run the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, coal lobbyist and Trump acolyte Mike Carey defeated Democratic state Rep. Allison Russo, 59-41, Roll Call reports.

•New York Mayor: Former police captain Eric Adams, Democrat, defeated Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, Republican, for New York City mayor 57% to 28%, according to the New York Post. Adams becomes only the second Black mayor in the city’s history.

•Boston Mayor: Michelle Wu, the 36-year-old daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, becomes Boston’s first elected mayor who is not a white male, The Boston Globe reports. With an “unabashedly progressive agenda,” Wu easily defeated the more moderate Annissa Essaibi George.

•••

Trump Being Sued by Pennsylvania Voting Machine Custodian — Donald Trump, Rudolph Giuliani and other Trump advisors are being sued in Philadelphia County court by James Savage, the voting machine warehouse custodian in Delaware County for slandering him, Politico reports. It cites J. Conor Corcoran, Savage’s attorney, as saying, “Simply put, Mr. Savage’s physical safety, and his reputation, were acceptable collateral damage for the wicked intentions of the Defendants herein, executed during their lubricious attempt to question the legitimacy of President Joseph Biden’s win in Pennsylvania.” The charges in the suit include defamation and civil conspiracy.

Note: Seems like Team Trump will be facing an ever-increasing number of lawsuits.

--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Charles Dervarics

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2021

•Beside the closely watched Virginia state elections, in particular the gubernatorial contest between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin, we’re keeping an eye on the New Jersey gubernatorial race, Pennsylvania Supreme Court and mayoral elections in New York City, Atlanta, Boston, Minneapolis, Seattle and Buffalo, New York.

UN COP26 Climate Change Progress? – Nations participating in the United Nations COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow, Scotland, have agreed to “end deforestation” by 2030, including in Brazil, China, Colombia, the Congo, Indonesia and the U.S., with more than $19 billion in public and private funds pledged for the plan, the Associated Press reports. It should be noted, AP says, that similar promises have been broken in the past. 

Speaking at COP26 today, President Biden unveiled a plan to reduce methane emissions globally 30% by 2030. His plan targets existing oil and gas wells in the U.S. rather than concentrate on new ones. 

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson called global warming “a doomsday device” strapped to humanity.

India Prime Minister Narenda Modi on Monday set his country’s zero carbon emissions target date at 2070, which is 20 years later than the target set by most other countries. But Modi asserted that India is the only nation delivering on the “letter and spirit” of the UN summit tackling climate change, Business Standard, an English language Indian newspaper reports. 

Note: As world leaders – notably with China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin having been absent – fly home from Glasgow Tuesday, climate change activists have criticized COP26 as yet another set of promises to be unkept, as global warming has gone from “it’s almost here, we must do something,” to “it is here, let’s do something.”

•••

Details: EPA’s Proposed Methane Cuts — The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its proposal for new restrictions on the reduction of methane emissions, in connection with President Biden’s speech at the COP26 UN climate change summit. These emissions are largely related to leaks in the oil and natural gas industry. Michael S. Regan, EPA administrator, said of the plan which would be a rule within the Clean Air Act, “With this historic action, EPA is addressing existing sources from the oil and natural gas industry nationwide, in addition to updating rules for new sources, to ensure robust and lasting cuts in pollution across the country.”

Note: While Regan’s pronouncement sounds bold and such a reduction in methane emissions is beneficial, there are a few things to keep in mind, not the least of which is that this is a proposal, not a done deal.

Second, according to the EPA, “The proposed rule would reduce 41 million tons of methane emissions from 2023 to 2035, the equivalent of 920 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. That’s more than the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from all U.S. passenger cars and commercial aircraft in 2019.” In other words, the reduction over a 12-year period would be approximately equal to the amount of carbon dioxide (the gas associated with the “zero carbon” claims you often hear from companies and countries) produced in a year.

•••

Census May Have Missed 1.5 Million, Study Finds – The 2020 U.S. Census may have missed more than 1.5 million citizens, the Urban Institute estimates in a new study, enough to cost New York State a congressional seat that went to Minnesota (per Roll Call). The report by the non-partisan research organization says the U.S. Census Bureau double-counted some white people and missed people of color, renters and young children. It was hampered by the coronavirus pandemic and the Trump administration, whose decisions include shutting off the count early, without follow-up. 

The resulting Census count lost seats in the House of Representatives in California, the Northeast and the Midwest. Roll Callnotes that Texas may have lost $247 million and Florida $88 million in 2021 Medicaid funds.

Note: This report opens at least two questions. 1.) How much of this was intentional from the Trump administration’s Census count restrictions? 2.) Can anything be done, short of waiting for 2030? Expect lawsuits from states.

•••

Manchin Balks on Social Infrastructure Again; Progs Hopeful – If anyone believed Joe Manchin III would hand President Biden a much-needed victory on climate change while in Glasgow yesterday and today, the West Virginia senator brought everyone back to Earth with his vow to not vote on the $1.75-trillion Build Back Better social infrastructure reconciliation bill he helped craft until progressives pass the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Manchin said Monday he would not bow to his party’s pressure to support the social spending bill and its “shell games” and “budget gimmicks,” and criticized the House of Representatives’ delay on the bipartisan infrastructure bill; “it’s time to vote.” (Politico)

Other Democrats put happy faces on Manchin’s latest evocation of his demands. “We intend to pass both bills,” Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal said Monday night. (RealClear Politics).

