Tuesday, May 16, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.
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Joe is always busy.
https://twitter.com/potus/status/1657785343423152128?s=61&t=I_Od53CbnPTsbLcD0baXPgBiden Chooses Monica Bertagnolli to Lead NIH.
Dr. Monica M. Bertagnolli, President Biden’s pick to lead the National Institutes of Health, will need to be confirmed by the Senate.—-
WASHINGTON — President Biden announced on Monday that he would nominate Dr. Monica M. Bertagnolli, a cancer surgeon who became the director of the National Cancer Institute in October, to be the next director of the National Institutes of Health, filling a position that has been vacant for more than a year.
Dr. Bertagnolli is also a cancer patient. She announced late last year that she had received a diagnosis of early breast cancer.
In a statement, Mr. Biden called her a “world-class physician-scientist” who had “spent her career pioneering scientific discovery and pushing the boundaries of what is possible to improve cancer prevention and treatment for patients, and ensuring that patients in every community have access to quality care.”
Dr. Bertagnolli, 64, will need to be confirmed by the Senate. She is the first female director of the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. She would be only the second woman to lead the N.I.H. on a permanent basis.
Biden Expresses Optimism on Debt Limit, but a Deal Remains Elusive .
President Biden and congressional leaders will resume face-to-face talks on Tuesday to avert a government default, with the White House expressing cautious optimism as the contours of a possible deal began to come into focus.
With time running out to strike a deal to raise the debt limit, broad areas of negotiation have emerged, including fixed caps on federal spending, reclaiming unspent funds designated for the Covid-19 emergency, stiffer work requirements for federal benefits and expedited permitting rules for energy projects.
“I remain optimistic because I’m a congenital optimist,” Mr. Biden told reporters on Sunday in Rehoboth Beach, Del. He added, “I really think there’s a desire on their part, as well as ours, to reach an agreement, and I think we’ll be able to do it.”
Still, on Monday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy reiterated that he believed little progress had been made, telling reporters that the two sides remained “far apart” even with a potential default looming. “We have no agreements on anything. That’s why I’m so concerned,” he added.
Mr. Biden, who is set to depart on Wednesday for Japan to attend the Group of 7 meeting, confirmed on Monday that he would meet with Mr. McCarthy on Tuesday. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, was more optimistic than Mr. McCarthy on Monday, saying that the “parallel discussions” on federal spending and the debt ceiling were continuing in “a very serious way.”
“We welcome a bipartisan debate about our nation’s fiscal future,” Mr. Schumer said. “But we’ve made it plain to our Republican colleagues that default is not an option. Its consequences are too damaging, too severe. It must be taken off the table.”
(New York Times).
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Yes, there is still the Debt Ceiling. 👆
This is happening on the other side. 👇
Senate conservatives break with Trump’s debt ceiling comments.
Conservative senators on Thursday broke with the cavalier approach to a potential U.S. debt ceiling default laid out by former President Trump.
Why it matters: It’s a rare moment in which Trump’s congressional allies, spooked by the possible economic fallout of a default, are out of step with the former president who still dominates their party.
Driving the news:
Trump told CNN moderator Kaitlan Collins at a town hall on Wednesday, "I say to the Republicans out there – congressmen, senators – if they don’t give you massive cuts, you’re going to have to do a default."
Trump said while he doesn't believe a default is going to happen, "it’s better than what we’re doing right now because we’re spending money like drunken sailors."
He also suggested that the effects of a default may not be as calamitous as economists have warned, musing that "it’s really psychological more than anything else" and "maybe it’s, you have a bad week or a bad day."
The state of play: Lawmakers don't appear to share that sanguine viewpoint.
The Treasury Department's new estimate that the U.S. could reach the fiscal cliff as early as June 1 has kickstarted negotiations and brought the two parties closer to compromise on spending cuts.
Congressional leadership and the White House most recently held an hours-long, staff-level meeting at the Capitol on Thursday afternoon to hammer out a potential deal to raise the debt ceiling.
President Biden, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other congressional leaders, after sitting down at the White House on Tuesday, are set to meet again on Friday.
What they’re saying: “Default should be avoided, period,” said Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), telling Axios that Biden and McCarthy “are going to have to negotiate through this.”
“We will not and should not default on our debt,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.).
“We’re not going to default,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), “It’s bad enough right now, all the inflation we have … it would effect [the economy].”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told Axios “no,” he doesn’t agree with Trump’s comments, adding: “There is no world in which [a default] happens.”
Yes, but: Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) argued Trump's comments are a bluff aimed at bolstering the GOP's negotiating position, telling Axios "what the president is doing is really giving political advice ... not financial advice."
"He's basically saying that if the Democrats are going to play a game of chicken, Republicans have to be willing to play that game too," Vance said.
