Manchin calls for ‘enormous’ infrastructure package paid for with new taxes  —  WASHINGTON — Sen. Joe Manchin said Wednesday that he favors a large infrastructure package that would be paid for in part by raising tax revenues — a point of contention between the two parties.

Officer Brian Sicknick Died After the Capitol Riot.  New Videos Show How He Was Attacked. … New videos obtained by The New York Times show publicly for the first time how the U.S. Capitol Police officer who died after facing off with rioters on Jan. 6 was attacked with chemical spray.

A Cargo Ship Drew a Giant Dick Pic in the Ocean Then Got Stuck in the Suez Canal  —  Just before blocking one of the world's busiest waterways where 10 percent of world trade flows, the unfortunate Ever Given sailed an even more unfortunate course.  —  MC  —  The Suez Canal has been blocked …

POLITICO Playbook: What the Duckworth-AAPI episode revealed  —  DRIVING THE DAY  —  For months, Sen. TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D-Ill.) had been nudging the Biden administration to appoint more Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to the Cabinet — to no avail.  When she brought up the issue again …

Sidney Powell Speaks ‘Her Truth’  —  The Trumpist propagandist has been forced to admit that her “facts” aren't “true.”  —  The Big Lie is starting to unravel.  One of Trump's disinformation stars, Sidney Powell, is backing down.  But while we're considering the matter of truth and lies …

Biden's New Deal: Re-engineering America, quickly  —  President Biden recently held an undisclosed East Room session with historians that included discussion of how big is too big — and how fast is too fast — to jam through once-in-a-lifetime historic changes to America.

Senate panel dukes it out over voting rights  —  Lawmakers on the Senate Rules Committee clashed Wednesday over sweeping Democratic legislation on voting rights and campaign finance and redistricting reform.  —  “This bill is essential to protecting every American's right to vote …

Rachel Levine, historic transgender nominee, confirmed as assistant health secretary  —  Levine is the first openly transgender official ever confirmed by the Senate  —  The Senate on Wednesday voted 52 to 48 to confirm Rachel Levine as the nation's assistant secretary for health …

Biden puts Harris in charge of border crisis  —  President Biden is putting Vice President Harris in charge of addressing the migrant surge at the U.S.-Mexico border, senior administration officials announced on Wednesday.  —  Why it matters: Just as President Obama tasked Biden with fixing …

Bad News Bias  —  The U.S. media is offering a different picture of Covid-19 from science journals or the international media, a study finds.  —  Bruce Sacerdote, an economics professor at Dartmouth College, noticed something last year about the Covid-19 television coverage that he was watching on CNN and PBS.

Hundreds Of Far-Right Militias Are Still Organizing, Recruiting, And Promoting Violence On Facebook  —  When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg faces Congress on Thursday, to testify about extremism online, he will do so as hundreds of far-right militias, including some whose members were charged …

Rob Bonta named California attorney general, would be first Filipino American in role  —  Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday appointed Democratic Assemblyman Rob Bonta as California attorney general, picking a leading advocate for criminal justice reform who has campaigned to abolish the death penalty …

Biden should fact-check the White House press corps  —  The White House press corps, ginned up by Republican hype, has for weeks hounded White House press secretary Jen Psaki and anyone else from the Biden administration who comes into the briefing room about what is happening at the border.

Trumpists Still Pushing Election Fraud Claims and Conspiracy Theories  —  Regent University livestream gets bonkers.  —  Because I am a masochist, I subjected myself to a cavalcade of crazy yesterday.  I watched / listened to much of the seven hours of a nutso livestream …

N.Y. Pot Legalization Gets Fast Track on Cuomo-Lawmaker Deal  — Legislature will vote on making pot legal for age 21 and up  — Compromise plan has the OK of legislative leaders, Cuomo  —  New York is ready to legalize recreational marijuana.  The state would impose special pot taxes …

Videos show ally of Marjorie Taylor Greene among mob inside Capitol during January 6 riot  —  These are the key moments from the US Capitol riot  —  (CNN)Footage from the January 6 riot at the US Capitol shows a close ally of Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene inside the building.

Republicans Fear Flawed Candidates Could Imperil Key Senate Seats  —  Races in Missouri and Alabama, with others to come, reflect the potential risks for a party in which loyalty to Donald Trump is the main criterion for securing nominations.  —  The entry of two hard-right candidates …

Dollar Shave Club has laid off all of its staff at men's lifestyle site, MEL, and is looking for a rescue buyer  — Dollar Shave Club laid off MEL Magazine's editorial team on Wednesday.  — The site became a media industry darling despite being owned by a razor brand.

42 Million Want to Migrate to U.S.  —  Here are questions every leader should be able to answer regardless of their politics: How many more people are coming to the southern border?  And what is the plan?  —  There are 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.  Roughly 450 million adults live in the region.

How Trump is exposing the ugly truth about the GOP plan to retake power  —  Opinion by  —  The Republican strategy for retaking power depends in no small part on undertaking maximum voter suppression and other anti-majoritarian efforts all over the country — while piously pretending …

We didn't help get Kyrsten Sinema elected so she could ensure Senate gridlock  —  Opinion: We asked voters to support Kyrsten Sinema so she could make progress on big issues, not stand in the way of it by supporting the filibuster.  —  View Comments  —  Arizonans accomplished something truly historic …

Asian Grandmother Who Smacked Her Attacker With A Board Donates Nearly $1 Million  —  Xiao Zhen Xie, the 75-year-old woman who was punched by a white man in San Francisco - and then fought back by smacking him with a board - will not keep the nearly $1 million that has been donated for her medical expenses.

Housing Boss Who Was Accused of Sexual Abuse Now Faces Bribery Charges  —  Prosecutors accused Victor Rivera of enriching himself through kickbacks as he led one of the largest homeless shelter operations in New York City.  —  The former head of one of the largest homeless shelter networks in New York …

The GOP's Long-Game Plan to Thwart Biden's Agenda Is Already in Action  —  Last week, Ohio's Attorney General filed a lawsuit against the Treasury Department challenging the landmark recovery legislation just passed by Congress, the American Rescue Plan (ARP).

The Biden presidency — already transformative for the worse  —  President Biden is using his entire administration to impose “woke” precepts about race, class, and gender on a public that recognizes them as mostly pseudo-intellectual rubbish masking intolerance.

‘Sitting on their hands’: Biden transition officials say Trump officials delayed action on child migrant surge … WASHINGTON — In early December, the Biden transition team and career government officials began sounding the alarm on the need to increase shelter space for migrant children …

House Republicans downplay the military's extremism problem  —  Republicans on the House Armed Services committee cast doubt Wednesday that extremism in the military is as severe as Democrats and outside experts say it is.  —  “We lack any concrete evidence that violent extremism is as ripe …

Wealthy Republican Conspiracy Theorist Settles Lawsuit Over Seth Rich Claims  —  END OF THE ROAD  —  The brother of a murdered Democratic staffer who was the focus of pro-Trump conspiracy theories has settled a lawsuit against a wealthy conservative who pushed the smears.