Note: It has been long too late for Democratic Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe to build enthusiasm from the Democrats’ budget bill, as he has lost a lot of momentum to his Republican opponent and Trump-endorsed candidate Glenn Youngkin. But Jayapal is trying to call Manchin’s latest bluff. Is she ready to foster both bills through the House without commitment for social infrastructure from the Senate? Uh, nah. 

--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Charles Dervarics

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2021

•The Supreme Court hears arguments today from the Biden administration and by abortion providers in their effort to strike down Texas S.B. 8, which relies on private individuals to enforce the law. It restricts most abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy.

•The United Nations’ two-day COP26 climate conference has begun in Glasgow, Scotland, without China and Russia. World leaders from the G-20 industrialized nations met over the weekend without a specific deal on emission cuts, WSJ reports.

•Jury selection begins today in Kenosha, Wisconsin, for the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, who is accused of shooting three protesters after police shot a Black resident last summer. Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time and drove to Kenosha from nearby Antioch, Illinois, will claim self-defense, according to his attorneys.

Closing in on Budget Reconciliation Deal? – Democrats in the Senate and the House of Representatives came close to a deal with the White House last weekend on prescription drug prices that would allow some Medicare negotiations with pharmaceutical companies, Politico reports. But passage of the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better budget reconciliation bill is not likely to happen in time for Tuesday’s Virginia gubernatorial election. 

Note: By now it seems Democrats may be resolved to Republican Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin being just about even in the polls with Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, and that the BBB and bipartisan infrastructure bills won’t help. We’re also betting none of this will get a vote until after Thanksgiving break, just in time to take up the debt limit as well.

•••

Kinzinger Won’t Seek Re-Election – One of only two Republicans on the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, said Friday he would not seek re-election after Democrats in his state’s legislature paired up three sets of incumbents in their gerrymandering. Kinzinger would face fellow Republican Darin LaHood for Illinois’ new 16^th District seat. Kinzinger also faced a primary challenge from a supporter of Donald Trump, as the congressman was one of 10 Republicans to vote for the 45^th president’s second impeachment last January.

Referring to his 2010 campaign for his first term in the House, Kinzinger says he remembers “saying that if I ever thought it was time to move on from Congress, I would. And I think that time is now.”

•••

U.S. ‘Rarely’ Enforced Conditions on Aid to Afghanistan, Report Says – The U.S. failed to enforce its own conditions on the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces in exchange for nearly $89 billion in aid during the nearly 20 years of the Afghanistan war against the Taliban, according to a special inspector general’s report released to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

The U.S. military assistance didn’t hold the ANDSF “to account by enforcing the conditions it established to create a stronger, more professional and self-reliant ANDSF,” the inspector general, John Sopko, wrote in an October 6 letter to Austin and other military leaders that has just surfaced publicly, Roll Call reports.

Note: For those following U.S. military efforts to train the ANDSF to be self-reliant since the early 2000s, this isn’t much of a revelation. The inspector general’s audit was completed and circulated for comment inside the Defense Department two months ago, according to Roll Call, which would have been just after the 11-day takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, and the country’s president, Ashraf Ghani, reportedly fled with a helicopter full of cash.

•••

COVID-19 Death Toll Tops 5 Million Globally -- The global death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic has topped 5 million, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tracker. The U.S., the UK, the European Union and Brazil account for nearly half that number, although those nations have about one-eighth of the world’s population combined.

The U.S. leads the death toll among all nations, at more than 745,000 to date.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Nic Woods

_____

Help us build a new kind of social media. Send your comments on our debates and News & Notes, to editors@thehustings.news…

Up next: 

• Stephen Macaulay comments on whether the Build Back Better plan compromises will leave anyone satisfied by $1.75 trillion worth of social programs. 

•David Iwinski on the future of nation building by the U.S. government.

_____

Up next; Our left column on whether the Build Back Better plan compromises will leave anyone satisfied by $1.75 trillion worth of social programs. Jim McCraw comments from the left. 

Join the conversation and send your comments to editors@thehustings.news. 

Also in this column ….

•David Amaya on the future of nation building by the U.S. government.

•Our flash debate on the Pandora Papers released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. 

•Our flash debate on the controversy surrounding Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding his portrayal in the book Peril, by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. 

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•Will anybody – moderate, progressive, conservative – be happy with compromises being made to the social program budget reconciliation bill (now $1.75-trillion), particularly as it continues to hold up the bipartisan infrastructure bill? Go to https://thehustings.news for a debate on the issue. 

•Joe Biden met with Pope Francis today, his first as president, though they had met three times before. Officially on the agenda: The coronavirus pandemic, climate change and caring for the poor (WaPo).