He added, "I think what President Trump is doing is fundamentally the right thing, which is Republicans can't preemptively break ranks here or we're going to have a terrible negotiating position in the talks with Biden." (Axios).
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This 👇 also happened on the other side.
We won’t jump to conclusions but the situation looks bad.
Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly's staff attacked by assailant who was looking for him.
Two members of Rep. Gerry Connolly's (D-Va.) staff were hospitalized on Monday morning after an assailant attacked them with a baseball bat, the Virginia congressman said in a statement.
Driving the news: Connolly said the attacker entered his Fairfax, Va., office and "asked for me before committing an act of violence against two members of my staff."
The latest: The suspect was identified by Capitol Police as 49-year-old Xuan Kha Tran Pham, a Fairfax resident, who they said was not known to the department beforehand.
The suspect used a metal bat, according to the Capitol Police. He has been charged with one count of aggravated malicious wounding and another count of malicious wounding. Their investigation is ongoing.
Details: "Both members of my team were transferred to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries," Connolly said. "Right now, our focus is on ensuring they are receiving the care they need."
Connolly commended his staff who "make themselves available to constituents and members of the public every day," calling the attack "unconscionable and devastating."
The congressman was not in the office at the time of the assaults, per the Capitol Police.
The big picture: The attack comes on the heels of a series of security threats against members of Congress and their families, including the Jan. 6 riot, the Good Friday attack and the assault on Paul Pelosi, the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
What they're saying: "The safety of our Members and of our staff remains of paramount importance, particularly given the increased instances of political violence in our country," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. (Axios).
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There are no words!
Copy and paste as you can. The world should know this.
Pete Aguilar is the head of the Democratic Congressional Caucus.
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Would this 👇 be true! It may be.
Why Clarence Thomas’s Troubles Have Just Begun.
Two of the more aggressive Senate Democrats are asking Thomas and Harlan Crow questions. And they have a lot of ways to get answers.
Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni Thomas, at the White House in 2019.
The scandal that forced Abe Fortas’s resignation from the Supreme Court in 1969 revolved around $20,000 he had accepted from the family foundation of an indicted financier (he returned the money). That $20,000 would be around $167,000 today.
I mention this because I wonder a lot these days about the dollar value of Harlan Crow’s gifts to Clarence Thomas. ProPublica reported, for example, that Thomas flew around on Crow’s jet. A chartered private jet can cost anywhere from $2,000 to $18,000 per billable hour. If we split the difference and say $10,000, Thomas would need to have spent just 16 hours on Crow’s plane over the years to get up into Fortas country (and we know of at least one trip to distant Indonesia, which also included nine days of island-hopping on a 162-foot yacht).
But we don’t know the full extent of Crow’s gifts to Thomas, of course, because Thomas and Crow refuse to say. On April 24, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden wrote to Crow asking him to detail all his gifts to Thomas (the letter notes, for example, that the market value of island-hopping on a yacht like Crow’s is $245,000 a week). More recently, the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee made a similar request.
The requests have been greeted as you’d expect. Thomas says these gifts were “personal hospitality,” not business, and thus didn’t have to be reported. Crow responded to Wyden’s letter with a letter of his own, or more specifically from his lawyer, arguing in essence that Congress has no legitimate legislative purpose in exposing Crow’s gifts to Thomas and is constrained by separation of powers issues.
Sheldon Whitehouse of the Judiciary Committee has pursued a complementary angle. He asked the Judicial Conference, the policymaking body for federal courts, to reveal how it handled an inquiry into Ginni Thomas’s income in 2011. He too has received no answer yet.
Wyden and Whitehouse mean business. Whitehouse has been the Democrats’ point person in the Senate for years on these ethics matters. But of the two, Wyden spells more potential trouble for Thomas and Crow because as chairman of one of Congress’s tax-writing committees, he has what’s called 6103 authority: the power to ask for any citizen’s tax returns at any time for any reason (actually, under the relevant law, he wouldn’t even have to give a reason). Richard Neal, the Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee until the GOP retook the House this year, used this same law to get several years of Trump’s returns. In 2021, the Supreme Court ordered the IRS to give Neal’s committee Trump’s returns.
In other words, if the Supreme Court says that even the president’s tax returns can be sent to Congress, surely that means that anyone’s can be. Even if that person sits on the very Supreme Court that will be passing judgment.
There are certain downsides to invoking 6103 authority—namely, that once the request is made, the person doing the requesting can’t discuss the matter at all. But a source confirms that invoking that authority and requesting the tax returns of both Thomas and Crow is on the table.
