Thursday, October 28, 2021

Rep. Jamaal Bowman Slams Manchin’s ‘Completely Unacceptable’ Opposition to Paid Family Leave: ‘He’s Regurgitating Talking Points From the 1980s’

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) reacted strongly to the news that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has succeeded in getting paid family leave removed from President Joe Biden's dwindling Build Back Better bill.

Manchin, who had months to take a hard line against the policy, waited mere days before a scheduled House vote to put his foot down and demand the provision de dropped from the bill. A last-ditch effort to convince Manchin to support the measure failed on Wednesday.

With the Senate tied 50-50, Democrats need all their members to vote for the bill to pass through budget reconciliation, plus Vice President Kamala Harris to cast the deciding vote, as no Republicans are expected to vote for the bill.

On the House side, progressives have become increasingly irked at the measures being stripped from the bill in order to appease Manchin. Some have said they won't vote for a Senate-passed $1.5 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal until text is finalized on the reconciliation bill.

Noting the removal of paid family leave, CNN's Don Lemon asked Bowman on Wednesday night, "If that's out, are you in?"

"That remains to be determined," said Bowman. "We're the only developed country in the world that does not have paid family leave. We were supposed to be at 12 weeks. It went down to four weeks and now it's out even though the majority of the country supports paid family leave. It's archaic. It's inhumane to ask a mom or new parents to leave their child in child care while they have to go back to work to try to earn a living and keep a roof over their heads."

See Also: DeSantis reveals how Florida is trying to recruit cops from other states whose jobs are threatened by vaccine mandates

"It's unfortunate that we have a minority senator, one person who opposes this where the majority of the country supports it. So for me, it's unacceptable."

Lemon asked Bowman if he had heard from Manchin or understood his reasons for opposing paid leave.

"I personally have not heard from him," responded Bowman. "The [Congressional Progressive Caucus] has not heard from him. And I don't quite understand why he doesn't support it. He seems to be, and he has portrayed himself to be someone pro-family. And if you're pro-family, you're pro-children. If you're pro-children, we should have paid family leave as a developed nation, as the wealthiest nation on Earth."

Bowman said that "it's completely unacceptable" that the U.S. isn't providing for paid family leave.

"The only sort of rationale that I've heard from Manchin is 'entitlement mentality,'" he said. "You know, he seems to be regurgitating talking points from the 1980s when we are existing in a 21st century multiracial democracy that's going through a climate crisis trying to recover from Covid. Building back better is building back better for all people including poor people, people of color, and those who trying to start families."

Lemon again asked Bowman if he would vote for the bill.

"Again," said the congressman, "It remains to be seen."

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin plans to build a 'business park' in space

Space: the final frontier! An inspiring locale in which to realize the purest expression of human ingenuity or, what's that, Jeff Bezos? A "business park"? Oh, ok. Sure.

Jeff Bezos' space exploration company, Blue Origin, announced with Sierra Space and several other partners that it plans to build the first "commercial space station" in low Earth orbit. That means it won't be a government-run station, but will theoretically be open to visitors and tenants to, as the company says, get an address in space.

The companies are calling the station Orbital Reef. And while the name sounds exciting, and the press release describes the station as a new "ecosystem," all starry eyed notions of what a civilization in space could look like evaporate when they describe Orbital Reef as a "business park."

A business park is a collection of office buildings, with some grass or hey even a water feature or two in between structures, if you're lucky. Like a park! But for grownups, who spend the majority of their waking hours in a cubicle under fluorescent light. And that, apparently, is Jeff Bezos' vision for the future of humanity in space.

Orbital Reef will "provide the essential infrastructure needed to scale economic activity and open new markets in space," the announcement reads. Ah yes, a new economic market. Just what every young child dreams of when they look up at the cosmos. Excuse us while we go cry.