•On Saturday, Biden attends a Group of 20 meeting before flying to Glasgow, Scotland, for the UN climate change summit. He also meets with French President Emmanuel Macron to try and smooth over the nuclear submarine deal made with Great Britain and Australia earlier this year.

Treats, Not Tricks – The ever-pending bipartisan infrastructure bill has stalled again in the House of Representatives, as progressive Democrats wait to see what Sens. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, and Krysten Sinema, D-AZ, do in the other chamber. The House progressives don’t want to pass both the $550-billion infrastructure bill and the $1.75-trillion Build Back Better social infrastructure reconciliation budget and watch the latter languish in the Senate after it passes in the House. The hostage-holding continues after President Biden made a special appearance on Capitol Hill Thursday to announce his new Build Back Better social infrastructure proposal slightly delaying his flight to Europe.

Note: Who are the hostage-holders? Sinema messaged support for the framework but was not explicit that she would vote for it, Roll Call reports, while Manchin was non-committal before he tweeted out support for the framework. Politico, which calls Biden’s Thursday release of his budget reconciliation framework a “victory,” [GV1] for the president’s agenda noted that Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, initially balked, citing “gaps” in the bill and signaling the House they should hold off on a vote. 

Punchbowl News points to the failure of the House to quickly pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the social program reconciliation budget framework because progressives want to see Senate support first. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-WA, who might have been thinking of Ronald Reagan’s mantra “trust, but verify,” let it be known that the Congressional Progressive Caucus she leads was not ready. That forced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, to quickly introduce an extension to December 3 of the 2015 Surface Transportation law that would be otherwise covered by bipartisan infrastructure. It passed in the House, 358-59, and in the Senate by unanimous consent.

Bottom line: Capitol Hill Republicans are giddy over Biden’s inability to convince progressives to pass the infrastructure bill before he flew off to Rome, and the biggest loser is probably Democratic Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, who is in a dead heat with Republican candidate Glenn Younkin in most polls (except a Fox News poll, which gives Youngkin a big lead) going into next Tuesday’s election.

•••

What’s in Biden’s $1.75-trillion Budget Plan – President Biden’s moderate- and progressive-friendly social infrastructure program budget reconciliation framework features  the “biggest climate investment in U.S. history,” according to The Washington Post, which outlines …

•$555 billion to cut emissions, including tax credits for business and consumers to switch to sustainable energy sources.

•Expansion of health care coverage to 7 million people.

•Free pre-kindergarten.

•New taxes on those making over $10 million per year.

•••

Representatives of Oil Companies Testify — Executives from ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell Oil, the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce testified yesterday to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. The questioning was largely driven by Democratic lawmakers who claimed the petroleum industry was playing a “role in spreading disinformation about the science of climate change,” The Washington Post reports. WaPo also writes that the execs were questioned about “whether the companies’ current commitments to clean up their acts were enough to forestall dangerous global warming.” 

Note: Odds are that the members of Congress who were at Capitol Hill for the hearing drove there. Odds are that few of them were in electric vehicles. This means that they probably drove there in vehicles with internal combustion engines — with the engines combusting gasoline, not diesel fuel. So given that, here is what happens in the combustion process, as there seems to be a concern with “science”: 

2C₈H₁₈ + 25O₂ → 16CO₂ + 18H₂O

As you can see, there’s lots of carbon dioxide. Remember: Gasoline is a hydrocarbon.

While there were accusations that tried to make an equivalence between “Big Oil” and “Big Tobacco” (are there small versions of either?), there is a significant difference: Anyone can go to a chemistry book and see what happens when gasoline is burned. The link between cancer and smoking was not so obvious.

Have oil companies participated in greenwashing? No doubt.

But it would be interesting to know that the lawmakers have in mind regarding how there can be a significant change. There are some 282 million vehicles rolling on U.S. roads right now, the vast majority of which are powered by gasoline.

This is not to say that pollution is a good thing.

But solutions are far more important than rhetoric.

•••

Ex-Gov. Cuomo Charged with Sexual Misconduct Complaint – Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D, was charged on Thursday with a criminal misdemeanor complaint charging he groped a female aide inside the executive mansion “for purposes of degrading and gratifying his sexual desires,” reports The New York Times. The complaint was based on the account of one of about one dozen women whose accusations of sexual harassment were the basis of a state attorney general’s report that led to Cuomo’s resignation in August. 

•••

Collins Hits 8,000 in Senate Voting Streak – Sen. Susan Collins, D-ME, cast her 8,000 consecutive vote yesterday. Her vote was to confirm Elizabeth Prelogar as U.S. solicitor general. Collins has not missed a vote since her first in the Senate on January 22, 1997, Roll Call reports, making her the “Cal Ripken of the Senate,” according to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY. She received accolades from both sides of the aisle, and the floor vote was temporarily stopped as confetti flew.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-IA, had voted 8,927 times between July 14, 1993 and November 16, 2020, when his streak ended because he had to quarantine when he contracted COVID-19, according to Roll Call. The late Sen. Bill Proxmire, D-WI, holds the record at 10,252 consecutive votes between April 20, 1966 and October 18, 1988.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2021

