Bridge collapses ahead of Biden visit

 

Today's Top Stories:

Pittsburgh bridge collapses ahead of Biden's visit to talk about infrastructure
America's long-neglected infrastructure made the President's point for him in dramatic fashion.

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VIDEO OF THE DAY: Democrat buries Florida’s Surgeon General during confirmation hearing
The Ron Desantis-appointed Republican refused to answer if vaccines work and was met with a fierce response.

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Help re-elect Katie Porter to Congress!
Katie Porter for Congress: California's redistricting commission just finalized new congressional district lines, and the upcoming election could be Katie’s toughest race yet. Winning this race will take serious resources, but this seat is key to holding the House majority so we can’t waste any time. Will you make a contribution now to ensure we have the resources to reach thousands of swing voters and re-elect Katie Porter to Congress?

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Democratic Rep. Cori Bush's car is struck by gunfire
Thankfully, the progressive lawmaker wasn't in the vehicle and is unharmed.

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Fox News' Jesse Watters launches vile misogynist attack on Kamala Harris
The right-wing pundit accused her of suffering from a "typical female problem" and giving into her "feelings."

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McConnell warns Biden not to "outsource" Supreme Court nominee "to the radical left"
And as Merrick Garland can attest, Mitch always acts in good faith when it comes to the court.

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Biden speaks with Ukrainian president amidst growing concerns of Russian invasion
The American president reaffirmed the readiness of the United States along with its allies and partners to respond decisively if Russia invades Ukraine.

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Republicans contend with WORST CASE scenario in Wisconsin
No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen: Not looking good...

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Trump plan favored giving vaccines to Israel, Taiwan over poorer countries
There is no end to the man's cruelty and callousness.

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Georgetown Law exec deletes "appalling" tweets about Biden SCOTUS picks
Racist reactions to President Biden's plan to nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court are already pouring in.

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Kristi Noem’s chief of staff compares trans athletes to "terrorism"
The Republican governor's right-hand man took his party's transphobia to a disgusting new low.

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World Health Organization thanks Neil Young for standing up against COVID-19 misinfo
The iconic musician had his songs removed from Spotify after the platform refused to take down Joe Rogan's podcast for spreading vaccine lies.

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Seriously?

Chinese nationalists boycott Matrix movie over Keanu's Tibet support

Marvel actress attends anti-vax rally in DC

Elon Musk says Canadian anti-vax truckers 'rule'

Kyle Rittenouse going to court to get his gun back

Sarah Palin dining across NYC with positive COVID case

Yes. Seriously.

Soldier opens fire, kills five guards at Ukraine military plant

China sides with Russia over escalating Ukraine crisis

A 'stealth' version of the omicron variant has emerged

Three police officers injured in Houston shootout

Teen found dead on LA freeway in suspected human trafficking case

Hope...

GoodGoodGood: The heroes behind the Civil Rights movement

Judge blocks massive Gulf of Mexico oil lease over climate crisis

Fitness trackers could help detect early signs of depression

Rare flock of endangered pigeons spotted in the Australian outback

Newly discovered rainfrog named after climate activist

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POLITICO NIGHTLY: The democracy crisis Biden didn’t address

 

