memeorandum: Biden sticks to his dealmaking strategy, as some Democrats want him to do more to bring holdouts on board (Seung Min Kim/Washington Post)

12:00 PM ET, September 30, 2021

Top Items:

House appears poised to pull infrastructure vote amid stubborn stalemate — House Democrats appear poised to miss a second vote on a bipartisan infrastructure bill this week, highlighting the stubborn stalemate over the larger social benefits package at the core of President Biden's agenda.

Discussion: New York Times, New York Times, RedState, Bloomberg, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Atlantic, WV MetroNews, First Draft, Power Line, Breitbart and HotAir

Susan Ferrechio / Washington Examiner:

Manchin trashes Democratic spending bill: ‘Fiscal insanity’ — Sen. Joe Manchin, a key centrist Democrat whose approval is required to pass the party's massive social welfare spending package, firmly rejected the proposal on Wednesday, criticizing the $3.5 trillion cost and the vast new entitlements it would provide.

Discussion: U.S. Senator Joe Manchin …, HotAir, National Review, Breitbart, Power Line, Politico, NOQ Report, RedState, The Hill, National Review, Washington Post, Salon, The Mahablog, New York Times and Twitchy

Burgess Everett / Politico:

Manchin proposed $1.5T top-line number to Schumer this summer — Manchin also suggested beginning debate no earlier than Oct. 1. — Sen. Joe Manchin leaves the Senate floor at the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 29. Drew Angerer/Getty Images — Joe Manchin proposed a deal to Senate Majority Chuck Schumer …

Seung Min Kim / Washington Post:
Biden sticks to his dealmaking strategy, as some Democrats want him to do more to bring holdouts on board

Discussion: HotAir, The Hill, ABC7, Talking Points Memo, UPI, Daily Kos, Twitchy, Althouse, Yahoo Finance, New York Times, RedState and National Review

Politico:
White House gives a wink to progressives as they threaten Biden's infrastructure bill

Discussion: HotAir, Rolling Stone, Washington Post, The Daily Beast, Real Clear Politics and Mediaite

John McCormack / National Review:
Manchin: Reconciliation ‘Dead on Arrival’ If It Doesn't Include Hyde Amendment

Discussion: The Hill, HotAir, Arizona Agenda, RedState, POLITICUSUSA, LifeNews.com, The Hill, Gallup, New York Magazine, Breitbart, Washington Post, Patterico's Pontifications, NPR, The Hill, National Review and Washington Post

CBS News:
What's in the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill?

Discussion: New Republic, IJR and Mediaite

Marianna Sotomayor / Washington Post:
Waiting for ‘Manchema’: House liberals grow exasperated with two Democratic senators as Biden agenda struggles

Discussion: Bloomberg and The Daily Wire

Wall Street Journal:
Infrastructure Bill's Fate Uncertain Heading Into Planned House Vote

Discussion: NBC News, Daily Kos, IJR and CNN

David Leonhardt / New York Times:

The Right to Health — Immunization mandates aren't new. One helped win the American Revolution. — The United States owes its existence as a nation partly to an immunization mandate. — In 1777, smallpox was a big enough problem for the bedraggled American army that George Washington thought it could jeopardize the Revolution.

Discussion: The Daily Caller and The Hill

Associated Press:

AP-NORC poll finds deep divide over Biden vaccine mandate — A survey of Americans on President Joe Biden's plan to require most workers to get either vaccinated or regularly tested for COVID-19 finds a deep and familiar divide: Democrats are overwhelmingly for it, while most Republicans are against it.

Discussion: The Atlantic, The Daily Caller, Associated Press, Rolling Stone and New York Times

CDC:
COVID-19 Vaccination for Pregnant People to Prevent Serious Illness, Deaths, and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes from COVID-19

Discussion: The Hill, CBS News, NBC4 Washington, The Daily Caller, Twitchy, Associated Press, KVIA-TV, NPR, WGN-TV, Axios and New York Post

Lauren Hirsch / New York Times: After its mandate, Tyson Foods reaches a 91 percent vaccination rate.

Jonathan Levin / Bloomberg:
U.S. Covid Recovery Spreads as Prospects Improve in 47 States

Discussion: New York Times, Balloon Juice and HotAir

Alan Levinovitz / Washington Post: How the phrase ‘natural immunity’ misleads us about real risks and dangers

Jennifer Schuessler / New York Times:

Leader of Prestigious Yale Program Resigns, Citing Donor Pressure — The historian Beverly Gage, who has run the Grand Strategy course since 2017, says the university failed to stand up for academic freedom amid inappropriate efforts to influence the curriculum.

Wall Street Journal:

the facebook files — Facebook Inc. knows, in acute detail, that its platforms are riddled with flaws that cause harm, often in ways only the company fully understands. That is the central finding of a Wall Street Journal series, based on a review of internal Facebook documents …

Discussion: Politico and Bloomberg

The White House:

President Biden Names Eighth Round of Judicial Nominees — The President is announcing fourteen judicial nominees, including ten new candidates for the federal bench. All of the nominees are extraordinarily qualified, experienced, and devoted to the rule of law and our Constitution.

