Yes, today we're looking at problems for senators Joe Manchin and Kyrstem Sinema -- but no, it's not the problem of the blocking change to the filibuster rule.

For Manchin, it's a personal matter to a degree, overlapping with a crisis for some of his constituents.  Last November, two pharmaceutical giants -- Upjohn and Mylan -- merged.  As a result of that, the united companies formed a new unit called Viatris, who had a plant in Morgantown, West Virginia.  However, this week that Viatris facility is closing down in order to move operations to India and Australia, in order to ""maximize the best interests of the shareholders," the company says.  Because of this, 1,400 West Virginians who work at Viatris in Morgantown will be unemployed, and are appealing to their senior senator, Joe Manchin to help.

The problem?  The person who had been chief executive of Mylan before the merger is Heather Bresch – who is Joe Manchin’s daughter.  And, to make matters more problematic (and yes, it’s possible) got $31 million when the companies united.  Making matters worse still is that there have been many reports that recommend keeping pharmaceutical production in the United States because of security lapses overseas.  “This is pure insanity,” says investigative journalist Katherine Eban, “"It seems like it is both pharmaceutical and national security suicide to close this plant."
 
As for Kyrsten Sinema, her problem is somewhat similar to her filibuster blockage, though on another important issue – the reconciliation bill.  There was a great deal of excitement in the news yesterday when it appeared there could possibly be agreement on the Infrastructure Bill.  For that bill to have meaning, though, House Democrats have said they’d only vote for it if the larger $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill would pass.  That seemed the easier of the issues, since all it would take in the Senate was agreement among all 50 Democrats, with Vice President Harris breaking the tie.
 
The problem?  Lost amid much of the headline was Sinema saying, “"I have also made clear that while I will support beginning this process, I do not support a bill that costs $3.5 trillion.”
 
That’s a hurdle. Anything less than $3.5 billion will likely be unacceptable to progressive Democrats in the House, since in a perfect world they’d like the amount significantly higher.  So, if Sinema holds to her statement, both the Infrastructure Bill and reconciliation could both go down to defeat.
 
How flexible she’ll be – especially in what is sure to be major pressure by the White House – remains to be seen.  She did leave some cracks open, but noting, “…in the coming months, I will work in good faith to develop this legislation with my colleagues and the administration to strengthen Arizona's economy and help Arizona's everyday families get ahead," 
 
More to the point, though, is – what on earth is she thinking??  I could ask the same about her obstinacy against changing the filibuster, though while that is probably more important, in order to pass a Voting Rights bill to protect democracy, I can almost sort of understand it, trying to protect a sort-of, kind-of tradition.  But blocking a signature bill for the Biden Administration is just bizarre.  Yes, it’s a huge amount of money, but not only is even more needed, but much of it could be paid for.  And it would be an utterly massive win for Democrats.  I do think some agreement will ultimately be found, though I don’t know that.
 
But above all, the Manchin-Sinema tag team do seem to have a talent for landing in the middle of messes.
​

​Yesterday, I mentioned that it was surprising, but nice to see Shepard Smith as the in-studio host on CNBC during his news show’s time slot.  Though I added that he didn’t do all that much, just introduce an event at the top and send it to the on-site announcers.  He’s still doing that (which remains good to see), but because they have a lot more events today that’s given him even more to do, and he’s been hosting a bit more.  Very nice.
 
Sorry to see the U.S. women’s softball team lose in the Gold medal game to Japan.  The Japanese team is the defending Olympic champs, and the U.S. team got great pitching in all their games, but very little hitting, and that caught up with them in the finals, losing 2-0.  Unfortunately, baseball and women’s softball won’t be in the Paris Olympics in 2024 – though I’m sure skateboarding will be.  And rhythmic gymnastics.  And trampoline.  However, it’s expected to return in 2028 when the Olympics return to Los Angeles.  Though the Canadian team has just appealed to the IOC to reverse its decision and include softball in 2024.  The IOC tends to move with the speed,  compassion and good sense of a glacier, but we'll see.
 
One of the more surprising finishes, for several reasons, was the Men’s 2000 meter 4x, a race that Great Britain had won the past five Olympics.  But not only did they not win the race this year, and Australia did (last Olympics Silver medalists), but the British 4-man team didn’t even finish in the medals – but what made that even more odd was one of the reasons how they lost:  in the last 500 meters, trying to make up the distance, they got so out of sync that they began rowing out of their lane (something I’ve never seen before) and almost crashed into the Italian team before righting themselves.
 
The other day, I wrote about the IOC “ban” of Russia for a major transgression, but I think it deserves more explanation, since I was only making a quip about how name they created for athletes being ROC (for Russian Olympic Committee), when it should be Russian Olympic Team, but that would be “ROT.”  For the IOC to ban a country, you know the offense had to be massive and blatant.  And it was.  Russia put up a building next to the drug testing center – and from there, they were able to cut a all in the center next door.  And every night, they would sneak in and exchange the doping results for Russians with clean ones.  Yet even at that, the IOC created a massive loophole that not only allowed Russian athletes to compete, but do so while using a name with “Russia” in it, and with “anthem” music by Tchaikovsky, a Russian composer.  I know the explanation had to do with not wanting to punish the innocent athletes – but that defeats the purpose of punishing the country.  And I’m sure the IOC has no idea how innocent all those athletes were.  Maybe some were innocent, though maybe some or most knew full well what was going on.
 
