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Manchin pumps brakes: Bill 'needs to be scrubbed much better'

Centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on Wednesday pumped the brakes on negotiations with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) over a budget reconciliation bill, warning the bill “needs to be scrubbed much better” after a new report shows inflation hit 9.1 percent in June. 

Manchin told reporters Wednesday he’s not sure if he can agree to anything beyond the prescription drug reform component of the bill, which has already been sent to the Senate parliamentarian’s office and has the support of all 50 members of the Democratic caucus.  

“We know what we can pass is basically the drug pricing, OK? — on Medicare,” he told reporters. “Is there any more we can do? I don’t know but I am very, very cautious. 

“And I’m going to make sure that I have every input on scrubbing everything humanly possible that could be considered inflammatory,” he said.  

He said “deficit reduction is going to be fifty percent” of the new revenue gained from prescription drug savings and tax reforms, such as a 3.8 percent tax on wealthy individuals and couples who earn more than $400,000 or $500,000, respectively, from pass-through businesses.  

He said the latest inflation report showing prices have increased by 9.1 percent compared to a year ago means negotiators are going to have to slow down and proceed more cautiously on putting together the budget bill.  

“Basically, take your time and make sure we do it and do it right. We can’t afford mistakes in the highest inflation we’ve seen in the last 40 years,” he said.  

Manchin has pushed back against a goal set by other Democrats of passing the bill before the August recess, saying that he sees Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, as the deadline. 

Manchin, however, did not rule out including a provision to continue subsidies of health insurance plans provided under the Affordable Care Act, explaining that whether he could agree to extended subsidies would depend on how they are drafted and paid for.  

“It depends on if we can look at things and find a pathway forward that is not inflammatory,” he said.  

But the West Virginia senator also emphasized that he’s more inclined to keep the spending in the bill as modest as possible to avoid further stimulating an overheated economy . 

“Anything that can be inflationary right now with 9.1 percent should be a red herring because we cannot inflame this inflationary position we have right now with the hardship it has on everybody in the country, especially in my state,” he said.  

Manchin said there’s been no talk of lifting the cap on state and local tax deduction, something that two Northeast Democrats, Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J) and Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), are demanding.  

“SALT’s not been in the talks at all,” he said.  

Source: TEST FEED1

'Handmaid's Tale' author on reversal of Roe v. Wade: 'I told you so'

“The Handmaid’s Tale” author Margaret Atwood posted a short but clear message on Instagram about the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Atwood posted a picture of herself over the weekend holding a mug that reads, “I Told You So,” with the caption, “Coffee in Nova Scotia with appropriately sloganed coffee cup…”

The best-selling novelist’s most famous work — which centers around a patriarchal, totalitarian society called Gilead that has overthrown the U.S. government and subjects women to forcible breeding by upper class families — has exploded in popularity in recent years as abortion restrictions across the country have increased. The book was also adapted into a Hulu series in 2017.

Atwood also took to Twitter to further clarify her remarks in the photo caption. She tweeted that “when Handmaids Tale came out in 85, there was disbelief. I thought a religious-right takeover was possible in the US, and was Crazy Margaret. Premature, but unfortunately too close. That doesn’t make me happy.”

The red robes and white bonnets that the women in Atwood’s novel are required to wear have become iconic in the past few years as people have replicated the outfits and worn them to protests including public demonstrations for abortion access and to protests against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh‘s confirmation in 2018.

Atwood told People in 2017 that she never imagined the novel would be prophetic.

“There’s a precedent in real life for everything in the book,” the author said. “I decided not to put anything in that somebody somewhere hadn’t already done. But you write these books so they won’t come true.”

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Support for Biden reelection bid at record low: poll

Nearly two-thirds of Americans say President Biden should not run for a second presidential term, new polling shows.

A Yahoo! News/YouGov poll released Wednesday found that just 18 percent of Americans support a 2024 run for Biden, what the report calls “the lowest number to date.”

More Democratic respondents say they are against a Biden reelection bid than for it, with 41 percent saying the president should bow out.