Beyond stating that Orbital Reef will be the hot new home for capitalists everywhere, the announcement is otherwise light on details. Visitors will get access to round trip travel and crew members, but there's no mention of cost. The companies say it will begin operating in the "second half" of the decade. What a bright future we have to look forward to, indeed.

Jan. 6 Panel Temporarily Pauses Request For Some Trump WH Docs

The House Jan. 6 select committee has delayed its request to President Joe Biden's team for about 50 pages worth of Trump-era White House documents that the National Archivist has already approved for the panel to obtain.

The committee told Politico that it wants to avoid wasting time on potentially having to negotiate over documents that could actually be protected by executive privilege, as ex-president Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed.

One of the members of the panel, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), told Politico that "we're in a hurry."

"We don't want to get hung up," she said.

Fellow committee member Rep. Jamie Raskin (R-MD) told Politico that the temporary pause was merely "a process of give and take" in the panel's discussions with Biden's team on releasing the documents.

See Also: DeSantis reveals how Florida is trying to recruit cops from other states whose jobs are threatened by vaccine mandates

He added: "We don't think that trying to overthrow the U.S. government is something that triggers executive privilege. It's hard to see that as part of the official duties of a president."

It's unclear if the Biden White House had recommended the pause or if the committee made the decision alone.

The President has shot down Trump's requests to invoke executive privilege over records in the panel's investigation several times already, leading the former president to file a lawsuit against the committee and the National Archives.

Eastman Spins Wild Tales Of Jan. 6 As A Trap Sprung By Media And FBI

John Eastman is sure having trouble keeping his story straight.

A week ago, the ex-Trump legal adviser, whose legal memo laid out a path for Mike Pence to thwart the 2020 Electoral College certification, went to great lengths to downplay and minimize his memo.

But Eastman takes a whole different tack in a secretly filmed discussion with undercover left-wing activists at a gala.

In video released last night, Eastman bemoaned that Pence was too much of an establishment Republican to follow through on rejecting the Electoral College certification.

See Also: DeSantis reveals how Florida is trying to recruit cops from other states whose jobs are threatened by vaccine mandates

During his speech, Eastman peddled lies about the 2020 election being tainted by "fraud" before he directly called out Pence and demanded that the then-vice president have GOP-controlled state legislatures "look into" the election results (a key component of Eastman's plot detailed in his infamous memo to Trump).

See Also: Here's the Story with Kyrsten Sinema

A mob of Trump's supporters later went on to storm the Capitol, some of them shouting "Hang Mike Pence!"

The undercover activists Eastman spoke to came from The Undercurrent. They had also filmed the lawyer bragging about the memo at the same event despite him publicly insisting that he thought the legal reasoning in the document was bunk.

The Sausage Making: Manchin Appears To Be The Problem On Nearly Every Remaining Issue

Democrats have been saying for days (weeks!) that they're close to a deal on reconciliation — with just a handful of outstanding issues. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has the distinction of being the problem lawmaker blocking progress on just about all of them.

His recalcitrance likely forced a big proposal out of the package Wednesday evening, according to multiple reports.

Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Patty Murray (D-WA) are vowing not to give up, though. "We are not going to allow one or two men to tell women, millions of them in this country, that they can't have paid leave," Murray told reporters.

The two cornered Manchin on the floor of the Senate, and Gillibrand came out saying he promised to "remain open-minded" to their ideas. Manchin, though, suggested right afterwards that the reconciliation bill "is not the place to do it," indicating that he may let Republicans kill the provision for him later.