•Will anyone – progressive Democrats, moderate Democrats, moderate Republicans – be satisfied with President Biden’s social infrastructure program? No doubt Trumpist Republicans are reveling in Democrats’ lack of discipline. Read our debate by scrolling down to the next item in the three columns, by Jim McCraw in the left column and Stephen Macaulay in the right column, and email your comments to editors@thehustings.news

Disappointment Expected, Delivered – Real gross domestic product (GDP) rose at an annual rate of just 2.0% in the third quarter of the year, according to an advanced estimate by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. That’s a severe drop from the second quarter’s 6.7% annual rate and is being blamed on reduced retail sales and services due to the Delta variant of the coronavirus and to supply chain bottlenecks. Economists are expecting healthy GDP growth for the remaining months of the year. Nevertheless, third-quarter GDP growth was low enough to add urgency to the White House’s bipartisan infrastructure bill languishing in the House of Representatives …

•••

I’ve Gotta Fly; Let’s Pass These Bills – President Biden stopped by the Capitol Thursday morning before flying off for Rome with a new $1.75-trillion social spending budget reconciliation bill he expects all Democrats in the House of Representatives to pass, The Washington Post reports. The new social bill framework includes expanded Medicare benefits, clean energy initiatives (just ahead of his attendance Monday at the United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland), free pre-kindergarten, child care aid and an extension of the child tax credit. It cuts more extensive Medicare expansion and paid leave for new mothers, WaPo outlines. 

The cut for paid leave had gone from 12 weeks initially proposed in the White House’s $3.5-trillion Build Back Better program, to four weeks, before getting spiked altogether.

Presumably, Biden’s latest and maybe final proposal accounts for the ever-shifting demands of Sens. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, and Krysten Sinema, D-AZ. If Biden can get the House to pass both the social spending bill and the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill ($550 billion in new spending), the infrastructure bill would be ready to deliver to his desk for signing.

The social program budget reconciliation framework would be completely offset by taxes on multinational corporations’ overseas profits, a minimum tax on the nation’s largest corporations, a surcharge on the highest-income households and new IRS enforcement, Roll Call reports. 

Biden is on Air Force One today headed for Rome to meet with Pope Francis. He is also scheduled to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron before heading to Glasgow[CD1]  Sunday for the UN climate conference.

Note: The White House really needs a win on bipartisan infrastructure, coming between today’s poor Commerce Department numbers on third-quarter GDP growth and next week’s Virginia elections. 

•••

Report: U.S. Intel Failed to Predict Swift Taliban Takeover – Leading U.S. intelligence agencies failed to predict the Taliban’s rapid takeover of Afghanistan following U.S. military withdrawal, according to a review of nearly two dozen documents from four agencies reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Summaries of classified documents reviewed by the newspaper’s reporters tracked Taliban advances from Spring 2020 to July 2021. 

A key example of the documents dated May 17 of this year, a month after President Biden announced the September 11 withdrawal deadline, was titled; “Government at risk of collapse following U.S. withdrawal.”

Note: This recalls U.S. intelligence failures accusing Saddam Hussein of harboring weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a couple of years into our nearly 20-year commitment to Afghanistan. It seems we’ve learned nothing and done nothing about the shortcomings of our intelligence agencies in the last 18 or so years.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Charles Dervarics

_____

Up next; Our left column on whether the Build Back Better plan compromises will leave anyone satisfied by $1.75 trillion worth of social programs. Stephen Macaulay comments from the right. 

Join the conversation and send your comments to editors@thehustings.news. 

Also in this column …

•David Iwinski on the future of nation building by the U.S. government.

•Our flash debate on the Pandora Papers released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. 

•Our quick-take debate on the controversy surrounding Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding his portrayal in the book Peril, by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. 

_____

By Jim McCraw

Like every other concerned citizen, I’d like to see a Build Back Better reconciliation bill that will stimulate the economy, get control of inflation, fix our sagging, rotting infrastructure and spend some money on generally cleaning up the joint and its atmosphere, without breaking the bank.

Like every other concerned citizen, it worries me that two people, elected to do the will of the people, and who are members of the party in power in the Senate -- not the loyal opposition -- can use the elements of the bill to get on television and, by extension, social media, in order to gather enough money to fund their re-election.  

It also worries me that even a vastly reduced compromise bill has to run to hundreds and hundreds of pages, much of which will eventually involve pork, the food that local politics runs on.

There are also concerns about the current level of ongoing financial commitment involving the aforesaid cleaning up the joint.  I am among those concerned.  Some of us believe that strictly enforcing every one of the federal environmental laws as aggressively as criminal law is better than a $500- to $555-billion chunk of the BBB bill, with severe financial and criminal penalties. Without breaking the bank. 

So here we are, within striking distance of a bill that started out at an otherworldly $3.5 trillion and will probably come in at $1.9 trillion, a monument to the art of negotiation. This is, as always, how it works in America. You listen to me, I listen to you, and then we do what we want.

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By Todd Lassa

Before coronavirus relief programs by the Trump and Biden administrations made “trillions of dollars” a household term, the $2 trillion “final offer” ceiling that moderate Democrats have placed on the budget reconciliation bill that was due for a self-imposed deadline of the end of October almost seems modest. Happy Halloween. 

