The Full Belmonte, 8/7/2022
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats drove their election-year economic package toward Senate approval early Sunday, debating a measure with less ambition than President Joe Biden’s original domestic vision but that touches deep-rooted party dreams of slowing global warming, moderating pharmaceutical costs and taxing immense corporations.
Debate began Saturday and by sunrise on Sunday, Democrats had swatted down a dozen Republican efforts to torpedo the legislation, with no clear end in sight. Despite unanimous GOP opposition, Democratic unity in the 50-50 chamber — buttressed by Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote — suggested the party was on track for a morale-boosting victory three months from elections when congressional control is at stake.
The House planned to return briefly from summer recess Friday for what Democrats hope will be final congressional approval.
‘It will reduce inflation. It will lower prescription drug costs. It will fight climate change. It will close tax loopholes and it will reduce and reduce the deficit,’ Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said of the package. ‘It will help every citizen in this country and make America a much better place.’
Republicans said the measure would undermine an economy that policymakers are struggling to keep from plummeting into recession. They said the bill’s business taxes would hurt job creation and force prices skyward, making it harder for people to cope with the nation’s worst inflation since the 1980s.
‘Democrats have already robbed American families once through inflation, and now their solution is to rob American families a second time,’ Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., argued. He said spending and tax increases in the legislation would eliminate jobs while having insignificant impact on inflation and climate change.
Nonpartisan analysts have said Democrats’ ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ would have a minor effect on surging consumer prices. The bill is barely more than one-tenth the size of Biden’s initial 10-year, $3.5 trillion rainbow of progressive aspirations and abandons its proposals for universal preschool, paid family leave and expanded child care aid.
Even so, the new measure gives Democrats a campaign-season showcase for action on coveted goals. It includes the largest ever federal effort on climate change — close to $400 billion — hands Medicare the power to negotiate pharmaceutical prices and extends expiring subsidies that help 13 million people afford health insurance.
Biden’s original measure collapsed after conservative Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., opposed it, saying it was too costly and would fuel inflation.
In an ordeal imposed on all budget bills like this one, the Senate descended into an hours long ‘vote-a-rama’ of rapid-fire amendments. Each tested Democrats’ ability to hold together a compromise negotiated by Schumer, progressives, Manchin and the inscrutable centrist Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.
Progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., offered amendments to further expand the legislation’s health benefits, and those efforts were defeated. But most proposed changes were fashioned by Republicans to unravel the bill or force Democrats into votes on dangerous political terrain.
One GOP proposal would have forced the Biden administration to continue Trump-era restrictions that cited the pandemic for reducing the flow of migrants across the Southwest border.
Earlier this year, Democrats facing tough reelections supported such an extension, forcing the party to drop its push for COVID-19 spending when Republicans conjoined the two issues. This time, with their far larger economic legislation at stake and elections approaching, Democrats rallied against the border controls.
Other GOP amendments would have required more gas and oil leasing on federal lands and blocked a renewal of a fee on oil that helps finance toxic waste cleanups. All were rejected on party-line votes. Republicans accused Democrats of being soft on border security and opening the door to higher energy and gas costs.
Before debate began Saturday, the bill’s prescription drug price curbs were diluted by the Senate’s nonpartisan parliamentarian. Elizabeth MacDonough, who referees questions about the chamber’s procedures, said a provision should fall that would impose costly penalties on drug makers whose price increases for private insurers exceed inflation.
It was the bill’s chief protection for the 180 million people with private health coverage they get through work or purchase themselves. Under special procedures that will let Democrats pass their bill by simple majority without the usual 60-vote margin, its provisions must be focused more on dollar-and-cents budget numbers than policy changes.
But the thrust of their pharmaceutical price language remained. That included letting Medicare negotiate what it pays for drugs for its 64 million elderly recipients, penalizing manufacturers for exceeding inflation for pharmaceuticals sold to Medicare and limiting beneficiaries out-of-pocket drug costs to $2,000 annually.
The bill also caps patients’ costs for insulin, the expensive diabetes medication, at $35 monthly.
The measure’s final costs were being recalculated to reflect late changes, but overall it would raise more than $700 billion over a decade. The money would come from a 15% minimum tax on a handful of corporations with yearly profits above $1 billion, a 1% tax on companies that repurchase their own stock, bolstered IRS tax collections and government savings from lower drug costs.
