Joe Manchin Got the Voting Bill He Wanted. Time to Pass It. This antidemocratic (and anti-Democratic) agenda began before President Donald Trump, but he supercharged it. Now, the former president and his supporters — who tried unsuccessfully to overturn the last election by lying about fraud and trying to strong-arm state officials and Congress into flipping electoral votes — have continued their crusade against democracy at the state and local levels. ........... This slimmed-down package jettisons some of the more controversial elements of the earlier plan. It would not, for instance, restructure the Federal Election Commission or mandate the use of nonpartisan commissions for congressional redistricting. ............ The package’s provisions range from making Election Day a public holiday to protecting local election officials from partisan interference. Partisan gerrymandering and voter caging, a sketchy method of purging voting rolls, would be banned. Same-day voter registration would be available in all states, as would automatic voter registration systems. A 30-minute wait-time limit would be imposed for in-person voting, and uniform, flexible ID requirements would be established in states that require voter IDs. .......... “Put simply, if the new bill is enacted, more citizens will be able to register to vote, vote in person and by mail and have their votes counted” ......... To avoid death by filibuster, it needs the support of all 50 Democrats plus 10 Republicans. Absent that, Democrats will face a hard choice: Let this crucial legislation die or eliminate the legislative filibuster in order to pass the bill on a party-line vote
. .......... while there were some pieces of the For the People Act that made Mr. Manchin uneasy, his primary objection was that it lacked buy-in from Republicans. .......... Republican-controlled legislatures already have passed laws restricting ballot access in at least 18 states. .......... when voting rights are being ratcheted backward by one party, bipartisanship can’t be an excuse for inaction.
15 million people
living legally in the United States, most of whom contribute as much as any natural-born American to this country’s civic, cultural and economic life, don’t have a say in matters of politics and policy because we — resident foreign nationals, or “aliens” as we are sometimes called — cannot vote. ........... it’s time for Democrats to radically expand the electorate. Proposing federal legislation to give millions of young people and essential workers a clear road to citizenship is a good start. But there’s another measure that lawmakers both in Washington and state capitals should put in place: lifting voting restrictions on legal residents who aren’t citizens — people with green cards, people here on work visas, and those who arrived in the country as children and are still waiting for permanent papers. ............. It’s easy to assume that restricting the franchise to citizens is an age-old, nonnegotiable fact. But it’s actually a relatively recent convention and a political choice. Early in the United States’ history, voting was a function not of national citizenship but of gender, race and class. ......... Arkansas was the last state to eliminate noncitizen voting in 1926
.......... The United States already has plenty of institutions that account for noncitizens: The census aims to reach all residents because it believes everyone, even aliens, matters. Corporations enjoy free speech and legal personhood — and they’re not even people. Would it be such a stretch to give noncitizen residents a say in who gets elected to their state legislature, Congress or the White House? ........... allowing noncitizens to vote in federal, state and municipal elections would help revitalize American democracy at a time when enthusiasm and trust are lacking.
........... The United States not only allows dual citizenship but also allows dual citizens to vote — and from abroad. Is there any reason to think resident foreigners should be less represented? ............ It took me 15 years and over $10,000 in legal fees (not to mention the cost of college) to obtain permanent residency. The citizenship test and oath feel comparatively like a piece of cake. ........... Since 1992, Takoma Park, Md., has allowed all residents to vote, regardless of their citizenship. Nine additional Maryland towns, as well as districts in Vermont and Massachusetts, have voted to re-enfranchise noncitizens. The cities of Chicago, Washington and Portland are also considering the idea, and a bill that would give New York City’s authorized immigrants voting rights has a new supermajority in the City Council.
The Endless Catastrophe of Rikers Island “There’s garbage everywhere, rotting food with maggots, cockroaches, worms in the showers, human feces and piss,” Ms. Gallagher wrote. “Most of the toilets are broken so men are given plastic bags to relieve themselves in.” ...... “I met multiple men with broken hands and legs that were not being treated,” she continued. ......... More than half of the inmates have received mental health services, and as of last year, nearly one in five had been diagnosed with a serious mental illness. ............ Meanwhile, corrections officers are calling in sick en masse — nearly 1,800 on Wednesday alone — leaving their colleagues to work double and triple shifts and effectively ceding control of parts of the complex to gangs
. ........ New York, like the rest of the country, locks up far too many people for no good reason.
........... close to 6,000 people at the moment. Taxpayers are charged nearly half a million dollars per year to incarcerate each of these people — the vast majority of whom haven’t even had a trial yet
. .......... pretrial detention for even a few days makes someone more likely to commit a crime, not less.