BY RENUKA RAYASAM With help from Nick Taylor-Vaisey President Joe Biden speaks to a crowd at the Atlanta University Center Consortium. | Megan Varner/Getty Images STOPPING THE NEXT INSURRECTION — President Joe Biden abandoned his inclinations toward bipartisanship today, blasting Republicans in an Atlanta speech for a raft of new GOP led state voting laws. For the first time, he backed the idea of allowing voting rights legislation to pass with a simple Senate majority rather than a filibuster-proof 60 bipartisan votes. “This is the moment to defend our democracy,” Biden said today. Yet even some liberal-leaning election law experts say Biden’s focus on voting rights obscures a larger threat to U.S. election integrity in the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential contest: The idea that a future election loser could subvert the country’s electoral machinery to take power — in other words, the next insurrection might be successful. “It’s the primary thing,” Richard Pildes, an election law expert at New York University, told Nightly. Pildes and Ned Foley, an election law expert at Ohio State University, joined two conservative scholars in an op-ed to argue for the urgency of reforming the Electoral Count Act, a 150-year-old law that contains the rules for how Congress certifies a presidential election. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has expressed interest in reforming the law. Biden didn’t mention the Electoral Count Act in his speech today. Biden picked the wrong moment to discard bipartisanship, Foley told Nightly today. “It was essential, in my judgment, to make common cause with every possible Republican,” Foley said. In his view, the country’s democracy is in crisis, one that requires Democrats to reach out to Republicans willing to buck former President Donald Trump — not give them a reason to unite against Democrats. Voting rights, at the moment, has become shorthand for a vast array of issues that have to do with voting and elections — everything from how congressional and statehouse districts get drawn to how elections are carried out to who is eligible to vote. Those issues are important, Foley said — he called Georgia’s new limits on political organizations giving people waiting in a poll line food and water “ugly and obnoxious” — but he sees them as less dire than the threat that Trump or a future presidential loser could successfully overturn the will of the voters. Foley and Pildes propose to revise the Electoral Count Act to bar Congress from invalidating a state’s electoral votes, unless a legislature sends competing slates of electors — which hasn’t happened since 1876. “As long as the state itself has settled on who won that state through policies established in advance of the election, Congress has no role other than to accept those as being the state’s electoral vote,” they wrote in the Washington Post with Michael W. McConnell and Bradley Smith. Biden and the Democrats are instead pushing forward with two highly partisan bills that may not have even simple majorities to pass. And that don’t address the law that the Capitol rioters hoped to exploit to keep Trump in office. It’s a strategy that could backfire, Foley said, if it further drags election law into partisan, winner-take-all territory. Democrats are crying foul on state Republican election measures. In his speech today, Biden compared some of these laws to the kind of state control imposed by totalitarian regimes. And the feeling that the game is rigged is shared by the GOP: The vast majority of Republicans already believe Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election. Democrats don’t need to choose between their voting bills and Electoral Count Act reform, Pildes said, but he worries about this pervasive distrust in elections from every side right now. “That is a dangerous situation for any democracy,” Pildes said. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @RenuRayasam.   BECOME A GLOBAL INSIDER: The world is more connected than ever. It has never been more essential to identify, unpack and analyze important news, trends and decisions shaping our future — and we’ve got you covered! Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Global Insider author Ryan Heath navigates the global news maze and connects you to power players and events changing our world. Don’t miss out on this influential global community. Subscribe now.     WHAT'D I MISS? — Biden health team weighs new mask distribution plan: Biden administration health officials are weighing whether to offer high quality masks, which could include KN95 or N95s, to all Americans , as the Omicron variant fuels a record surge of Covid-19, three people with knowledge of the deliberations told POLITICO. The internal discussions come amid growing calls for the government to make the more protective masks more easily accessible, and as evidence mounts that the cloth masks many have relied on throughout the pandemic are less effective at protecting against the Omicron variant. — Powell’s warning to Congress: Inflation a ‘severe threat’ to jobs: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had a stark warning today for U.S. senators who will decide whether he gets a second term: Surging prices pose a threat to the job market. He vowed to get them under control. That stance could put him at odds with some Democratic lawmakers, who have pressed the Fed to continue its two-year effort to boost the economy until the benefits of the recovery can be felt by most workers. — FAA briefly halted West Coast flights amid North Korean missile scare: A North Korean missile launch prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to ground flights for a short time at some West Coast airports Monday out of an abundance of caution. The temporary “ground stop” — an order, most often used during bad weather, that curtails landings at certain airports — prompted a brief mystery about what the threat was that shuttered landings for at least some airports on the West Coast. — Senators grill feds over Jan. 6 riot probe: Democratic senators grilled top Justice Department and FBI officials today for declining, so far, to declare Jan. 6 rioters’ crimes as “domestic terrorism” as judges sentence those involved for their crimes. The questions came during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Justice Department’s response to the storming of the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021. Democrats challenged prosecutors for not seeking the lengthier, terrorism-related sentences related to the insurrection, while Republicans often steered the discussion away from the Jan. 6 attack altogether. — Florida might ban abortions after 15 weeks: State lawmakers in Florida are planning to pass legislation this year that would drastically limit how and when people can access abortions, a move sure to inflame growing tensions nationally over conservative efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade . Republicans who control the Florida Legislature have spent months crafting the proposal after Texas lawmakers in May banned all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy and opened up abortion providers to lawsuits from private individuals. They settled on a less extreme but still restrictive measure that will anger Democrats and abortion rights advocates across the country: a ban on abortion after 15 weeks except if two doctors agree a fetus is suffering from a fatal abnormality. There are no exceptions for rape or incest. Existing Florida law restricts abortions after 24 weeks.   