Sinema forced Democrats to drop a plan to prevent wealthy hedge fund managers from paying less than individual income tax rates for their earnings. She also joined with other Western senators to win $4 billion to combat the region’s drought.
It was on the energy and environment side that compromise was most evident between progressives and Manchin, a champion of fossil fuels and his state’s coal industry.
Clean energy would be fostered with tax credits for buying electric vehicles and manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines. There would be home energy rebates, funds for constructing factories building clean energy technology and money to promote climate-friendly farm practices and reduce pollution in minority communities.
Manchin won billions to help power plants lower carbon emissions plus language requiring more government auctions for oil drilling on federal land and waters. Party leaders also promised to push separate legislation this fall to accelerate permits for energy projects, which Manchin wants to include a nearly completed natural gas pipeline in his state.” Read more at AP News
“Death Valley National Park was closed Saturday after exceptional amounts of rain drenched the park Friday, triggering flash floods that left about 1,000 visitors and park staff stranded.
The park received 1.46 inches of rainfall at the Furnace Creek area — just shy of the previous calendar day record of 1.47 inches, set on April 15, 1988. This amounts to about three-quarters of what the area typically receives in an average year, 1.94 inches, and is the greatest amount ever recorded in August, The lowest, driest and hottest location in the United States, Death Valley averages just 0.11 inches of rain in August.” Read more at Washington Post
“Indiana’s new sweeping ban on abortion produced immediate political and economic fallout Saturday, as some of the state’s biggest employers objected to the restrictions, Democratic leaders strategized ways to amend or repeal the law, and abortion rights activists made plans to arrange alternative locations for women seeking procedures.
The Indiana law, which the Republican-controlled state legislature passed late Friday night and Gov. Eric Holcomb (R) signed moments later, was the first state ban passed since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in June and was celebrated as a major victory by abortion foes.
It also came just three days after voters in traditionally conservative Kansas surprised the political world by taking a very different tack, rejecting a ballot measure that would have stripped abortion rights protections from that state’s constitution.
The vote in Indiana capped weeks of fraught debate in Indianapolis, where activists demonstrated at the state Capitol and waged intense lobbying campaigns as Republican lawmakers debated how far the law should go in restricting abortion. Some abortion foes hailed the law’s passage as a road map for conservatives in other states pushing similar bans in the aftermath of the high court’s decision on Roe, which had guaranteed for the past 50 years the right to abortion care.
The Indiana ban, which goes into effect Sept. 15, allows abortion only in cases of rape, incest, lethal fetal abnormality, or when the procedure is necessary to prevent severe health risks or death. Indiana joins nine other states that have abortion bans starting at conception.
The new law represents a victory for antiabortion forces, who have been working for decades to halt the procedure. But passage occurred after disagreements among some abortion foes, some of whom thought the bill did not go far enough in stopping the procedure.” Read more at Washington Post
FILE - Tesla and SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition in Washington on March 9, 2020. Musk said Saturday, Aug. 6, 2022, his planned $44 billion takeover of Twitter should move forward if the company can confirm some details about how it measures whether user accounts are ‘spam bots’ or real people. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
“Elon Musk said Saturday his planned $44 billion takeover of Twitter should move forward if the company can confirm some details about how it measures whether user accounts are ‘spam bots’ or real people.
The billionaire and Tesla CEO has been trying to back out of his April agreement to buy the social media company, leading Twitter to sue him last month to complete the acquisition. Musk countersued, accusing Twitter of misleading his team about the true size of its user base and other problems he said amounted to fraud and breach of contract.
Both sides are headed toward an October trial in a Delaware court.
‘If Twitter simply provides their method of sampling 100 accounts and how they’re confirmed to be real, the deal should proceed on original terms,’ Musk tweeted early Saturday. ‘However, if it turns out that their SEC filings are materially false, then it should not.’
Musk, who has more than 100 million Twitter followers, went on to challenge Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal to a ‘public debate about the Twitter bot percentage.’” Read more at AP News
“LOS ANGELES (AP) — Actor Anne Heche was in the hospital Saturday following an accident in which her car smashed into a house and flames erupted, a spokeswoman said.