While I sort of like the new 3x3 basketball competition, since it’s very fast-paced and sort of like pick-up street basketball, I’m not quite sure why it exists as an Olympic sport.  After all, they have basketball.  And at its core, it’s played like basketball is played. The rules are different, but the skill to play it is 100% pure basketball.  The best I can figure is that since pros now play basketball in the Olympics, this lets amateurs play.  And I think that’s nice – except I don’t think it’s a good-enough reason for it to exist as an Olympic sport.  If you don’t like professionals playing, don’t have them.  And if you’re okay with it, fine, then that’s who plays.  And it’s not like, “Well, okay, pros play in basketball, so we’ll have the best amateur college players in the 3x3 competition” – since that’s not what’s happening.  As far as I can tell, these are people who play 3x3 basketball during the year, not The Best Amateur College Players.   In fact, for all I know, they’re all professional.
 
More to come…

 
Finally.  After only half a year, someone in government thought it was a good idea to investigate why a mob of insurrectionists broke into the U.S. Capitol and tried to overthrow the government.  I understand that the Republican Party isn’t as represented on the House Committee as they wanted to be – but that was by their choice, considered that they also previously turned down the option of having a non-partisan blue-ribbon panel investigate.  But then, if my party’s leader and many of its leading officials helped incite the insurrection, I might not want it investigated either, assuming I was okay with it and with democracy.
 
I didn’t see all of the first day’s hearing, but saw a fair amount, as well as a lot of coverage after the fact.  However, I only watched a few seconds of the new footage because a)  for my sensibilities, it was too ghoulish to take, and b) I already knew how horrifically violent it was because seeing how even more violent..
 
I thought Officer Michael Fantone was especially moving in this statement, particularly when he got so emotional that he pounded the table when about the members of Congress he was protecting that day who have dismissed the violence as being peaceful, and like visiting tourists or that maybe it didn’t even happen.
 
"What makes the struggle harder and more painful is to know so many of my fellow citizens, including so many of the people I put my life at risk to defend, are downplaying or outright denying what happened," Officer Fantone said. "I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them and the people in this room, but too many are now telling me that hell doesn't exist or that hell actually wasn't that bad.
 
"The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful!" he said, slamming the table with explosive emotion. "My law enforcement career prepared me to cope with some of the aspects of this experience. Being an officer, you know your life is at risk whenever you walk out the door, even if you don't expect otherwise law-abiding citizens to take up arms against you. But nothing — truly nothing — has prepared me to address those elected members of our government who continue to deny the events of that day, and in doing so, betray their oath of office. Those very members whose lives, offices, staff members I was fighting so desperately to defend."
 
He was impressive throughout.  If you missed his full presentation, this is what I mean – 

But of course, this was only Day One.  I look forward in the days and weeks ahead who they are going to subpoena.  Perhaps even some of those who hired the hitmen.
 
Somewhat related to this, I was very glad to see that the House's General Counsel's Office will not represent Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) in the lawsuit filed against him by Rep. Eric Swalwell for inciting the riot. The Counsel’s Office says the suit "does not challenge any institutional action of the House or any of its component entities."
 ​
Perhaps we may find out that inciting an insurrection, as well as attempting to carry one out was not really a good idea after all.

​We watch the Olympics all day so you don't have to.

A huge shame for Simone Biles dropping out of the team competition, referring to mental stress pressures.  Oddly, last night I was watching yet another TV ad with her and thought, “Geez, she’s getting stretched awfully thin.”  I know that this isn’t The Cause, nor directly related to that, but I’m sure it’s part of the larger picture. What isn’t clear in any of the articles I’ve read is if she’s pulled out of the rest of the Olympics, including the individual events that come later, or only from the team competition because she felt she would drag down the rest of the team.  But in the individual events, however she does would only reflect on her alone, not impact others.  Why the question also came to mind is that she showed up for the press conference and seemed to handle it well. And also, there oddly hasn't been all that much coverage about her decision, including on ESPN, which suggests she might possibly still be competing.  I'll be curious to find out.  I assume the answer will come soon.  
 
 Another of my favorite lesser-known, offbeat events was on yesterday morning, Cross Country Mountain Bike.  As I watched, I realized that in some ways it’s the dirt equivalent of another of my faves that I mentioned the other day, Whitewater Canoe Slalom, with the bike crashing up and down over rocks, across a twisting course curving back on itself and through pummeling nature. It’s a great treat, but I always wonder how in the world every rider doesn’t have their tires burst as the bikes fly over ledges and spin over boulders with sharp edges.  And then, one of the leaders was knocked out of the race when his tire was shredded off the wheel and flattened.  He was not a happy camper.  I’m just shocked it doesn’t happen more.  Yes, I’m certain their bikes are made special, but still, they’re bikes, tires and boulders.  And as poor timing would have it, NBC had Whitewater Canoe Slalom on at the same time on another channel.  After some moments of panic, happily they didn’t overlap.
 
