KNOWN FACTS
* Every time I have deployed this request to readers to become voluntary subscribers or contributors to support my work on Wide World of News, so many of you stepped up that I gotta continue the copy ‘n’ paste:
Despite the generous support of retirees on fixed incomes, students, and strangers, there are still millionaires and billionaires who have read Wide World of News almost daily for a long time who have not become paying subscribers or contributors to support my work.
Here’s a non-giving millionaire’s record:
Here’s a non-giving billionaire’s record:
If you can afford to kick in this holiday season, please become a voluntary paying subscriber here:
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THROUGHOUT 2021, YOU HAVE BEEN MEANING TO GET AROUND TO KICKING IN TO SUPPORT THIS NEWSLETTER.
Please contribute or subscribe today!
Thank you.
Now, let’s continue with the “knowns.”
* Spiderman is immortal.
* Tom Brady is mortal.
* Tiger Woods is semi-mortal.
* Rupert sides with Mitch McConnell over Donald Trump.
* Breakthrough cases have gone from “shockers” to “standard” in a flash.
* The lack of home testing capacity is another example of the long-running failure over two administrations to do some of the basics well.
* The lede of Politico’s Jonathan Lemire reflects the DC Conventional Wisdom with perfection:
His agenda undermined by a member of his own party and a pandemic once again raging out of control, President Joe Biden heads into his second year in office with the central premise of his presidency in peril.
Biden’s main campaign argument to the American people in his case for deposing Donald Trump was that he could make government work again, that it could do big things and deliver for its citizens, and that order not chaos could return to Washington. But now the White House ends 2021 facing a confluence of crises: Covid-19 cases are surging throughout the nation, inflation remains high in the holiday season, a renewed push on voting rights seems stalled before it can even begin, and the signature piece of Biden’s agenda is seriously, if not mortally, wounded.
* The Wall Street Journal ed board gets the Jen Psaki statement on Joe Manchin just right:
Maybe Mr. Biden’s masters of the universe know something about the art of persuasion that we don’t. But we doubt calling a Senator a liar is going to bring him around.
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THE GREAT UNKNOWNS
* Omicron is more infectious and less deadly than previous variants (right?), but how much greater is its capacity to cause hospitalizations (in both the vaccinated and unvaccinated)?
* What will President Biden say in his Tuesday address to the nation on the pandemic — and why is it on Tuesday?
*What secret meanings are embedded in Speaker Pelosi’s Sunday night statement on Build Back Better that offer clues as to how she would like to proceed? (Beyond, of course, her Trumpian propensity to Capitalize….)
* Is this the best clue about how Team Biden-Harris-Klain-Pelosi-Schumer plan to proceed? (And are they more united than ever or will this latest twist start to divide them?)
Democrats on Capitol Hill and the White House began considering how—and if—they could alter the package to meet Mr. Manchin’s objections, according to people familiar with the early efforts. Cutting additional programs from the bill, and instead choosing a select few to fund for the long term, will be a politically difficult task for Democrats, pitting advocates for various party goals against each other for a slice of the bill’s funding….
Rep. Suzan DelBene (D., Wash.), chairwoman of the moderate New Democrats coalition, said Sunday that the party should choose a smaller set of programs to fund in the bill, listing the child tax credit, ACA subsidies and climate programs as worthy goals. Her statement was tweeted by White House officials, including White House chief of staff Ron Klain. (Wall Street Journal)
*Seriously?
*And, if true, how could you not intake David Ignatius’ essential reading reported column on one possible element of deterrence:
The Biden administration is studying whether and how the United States could support an anti-Russian insurgency inside Ukraine if President Vladimir Putin invades that country and seizes substantial territory.
The planning, described Sunday by a knowledgeable official, includes ways to provide weapons and other support to the Ukrainian military to resist invading Russian forces — and similar logistical support to insurgent groups if Russia topples the Ukrainian government and a guerrilla war begins.
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