IMPORTANT READS

SUPPLY CHAIN INTERRUPTUS - Washington pundits generally see the supply-chain hiccups and partially related price inflation as political risks for the Biden White House. Probably that’s so but there’s also opportunity for a left-ward administration.

WAR MACHINE - Even as Congress moves to increase the Pentagon budget well beyond the astronomical levels proposed by the Biden administration, a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has outlined three different ways to cut $1 trillion in Department of Defense spending over the next decade

STATE GOV - Gov. Gavin Newsom broke his nearly two-week silence on Tuesday to make two key points: California is seeing an uptick in coronavirus cases that could signal the start of a worrisome winter surge, and California’s economy “continues to dominate” the rest of the country’s. 

ROBOTICS - Tick-tick-tick — each sweep of Big Tech’s clock enhances corporate power and sweep away more of our civil rights.

POLITICAL IMPACT - The stunning defeat suffered by the Democrats in Virginia, a surprisingly close race in deep blue New Jersey and the defeat of a “police defunding measure” in Minneapolis represent a remarkable turning point in American politics.

SAVING DEMOCRACY - On Tuesday, J.D. Vance, author of the bestselling Hillbilly Elegy and now candidate for the U.S. Senate from Ohio, gave a keynote speech at the National Conservatism Conference titled "The Universities Are the Enemy."

WEALTH & CORRUPTION - There are many ways in which the United States is not one country.

LABOR WATCH - It was called “Striketober.” While politicians in Washington bickered over infrastructure, jobs, and the social safety net, unionized workers across the heartland went on strike to get their fair share directly.

NATIONAL POLITICS - Investigative accounts of the Trump administration, like the recent Washington Post feature on the January 6 insurrection, routinely write about three kinds of conservatives.

BUDGET WATCH - Right now, the United States is locked in a contentious debate over the Build Back Better plan, which will make a significant difference in the lives of millions of individuals and families.

INTERNET TAKEOVER - As Facebook faces a firestorm for changing its corporate name to Meta amid heightened scrutiny over how the tech titan harms humanity, Greek economist and Progressive International co-founder Yanis Varoufakis on Friday called out the company for stealing the moniker of a global anti-capitalist think tank.

CRISIS POLITICS - Speaking to Salon’s Chauncy de Vega about how the United States is mired in a crisis of democracy that shows parallels with Germany’s descent into Nazism during the 1930s, Norman Ornstein recently noted that “Most people don’t pay close attention, day to day, to what’s going on” in the political sphere.

DAMAGING REVELATIONS - Facebook has been at the centre of a wave of damaging revelations after a whistleblower released tens of thousands of internal documents and testified about the company’s inner workings to US senators.

FILM PRODUCTION SAFETY - In what appears to be a tragic accident, actor Alec Baldwin shot dead a cinematographer on Oct 21, 2021, while discharging a prop gun on set in New Mexico.

CITIZENSHIP POLITICS - Congressional Democrats are now considering a Watered-Down Version of immigration reform, a version they might hope to send through the budget reconciliation process as part of President Biden’s “Build Back Better” spending bill. 

NORTH KOREA WATCH - North Korea is carrying out one missile test after another lately, at the same time indicating (or is it?) interest in talks with South Korea about reducing tensions. 

DC POLITICS - In the last week, Senator Manchin (D-WV) has become increasingly public with his opposition to the Clean Electricity Performance Program (CEPP), a policy designed to drive down power sector carbon emissions which is part of the reconciliation bill under consideration in Congress.

HUMAN RIGHTS - Everyone who followed the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan was horrified by the drone attack, called a “tragic mistake” by the Pentagon, which killed 10 members of a single family, including 7 children.

FEES UNAPPEALING - It’s already hard enough to push back against the LA City Council’s gentrification juggernaut, but they’re planning to make it even harder. 

LEGAL INJUSTICE - Texas’s cruel new anti-abortion law is more than just an unconstitutional restriction on reproductive choice. It’s also an egregious new frontier in late capitalism.

OPINION - A former Facebook employee hailed by the media as a whistleblower testified this week on Capitol Hill about the social media giant's algorithm, and how it harms children and democracy.