Katie Ledecky was back in the pool, winning her heat for the 200 meter freestyle.  But it’s the 800-meter and 1500-meter races I’m most looking forward to.  And she came back later in the day to win her heat in the 1500.  But that’s not what so impressive.  Because, although these two races were on TV Monday, it ignores the time difference in Japan, and – in reality – Katie Ledecky swam her 400 meter race in the morning, came back to win her 200 meter heat later, and returned to again swim, not a short race, but the longest of 1500 meters the same day!  She’s quite remarkable.
 
At one point, when I switched the channel, the event was skateboarding, and I heard the announcer tell us, “And so we have two 13-year-olds and a 16-year-old competing in the finals.”  I watched for about a half-minute and then switched away.  Not just for it being an event I don’t care enough about, but I’m also not sure if I could take hearing the winner weep, “I have wanted to do this my entire life.” 
 
I’m surprised how mediocre Jessica Mendoza is as an on-site commentator for women’s softball.  Mendoza is good enough to have been made part of the Major League Baseball team for Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN, where she does a very solid job.  But here at the Olympics, she’s almost – I don’t know, the best word I can think of is “giggly.”  She’s a former Olympian and clearly feels a closeness to the team, but that’s no excuse.  I finally saw her do an okay job when in-studio, away from the team, giving her analysis – but then at the end she mucked it up by talking about how she’s wearing her “lucky braids.”  She’s much better than this.
 
Interestingly, the late afternoon coverage on CNBC is hosted in-studio by Shepard Smith.  It's during the time slot when his news report would normally be on, but I'm sure he had the option of letting someone else handle the small assignment.  He doesn't have all that much to do, pretty much just set up the event and send it off the the on-site announcers, but I still like that he's doing it.
 
Nice moment in the women’s triathlon when Bermuda’s Flora Duffy took control of the race and ran away with it during the running portion, becoming not only the first athlete from Bermuda to win a Gold medal, but it made Bermuda the least-populace nation to ever have a Gold medal.  Katie Zaferes of the U.S. was neck-and-neck in the early part of the run, but was able to hold on and easily win the Bronze medal.  And it was all made more interesting for taking place much of the time during the rain – and having a rainbow pop through.
 
Speaking of the triathlon, there was a strange occurrence the day before at the start of the men’s triathlon, when the athletes dove in the water to begin the race with their swim.  But the starter pushed the buzzer too soon before a boat got away, blocking some of the swimmers.  They all had to be called back to start again.

​We watch the Olympics all day so that you don’t have to.
 
It’s hard to overstate how amazing Katie Ledecky’s achievement was yesterday.  Yes, it’s disappointing that she finished out of the medals in the 200-meter race.  However, that she was a close contender in the shortest sprint race and then not only won the longest 1500-meter race is remarkable enough – but that she swam both in the same day only one hour apart (!!) is utterly stunning.  This is like if 100-meter Olympic Gold medalist Usain Bolt not only also ran in the 1500-meter race, which is near-unthinkable, but almost won – and even more, did so just 60 minutes after he had sprinted in the 100-meter dash and had a chance to cool down.  As I wrote the other day, Ledecky often won all four races she competed in, but it’s the long distance 800-meter and 1500-meter races that she was untouchable at.
 
The U.S. women’s soccer team played a lackluster 0-0 tie against Australia, but it was at least understandable in that they knew if they just protected themselves and tied they would make it through the qualifying round and into the knock-out round.  I’ve thought that Julie Foudy has done a very good job as an analyst on the broadcast, not falling into the problem I’ve written about where former athletes doing commentary become cheerleaders for their friends.  It’s all the more impressive since she’s such an important part of recent women’s soccer and is probably very close to many of them.  But she was critical of the play, settling for a safe tie, though she did acknowledge she understood.
 
A lot was made of Brazilian surfer Italo Ferreira breaking his board on a huge wave, but coming back to win the Gold medal on a spare board by noting how he learned to surf on the lid of his father’s fishing bin.  This is nice story about how he learned, but unless his replacement board was the lid of a fishing bin, it’s completely meaningless to how he won.  In fact, his coach got him an identical surfboard to what he’d been using.  Also worth mentioning, though, is that this was the first-ever men’s Gold medal awarded in surfing.  And American Carissa Moore won the first-ever Gold medal for a woman.  Here’s video, though, of that massive wave breaking his board. (It’s about a minute long and then repeats, for some reason) –
 

If you didn't see Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, his Main Story was on housing discrimination, mostly from the perspective of the government over many decades.  It's a longer piece than usual, over half-an-hour, but very good.  Infuriating for the most part, but he's able to get some good humor in.  Along with a nice moment with old film footage of two women, Rose and Angie.  My only quibble is when he gives his "solution" to all the problems -- he presents it with such certainty, but in the end he doesn't really offer a solution, only a suggestion on how to start a discussion for a solution.  It reminded me a little of Steve Martin's joke on how to make two million dollars.  "First," he says, "get a million dollars..."