But 30 percent of Democrats say they aren’t sure who they’d rather run in Biden’s stead. 

Despite the low numbers on running for reelection, about a quarter of Democrats surveyed said Biden should be the Democratic nominee in 2024, and less than a fifth said they would prefer Vice President Harris. Twenty percent say “someone else” and 4 percent say they “wouldn’t vote.”

Meanwhile, 60 percent of Republicans think former President Trump should run again in 2024.

This survey comes in the wake of several others showing low approval ratings for the president and high numbers saying they are against a Biden reelection bid. 

On Tuesday, Biden told reporters that “they want me to run,” insisting that Democrats would back his reelection and citing a New York Times-Siena College poll statistic that 92 percent of Democrats would support him if the 2024 choice was between Biden and Trump.

Conducted between July 8-11, the Yahoo! News/YouGov survey found among registered voters that Biden would beat Trump by one percentage point in a Biden-Trump race.

Slightly more than half of Americans said they agreed with the statement that “Trump committed a crime by trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election” and the former president should be prosecuted.

Source: TEST FEED1

Boris Johnson’s real scandal: Brexit

Not before time, Boris Johnson has resigned as leader of the UK’s Conservative Party. The Guardian reports that Johnson’s leadership “toppled under a wave of sleaze allegations and failure to tell the truth.” But his real scandal lies elsewhere — with Brexit.

In 2013, when Boris Johnson was not yet pro-Brexit, he wrote that “the question of [European Union] EU membership is no longer of key importance to the destiny of this country.” And he stated that “most of our problems are not caused by Brussels, but by chronic British short-termism, inadequate management, sloth, low skills, a culture of easy gratification and under-investment in both human and physical capital and infrastructure.”

Even more pointedly, Johnson asked: “Why are we still, person for person, so much less productive than the Germans? The answer has nothing to do with the EU.” Nonetheless, Johnson threw his weight behind Brexit.

The entry of Johnson into the Leave campaign mattered. As one research put it, “polling certainly persistently suggested that voters were more inclined to believe what Johnson said about Brexit than they were the utterances of any other politician.” His celebrity status, “Englishness” and nationalistic leanings all contributed to the Brexit cause.

More ominously, having cynically embraced the Brexit cause, Johnson compared the EU to the Nazis. He stated that “Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods.” By voting Leave, Johnson suggested that the British people would once again be the “heroes of Europe” as they were when fighting the Nazis. Given the EU’s commitment to the rule of law and its overall goal of peace, this comparison was as inaccurate as it was childish.

But politically, it worked, and he quickly became foreign secretary under Theresa May after the successful Brexit vote in June 2016. He went on to become prime minister in 2019, having campaigned to “get Brexit done” despite evidence that it would make the UK substantially poorer.

But given his preference for spectacle over policy, Johnson did a bad job of it. Consequently, in December 2020, as the Brexit deadline neared without an agreement, Boris Johnson was forced to place a desperate call to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, to secure an invitation to Brussels to pen a real agreement.

Johnson’s charade was that Brexit would not alter its trading relationship with the EU. Nonetheless, border checks in all their details began in January 2021. As a result, British exports to the EU fell significantly in early 2021. British firms eventually adjusted, but they absorbed the trade compliance costs in the process.

By October 2021, the UK began to experience significant shortages of foodstuffs and petrol in part due to a loss of approximately 10,000 EU lorry drivers. In response, the Johnson government was forced to begin offering temporary visas for EU truck drivers.  

Then there was Northern Ireland. When Ireland and the UK were both part of the European Union, there were no tariff barriers between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. With the departure of the UK from the EU, this trading relationship was thrown into disarray. The Johnson government negotiated the Northern Ireland Protocol to avoid a hard border between it and the Irish Republic, which retains its EU membership.

The protocol, however, transformed the Irish Sea “border” between the UK and Northern Ireland into a border between the UK and the EU. In response, Johnson began to suggest that the protocol itself might be abrogated despite having signed it himself as a matter of international law.

