Good morning! It’s time to get up!
Welcome to the third edition of the morning news roundup. It’s a peek into the stories I am reading and watching each day. After next week, these will only be available to subscribers.
REAL ESTATE: The Daily Beast has a great report out on the so-called “Himalayan Embassy” that is playing host to President Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Bannon is helping run non-profits and right wing media operations at a mansion reportedly rented by his benefactor, exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui. The pair are treating the building as an outpost of their self-declared “New Federal State of China,” which is dedicated to overthrowing the current government in Beijing. Trappings include flags, bulletproof glass and mock diplomatic convoys.
This story is wild and worth reading in full.
STICKING POINTS: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) will need to be on board for Democrats to pass their $3.5 trillion budget proposal through reconciliation. Following a lunch meeting with President Biden yesterday, Manchin indicated he had strong objections to climate change provisions and said we “cannot be moving towards eliminating” fossil fuels.
MAR-A-LAGO: Former President Trump copied a blurb from the publisher when he praised Fox News personality Jesse Watters’ new book.
YEMEN: HuffPost’s Akbar Shahid Ahmed conducted a harrowing interview with a journalist who was detained by a U.S.-linked militant group.
“They don’t want the reality to come out,” journalist Adel Al-Hasani said of the militants, who are one of many warring factions backed by foreign powers in the country’s years long conflict. “They are doing their best to make Yemen a big prison.”
FUN FACT: The blue-ringed octopus is one of the most venomous marine mammals. Bites from these beautiful creatures deliver deadly doses of a powerful neurotoxin. However, deaths from the octopus are extremely rare. It is not necessarily an aggressive creature and tends to only bite people if it is stepped on or handled. Some victims also only have mild symptoms like “tingling in their lips.” Since the octopus is rare, there is no antivenom to treat its bite.
That’s all for today! If you haven’t already, please subscribe to The Uprising and tell your friends! And if you work in politics, please don’t forget to leave a (news) tip on your way out → hunter.walker@protonmail.com
So, to wrap up...we're speeding into the midterms with no infrastructure legislation, an abdication of responsibility on voting rights protections, a failure to fill key spots in the Treasury department, a looming disastrous (apparent) decision to replace Jerome Powell, an inexplicable decision to retain the hapless Christopher Wray, chaotic and inconsistent decisions on foreign policy, anti-democratic forces like Bannon and Erik Prince operating with total impunity, rapid resurgence of the Delta variant, and the cohesion of the Democratic strategists around the 'we're not fascists, vote for us' mantra. What could possibly go wrong?