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     THE GLOBAL FIGHT Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau receives his Covid-19 vaccine booster shot at a pharmacy in Ottawa. | Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP CANADIAN INITIATIVE, LESS WORTHWHILE THAN PROJECTED — Ottawa Playbook author Nick Taylor-Vaisey writes: Canada has talked a big game on helping to vaccinate the world against Covid. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced C$440 million in Sept. 2020 for the global COVAX facility — half of which would pay for doses headed to low- and middle-income countries. The rest of that money would secure up to 15 million doses for Canadian arms. That promised investment eventually grew to C$545 million. Ottawa pledged millions in surplus doses to other countries that desperately needed them. International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan’s orders are to donate 200 million doses by the end of 2022. But the talk has not been matched with action. The latest figures reveal a relative pittance in donations. As of Dec. 21, Canada had sent fewer than 12 million COVAX-funded shots to 17 countries, and shipped more than 750,000 surplus AstraZeneca doses to six others. Rwanda received the most recent shipment: 477,680 doses of Moderna on Dec. 21. As Omicron’s rapid spread has forced Canadian provinces to quickly ramp up booster shot campaigns, one sentence from Trudeau’s 2020 announcement stands out: “Protecting Canadians from Covid-19 is priority number one, and the first foundation of the Government of Canada’s plan for a stronger and more resilient Canada.” Every government’s most important job is protecting its people. But Canada’s federal procurement department has secured six vaccines for every Canadian, the most in the world per capita. Canada’s vaccination rates are among the highest in the world. As Omicron silently infects thousands of people a day, the nation appears as hungry for boosters as it was for first and second shots. On Dec. 1, only 3.4 percent of the population had received a third shot. Monday’s total was 26.6 percent. Everybody knows that vaccination rates in most of the developing world badly lag Canada’s numbers. Trudeau knows vaccine nationalism will prolong the global crisis. “We cannot beat this virus in Canada unless we end it everywhere,” he said back in September 2020. Ottawa, however, is loath to risk damaging fragile relationships with vaccine manufacturers by waiving the patent on Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine using a rarely employed federal measure. And Trudeau also knows how politics work back home. Canadians fancy themselves a generous society when a crisis strikes somewhere far away. But they want their boosters, and they want them now. The political price of giving short shrift to the rest of the world pales in comparison to the upheaval caused by a cupboard left bare at home. AROUND THE WORLD WHO PUMPS ENDEMIC BRAKES — The World Health Organization told governments today it was too early to predict that the Covid-19 pandemic will burn itself out, as it warned that more than half of people in Europe would catch the disease over the next two months, Sarah-Taïssir Bencharif writes. With the highly contagious Omicron strain unleashing “a new west-to-east tidal wave sweeping across the region,” hospitalizations can be expected to rise, WHO Europe chief Hans Kluge told a press conference. “It is challenging health systems and service delivery in many countries where Omicron has spread at speed, and threatens to overwhelm in many more,” said Kluge. The intervention by the global health body came after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez signaled a policy shift away from counting cases and quarantining, toward a risk-based approach typical of managing outbreaks of diseases like influenza that seeks to protect the most vulnerable. NIGHTLY NUMBER About 17 hours The amount of time between Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announcing she and the Chicago Teachers Union ended a tense standoff over the safety of children and staff returning to school amid the Omicron surge, and Lightfoot announcing she had tested positive for Covid-19. PARTING WORDS Sen. Roger Marshall presents a display of the yearly pay received by Anthony Fauci at a Senate HELP hearing on Capitol Hill. | Greg Nash-Pool/Getty Images ‘WHAT A MORON’ — Anthony Fauci called Sen. Roger Marshall a “moron” at the end of a contentious question-and-answer exchange focused on whether the financial disclosure information of the White House’s top public medical adviser is available to the public. Marshall (R-Kan.) began his interrogation into Fauci’s finances by noting the doctor’s salary, $434,000, and the multibillion-dollar budget for federal research grants that he oversees as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “As the highest-paid employee in the entire federal government, would you be willing to submit to Congress and the public a financial disclosure that includes your past and current investments?” Marshall asked. “After all, your colleague [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle] Walensky and every member of Congress submits a financial disclosure that includes their investments.” Fauci countered Marshall’s claim, stating that his investments and financial information were already “public knowledge,” and had been for more than 30 years. “All you have to do is ask for it,” Fauci said. “You’re so misinformed, it’s extraordinary.”   Follow us on Twitter Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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POLITICO NIGHTLY: The Great Resignation goes to work