The World Is at War With Covid. Covid Is Winning. the race to vaccinate the world against Covid has unfolded like a symphony without a conductor ...... More than 80 percent of the four billion vaccine doses that had been distributed as of early August went to high- and upper-middle-income countries. ........... The People’s Vaccine Alliance estimated in June that at the current pace, it would take 57 years for low-income countries to vaccinate their entire populations
. High-income countries will do so within the next six months (hesitancy notwithstanding). ............ This month, the global vaccine-sharing initiative known as Covax cut its projections by nearly 30 percent, saying it would have available only 1.4 billion doses by the end of this year. (The initiative has delivered just 271 million doses so far.) Later, President Biden reassured Americans that the United States had enough shots on hand to offer boosters to all its residents. The World Health Organization has been pleading with wealthy nations to hold off on boosters — and to forgo some of their planned vaccine purchases — until the rest of the world has a chance to secure more first doses. ........... “We were promised a war effort, and instead we got a pillow fight.”
........... While the world dithers, the virus is evolving. Given enough time and enough unvaccinated people, it could mutate its way past our best defenses, potentially sending the world — vaccinated and unvaccinated alike — back to square one.
......... “rich countries behaved worse than anyone’s worst nightmare.” They bypassed Covax — either completely or by slow-walking their financial contributions — cut multiple deals directly with vaccine manufacturers and bought up many more shots than they would need, long before any had been authorized for use. As a result, not only did Covax never amass the purchasing power at the heart of its plan, but also by the time the initiative secured enough funds to start buying shots, it was at the end of a long queue. ........... Group of 7 countries are entitled to more Covax doses by the end of this year than they have pledged to donate to the initiative
. ........... the vast majority of doses pledged by Group of 7 countries in July have yet to be delivered. Also, the shots are only one item on a roster of needs that must be met for vaccination to succeed. Transportation, electricity for cold storage, trained health workers for vaccine administration and campaigns to combat hesitancy all need to be bolstered. .......... regional facilities would make it possible to create shots within 100 days of dangerous diseases emerging and to stop outbreaks before they mushroom into pandemics. Public Citizen estimated that it would take $25 billion, and about six months, to establish a network of such hubs around the world and that if officials started today, the world could have billions more doses by this time next year. ....... the biggest hurdle, by far, appears to be the obstinacy of the world’s leading vaccine makers, which have largely refused to share their technology, even when it was developed with public money.
............... Russia, for example, managed to transfer its technology to scores of smaller companies, including in the global south, in a matter of months ........ The country’s strategy was to not only license its intellectual property but also to send its experts to those companies to show them what to do. ........... a recombinant protein vaccine. It can be grown efficiently in yeast cells, has no onerous storage requirements and should be easy to mass-produce anywhere .......... a vaccine manufacturing facility that can fit inside a shipping container and could theoretically be deployed almost anywhere in the world .......... simpler technology for making mRNA vaccines: Rather than produce the necessary components through a complicated string of in vitro processes, the company grows them in E. coli bacteria ........... To resolve a collective action conundrum, she said, you need two things: a concrete goal and a convincing sales pitch. ......... Vaccinating the world against Covid will cost a lot of money, but almost any amount of money will be worth it. The pandemic has caused the global economy to contract by trillions of dollars and will cost the world trillions more if it’s allowed to fester.
........ The president should also support the NOVID Act, a bill that would authorize spending some $34 billion on the global vaccination effort, and direct his administration to spend the $16 billion or so that Congress has already allocated for that purpose. Only a tiny fraction of that money has been put to use so far, an unconscionable missed opportunity. ........ The United States has untapped leverage with Moderna. The government helped pay to develop the company’s intellectual property and holds a patent on and contractual rights to it. The United States also has leverage with Johnson & Johnson, which the government paid more than $1 billion for advance purchases and research support. One idea, reported on by Nature: Nudge Johnson & Johnson to make use of factories that are currently making the Sputnik V shot, which is similar to the Johnson & Johnson shot but has run into manufacturing troubles. ........... set aside geopolitics and work with China and perhaps Russia to validate their vaccines for broader use ........ China’s vaccine producers Sinovac and Sinopharm have pledged to export two billion doses by the end of this year ......... “But the United States is supposed to stand for something bigger than just taking care of its own citizens.”
Wealthy countries must let go of reserved doses and cede their place in the queue, allowing Covax and the African Union to buy the vaccines the continent seeks and stands ready to finance.
.......... giving boosters to fully vaccinated individuals goes against rich countries’ own interests. Countries with low vaccination rates could act as variant incubators, increasing the risk that more dangerous variants will emerge and enter international travel networks.
................ We have already seen the havoc caused by the Delta variant. Now present in 180 countries, this highly transmissible variant is leading to rising deaths in many rich nations. ......... Global economic losses due to delayed vaccinations may, according to one estimate, run into the trillions of dollars in the coming years if low- and middle-income countries cannot quickly vaccinate most of their people. The International Monetary Fund recently cited access to vaccines as the “principal fault line” along which the global economic recovery is diverging. If vaccine inequity persists, growth rates in poorer countries may not return to prepandemic levels until 2024.