When the Biden White House first introduced its $3.5-trillion Build Back Better budget reconciliation plan, progressives led by Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-VT and Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-WA, wanted a bigger program, more on the order of $6 trillion. As a 10-year budget program, the progressives’ demands would still be less costly than the federal government’s annual defense budget.

But Republicans and Sens. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, and Krysten Sinema, D-AZ, have the leverage, and object to its potential as a federal debt-buster, and as a recipe for runaway inflation at a time when supply shortages from the pandemic are already pushing skyrocketing prices. 

The seemingly intractable differences between the two major Democratic Party factions has held up a final vote to send the $1.2-trillion infrastructure bill -- $550 billion of it new spending – to President Biden’s desk for signature for two months. Finally, facing falling poll ratings for Biden as congressional Democrats slide toward a very likely loss of power in both chambers from the November 2022 mid-terms, the progressives and moderates appear close to a deal. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-MD, intends to bring both the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation budget framework to the floor the week of October 25, “if they’re ready,” Politico reports. 

Biden was loose-lipped about the deal-making in his Town Hall on CNN Thursday night. Key compromises …

•Sinema “will not raise a single penny in taxes on the corporate side, and/or wealthy people, period,” Biden said, though the Arizona senator would approve some proposals targeting those groups.

•Two years of free community college is off the table.

•Paid family leave would be funded for up to four weeks, not 12 as proposed in Build Back Better.

•Both Sinema and Manchin oppose extending Medicare to include dental, vision and hearing care. 

•Two major pieces of the bill’s climate change remedies have been removed in order to meet Manchin’s demands; the clean electricity performance program paying utility powerplants to switch to renewable fuels, and a carbon tax, though it appears that programs to mitigate climate control will make up the largest portion of the budget reconciliation bill, at $500- to $555 billion. 

If and when budget reconciliation and the infrastructure plan move on into November, the question is who, if anyone beside President Biden, is satisfied with the result. And speaking of Biden, will these packages do anything for Biden’s standing with the American public? We asked a couple of pundits to tell us what they think.

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By Stephen Macaulay

It is easy for those who are moderate or progressive Democrats to consider Sens. Joe Manchin, D-WV, and Krysten Sinema, D-AZ, as some sort of stone-age or blood-sucking creatures that we will shortly see on our doorsteps asking for candy.

While it may not be entirely incorrect in terms of characterization -- does Manchin really think that coal has a future? Yes, he has to take care of his constituents -- but wouldn’t a better move be to figure out ways and means to facilitate the further training or education of those people so they can get jobs that aren’t under a black cloud, literally and figuratively?

Here’s the thing that gets somehow overlooked vis-à-vis the Build Back Better bills: Is there not a single Republican who thinks it is his or her job to help advance infrastructure, workers, families, the environment, etc? Where are they? Just what are they doing to earn their paychecks? 

Somehow simply being intransigent isn’t going to fix the roads. Somehow they were all juiced up during the Trump “infrastructure” weeks. What did that deliver? Nothing.

We cannot afford to continue doing that as our global competitors work to advance. Evidently the Grand Old Party is proving that they aren’t in the least bit grand, and they are happy to see the bridges, roads, grid, etc. get old. Want to compete? That won’t cut it.

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Join the conversation and help us build an alternative social news media platform by emailing your comments to editors@thehustings.news  

Scroll down this column to read ….

•David Amaya on the future of nation building by the U.S. government.

•Our flash debate on the Pandora Papers released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. 

•Our flash debate on the controversy surrounding Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding his portrayal in the book Peril, by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. 

•Pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay, “The Seriousness of China,” on the growing Cold War with the country.

•The California gubernatorial recall and the future of Trump’s GOP, by Jessica Gottlieb.

•Reader comment on the Biden Administration’s vaccine mandate.

•Macaulay on the vaccine mandate.

____________________________________

Join the conversation and help us build an alternative social news media platform by emailing your comments to editors@thehustings.news   […]

•President Biden flies to Rome tomorrow to meet with Pope Francis, ahead of a trip to Glasgow, Scotland, Sunday for next week’s United Nations climate conference.

•Email your comments on the latest news and our debates to editors@thehustings.news

Billionaire Income Tax and Half-Trillion for Climate Change Push Negotiations –Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-OR, released a “billionaires income tax” proposal targeting about 700 Americans to help pay for the White House’s Build Back Better budget reconciliation bill currently under intense negotiations between moderate and progressive Congressional Democrats, according to multiple sources, including Punchbowl News and NPR’s Morning Edition.

The proposal appears to have widespread support among the two Democratic factions. The budget reconciliation framework has a current target price of $1.75 trillion to $1.9 trillion, but that would be spread out over a number of years, and the approximately $300 billion the billionaires’ tax is expected to raise would cover much of the cost.

On the spending side, Axios reports that the White House is telling lawmakers that the climate change provisions in the reconciliation bill are “largely settled” at $500 billion to $555 billion, making it likely the costliest single expense. This would give President Biden something to talk up when he attends the 2021 United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, next week, though he may have to describe it as a proposal, rather than legislation passed by Congress.

