•SCOTUS back in town: The Supreme Court’s 2021-22 term begins today.
•Democrats can pass an increase in the debt limit package via reconciliation with just a majority vote, the Senate parliamentarian has ruled, according to Punchbowl News, without any effect on the bigger ‘social infrastructure’ budget reconciliation currently stalled on Capitol Hill.
•See the left and right columns for our pundits’ comments on what should be the fate of Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Scroll down this column to read the facts behind the debate.
Pandora’s Box of Tax Dodges – Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has become a modern Swiss Bank, according to the Pandora Papers, analysis of documents exposing more than 29,000 offshore accounts belonging to heads of state, business executives and entertainment personalities, reports The Washington Post. The newspaper is one of 150 media outlets in 117 countries examining the documents uncovered by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which has captured more than 11.9 million financial records, private emails, secret spreadsheets, clandestine contacts and other records, making it bigger than the Panama Papers.
“The files provide substantial new evidence, for example, that South Dakota now rivals notoriously opaque jurisdictions in Europe and the Caribbean in financial security,” with tens of millions of dollars tucked away in Sioux Falls, WaPo reports. Much of the billions of dollars in assets are hidden in trusts, according to the report, and would not otherwise be exposed without an apparent encroachment into those financial records. More than 130 people on Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires, and more than 330 public officials in more than 90 countries and territories have been uncovered by the ICIJ investigation.
It must be noted that none of this offshoring and placement of assets in trusts is illegal. The ICIJ is protecting its sources in this release of private documents.
Monday’s revelations entail the first of eight reports WaPo will publish in coming days. Prominent individuals named so far, the Associated Press reports, include King Abdullah II of Jordan, who has spent more than $100 million on luxury homes in Malibu, California, former Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom, Czech Republic Minister Andres Babis, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan and Colombian pop star Shakira. Oh, and a Russian woman rumored to have a child by Russian President-for-Life Vladimir Putin owns a waterfront home in Monaco, making Donald J. Trump’s payoff of Stormy Daniels seem a relative bargain.
Note: WaPo’s report – somewhat relievedly, we’d suspect – notes that billionaires NOT named in the Pandora Papers includes Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos. Also not among them are Tesla’s Elon Musk, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Berkshire-Hathaway chief Warren Buffett.
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Whistleblower Says Facebook Values Profits Over Safety – Facebook whistleblower and its former research scientist Frances Haugen revealed herself on CBS News’ 60 Minutes Sunday night and said she secretly copied tens of thousands of pages of the social media site’s research forwarded for “at least eight” complaints her attorneys have filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Haugen worked for Facebook’s Civic Integrity department, which was dissolved between the time of Joe Biden’s defeat of Donald J. Trump in last November’s presidential election and the January 6 insurrection. She left the company in May.
Facebook’s own research shows the social media site amplifies hate, misinformation, and political unrest, but hides what it knows in favor of algorithms that reward such activity, Haugen told the news magazine show’s Scott Pelley. The Wall Street Journal first reported on revelations from Haugen’s copied documents in a series of reports last month but did not name its source. Facebook’s Instagram platform also has come under fire for its deleterious effects on teenagers, especially girls, and has postponed plans to launch Instagram for kids.
“Facebook makes more money when you engage more content,” Haugen said.
Facebook turned down 60 Minutes’ request for an interview, and in a written statement defended its efforts to “balance the rights of billions of people to express themselves openly with the need to keep our platform a safe and positive place.” …
“To suggest we encourage bad content and do nothing is just not true.”
Note: Surely Facebook doesn’t “encourage” bad content so much as it pushes it to readers looking to confirm their biases and let them organize such action as the January 6 Capitol insurrection. As for not doing nothing, watch for Facebook’s already considerable financial support of Democratic and Republican politicians’ campaign committees to thrive in the face of potential regulation of the social media industry.
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When We Last Left the Reconciliation Bill – Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s, D-CA, September 27 deadline for the House of Representatives to vote on the $1.2-trillion infrastructure bill has come and gone, with President Biden calling on both sides – progressive and moderate Democrats – to work it out over the next month or so in order to get his Build Back Better proposal passed. Such negotiations amount to finding a pricetag somewhere between $3.5-trilllion over 10 years that would pay for family leave, child care and climate change, and the $1.5-trillion ceiling Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, has stated is his top price.
Still no word on what Sen. Krysten Sinema, D-AZ, is willing to spend.
“I’m telling you we’re going to get this done,” Biden told House Democrats in a half-hour meeting at the Capitol Friday, according to Roll Call. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s in six minutes, six days or six weeks. We’re going to get it done.”
Note: C’mon, man. Six months drops this smack into the beginning of primary election season in many states. Conventional wisdom is that the House will sort this out in 30 days or so, but we’re going to bet on some late nights between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, along with a debt ceiling vote the Senate will have to sort out by December 3.
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Donna MacKeand