Outstanding Issues

Prescription drug negotiations: Right now, negotiation is swirling around which small group of drugs to include. This is a major priority for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) told a group of us yesterday that he would not accept some "fig leaf" masquerading as a strong proposal. But some Democrats, like Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), are cool to it.
Expanding Medicaid: Many Democrats, including the senators from Georgia, want to expand coverage in Republican-led states that did not do so willingly under the Affordable Care Act. Manchin is the problem here.
Medicare benefits: The fight here has been focused on how to deal with dental benefits (the most expensive among the vision, hearing and dental coverage that is under consideration). Manchin again is not keen on this; Sanders wants it badly.
Climate: We know a topline — around $500 billion, maybe a bit more. That's a high enough number to satisfy some in the climate hawk space. It's not yet clear what that'll consist of, though. The methane fee seems to be teetering somewhere between life and death thanks to (you guessed it!) Manchin.
Immigration reform: Democrats are still trying to woo the parliamentarian with a Plan C, but we're not seeing movement so far.
Payfors: Democrats seem to have nailed down the corporate minimum tax, no mean feat. But the billionaires tax is not enjoying such a warm reception, and now Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) (in addition to Manchin) has aired doubts about the IRS bank reporting proposal.

The Blown Fake Deadline

Yesterday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told me that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wanted a deal by the end of today. That's not going to happen. Sanders confirmed as much on his way out of a meeting with President Joe Biden Wednesday evening.
This only means crashing up against fake deadlines, but they'll still make life harder for the Democrats. On October 31, the highway funding bill will expire, setting up a redux of the fight we covered a few weeks ago: House and Senate moderates will want to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill alone; progressives will not.
A potential wrinkle is emerging that Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) wants a back-to-back vote on both completed bills; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says it should be enough to just have a framework of the reconciliation package (generally understood to be a topline number and the main programmatic elements).
A sense of urgency also came from Biden's coming European trip. He leaves tomorrow, and Democrats really wanted to send him with some stuff to brag about, including some climate advancements to tout as he attends the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

Where Things Stand: The OTHER Reason The Filibuster Is So Devastating

(A lot going on in that photo beyond what the caption says, on so many levels. It is from June 21, 1947, after Senate Democrats spent the previous night filibustering the eventual GOP override of President Truman's veto of Taft-Hartley.)

Set aside for a moment the big issues like democracy reform that we know are stymied by the filibuster — it's a given that its anti-majoritarianism holds up major generational reforms. Its impact goes far beyond that. The ways in which the filibuster infects not just legislating but the basic task of governance is so pervasive that it's become part of the background noise of Washington. We don't notice it anymore, but it's hugely significant.

Take for example the ACA — huge, consequential legislation that remade entire segments of the health care and health insurance industries. It would be impossible to get all the elements of landmark legislation like the ACA exactly right the first time. Mistakes were part of it (remember the mother of all drafting errors?). Unintended consequences creep up. The market, private players, and corporate America react and adapt to new legislation in ways that can be hard to forecast. Adjustments have to be made. But thanks to the filibuster, making those kinds of normal tweaks to legislation, fixing problems with it, adapting to the real world impacts of it as they unfold is often difficult or impossible.

It's coming up now in major ways. It seems to be off the table now, but the clean electricity standard was a great example of the ways in which the filibuster hamstrings everything. Because of the filibuster a normal clean electricity standard wasn't viable so it had to be done via reconciliation. To clear reconciliation's convoluted rules, a whole new version of a clean electricity standard had to be drawn up. Dubbed the Clean Electricity Performance Program, it combined a complicated set of carrots and sticks to induce utilities to generate a bigger share of their electricity from clean energy sources. That became the centerpiece of the Biden climate agenda, but amazingly it was largely unproven! How did we end up staking the U.S. climate policy on an unproven mechanism? The filibuster.

But there's more!

Even if the CEPP more or less worked as intended, there was another wrinkle. It was unlikely to work precisely as intended without further adjustments based on how it performed in the wild. Like the ACA, it was going to need to be tweaked. The mix of carrots and sticks need to be just right. The market might have reacted in unpredictable and hard-to-foresee ways. But would those tweaks have been able to be made in the normal course of governance? Probably not over GOP opposition and the use of the filibuster.

The filibuster forces policymakers into situations where they have to get everything perfect or risk the entire agenda collapsing. It's an impossible standard to meet, but that's where we are.

