The Future is Muffin-Topped
A round-up of Biden's joint address, the India crisis, the big beef lie, 100 days and more.
Welcome to a special Sunday edition! Aka me still figuring out what day to send these weekly missives.
If you’re in the US and have an iPhone, all links are available on my free app that brings together daily news and politics: Ideacracy. If not, I’ve also included the original links below.
The Future is Muffin-Topped
On Wednesday, President Biden delivered a joint address to Congress (i.e. a State of the Union Address for everyone except hardcore Congressional nerds). History was made with a Madam Vice President and Madam Speaker of the House seated behind him.
In the speech, Biden struck a balance between the seriousness of the moment and optimism about the future. When talking about the American Jobs Plan and America Families Plan, he thankfully did not focus on the technical meaning of infrastructure - you did us a real solid, speech writers. Instead, he kept emphasizing that the investments are to keep America competitive and mean jobs, jobs and jobs (the word of the night).
Even more importantly though, the speech emphasized that investments in jobs and families would be paid for by forcing corporations and the wealthiest 1% of Americans to pay their fair share in taxes. In many cases of course, “fair share” would mean clearing the incredibly high bar of any taxes at all. This is an immensely popular part of his proposals, including among moderate and even conservative voters. And it has the sweet added bonus of exposing the Republican politicians who are opposed to the tax increases as the anti-working class, corporate shills they are.
One of the best lines from the speech hit the nail on the head: “Trickle-down economics has never worked. It’s time to grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out.” You read that right my friends: with any luck, the future is muffin-topped. One where we can finally leave the catastrophic failures of Reaganomics on the ash heap of history.
You can watch Biden’s joint address here: on Ideacracy or on Youtube.
The COVID Crisis in India
As you’ve probably seen, India is in crisis. The country is being overwhelmed by two different variants and set a new global record on Friday with nearly 383K new cases in a day - a number that is likely to be a vast undercount due to lack of testing.
India’s healthcare system is past its breaking point. Health care providers and individuals who are not able to get local care have resorted to pleading on social media for things like oxygen. The US has sent its first shipment of supplies, including oxygen and rapid diagnostic tests. Other countries have pledged supplies as well, but help can’t get there fast enough.
I’m hoping to cover this crisis more in the coming weeks. For now, there’s 3 main points that strike me:
A big problem with the current media coverage is the vague implication that India is at fault for the current crisis. Certain commentators have pointed to widely-attended religious festivals and re-election campaign events being held by India’s prime minister (Narendra Modi). Frankly though, every country would fail this kind of purity test - think of the MAGA campaign events or last spring break in Florida. A crisis is a crisis, and people shouldn’t be made to suffer because of government mismanagement.
The U.S. has been a vaccine hoarder. That may make sense to a certain degree, but not for a vaccine like AstraZeneca, which we don’t even use or need in order to vaccinate the country. Most recently, the Biden administration pledged 60 million doses of AstraZeneca to other countries, including India. But apparently, shipments will only go out after the AstraZeneca vaccine obtains federal authorization in the US? My brain hurts.
There’s a very strong undercurrent of vaccine monopolization at play. For example, one option would be to make the patents for COVID vaccines available for the world to use. You would think that people like Bill Gates would be all for measures like this - especially in poor nations experiencing the worst of the crisis. In an interview however, he came out on the side of protecting pharmaceutical company profits. I found an amazing analysis of how problematic this is in “Monopolists gonna monopolize” from The Ink by Anand Giridharadas.
You can read Anand’s article here: on Ideacracy or on Substack.
Hold My Plant-Based Beer
In the latest alternative Republic universe, President Biden is ready to come to your July 4th BBQ and smack those burgers right off your counter.
It may seem silly to waste more digital space on yet another manufactured controversy - this time about limiting Americans’ meat consumption. But as Dan Pfeiffer said in this week’s Pod Save America and his newsletter, it’s a good example of the GOP’s disinformation tactics. The Republican base is of course willing to buy whatever lies Fox news sells. For swing voters though, it’s not about convincing them of any particular lie, but more giving an impression that Biden has “radical” policies will somehow negatively impact their daily lives.
Dan suggests we bat down these kinds of disinformation efforts with a “rapid response” model. For this particular case, the background was a painfully stupid and click-baity Daily Mail article that speculated (without evidence) that “Biden’s climate plan could limit you to eat just one burger a MONTH”. Republicans used this random speculation to incorrectly assert that Biden would force Americans to stop eating red meat. Larry Kudlow even complained Biden would force Americans to drink “plant-based beer” (sounds reasonable btw). Dan’s solution involves not only mentioning that none of these claims are true, but also sharing things like social media images of President Biden in fact LOVING UP some burgers.
You can read Dan’s article here: on Ideacracy or on Substack.
100 Days in Office
Thursday marked the first 100 days of the Biden administration. In just 100 days, we’ve gone from a vaccine shortfall and zero federal plans for distribution to 200 million shots in arms and enough vaccines for the entire country. We passed the American Rescue Plan, which put money into the pockets of working class families at a time of desperate economic need. As former President Obama wrote, we’ve also gained 1 million jobs and are on the way to cutting child poverty in half (with the earned income tax credit). The federal government re-entered the Paris climate agreement, pledged to cut US emissions by half in 2030 and raised the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15. In sum, a lot of progress we should continually reference (especially for the mid-terms next year). There’s still of course a long, filibuster-fraught path ahead.
You can see Obama’s post and a White House video commemorating the 100 days here: on Ideacracy or on Facebook.
The Best of the Rest
a $400M French Laundry meal - Governor Gavin Newsome will be facing a recall election this year thanks to a low bar in California for calling these. Public opinion can of course change, but right now it looks like he’ll easily remain in office until actually being up for reelection in 2022. The recall is estimated to cost state taxpayers approx. $400M, which makes his widely unpopular meal at the French Laundry restaurant (in violation of COVID guidance) one of the most expensive in history.
With Gaetz, it gets even slimier - It’s now been revealed that slimy friend and accomplice of Rep. Matt Gaetz, Joel Greenberg, wrote a confession to Roger Stone that he and Gaetz paid a 17-year-old for sex. The confession was part of a request for a pardon from the orange guy while he was in office. QAnon has strangely still not commented on the evidence of actual child abuse occurring in their party.
Giuliani raided - On Wednesday, federal authorities raided the home and office of disgraced former Mayor and porn shop public speaker, Rudy Giuliani. In an unprecedented move, the FBI executed search warrants for Rudy and another lawyer based on evidence that he illegally lobbied the Trump administration in 2019 on behalf of Ukrainian officials and oligarchs. The searches were executed at 6am in a move that shows absolutely no regard for the time-honored tradition of breakfast Merlot.
And now for our high note:
That’s it for this week’s edition guys (the fourth one, woo hoo!). Hope everyone had a restful international day of labor yesterday. Catch you at the end of this coming week.