Step back and think about that. A member of the United States Supreme Court is hiding from and stonewalling the United States Senate to such an extent that the latter might be compelled to order the release of his tax returns. And either the Finance or the Judiciary Committee might subpoena Thomas as well (now that Dianne Feinstein is back at work, the Democrats have their majority on Judiciary and could subpoena Thomas—that’s assuming Feinstein would agree, which strikes me as not a sure thing). The Senate has only ever subpoenaed a Supreme Court justice once, in the 1950s, when the House Un-American Activities Committee subpoenaed Justice Thomas Clark, but that was over something he had done in a previous position, not while on the court (Clark never appeared).
Clarence Thomas and his defenders say he’s done nothing wrong. Well, if he’s done nothing wrong, why not detail the extent of the gifts? I think it’s pretty obvious why. They must come to gargantuan sums. Supreme Court justices make only $265,600. You can’t expect a man of Thomas’s tastes and appetites to live on that. He has to fly first class and stay in five-star hotels and smoke the world’s finest cigars and sample its most complex cognacs. Hence Ginni has to rake in some dubious cash from organizations trying to influence her husband’s votes, and Clarence needs to live off the “personal hospitality” of people like Crow.
It’s my understanding that there’s more news coming on Thomas and Crow. It seems highly possible that what we know so far, ghastly as it is, barely scratches the surface. And Wyden and Whitehouse are going to keep at this. To paraphrase Churchill, this isn’t the end of the story. This is just the beginning of the end. (Michael Tomasky, editor, New Republic).
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Brittney Griner plays in first WNBA preseason game since detainment in Russia.
PHOENIX (AP) — Brittney Griner strolled down the sideline about 1 1/2 hours before the Phoenix Mercury played Friday night, giving hugs and high-fiving her teammates, coaches and opposing players.
Then it was a little stretching, a little shooting and a little agility work to prepare for a basketball game.
Just like old times.
“I’m grateful to be here, that’s for sure,” Griner said. “I’m not going to take a day for granted.”
Griner returned to game action for the first time since a nearly 10-month detainment in Russia on drug-related charges ended with a prisoner swap in December. The seven-time All-Star, who missed the entire 2022 season because of the detainment, finished with 10 points and three rebounds in a WNBA preseason game against the Los Angeles Sparks.
The 6-foot-9 Griner looked good, especially considering the long layoff, casually throwing down a one-handed dunk during warmups. She stood with her teammates while the national anthem was played and received a loud ovation from the home crowd when she was introduced before tipoff.
“Hearing the national anthem, it definitely hit different,” Griner said. “It’s like when you go for the Olympics, you’re sitting there, about to get gold put on your neck, the flags are going up and the anthem is playing, it just hits different.
“Being here today ... it means a lot.”
Mercury coach Vanessa Nygaard said the anthem and introductions were emotional for the entire team.
“We looked at each other and we just had chills,” Nygaard said. “We were here last year for all of it. I’m getting emotional about it now. Just to see her back out there — it’s an absolute miracle. It was amazing. It’s giving me chills again.”
Once the game started, the 32-year-old Griner immediately went to work, scoring on a turnaround jumper early in the first quarter. A few minutes later, she was fouled on another turnaround and sank both free throws.
She even had a cameo with the medical staff in the third quarter. Teammate Sophie Cunningham went down with a knee injury and Griner helped carry her off the court so she didn’t have to put weight on her leg.
“When one of us goes down, we’re always right there,” Griner said. “That’s one thing about this team — we’re always there for each other. We’ve got each others’ backs, big time.”
Griner’s return to the Mercury rekindles hope the franchise can make another run to the WNBA Finals. The former Baylor star helped the franchise win its third title in 2014 and has averaged 17.7 points and 7.6 rebounds during her nine-year career. She was runner-up for Most Valuable Player in 2021, when the Mercury also played in the Finals but lost to the Chicago Sky.
Griner said she was more rusty on the court than expected. But given the trials and emotions of the past 18 months, it was a pretty good night.
“Not where I want it to be, but on the right track,” Griner said. “We’re making the right moves.”
Phoenix opens the regular season in Los Angeles next Friday.
The extra exposure from being detained in Russia for having vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage has given Griner a platform to advocate for other Americans being detained abroad. She was already an LGBTQ+ activist since publicly coming out in 2013 and became the first openly gay athlete to be sponsored by Nike.
Griner announced in April that she is working with Bring Our Families Home, a campaign formed last year by the family members of American hostages and wrongful detainees held overseas. She said her team has been in contact with the family of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is being detained in Russia on espionage charges. (Associated Press).
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Presenting… Randy Rainbow.
https://twitter.com/randyrainbow/status/1658098490847686659?s=61&t=I_Od53CbnPTsbLcD0baXPg
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Another Reason to Live in New York City.