How the Billionaire Income Tax Would Work: Wyden’s proposal would tax more than $1 billion in assets, or more than $100 million income over three straight years, including “tradable assets,” known as “marked to market” in which billionaire taxpayers would pay taxes on investment gains or take a deduction on investment losses. This would tax, for example, gains on a stock’s value even if the billionaire investor does not sell the stock to pocket the gain. 

Wyden’s proposal also would impose a minimum tax rate on corporations of 15%, regardless of whether the company posts income or loss in a given year. 

The Finance Committee notes that the Joint Committee on Taxation has not yet scored the proposal, Punchbowl News says.

•••

Lost the Election and >130,000 People: Dr. Deborah Birx, coronavirus response coordinator in the Trump Administration, told the House Coronavirus Crisis Select Subcommittee, “I felt like the White House had gotten somewhat complacent through the campaign season,” in an excerpt released by the subcommittee quoted by The Washington Post. Birx is also quoted: “I believe if we had fully implemented the mask mandates, the reduction in indoor dining, the getting friends and family to understand the risk of gathering in private homes, and we had increased testing, that we probably could have decreased fatalities into the 30%-less to 40%-less range.” Or about 130,000 people.

Trump spokeswoman Liz Harrington responded in a statement: “President Trump led an unprecedented effort to successfully combat the coronavirus, delivering PPE, hospital beds, treatments, and three vaccines in record time. Unfortunately, this approach was not taken up by the current government, and more lives have been lost from covid this year than the entirety of 2020, which the Fake News media places no blame onto Joe Biden.” 

Note: Isn’t the phrase “successfully combat the coronavirus” used by Harrington essentially undercut by reality? Aren’t Joe Biden’s declining poll numbers, regularly quoted by news outlets that are undoubtedly considered “Fake” by Trump and his acolytes, associated with the pandemic? Although there have been some 353,000 deaths this year associated with COVID according to Johns Hopkins University, which exceeds the estimated 352,000 in 2020, doesn’t Harrington realize that were people to have undertaken the recommendations that Birx enumerates, there would have been fewer people infected, which means that there would have been fewer fatalities — in 2020 and 2021?

•••

McConnell Endorses Trump Senate Candidate – In the ongoing gauge of which way the GOP winds are blowing in relationship to Donald J. Trump’s control of the party, this one counts as a “win” for the twice-impeached former president. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, has endorsed Herschel Walker for next year’s GOP primary to run against incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-GA, who won his seat in Georgia’s January runoffs to help Democrats take their tie breaker-thin majority.

“Herschel is the only one who can unite the party, defeat Sen. Warnock, and take back the Senate,” McConnell said in a statement issued to Politico. The Senate’s number-two Republican, John Thune of South Dakota, had endorsed Walker on Monday. There has been some concern among Republicans regarding Walker’s personal life, including allegations he drew a gun on his ex-wife.

Walker, the 1982 Heisman Trophy winner as University of Georgia running back, served as co-chair of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition under the Trump administration. Before playing for several NFL teams, Walker played for the New Jersey Generals, a team of the short-lived U.S. Football League once owned by Trump.

Note: McConnell is still stinging for the GOP’s loss of both Senate seats from Georgia in last January’s special run-offs, after Trump apparently dissuaded Republicans in the state from showing up to the polls with his false “voter fraud” claims, and he clearly sees Walker as providing his best path to retaking the Senate majority leader’s gavel. At a recent rally, Trump threatened another Georgia January: “If we don’t solve the presidential election fraud of 2020 … Republicans will not be voting in ’22 or ’24. It’s the single most important things for Republicans to do.”

•••

Comedian/Satirist Mort Sahl Dies – Joke-writer for John F. Kennedy and personal friend of Ronald Reagan, and cited by the Library of Congress as the “earliest example of modern stand-up comedy on record” for “At Sunset,” recorded in 1955, according to his New York Times obituary, Mort Sahl has died, in Mill Valley, California. He was 94. Sahl’s particular brand of political humor – explaining the “horse shoe” of left-and-right political philosophy, for example -- in the late 1950s and 1960s made him an influence on numerous comedians to come.

--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Charles Dervarics

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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2021

•Executives for TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat testify before the Senate Commerce Committee’s consumer protection panel today on how well their social media platforms protect children online (WaPo).

•Moderna has announced it will deliver up to 110 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to countries on the African continent, the AP reports. The first 15 million are to be delivered by the end of this year, with another 35 million doses in the first quarter of 2022, and 60 million in the second quarter.

•President Biden will announce Tuesday a $100 million initiative to strengthen the U.S. relationship with South East Asia Politico reports, citing the White House. Biden joins a virtual summit today with the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations, (ASEAN), the first time for a U.S. president since Donald Trump in 2017.

Billionaire Tax Proposed for Budget Reconciliation – A Democratic proposal for a billionaires’ tax to pay for the Build Back Better budget reconciliation bill – now targeted at $1.75-1.9 trillion – is “gaining momentum,” according to The Hill, while Republicans are calling it “too cumbersome” compared with raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy, the Associated Press reports. 

