Thursday News & Notes
NOVEMBER 4, 2021 -- U.S. POSTMASTER RULES ALL HOUSES MUST GET MAILBOXES OR THEY WON'T GET MAIL, 1922
•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 three-column debate later today at thehustings.news.
•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.
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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. . . .
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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.
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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.
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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 plus alternatives is only 1/16 Black.
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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