‘Anne is currently in stable condition. Her family and friends ask for your thoughts and prayers and to respect her privacy during this difficult time,’ Heather Duffy Boylston, Heche’s friend and podcast partner, said in a statement.
Heche’s speeding car came to a T-shaped intersection and ran off the road and into the house in the Mar Vista section of Los Angeles’ westside shortly before 11 a.m. Friday, Los Angeles police Officer Tony Im said.
The car came to a stop inside the two-story house and started a fire that took nearly 60 firefighters more than an hour to douse, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.
Television news video showed a blue Mini Cooper Clubman, badly damaged and burned, being towed out of the home, with a woman sitting up on a stretcher and struggling as firefighters put her in an ambulance.” Read more at AP News
“The Republican governors of Arizona and Texas are still sending buses full of migrants to D.C. — with no plans for what’s next.” Read more at NPR
“BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia’s first leftist president will be sworn into office Sunday, promising to fight inequality and heralding a turning point in the history of a country haunted by a long war between the government and guerrilla groups.
Sen. Gustavo Petro, a former member of Colombia’s M-19 guerrilla group, won the presidential election in June by beating conservative parties that offered moderate changes to the market-friendly economy, but failed to connect with voters frustrated by rising poverty and violence against human rights leaders and environmental groups in rural areas.
Petro is part of a growing group of leftist politicians and political outsiders who have been winning elections in Latin America since the pandemic broke out and hurt incumbents who struggled with its economic aftershocks.
The ex-rebel’s victory was also exceptional for Colombia, where voters had been historically reluctant to back leftist politicians who were often accused of being soft on crime or allied with guerrillas.” Read more at AP News
“GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel said Sunday that it killed a senior Islamic Jihad commander in a crowded Gaza refugee camp, the second such targeted attack since it launched its high-stakes military offensive against the militant group just before the weekend.
The Iran-backed militant group has fired hundreds of rockets at Israel in response, and the risk of the cross-border fighting turning into a full-fledged war remained high.
Gaza’s ruling Hamas group, which fought an 11-day war with Israel in May 2021, appeared to stay on the sidelines for now, possibly because it fears Israeli reprisals and undoing economic understandings with Israel, including Israeli work permits for thousands of Gaza residents, that bolster its control.
The Islamic Jihad commander, Khaled Mansour, was killed in an airstrike on an apartment building in the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza late Saturday.
Two other militants and five civilians were also killed in the attack, bringing the Palestinian death toll to 31 since the start of the Israeli offensive on Friday. Among the dead were six children and four women. The Palestinian Health Ministry said more than 250 people were wounded since Friday.” Read more at AP News
“HAVANA (AP) — A fire set off by a lightning strike at an oil storage facility raged uncontrolled in the Cuban city of Matanzas, where four explosions and flames injured 121 people and left 17 firefighters missing. Cuban authorities said a unidentified body had been found late Saturday.
Firefighters and other specialists were still trying to quell the blaze at the Matanzas Supertanker Base, where the fire began during a thunderstorm Friday night, the Ministry of Energy and Mines tweeted. Authorities said about 800 people were evacuated from the Dubrocq neighborhood closest to the fire.” Read more at AP News
Tonga Geological Services
“A volcanic eruption in Tonga that sent a plume of water — enough to fill 58,000 Olympic swimming pools — into the stratosphere has shocked scientists.” Read more at NPR
“Here's how Alex Jones mainstreamed conspiracy theories in America. A jury ordered the InfoWars host to pay $49.3 million in damages this week for defaming the parents of a slain Sandy Hook first grader. Name any traumatic event in the last decade and Jones has probably peddled harmful lies about it. While he’s not the first person to grift off conspiracy theories, he has popularized a deeply pernicious vocabulary of doubt — and made it a lucrative business.” Read more at NPR
“We parsed through the myths — and facts — about monkeypox’s spread. The outbreak has swelled to over 7,000 cases in the U.S. and has now been declared a public health emergency, which allows for a more robust federal response. We lay out, in simple terms, what the latest data says about transmission — and what precautions at-risk communities should take.” Read more at NPR