These two interpretations are not mutually exclusive, though they could indicate why Sen. Krysten Sinema, D-AZ, has yet to weigh in on it. Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, seems to approve the provision, according to the AP, while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, calls it a “hare-brained scheme.”  Some Republicans say the tax scheme, which is meant to raise funds to pay for the budget reconciliation bill without raising the federal debt, could be challenged in court.

It’s based on a 2019 bill by Ron Wyden, D-OR, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and would tax the assets of billionaires, many of whom don’t pay much, or anything in taxes on annual income, but earn millions per year from investments. The proposal also would  set a 15% minimum tax rate on corporations, regardless of how they report profits. [GV1] 

According to Roll Call, taxing unrealized capital gains – on stock prices that go up over the tax year but are not cashed in, called “market-to-market” – is gaining momentum given Sinema’s opposition to increased taxes on individuals[GV2]  earning more than $400,000 per year ($450,000 for couples). 

Note: Some Democrats appear ready to call McConnell’s bluff and simply proceed with the tax increases, while Sinema hasn’t publicly weighed in yet – perhaps waiting to see which way the tax winds are blowing.

•••

UN Report Says Global Emissions Will be Up 16% by 2030 – A new United Nations report says global emissions are set to increase as much as 16% by the end of the decade, The Washington Post reports. The new UN report, coming ahead of its climate summit beginning Sunday in Glasgow, Scotland, is based on 192 countries’ commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

In other words, it’s not enough. 

The U.S. and Australia both have committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2050, though President Biden’s target date will be affected by cuts to his climate change proposal in the Build Back Better budget reconciliation bill, and Australia plans to do it, according to the BBC, without shutting down coal or gas production. China has committed to carbon neutrality by 2060.

If countries don’t get more aggressive with plans to cut greenhouse gases, the UN report says, the Earth is expected to be 2.7 degrees Celsius warmer by the end of the century, “far above” the 2C benchmark set in 2015, WaPo says.

•••

Alabama Governor Resists COVID Vax Mandate — “Alabamians are overwhelmingly opposed to these outrageous, Biden mandates, and I stand with them,” Alabama’s Republican Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement, according to The Washington Post. She has signed an executive order that is meant to counter the federal mandate that requires workers at federal contractors, federal employees, and health workers at facilities Medicare and Medicaid money be vaccinated.

Note: Note the “federal.” The vaccination rate, the Post says, was 44.4% in Alabama, as of late Monday. Aren’t governors supposed to protect their people?

•••

U.S. Aid to Sudan Suspended Following Coup – The Biden administration has suspended $700 million in financial aid to Sudan following yesterday’s military coupe, the AP reports. The aid is on “pause” pending review of developments in Khartoum. The State Department has called for the immediate release of those arrested, including Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

•••

Trump Jr. Sells T-Shirts Mocking Alec Baldwin Shooting – Donald Trump, Jr., is selling t-shirts on his website mocking the fatal shooting of the cinematographer on Alec Baldwin’s Rust movie set, The Hill reports. We won’t repeat the t-shirt’s words, nor the website’s address here with the same warning the NRA often made after several multiple shootings, that now is not the time to politicize a tragedy.

Note: Baldwin had done a masterful job of eviscerating Trump Senior on Saturday Night Live. Presumably Junior is still smarting over that.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash

MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2021

•Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen testifies before the British Parliament today, as new revelations show that the social media platform “meticulously” tracked international harms while ignoring warnings by its own employees about the way poor design decisions affected vulnerable communities around the world (WaPo).

•Democrats are looking to wrap up negotiations on the budget reconciliation bill and move its framework along while passing the bipartisan infrastructure bill Wednesday, and finally deliver it to President Biden’s desk before he departs for a trip to Rome on Thursday (The Hill and Punchbowl News.) Details below…

•Sudan’s top general has arrested the nation’s prime minister and other top officials in a military coup Monday, the AP reports. Thousands of citizens are reported to have flooded the streets of the capital Khartoum, and its twin city of Omdurman, as Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan dissolved the government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

Delivering Budget Reconciliation on Time? – Medicare expansion and taxes on billionaires are among the key remaining issues Democrats must figure out before moving forward a compromise of President Biden’s Build Back Better budget reconciliation, now expected to come in at $1.75 trillion. 

“In terms of where we are, I have already said we have 90% of the bill agreed to and written,” House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, said on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday. “We just have some of the last decisions to be made.” 

A key swing vote, Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, is amenable to new taxes on billionaires and certain corporations to pay for the pared down social service and climate change programs, the Associated Press reports, after meeting at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY. 

Democrats already had missed its latest self-imposed deadline Friday for the budget reconciliation framework and worked through the weekend to get to that 90%. 

Note: Congressional Democrats also are crashing against the end-of-the-month expiration of highway funding (already extended by a month), and Biden’s planned appearance at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland. Biden will have much less to show at that conference, with his Build Back Better program having been cut in half. But wait, there’s more. Virginia’s gubernatorial election is November 2 – one week from tomorrow (early voting has already begun) – and Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe needs a Biden legislative victory to give his campaign against Republican candidate Glenn Younkin a bump. Polls say the two Virginia candidates are in a dead heat, but with momentum on the Republican’s side.

