memeorandum: U.S. President Joe Biden and Israel's Prime Minister Naftali Bennett shake hands during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington … (Hagai El-Ad/Haaretz)

12:40 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: Townhall, New York Times, POLITICUSUSA, RedState, Bloomberg, New York Times, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Atlantic, WV MetroNews, First Draft, Power Line, Breitbart and HotAir

Burgess Everett / Politico:

Manchin proposed $1.5T top-line number to Schumer this summer — Joe Manchin proposed a deal to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer this summer to limit the total cost of Democrats' sweeping spending bill to $1.5 trillion, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by POLITICO.

Discussion: Washington Post

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, Outside the Beltway, Washington Post, 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 and Political Wire

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, Power Line, Breitbart, Politico, NOQ Report, RedState, The Hill, National Review, Washington Post, Salon, The Mahablog, Twitchy and New York Times

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:

Joe Manchin Just Might Finally Be Onto Something Glimmers of hope in his quasi-plan. — Joe Manchin attracted a great deal of press attention last night by issuing a long statement expressing his list of mostly familiar grievances with Joe Biden's Build Back Better agenda.

Discussion: Balloon Juice

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

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, Breitbart, New York Magazine, Washington Post, NPR, Patterico's Pontifications, The Hill, National Review and Washington Post

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

Discussion: HotAir, Rolling Stone, Newsbusters, Washington Post, The Daily Beast and Mediaite

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

Discussion: Commentary Magazine, Mediaite, New Republic and IJR

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

Discussion: CNN, Bloomberg, NBC News, Daily Kos and IJR

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

Discussion: Bloomberg, TheBlaze and The Daily Wire

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: HotAir, 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: AP-NORC, Washington Post, Associated Press, The Atlantic, The Daily Caller, 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: CBS News, The Hill, NBC4 Washington, Gizmodo, The Daily Caller, Townhall, Centers for Disease Control …, Twitchy, Associated Press, NPR, KVIA-TV, WGN-TV, Axios and New York Post

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

Discussion: Forbes

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

Discussion: New York Times, Balloon Juice and HotAir

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

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

Smith & Wesson:
Smith & Wesson to Relocate Headquarters to Tennessee

Discussion: The Hill, Boston.com, WWLP-TV and CBS Boston

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

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

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

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 …

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

Associated Press:

‘On the edge of a razor’: Youngkin tests new Trump playbook — RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Republican Glenn Youngkin needs Donald Trump. He just doesn't want to say the name. — On the debate stage Tuesday night, the Republican candidate in Virginia's governor's race repeatedly sidestepped comparisons to the former president.

Discussion: NBC News, Washington Post and Common Dreams

Washington Post:
Democrats worry a loss in Virginia could set off a cascade of election troubles

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

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 …

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

Lioness.Co:

Bezos Wants to Create a Better Future in Space. His Company Blue Origin Is Stuck in a Toxic Past. — We are a group of 21 former and current employees of Blue Origin. Many of us have spent our careers dreaming of helping to launch a crewed rocket into space and seeing it safely touch back down on Earth.

Discussion: CBS News

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

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.

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.

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

Philip Jaffa / The Bulwark:

My Father and the Birth of Modern Conservatism — The inspiration for the 1964 “Extremism in the defense of liberty” speech he wrote for Barry Goldwater. — On July 16, 1964 Barry Goldwater strode to the podium at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California and accepted the Republican party's nomination for president.