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.

Manchin: Reconciliation ‘Dead on Arrival’ If It Doesn't Include Hyde Amendment  —  House Democrats have pushed forward in their reconciliation bill with creating a new “Medicaid-like” program that lacks the Hyde amendment, a measure that generally prohibits federal funding of abortion.

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.

Biden announces 14 more nominees to courts  —  President Biden on Thursday announced plans to nominate 10 people to the federal bench and four to serve on local Washington, D.C., courts.  —  It's the eighth round of nominees announced by Biden, who has now named 53 federal judicial nominees.