Refugees also played an illusory role in the Brexit debate. In April 2022, Johnson’s Home Office announced that it would begin sending some asylum seekers to Rwanda. While the Johnson government claimed that the agreement was in line with the United Nations Refugee Convention, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees disagreed. Both the Home Office staff and Prince Charles opposed the plan.  

The pure emptiness of Brexit was on display at a March 2022 Tory conference where Johnson compared the Brexit vote to the bravery of Ukrainians fighting against Russian invaders. Lost to Johnson was the irony that Russia invaded Ukraine because Ukrainians wanted to more closely associate with the EU. There was also the small matter that voting in a referendum is not quite the same as risking your life to confront an invading army.

Boris Johnson’s real scandal is Brexit. The UK is poorer for it.  

Kenneth A. Reinert is a professor of public policy and director of the Global Commerce and Policy Program at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.

Source: TEST FEED1

Congressional staffers raise alarms about racial pay disparity analysis

A group of congressional staff associations representing staffers of color issued a statement on Tuesday laying out concerns about a report that found that non-white staff members earn thousands of dollars less in than their white counterparts. 

“It is clear that equal pay is still an issue in the Senate. Our staff associations will continue to support and advocate that all non-white Congressional staffers — at every staff level, both state and Capitol Hill offices — receive fair and equal compensation.”

The associations were referring to an analysis from the congressional staff record-keeping website Legistorm stated that both parties pay non-white Senate staffers thousands less in salary. 

The Legistorm report found that non-white state staffers make 91 percent of what white staffers make, or $5,600 less per year. The gap is higher in D.C., where non-white staff members receive 86 percent of what white staffers make. 

The pay gap is the largest among communications staff. 

Racial minorities make up 30 percent of Democratic Senate office staff and 8 percent of Republican Senate staff, according to the report.

Senate Republicans pay Hispanic staffers the least — 92 percent of what the median white Republican staff member receives. That amounts to a $4,700 difference per year. 

Asian American and Pacific Islanders are Senate Democrats’ lowest-paid group, making 81 percent of what the median white Democratic staffer receives, totaling $12,300 less per year. 

The statement came from a collection of groups including: Congressional Asian Pacific American Staff Assocation, Congressional Black Associates, Congressional Hispanic Staff Association, Black Men on the Hill, Congressional Korean Staff Association, Congressional South Asian American Staff Association and Black Women’s Congressional Alliance. 

The groups said they are “deeply concerned and disappointed” by the data, adding that they want senators and senior staffers to commit to addressing the issue. The statement said the associations will also continue to push for offices to hire people of color at all levels to ensure diversity is not overlooked. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Former Oath Keeper: 'We came very, very close to having a civil war kick off on Jan. 6'

Former Oath Keepers spokesperson Jason Van Tatenhove on Wednesday said American came “very, very close” to a civil war when pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to prevent the certification of the 2020 election results.

Van Tatenhove, who testified Tuesday to the House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol, told CNN’s Brianna Keilar that far-right militias like the Oath Keepers and other rioters had a “military mindset” on Jan. 6.

“I don’t know how far they’ve gotten into the endgame, but what we saw on January 6th is certainly very much how it would look to start out,” he said. “We came very, very close to having a civil war kick off on January 6th.”

Van Tatenhove, 47, is a longtime Colorado resident, former tattoo shop owner and independent journalist who first met Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes in 2014 when the militia leader traveled to support Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who called for armed Americans to support him in a stand-off with the U.S. government.

After the Bundy Ranch episode, Rhodes, who has been charged with seditious conspiracy for his role in the Jan. 6 attack, hired Van Tatenhove as the militia organization’s publicist and spokesperson, a position he held for a couple years before quitting after several disputes.

On Tuesday, Van Tatenhove provided a historical overview of the Oath Keepers to the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, including saying that the Oath Keepers are a violent militia that dreamed of an insurrection like that which unfolded on Jan. 6.

While the House panel is presenting evidence about the events surrounding Jan. 6, the Department of Justice (DOJ) will ultimately decide whether to criminally prosecute former President Trump for his role in the Capitol attack.