 

BY RENUKA RAYASAM Presented by A “Now Hiring” sign posted at a 7-Eleven store in Los Angeles. | Mario Tama/Getty Images IT’S NOT JUST QUITTING TIME — Headlines about the Great Resignation have conjured images of people leaving jobs en masse, destroying printers “Office Space” style on their way out the door with government checks that they use to vacation in Mexico. It’s true that a record number of people have quit their job this year: About 4 million people have done so every month since April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it’s a fantasy that these Americans have given up on work in 2021. More than 6 million people a month are being hired right now, too. “The quits are people who are quitting their job to take another job,” Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank and a former Labor Department economist in the Obama administration, told Nightly. Back in February 2020, before we knew we were about to be hit with business and school closures, the labor force participation rate — the proportion of people working and looking for work — was 63.3 percent, according to the BLS. By April 2020, after tens of millions of Americans were fired or quit, it plummeted to 60.2 percent. During the summer, as shutdown orders lifted and businesses reopened, the rate crept back up, reaching 61.7 percent in Aug. 2020. And that’s where it’s more or less been since then: November 2021’s rate was 61.8 percent. That missing 1.6 percent is a lot of people — about 5 million. Many of them are workers, largely women, who left their jobs back at the very start of the pandemic because they were fired or because they didn’t want to get Covid or because they had to care for a child or other family member. And they have yet to come back. But they’re also not the people who are quitting right now. It’s hard to know what, if anything, will get this group back to work. Employers weren’t flooded with new resumes when enhanced unemployment benefits ended, nor when schools reopened. Cheaper child care options or paid leave policies could convince more people to start looking for work, Shierholz said. Women’s employment began to catch up in March of this year, but dropped after that even though a worker shortage helped people negotiate better benefits like paid leave and remote work, Heritage Foundation economist Rachel Greszler told POLITICO’s labor reporter Eleanor Mueller. And some people are never coming back. In addition to retirees, about 200,000 people between the ages of 18 and 64 have died from Covid. Immigration is also lower now than it was before the pandemic, according to a Brookings analysis of the labor market. Employers — and customers — may have to get used to an overall smaller workforce, Eleanor said. The Great Resignation isn’t about white-collar burnout or lazy Americans. It’s about workers, mostly those who work in restaurants, hotels and the rest of the hospitality sector, leaving their jobs for better or higher-paying ones. Employers are having to work harder to entice staff. The industry’s wages have risen 22 percent since March. If we’re living in “Office Space,” the Great Resigners aren’t the three guys who destroyed their printer. They’re more like Jennifer Aniston’s Joanna, a server who quits her job at Chotchkie’s to work in another restaurant because it has less flair and better uniforms. Shierholz doesn’t believe these lower-paying jobs will see continued strong wage growth. Eventually the pandemic will end and things will start to level off. But Eleanor told Nightly that she does sense a permanent change in labor markets. Kellogg workers just ended a nearly three-month strike that saw some consumers boycotting the company’s products. She said she plans to spend the next year reporting on this pandemic-driven shift in worker power. For this year at least, she said, “workers are calling the shots.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @RenuRayasam. A programming note: Nightly won’t publish from Friday, Dec. 24 to Friday, Dec. 31. But don’t fret: We’ll be back and better than ever on Monday, Jan. 3.   A message from Mastercard: Holiday cheer is in the air and shoppers are returning to stores in force, including millions of small businesses across America. Mastercard SpendingPulse data shows that total retail sales are up nearly 30% compared to last year. By empowering small businesses with digital payment solutions, data insights and the tools to operate more efficiently, Mastercard is committed to helping them during this holiday season, and thrive in the future.   WHAT'D I MISS? — White House extends student loan payment freeze: The Biden administration announced today it would extend the pause on federal student loan payments through May 1 . A statement from Biden announcing the extension pointed directly to the pandemic and the economy as reasons for the pause. “[W]e know that millions of student loan borrowers are still coping with the impacts of the pandemic and need some more time before resuming payments. This is an issue Vice President Harris has been closely focused on, and one we both care deeply about,” the statement read. — FDA authorizes Pfizer’s Covid-19 pill: The Food and Drug Administration authorized Pfizer’s antiviral Covid-19 pill today for individuals 12 and older who test positive and are at high risk of developing a severe case of the virus. The announcement marks a significant development in the pandemic response, allowing Americans who contract Covid-19 to take a pill at home to prevent hospitalization and death. — Newsom, unions commit to keeping ‘our classrooms open’: Gov. Gavin Newsom today pledged to keep California schools open in a statement he issued with the state’s influential teachers unions the day after Biden said K-12 classrooms must not close. Their promise comes as the Omicron variant sweeps the U.S., prompting fresh anxieties among parents that schools might start closing again. California, home to more than 12 percent of the nation’s students, kept its classrooms closed long after they opened in other states as teachers unions pushed to prolong distance learning.   