Months ago, in the quiet, eagle-bedecked confines of his office on Capitol Hill, Senator Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat, sketched out a social-policy bill not unlike the Build Back Better proposal that he torpedoed on Sunday, in a rebuke to his party, his President, and millions of people in his state. It was still in the early blush of the Democrats’ control of Congress and the White House, and the Party was pursuing an all-in-one proposal that would bundle the repair of bridges and roads with expansions of child care and other social services. Dangling the appeal of his pivotal vote, Manchin encouraged the Biden Administration to split the bill into smaller parts. “I’m saying we can get an infrastructure deal—a traditional infrastructure deal,” he told me, in May. “Then we come back on human infrastructure and look at the needs.”

But Manchin’s definition of Americans’ “needs” was always the problem. Even after his party split the bills, and after it spent many torturous months wheedling and flattering and acceding to his cuts, Manchin never budged from an unreconstructed conservative talking point: give Americans too much help, such as extended unemployment insurance, and they will be indolent and dependent.

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Fauci says safe holiday travel is possible, if one is prudent. What is prudent?

Omicron has raced ahead of other variants and is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the U.S., accounting for 73% of new infections last week, federal health officials said Monday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention numbers showed nearly a six-fold increase in omicron's share of infections in only one week.

Overall, omicron is still a small percentage of all U.S. COVID cases. In the week that ended Dec. 11, omicron’s share of new infections in the U.S. increased to 2.9% from 0.4% the week before, the CDC previously reported.

But CDC said they are revising some of the earlier numbers, after analyzing more specimens. The new numbers indicate that about 13% of the infections the week of Dec. 11 were omicron, and not 3%, CDC officials said.

Why I wear my mask in public: Humility - kindness - community

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with Susan Dyer Reynolds

 A former high-ranking San Francisco city official pleaded guilty to bribery Friday nearly two years after his arrest set off a sprawling public corruption scandal that led to federal corruption charges being filed against three companies and a dozen city employees and contractors.

Mohammed Nuru, who led the city’s Department of Public Works from 2011 until shortly after his arrest in January 2020, pleaded guilty to one count of honest services wire fraud, for which he faces a maximum 20 years in prison and $250,000 fine.

In his plea agreement, Nuru admitted that he received envelopes of cash, free international trips and hotel stays, a $36,000 watch, free construction labor and materials for his vacation home and other benefits in exchange for favors to city contractors and developers.

Prior to his resignation in February 2020, Nuru was earning $273,000 annually in his role as DPW director.

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Former President Donald Trump, in a newly released interview, claimed that Jewish Americans "either don't like Israel or don't care about Israel," while also suggesting that evangelical Christians "love Israel more than the Jews in this country."

Trump's comments are the latest in a series of controversial remarks he has been known to make about Jewish Americans. During his first campaign for president, Trump delivered a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition that was rife with anti-Semitic stereotypes. More recently, he told conservative radio host Ari Hoffman that "Israel literally owned Congress...10 years ago, 15 years ago... and today it's almost the opposite."

Speaking to Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, during a sit-down interview earlier this year, parts of which aired Friday on the podcast "Unholy: Two Jews on the News," the former President said, "It's a very dangerous thing that's happening," as he claimed that Jewish Americans have turned their back on Israel.

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Are you listening, Republicans?

President Joe Biden on Friday pledged to "keep up the fight" to pass voting rights legislation that remains stalled in Congress due to Republican opposition, as he delivered the commencement address at a historically Black university in South Carolina.

"I've never seen anything like the unrelenting assault on the right to vote. Never," Biden said.

The President urged Congress to pass two Democratic-sponsored bills -- the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act -- that Senate Republicans have blocked.

"This battle is not over," Biden said, adding: "We're going to keep up the fight until we get it done and you're going to keep up the fight and we need your help badly."

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Over 50 leaders of conservative groups called on Kevin McCarthy to boot Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney from the House GOP conference

Over 50 Republican leaders — many of whom lead the most important organizations within the conservative movement — released a letter calling for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to remove Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from the House GOP conference.

It's the latest saga in an ongoing effort to punish the duo for participating in the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

In July, the hard-line House Freedom Caucus also called for the two to be expelled from the conference, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene raised the issue again recently as the House prepared to censure Rep. Paul Gosar for posting a violent anime video that depicted him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The letter cites Cheney and Kinzinger's "egregious actions as part of the House of Representatives January 6th Select Committee."

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Pelosi opposes ban on lawmakers trading stocks as her family makes millions on the market

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is defending lawmakers' ability to own stocks as some progressives call for the practice to be banned for those who hold elected office.

At her weekly news conference on Wednesday, Pelosi said she was against prohibiting lawmakers from owning and trading individual stocks.

"We are a free market economy," she said. "They should be able to participate in that."

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A large outbreak of positive COVID-19 tests around the league has led to changes in protocols for Week 15 as the NFL and NFL Players Association continue to discuss further modifications.

In a memo sent to all 32 teams, the league said that in-person meetings will not be allowed unless they are held outside or in practice bubbles large enough to allow for distancing between participants. All players, whether they are vaccinated or not, must wear masks when indoors at team facilities and food service in team facilities will shift to a grab-and-go model with no groups of players or staff allowed to dine together.

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Nearly half of California high school graduates now qualify for admission to the state’s two public university systems — up from one-third in 2008. The share of them who apply to UC has grown from 17% in 2001 to 25% in 2020; for Cal State, the numbers went from 27% to 36% during that same period. But with limited seats, admission bars are rising: The average high school GPA of admitted UC students is now over 4.0 at most campuses, and 16 of 23 Cal State campuses have more applicants than seats for some or all of their majors.

As a result, tens of thousands of eligible students are being shut out — and the state can no longer meet its California promise of a UC and Cal State education for them.

 

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The House voted Tuesday to hold former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in criminal contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena issued by the bipartisan committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.

The resolution was approved on a 222-to-208 vote, with just two Republicans — Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) — joining Democrats in voting “yes.”

The matter now goes to the Justice Department, which will decide whether to pursue the contempt referral. Contempt of Congress is a misdemeanor criminal offense that can result in up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.

Members of the Jan. 6 panel have long said the information they seek from Meadows, a onetime North Carolina congressman, is not protected under any kind of executive privilege as the bipartisan panel investigates the insurrection, what former president Donald Trump did that fateful day and the actions leading up to the riot.

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