Doing the Math:  The numbers behind “trillions of dollars” of White House budget proposals have been thrown around, sometimes willy nilly, in the past half year or so. President Biden had initially proposed $3.5 trillion in spending for 10 years in his Build Back Better budget reconciliation proposal. Sen. Manchin had set an upper limit of $1.5 trillion for the bill, but the latest intel from the AP suggests he will accept up to $1.75 trillion. The bipartisan infrastructure bill – the one the Senate already passed  and is sitting in the House waiting for the budget reconciliation bill, is about $1.2 trillion total, though it’s actually just $550 billion in new spending above programs already funded. 

•••

Members of Congress Involved in January 6 Planning? — Two planners of the January 6 rallies in Washington are alleging “that multiple members of Congress were intimately involved in planning both Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the January 6 events that turned violent,” according to a story in Rolling Stone by Hunter Walker. Walker also writes, “Along with [Marjorie Taylor] Greene, the conspiratorial pro-Trump Republican from Georgia who took office earlier this year, the pair both say the members who participated in these conversations or had top staffers join in included Rep. Paul Gosar, R-AZ, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-CO, Rep. Mo Brooks, R-AL, Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-NC, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-AZ, and Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-TX.” 

Also, Walker writes that the sources say Gosar “dangled the possibility of a ‘blanket pardon’ in an unrelated ongoing investigation to plan the protests.”

Note: If this is even partially true, isn’t this a description of a conspiracy to overthrow the Constitution? Party of law and order? 

•••

Charlottesville Civil Trial Begins – Jury selection is set to begin today in the civil trial filed by nine local residents against organizers of the deadly 2017 rally by white supremacists and militia members in Charlottesville, Virginia, per The Washington Post. Defendants include neo-Nazi Jason Kessler, who was a main organizer, and Richard Spencer, a featured speaker. The jury will decide whether the organized rally amounted to a conspiracy to engage in racially motivated violence. The trial is expected to run through November 19.

Note: Recall that Charlottesville’s rally is perhaps most notorious for the comments of then-President Trump, who said there were “very fine people, on both sides,” which he followed up with several dog-whistle comments through the rest of his administration.

•••

Pediatric Vaccinations Coming Next Month – A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee meets Tuesday to discuss a request by Pfizer and BioNTech to allow pediatric COVID-19 vaccinations for five- to 11-year-olds, The Washington Post reports. The advisory committee will inform the FDA’s decision on the request, which then will go on to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, which could approve the vaccine for children in that age group, Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said on ABC News’ This Week Sunday.

--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods

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•President Biden flies to Rome tomorrow to meet with Pope Francis, ahead of a trip to Glasgow, Scotland, […]

Join the conversation and help us build an alternative social news media platform by emailing your comments to editors@thehustings.news  

Scroll down this column to read…

•David Iwinski on the future of nation building by the U.S. government.

•Our flash debate on the Pandora Papers released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. 

•Our quick-take debate on the controversy surrounding Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding his portrayal in the book Peril, by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. 

•Right-column pundit Bryan Williams, “New Competition May Do Us Some Good,” on the growing Cold War with China.

•Williams again, on the California gubernatorial recall and the future of Trump’s GOP.

•David Iwinski on the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate.

____________________________________

Join the conversation and help us build an alternative social news media platform by emailing your comments to editors@thehustings.news   […]

Scroll down past News & Notes for a debate on the future of nation building by the United States. David Amaya offers his perspective in the left column, and David Iwinski comments from the right, in a preview of an upcoming, October 28 Braver Angels national debate on the issue. 

Join the conversation on this issue, or any of the debates listed below by emailing your comments to editors@thehustings.news

Also in the left column …

•Our flash debate on the Pandora Papers released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. 

•Our flash debate on the controversy surrounding Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding his portrayal in the book Peril, by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. 

•Pundit-at-large Stephen Macaulay, “The Seriousness of China,” on the growing Cold War with the country.

•The California gubernatorial recall and the future of Trump’s GOP, by Jessica Gottlieb.

•Reader comment on the Biden Administration’s vaccine mandate.

•Macaulay on the vaccine mandate.

_____
Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news

Scroll down past News & Notes for a debate on the future of nation building by the United States. David Amaya offers his perspective in the left column, and David Iwinski comments from the right, in a preview of an upcoming, October 28 Braver Angels national debate on the issue. 

Join the conversation on this issue, or any of the debates listed below by emailing your comments to editors@thehustings.news

Also in the right column …

•Our flash debate on the Pandora Papers released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. 

•Our quick-take debate on the controversy surrounding Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding his portrayal in the book Peril, by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. 

•Right-column pundit Bryan Williams, “New Competition May Do Us Some Good,” on the growing Cold War with China.

•Williams again, on the California gubernatorial recall and the future of Trump’s GOP.

•David Iwinski on the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate.

_____
Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news