Morgan Chalfant / The Hill:
Biden announces 14 more nominees to courts

Discussion: CNN

Jennifer McEachern / Tennessee Department …:

Governor Lee, Commissioner Rolfe Announce Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. to Relocate Headquarters and Other Major Operations to Tennessee — Leading U.S.-based firearms manufacturer will invest more than $125 million to relocate from Springfield, Massachusetts to Maryville, Tennessee

Sabato's Crystal Ball:

New Initiative Explores Deep, Persistent Divides Between Biden and Trump Voters — The University of Virginia Center for Politics has partnered with Project Home Fire, a new initiative dedicated to finding common ground in American politics, on an innovative new data analytics and polling project …

Discussion: CNN

NBC News:

Senate reaches deal to avoid government shutdown, Schumer announces — Congress racing to prevent government shutdown — WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that senators have reached a deal on a stopgap government funding measure to prevent a shutdown.

Discussion: CNBC, USA Today, Washington Post, Outside the Beltway, Talking Points Memo, Letters from an American, Washington Times, Insider, Los Angeles Times, CNBC, Washington Times, ABC7, Talking Points Memo, New York Post, The Guardian, The Hill, Political Wire and Politico

Blake Montgomery / The Daily Beast:

Rep. Dan Crenshaw Fined $5,000 for Skirting House Metal Detector — PRICEY PASSTHROUGH — Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) has been fined $5,000 for refusing to go through metal detectors en route into the chambers of the House of Representatives. According to a notice from the House Committee on Ethics …

Discussion: House Committee on Ethics, Washington Post, Breitbart and HotAir

Ariane de Vogue / CNN:

Justice Sonia Sotomayor: ‘There is going to be a lot of disappointment in the law, a huge amount’ — (CNN)Days before the start of a tumultuous term, and after the Supreme Court justices divided bitterly over a Texas law that bars most abortions after six weeks, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned …

Discussion: LifeNews.com, Washington Post, Reason, Insider and Associated Press

Maggie Haberman / New York Times:

Trump Super PAC Removes Corey Lewandowski After Sexual Harassment Claim — The move came after a donor to former President Donald J. Trump said that Mr. Lewandowski had made unwanted sexual advances and touched her inappropriately. — Corey Lewandowski, a longtime political adviser to Donald J. Trump …

Jennifer Hassan / Washington Post:

Shakira says wild boars in Barcelona attacked her and stole her purse — Grammy Award-winning singer Shakira says two wild boars pounced on her bag as she visited a Barcelona park with her son, running off into the forest with it. — In a series of videos posted to her Instagram story Wednesday …

Discussion: CBS News, Full Feed, The Daily Beast and Gawker

Washington Post:

Democrats worry a loss in Virginia could set off a cascade of election troubles — President Biden's slumping approval ratings and gridlock on Capitol Hill have raised the risk that Democrats could lose the Virginia governor's race, according to party insiders who fear a defeat …

Discussion: Politico, National Review, Washington Free Beacon, Inside Elections, Washington Post, Instapundit and Roanoke College

Associated Press:
‘On the edge of a razor’: Youngkin tests new Trump playbook

Discussion: NBC News, Washington Post, Common Dreams and claytoonz

KMVT-TV:

Idaho Secretary of State refutes Mike Lindell's statewide election manipulation claims — BOISE, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — Staff from the Idaho Secretary of State's office visited two Idaho counties last week following receipt of information that alleged statewide manipulation of Idaho's election results.

Discussion: National Review, Bonner County Daily Bee and Raw Story

NBC News:

Could Sen. Kyrsten Sinema face a primary? These progressives are trying to make it happen. — WASHINGTON — A group of Arizona Democrats backed by a network of deep-pocketed donors is laying the groundwork for a primary challenge to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, organizers said.

Discussion: Washington Post, Insider, The Hill, NBC Right Now, POLITICUSUSA and Crowdpac

Axios:

Scoop: Milley's blunt private blame for the State Department — In a classified briefing with senators on Tuesday, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley directly blamed the State Department for a botched evacuation from Afghanistan, saying officials “waited too long” to order the operation …

Discussion: Politico, Outside the Beltway, The Daily Caller, Washington Post, The Bulwark, HotAir, The Daily Signal, The National Interest, Insider, The Hill, New York Post, National Review and Breitbart

The Markup:

There's a Multibillion-Dollar Market for Your Phone's Location Data — A huge but little-known industry has cropped up around monetizing people's movements — Companies that you likely have never heard of are hawking access to the location history on your mobile phone.

Matthew Yglesias / Slow Boring:

My favorite Covid counterfactuals — Ross Douthat published a couple of speculative columns on Covid Counterfactuals. As someone who loves alternate history as a genre and also took a whole very serious philosophy class about the importance of counterfactual analysis for thinking about history, I like this type of column.

Gothamist:

Hack Of Oath Keepers Militia Group Includes Names Of Active NYPD Officers, De Blasio Launches Investigation — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's office said it will scrutinize NYPD ranks following a WNYC/Gothamist investigation of online records that appears to tie several …

American Greatness:

The Coordinated Attack on Ivermectin Is a Crime Against Humanity — Make no mistake, the evil, deadly, coordinated globalist attacks we are currently witnessing on ivermectin will go down in history as a vicious crime against humanity. — Just as we saw with hydroxychloroquine last summer …

Discussion: Joe.My.God.

CNN:

January 6 committee targets organizers of Stop the Steal rally in latest batch of subpoenas — (CNN)The select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection has issued its second round of subpoenas, this time targeting individuals involved in the planning and organization of the …

Kirsten Grieshaber / Associated Press:

Former Nazi camp secretary in German trial, 96, on the run — BERLIN (AP) — A former secretary for the SS commander of the Stutthof concentration camp was being sought on an arrest warrant Thursday after skipping the planned start of her trial in Germany on more than 11,000 counts of accessory to murder, officials said.