Another recent example: the billionaire tax (it, too, looks like it may not make it into the final package). It's a huge change to U.S. tax policy. A big risk. The revenue it generates is key to funding Build Back Better. The ability to target extreme wealth successfully will be a key measure of Biden's and Democrats' effectiveness. A lot is at stake! Billionaires will throw millions of dollars at tax lawyers, financial experts and accountants to avoid the billionaire tax. It will be a game of cat and mouse. Except Democrats in future congresses will be hamstrung by the filibuster from making the kinds of tweaks to the law that would naturally need to be made to implement it successfully, adjust to changing conditions, and get the right mix of provisions to make the tax airtight and effective.

I should caveat here that the kinds of tweaks I'm talking about can sometimes be made without a filibuster threat. Sometimes there's bipartisan agreement. Sometimes the tweaks get snuck through on must-pass legislation. But in general, Democrats are operating not just on the presumption that their big stuff will never pass except in reconciliation but that anything they do manage to pass will be forever handcuffed by the filibuster.

See Also: DeSantis reveals how Florida is trying to recruit cops from other states whose jobs are threatened by vaccine mandates

It's a huge impediment to governance, and it fits in perfectly with the GOP vision: keep breaking government until you've convinced everyone government is hopelessly broken.

Where Things Stand: So, Is That It For Biden’s Climate Agenda?

One of the many soft deadlines Democrats are facing as they trudge forward with their reconciliation package is the looming UN Climate Change summit in Glasgow. Last year's Conference of Parties was postponed because of the pandemic, and, with the world now two years deeper into its worsening crisis, this year's gathering is being heralded as the most important since the Paris Agreement was hammered out in 2015.

All that build-up comes as the U.S. Senate struggles to deliver the policies that would fulfill the President's climate agenda.

It's a familiar story: A Democratic President makes big promises on the global stage related to climate change (the Kyoto Protocol, a cap and trade bill, the U.S. contribution to the Paris Agreement) and the legislature is unable to deliver the laws that would make it so. That's never the end of the story — Obama was able to put in place some hefty climate policies through executive action, but the speed with which they were undone during the Trump administration shows why legislative action is very much preferred when you're trying to make international commitments in the hope of spurring similar efforts by other polluting nations.

We're seeing the Senate's traditional climate stumbles play out in an acute form this week with Sen. Joe Manchin stripping both the Clean Electricity Performance Program, and, potentially, a methane fee from the reconciliation package. Neither of these are small losses. The CEPP was designed to function like a Clean Energy Standard; the methane fee, according to an analysis by Energy Innovation, would remove the equivalent of 11 percent of today's U.S. industrial sector emissions, or the annual emissions of 36 million vehicles.

"By 2050, the methane fee reduces industrial GHG emissions by 172 MMT CO2e per year, equivalent to 11 percent of today's U.S. industry sector emissions, or the annual emissions from more than 36 million gasoline-powered passenger vehicles. Cumulatively through 2050, the methane fee is responsible for 65 percent of the Build Back Better Act's total industrial GHG emissions reductions." (Source: Energy Innovation)...LESS

(Manchin's ability to block these provisions while possessing what seems to be only a surface-level understanding of them underscores the tragedy of Cal Cunningham not exercising greater discretion — or just, you know, checking his impulses entirely — while running for Senate, but here we are: a 50-50 Senate, where every Democratic-caucusing vote counts.)

So that brings us back to the upcoming UN summit. Can Biden tout his promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions 50% by 2030, even without a methane fee or the CEPP? Meeting the goal is not impossible, an analysis by the Rhodium Group finds — it's doable, but it's not easy. It would take aggressive actions by forward-thinking states, corporate entities, and the executive branch, as well as a Congress willing to make use of tax credits for such things as nuclear energy, hydrogen fuels, and forest restoration.

As is so often the case with climate change, we now have a goal that is only achievable with heroic effort. We can get there, but Manchin's personal branding exercise has made doing so quite a bit harder.