Van Tatenhove predicted Rhodes and other far-right leaders would see the Department of Justice’s declination to file charges as a “win” for their movements, which he said have yet to be held accountable for standoffs such as that at Bundy Ranch, which saw the federal government back down.

Van Tatenhove told CNN Rhodes has a “fantasy” of organizing a para-military organization. The former Oath Keepers spokesperson says he sees a direct line between Bundy Ranch and Jan. 6.

He added the American public was failing to see the full picture of the Jan. 6 attack and that citizens should start “having hard conversations” about what happened on that day.

“I really do fear for what might happen if Trump gets back in office,” he told CNN. “In a lot of ways, we’ve been mincing words. When it comes to the events of January 6th, that was not some sort of peaceful protest. That was a violent mob, and people died. We need to really start calling things out for what they are.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Five takeaways from the stunning inflation numbers

Consumer inflation is still shooting upward despite interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve and a host of policy responses from lawmakers over the past several months aimed at fixing supply chains.

The Labor Department reported Wednesday that the consumer price index (CPI) increased 1.3 percent from May to June and was up 9.1 over June of last year, the highest rise since 1981.

Inflation dipped briefly this year from April to May, but otherwise has been steadily rising since May of 2020.

There’s already been an outcry from lawmakers about the latest numbers.

“Today’s consumer price inflation reading of 9.1 percent is a painful reminder that Americans’ paychecks continue to be strained by the high inflation that was fueled by Democrats’ untargeted and partisan spending spree.  As the economy faces runaway inflation and rising odds of a recession and stagflation, raising taxes, killing jobs, smothering wages and imposing price controls makes no sense,” leading Senate Finance Committee Republican Mike Crapo (Idaho) said in a Wednesday statement.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has called attention to the tense geopolitical situation following the Russian invasion of Ukraine earlier this year as an important driver of inflation.

In a Tuesday tweet, she said, “As we face Putin’s price hike at the pump and in the grocery aisle, nearly every member of the House GOP voted NO on a package of bipartisan bills that lower the costs of food and fuel for hard-working families,” referring to legislation advanced earlier this year.

Here are five takeaways from the latest inflation numbers:

Food and energy prices are hitting Americans the hardest

Economists tend to separate out food and energy prices from what they call “core inflation” since those categories tend to be the most volatile. But those are also the categories in which Americans feel price increases most acutely.

Energy prices rose 7.5 percent from May to June and contributed nearly half of the overall increase, with the price of gasoline going up by 11.2 percent, according to the Labor Department.

Annually, energy prices are up 41 percent, with energy commodities up more than 60 percent.

Food prices are up more than 10 percent on the year, and the price of groceries — or the “food-at-home” index — has risen more than 12 percent.

Without the food and energy categories, annual core inflation dropped in June to 5.9 percent from 6 percent in May.

“But don’t get too excited,” Harvard economist Jason Furman tweeted. “This is probably not telling you what you think it is. All it says is that core inflation in the month of June-22 was slightly lower than it was in June-21.”

“That means that IF every month going forward looked like June then core inflation would eventually rise from its 5.9 percent 12-month change to something like an 8-percent or 9-percent change. Now I don’t expect that to happen for many reasons, but the new info in June was net worse, not better,” he wrote.

Chance of big interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve is growing

The Fed is in charge of the U.S. money supply and monetary policy, and the monetary response to rising inflation is typically to increase interest rates.

The Fed has been raising rates since earlier this year. Earlier in the year, the central bank said it intended to raise rates by 50 basis points, or half a percent, throughout the year. But its last rate hike was 75 basis points, indicating growing urgency about inflation that it had initially said was “transitory.”

Now, the chances of even bigger rate hikes are increasing.

A market odds algorithm from derivatives exchange CME now puts the chances of a 100-basis point rate hike at more than 40 percent, up from 0 percent a week ago.

Rate hikes from the Fed determine the rates at which banks and other financial institutions can borrow money from each other.

