memeorandum: The Case Not Made: A Response to Anne Applebaum's “The New Puritans” (Adam Gurri/Liberal Currents)

10:55 AM ET, September 20, 2021

Top Items:

Hans Nichols / Axios:

Scoop - Manchin: Delay Biden plan to '22 — Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is privately saying he thinks Congress should take a “strategic pause” until 2022 before voting on President Biden's $3.5 trillion social-spending package, people familiar with the matter tell Axios.

Discussion: NBC News, Politico, HotAir, Talking Points Memo, Boston.com, Outside the Beltway, National Review, Mediaite, CNN, Townhall, Breitbart, The Hill and Common Dreams

Alan Fram / Associated Press:

Senate parliamentarian deals blow to Dems' immigration push — WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats can't use their $3.5 trillion package bolstering social and climate programs for their plan to give millions of immigrants a chance to become citizens, the Senate's parliamentarian said late Sunday …

Laura Barrón-López / Politico:

Sinema tells White House she's opposed to current prescription drug plan — The White House has a new headache as it struggles to get its multitrillion-dollar party-line spending bill passed: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's objections to drug pricing reforms that are already struggling to make it through the House.

Discussion: New York Magazine, The Guardian, CNN, UPI, Townhall, Fox News, NBC News, New Republic, Bloomberg and The Hill

Rachel Roubein / Washington Post:
It's booster shot week

Discussion: NBC Chicago and Poynter

David Dayen / American Prospect:
Kathleen Rice's Questionable Rationale for Voting Down Drug Pricing Reform

Discussion: The Guardian

Coral Davenport / New York Times:
This Powerful Democrat Linked to Fossil Fuels Will Craft the U.S. Climate Plan

Discussion: HotAir

Katie Rogers / New York Times:
Jill Biden Is Chasing the President's Most Elusive Campaign Promise: Unity

Discussion: HotAir, The Daily Caller and Twitchy

Politico:
Dems vow to go the distance as September problems pile up

Discussion: The Bulwark, Real Clear Politics, Bloomberg and CNN

Kiran Stacey / Financial Times:

US to relax EU and UK travel restrictions for vaccinated passengers — Biden administration to announce new travel policy effective from November — Vaccinated passengers will be able to travel to the US from the EU and UK from November onwards, the Biden administration will announce on Monday …

Discussion: CNN, Insider and Variety

New York Times:

U.S. to Lift Travel Ban on Vaccinated Visitors — The Biden administration will lift travel restrictions starting in November on those from abroad who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, ending a travel ban implemented to limit the spread of disease and reopening the United States …

Discussion: National Review

Max Chafkin / New York Magazine:

Peter Thiel's Origin Story His ideology dominates Silicon Valley. It began to form when he was an angry young man. — Sometime around the spring of 1988, several members of the Stanford University chess team traveled to a tournament in Monterey, California, in an old Volkswagen Rabbit.

Discussion: The Daily Beast and POLITICUSUSA

Isaac Stanley-Becker / Washington Post:

Lindsey Graham and Mike Lee personally vetted Trump's fraud claims, new book says. They were unpersuaded. — “Peril,” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, reveals the lengths the two Republicans went to in examining the president's baseless claims. — Sen. Lindsey O. Graham agreed to hear Rudolph W. Giuliani out.

Discussion: The Daily Beast, The Hill, Talking Points Memo, National Review, ABC News, Raw Story, Mediaite and Power Line

Heath Druzin / The Daily Beast:

This Doc Stoked the COVID Crisis. These Women Are Paying the Price — Here's what happens when you need hospital care but live in a misinformation wasteland, and sick anti-vaxxers are taking up all the beds. — Even as the coronavirus pandemic ravages her state of Idaho …

Discussion: Raw Story

New York Times:
Biden to Push Global Plan to Battle Covid as National Gaps Widen

Discussion: CNN and UPI

Karol Markowicz / New York Post:
Masking 2-year-olds is proof positive we've gone way too far

Discussion: Louder With Crowder

Jason Gale / Bloomberg: Bats in Laos Caves Harbor Closest Relatives to Covid-19 Virus

Charles C. W. Cooke / National Review:

My Going Maskless Is Different, Says San Francisco Mayor, Because ‘I Was Feeling the Spirit’ — The Mayor of San Francisco says that she shouldn't be criticized for breaking her own COVID rules, because, and I quote, “I was feeling the spirit and I wasn't thinking about a mask.” CBS reports:

Discussion: HotAir, Twitchy, CBS San Francisco, The Daily Caller and IJR

Adam Gurri / Liberal Currents:

The Case Not Made: A Response to Anne Applebaum's “The New Puritans” — All social relations create vulnerabilities and dependencies that are subject to abuse. This is a fundamental fact about the social nature of humanity, a baseline from which all specific arrangements need to be judged.