Inside the Last Old-School Seltzer Shop in New York.
Brooklyn Seltzer Boys has a century-old carbonator and a museum with a spritzing station. Beat that, LaCroix.
A century ago, before it was called sparkling water or club soda, and before it was sold as LaCroix and Spindrift, it was called seltzer. No plastic bottles or aluminum cans magically appeared on grocery shelves. Instead, factories across New York City pumped fizzy water into heavy siphon bottles that were distributed by deliverymen.
Nearly all those seltzer men are gone now; one seltzer works remains.
In an industrial space in the Cypress Hills section of Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Seltzer Boys factory is known among industry insiders, certain foodies and seltzer fans, but that’s about it. Its owner, Alex Gomberg, wants to change that.
Originally called Gomberg Seltzer Works, the business was started in 1953 in Canarsie, Brooklyn, by Moe Gomberg, Mr. Gomberg’s great-grandfather. After nearly closing for good during the pandemic, Brooklyn Seltzer moved and (somewhat) modernized its factory, introducing a visitable space called the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum.
“We want to introduce the next generation to seltzer,” Mr. Gomberg said.
The museum, which is appointment-only, features vintage bottles from seltzer companies all over the country and exhibitions on how the bubbly elixir is made, as well as its historical and cultural role.
Mr. Gomberg created the museum along with Barry Joseph, a seltzer historian — perhaps the seltzer historian — who also teaches digital learning and engagement for museums at New York University. Mr. Joseph arranged for a dozen graduate students from N.Y.U. and Columbia University, most of whom were from China and had never heard of seltzer, to help create the exhibitions as part of their studies.
“They caught on quick,” Mr. Joseph said. “They got it.”
Earlier this month at the Cypress Hills space, Mr. Joseph walked along a wall showing a 2,500-year-old seltzer history timeline that dated to ancient Greece. He inspected illustrations of how seltzer is made and bottled, as well as digital 3-D models of the machines.
New York seltzer, which has become a culinary staple in the city like knishes and Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda, has its own history, Mr. Joseph said.
Many Eastern European Jews who enjoyed seltzer overseas began making, delivering and selling it in the early 1900s, largely on the Lower East Side. They also sold it from soda fountains — either straight up, as a citrus concoction known as a lime rickey, or with milk and chocolate syrup known as an egg cream.
While many Americans switched to soda after World War II, many Jews in the city stuck with seltzer, Mr. Joseph said.
At Brooklyn Seltzer Boys, the museum and the factory can merge into one educational experience. Next to the exhibitions, delivery workers back up their trucks into an area to drop off cases of empty bottles and pick up freshly filled ones. Workers buzz around cleaning, refilling and repairing old nozzle tops.
There is also a spritzing station where visitors can spray seltzer from a bottle, Three Stooges style.
“We wanted to present the rich history of seltzer in New York City within a longstanding mom-and-pop business that still serves as a functioning seltzer works,” Mr. Joseph said.
The seltzer-making area is a Willy Wonka series of units connected by pipes. The star of the show — and the company’s workhorse — is a squat, century-old carbonator that blasts bubbles into triple-filtered tap water at a 43-degree chill. Its 65 pounds per square inch of pressure — too strong for plastic bottles, hence the use of handblown glass bottles made in Europe — breathes bite into an egg cream.
“Good seltzer should hurt — it should be carbonated enough that it kind of stings the back of your throat,” said Mr. Gomberg, who earned a master’s degree in higher education before opting to revive his family’s abandoned delivery service a decade ago. Now his crew has roughly 600 customers (a 10-bottle case costs $50, including delivery).
In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic halted seltzer production and almost persuaded the Gomberg family to shutter the business for good. Instead, they sold the building and bought their current factory in Cypress Hills.
“He found a way to reinvent the business,” said Alex’s father, Kenny Gomberg, who took over from his father, Pacey Gomberg, and brother-in-law Irv Resnick.
Now the elder Gomberg, who built most of the factory himself, is basically his son’s handyman; he is virtually the only one who can repair these obsolete machines.
On a recent afternoon, Walter Backerman, 70, was filling his bottles when a ratty old van backed in. His father, Abraham (Big Al) Backerman, was buried with a seltzer bottle. The younger Mr. Backerman, one of the last of the old-school seltzer men, hobbles from years of lugging cases up and down stairs. His carrying shoulder is shot. Each case weighs more than 60 pounds full and 45 empty, he said.
But he still wakes before 4 a.m. to serve his customers, partly to keep the seltzer man tradition going.
“These bottles are basically indestructible. I’m just their custodian,” he said. “And since the Gombergs decided to reinvest and keep the last seltzer works going, someone else will be able to deliver these bottles after I’m gone.” (New York Times).
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