This action translates down into more expensive credit markets for consumers who make payments with financing plans for things like mortgages, auto loans and credit card interest fees

Pressure on lawmakers to deliver supply side fixes for inflation increases

President Biden said Wednesday that he will urge lawmakers to use their fiscal policy powers to bring down prices on a variety of goods and services for Americans.

“I will urge Congress to act, this month, on legislation to reduce the cost of everyday expenses that are hitting American families, from prescription drugs to utility bills to health insurance premiums and to make more in America,” Biden said in a statement on Wednesday.

Lawmakers have already tried to address inflation with new legislation like the Ocean Shipping Reform Act passed last month and signed into law by Biden. Lawmakers said the act would help to unclog ports — the site of shipping bottlenecks that have increased transportation costs — as well as check the overall bargaining power of the international shipping industry.

Facing various types of new regulation, U.S. businesses are advancing their own legislative agendas against rising inflation.

“Inflation rose 9.1 percent over 12 months! Why hasn’t the administration cut tariffs? Why are they restricting future domestic oil & gas production? Why isn’t Congress working to expand legal immigration? Why is Congress breathing life into a bill to raise taxes on domestic investment?” Neil Bradley, head of policy at the U.S. Chamber of Congress, said in a Wednesday morning tweet.

Some economists, however, point to record profits of companies in the private sector as a key driver of inflation.

“This morning’s report highlights the fact that aggressive interest rate hikes by the Fed have done little to combat the inflation that continues to take a toll on workers, families, and small businesses across the country. Additional rate hikes would push millions out of work and further raise the risk of a recession that would only worsen economic pain,” progressive economic research organization Groundwork Collaborative said in a statement. 

“Policymakers must tackle inflation at its source: by addressing the rampant corporate profiteering and snarled supply chains that are causing significant financial hardship across the country,” the group said.

Markets could continue to fall and threat of a recession looms

The chances of a recession are growing.

Deutsche Bank researchers launched a new research series devoted to the likelihood of a recession, writing in a note last week that “recession [fears] are boiling to a fever pitch.”

“In the US, jobless claims continued to tick higher, which our US economists have shown are one of the best leading indicators of recession risk,” Deutsche Bank strategist Tim Wessel and his coauthors wrote in a note to investors.

Since the Fed started raising interest rates in March, the S&P 500 stock index is down almost 9 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down more than 6.5 percent during the same period and is down almost 16 percent since the beginning of the year.

Technology stocks, whose companies tend to have a lot of debt that’s vulnerable to rising interest rates, have been hit particularly hard. The technology-heavy Nasdaq stock index is down more than 10 percent since rates started going up and is down nearly 30 percent since January.

The geopolitical environment is still bad for inflation

Fiscal and monetary policy are both tools at the disposal of elected officials and regulators to fight inflation. But the geopolitical environment is mostly out of their control, and there’s still a lot to worry about on this front.

The BA.5 coronavirus omicron subvariant, which scientists say could be more contagious than other variants, is threatening new economic lockdowns in some parts of the world.

The war in Ukraine has continued to rage on, with Donetsk governor Pavlo Kyrylenko reporting a buildup of Russian troops in the Bakhmut and Siversk areas. The mayor has also called for an evacuation of civilians, according to media reports.

The continued conflict has implications for global energy and food prices.

Moreover, the supply chain issues that most economists agree lie at the heart of inflation following the pandemic don’t show any signs of righting themselves. Just this week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was in Japan to discuss supply chain restructuring, a long-term logistical process that promises no quick fixes for high prices.

Source: TEST FEED1

Federal food assistance program may help prevent child abuse: study

The federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) not only allows more than 39 million Americans avoid food insecurity, but it also may help prevent child maltreatment, a new study has found.

States with more generous SNAP policies — and therefore more program participants — had fewer children involved in Child Protective Services and foster care, according to the 14-year nationwide survey, published in JAMA Network Open on Wednesday.

A 5 percent increase in the number of families receiving SNAP benefits resulted in a 7.6-14.3 percent decrease in the number of CPS and foster care caseloads, the study determined.