Susannah George / Washington Post:

After 20 years of waging religious guerrilla warfare, Taliban fighters in Kabul say they miss the battle — KABUL — Since celebrating the fall of Kabul a month ago, after years of waging a holy war to overthrow the U.S.-backed government, the 250 Taliban fighters under Abdulrahman Nifiz's command …

Discussion: Insider, Firstpost and New York Post

Ben Smith / New York Times:
How the U.S. Helped, and Hampered, the Escape of Afghan Journalists

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, more at Mediagazer »

Ben Westcott / CNN:
Angry and afraid, Afghanistan's LGBTQ community say they're being hunted down after Taliban takeover

Discussion: BizPac Review and The Gateway Pundit

Glenn Greenwald:

The Indictment of Hillary Clinton's Lawyer is an Indictment of the Russiagate Wing of U.S. Media — The DOJ's new charging document, approved by Biden's Attorney General, sheds bright light onto the Russiagate fraud and how journalistic corruption was key. — A lawyer for Hillary Clinton's …

Discussion: Twitchy

David R. Lurie / The Daily Beast:
Bill Barr's Still Making a Mockery of Justice. Merrick Garland's Letting Him.

Discussion: Raw Story

Roger Sollenberger / The Daily Beast:

This $100,000 Donation by Matt Gaetz Raises All the Eyebrows — Rep. Matt Gaetz' largest political donation ever went to a Chris Christie group for a very strange reason that's caught the attention of election law experts. — On the day Donald Trump's second impeachment trial began in the Senate …

Discussion: Raw Story

Apoorva Mandavilli / New York Times:

Covid Vaccine Prompts Strong Immune Response in Younger Children, Pfizer Says — Vaccinated kids aged 5 to 11 showed evidence of protection against the virus, the company said. The data must be reviewed by the F.D.A. before children can be inoculated. — The Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine …

Discussion: Bloomberg, HotAir, NPR, Washington Post, Pfizer, CNN, The Hill, Wall Street Journal, Washington Examiner, The Daily Beast, Al Jazeera, Townhall, Rolling Stone, abc7NY, The Guardian, UPI, Forbes, East Bay Times, NBC10 Philadelphia, abc7NY and Mediaite

James Downie / Washington Post:

Tate Reeves and the high cost of covid incompetence — When naming the poster child for irresponsible leadership on covid-19, there are plenty of governors to choose from. You could make a strong case for South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money, CNN, HuffPost, Daily Kos, RedState, Crooks and Liars, The Daily Caller, The Daily Beast, USA Today, Raw Story and The Hill

Samantha Ibrahim / New York Post:

Twitter lashes out over celebrities at 2021 Emmys going maskless — Mask on, mask off. — The 2021 Emmy Awards were full of colorful ensembles, moving speeches and coveted gold statuettes — but no masks in sight. — While 2020's coronavirus had awards shows very scaled down, the party only got bigger this year.

Discussion: HotAir and Townhall

Martha Pskowski / El Paso Times:

Haitian migrants face tough choices in Del Rio amid crackdown at Texas-Mexico border — CIUDAD ACUÑA, MEXICO — A mounted U.S. Border Patrol agent shouted commands in a tense encounter with Haitian migrants wading through the Rio Grande near Del Rio, Texas.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, CBS Dallas / Fort Worth and New York Times

Associated Press:
US launches mass expulsion of Haitian migrants from Texas

Discussion: CBS News, HotAir, The Guardian, New York Post, Al Jazeera, One America News Network, Breitbart, HillReporter.com, BorderReport, CBS Dallas / Fort Worth, Denver Post and Just The News

Arif Rafiq / Middle East Institute:

Afghanistan must address existential and structural challenges before tapping natural resource wealth — With the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the rapid victory of the Taliban, some observers have pronounced the commencement of a new Chinese-led regional order.

Wall Street Journal:

U.S. to Require Foreign Nationals Seeking Entry to Show Proof of Covid-19 Vaccination — New rules by Biden administration would replace travel bans put in place by President Trump — WASHINGTON—Foreign nationals seeking to enter the U.S. will have to show proof of Covid-19 vaccination under …

Politico:

'It's spreading': Phony election fraud conspiracies infect midterms — It started as one big, false claim — that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. — But nearly a year later, the Big Lie is metastasizing, with Republicans throughout the country raising the specter of rigged elections …

Discussion: Washington Examiner, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Hill, HillReporter.com and Raw Story

Tom Joyce / Washington Examiner:

Both sides should support Marjorie Taylor Greene's primary challenger — Jennifer Strahan wants to do the country a favor. — The Georgia businesswoman recently announced that she plans to primary Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia's 14th Congressional District.