POLITICO TECH AT CES 2022 - We are bringing a special edition of the POLITICO Tech newsletter to CES 2022. Written by Alexandra Levine and John Hendel, the newsletter will take you inside the most influential technology event on the planet, featuring every major and emerging industry in the technology ecosystem gathered together in one place. The newsletter runs from Jan. 5-7 and will focus on the public policy related aspects of the gathering. Sign up today to receive exclusive coverage of the Summit.     — Democrats prevail in New Jersey redistricting with map that could sacrifice Malinowski: New Jersey Democrats prevailed today in the state’s congressional redistricting process, convincing a tiebreaker to side with their proposed map over the one submitted by Republicans . Barring a massive wave election for either side, Democrats’ 10-2 majority in the New Jersey delegation is likely to shrink to 9-3 under the new map. That’s because the state’s 7th District, represented by Rep. Tom Malinowski, will shed Democratic areas to the benefit of three other previously vulnerable Democratic incumbents. — Cruz says he’s well-positioned for 2024: Sen. Ted Cruz today argued he is particularly well positioned to win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, citing his second-place finish behind then-candidate Donald Trump in the party’s 2016 primary. The remarks from Cruz (R-Texas) came in an interview with The Truth Gazette, a conservative news service operated by 15-year-old Brilyn Hollyhand. Asked by Hollyhand whether he would consider launching another bid for the White House, Cruz responded: “Absolutely. In a heartbeat.”       AROUND THE WORLD WHO SOUNDS 2022 NOTE OF HOPE — The global pandemic should come to an end next year , according to officials at the World Health Organization. “2022 must be the end of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking today at the organization’s last planned briefing of the year on the coronavirus, Helen Collis writes. Tedros said he believed the pandemic will end next year because, two years into the situation, “we know the virus very well and we have all the tools [to fight it].” He said WHO projections show that vaccine supplies should be sufficient to vaccinate the entire global adult population and to give boosters to high-risk populations by the first quarter of 2022.   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     NIGHTLY NUMBER $3.8 million The amount spent in the first year of operations of special counsel John Durham’s inquiry into the origins of the investigation into ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump presidential campaign . That includes roughly more than $2.3 million between April 1 and Sept. 30. Of that, nearly $1.9 million was directly related to the team’s investigation and approximately $471,000 was spent by other parts of the Justice Department in connection to Durham’s work. PARTING WORDS Roger Stone, a former adviser and confidante to former President Donald Trump, gets into his vehicle in front of the Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. Federal Building after his deposition before the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Attack in Washington. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images FOR THOSE LAST MINUTE CHRISTMAS SHOPPERS — Roger Stone, a longtime associate of Donald Trump, is auctioning off a copy of a 1990s magazine cover he says is signed by the former president as part of a larger fundraising campaign to pay for his legal defenses and medical bills, Alex Thompson writes. “To Roger YOU ARE THE GREATEST!,” reads a Trump note in his distinct scrawl on the cover of a now-defunct trade publication: Real Estate New York. If the bid exceeds $20,000 dollars, the bidder gets the physical version of the magazine along with “one of only one” digital copy, which Stone marketed as an NFT, or a non-fungible token. NFT’s, which are essentially non-interchangeable digital tokens of a visual item, have shaken up the art world this past year with many being sold for millions. Former first lady Melania Trump recently announced that she too was entering the industry. In an email, Stone said he believed Trump signed the magazine in 1999 and that it was “indeed real.” While Real Estate New York was a magazine, POLITICO was unable to confirm when or if Trump graced the cover. As of mid-day today, there were zero bids for Stone’s item. The NFT is part of a larger auction this past week for the Stone family sponsored by Stone’s friend Pete Santilli, a right-wing internet talk show host. They auctioned off two copies of a Stone-signed 1968 Richard Nixon pamphlet, which went for $400 and $300 respectively, along with a “rare Trump/Melania” poster depicting them as Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty ($550).   A message from Mastercard: What do you do when your dreams don’t go according to plan? That’s what many small business owners who depended on foot traffic wondered last year when the pandemic suddenly forced them to close their doors and change their business models. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, serving as the lifeline through which goods, services and livelihoods flow. And, when the pandemic hit, Mastercard solutions, insights and tools helped entrepreneurs evolve to succeed in the new digital economy. Now, as shoppers return to small businesses this holiday season, Mastercard is helping entrepreneurs prepare for the future.     Follow us on Twitter Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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