“We knew that SNAP had an important role in alleviating food insecurity and hunger among children,” lead author Michelle Johnson-Motoyama, a professor of social work at The Ohio State University, said in a statement.

“Our findings suggest that investments in SNAP may be of even greater value to the health of children than we knew,” she added.

About 37 percent of U.S. children undergo a CPS investigation in response to a referral for child abuse by their 18th birthday, while more than 250,000 children enter foster care each year, according to the study.

The results of the study are particularly important right now, as federal COVID-19 emergency funds that had boosted SNAP benefits are set to expire this month, the authors noted.

In Ohio alone, about 700,000 low-income households will see reductions in SNAP benefits if the emergency declaration does expire, they said.

“That could add a lot of stress to families with limited resources who rely on the program to help provide meals,” Johnson-Motoyama said.  “Our study suggests that could harm children and increase the workload of CPS workers.”

To draw their conclusions, the researchers conducted a statistical analysis that assessed how state SNAP policies were related to CPS and foster care outcomes over time, from 2004 through 2016.

While the federal government finances SNAP benefits, states have discretion as to how they implement the program and determine eligibility, Johnson-Motoyama noted.

States with more policies that increased eligibility ended up with fewer children involved in CPS and foster care, according to the study.

And those effects were cumulative — the implementation of multiple policies had greater impacts than any individual policy, Johnson-Motoyama explained.

“So the more generous states were, the bigger impact they had in reducing CPS and foster care caseloads,” she added.

States that had higher income generosity policies — those that raise income eligibility limits so that low-income working families can qualify — experienced a decrease in the number of child abuse reports from 557 to 158 per 100,000 children.

“We were particularly surprised by how robust the findings were to other potential factors that could have explained these effects,” Johnson-Motoyama said.

SNAP policies, she continued, had the most powerful impact even when the researchers accounted for other factors like the opioid epidemic or other safety net programs.

“What this suggests to policymakers is to pay greater attention to increasing access to SNAP benefits,” Johnson-Motoyama said.

Source: TEST FEED1

Texas lawmaker: Uvalde video ‘doesn’t really show the entire picture’

Texas State Sen. Roland Gutierrez (D) said a video showing the police response to a gunman who shot and killed 19 children and two adults at a Uvalde elementary school in May “doesn’t really show the entire picture.” 

The Texas lawmaker told CNN’s John Berman that the video is a “made-for-TV” moment and he has seen about three minutes of the initial video of the shooting.

Gutierrez released an abridged four-minute video depicting police slowly gathering in the hallway at Robb Elementary School before confronting the gunman. More recently, he released the full 77-minute recording, which shows the time from when the shooter arrived at the school to when he was killed. 

Gutierrez said he has seen a version of the video showing “construction material” flying near the heads of seven officers who kneel down to avoid being hit. He said that, when talking about the shooting, people are not focused enough on the gunman’s AR-15 rifle and the lack of response toward the weapon from the officers.

“That is what caused these police to fortify themselves,” he said, referring to the weapon that the gunman used. “It’s unfortunately what those little babies had to endure for 77 minutes, and yet we’re not talking about that because Republicans don’t want us to talk about guns. They want us to talk about other things.” 

Gutierrez said the police response to the shooting was “horrible” and not in line with active shooter protocol.  

Controversy arose over whether the security camera footage should be released to the public. State Rep. Dustin Burrows (R), who chaired the Texas House panel investigating the shooting, said on Monday that an agreement had been reached to release the tapes to the public, but the state’s Department of Public Safety (DPS) denied this. 

Burrows pledged to release the video himself after the initial public release, but DPS Deputy Director Freeman Martin told ABC News that the department would not allow Burrows to receive the tapes.

Gutierrez said he is concerned for families who were promised the ability to receive a preview of the security footage before it was released to the public. He said someone would have had to leak the photo to him.

He said he wants Burrows to show the video displaying the materials flying near the officers as a result of the shooter’s active firearm.

“We deserve to see all of the footage,” he said. “We deserve to have it dismantled, presented by independent groups like the FBI. We need to be able to see what truly happened.”

Source: TEST FEED1