Welcome back to 10 Things in Politics. Sign up here to receive this newsletter. Send tips to [email protected] or tweet me at @BrentGriffiths.
Here's what we're talking about:
- A guide to the wealth – and potential ethical conflicts – of 31 top Biden appointees
- The number of white people in the US fell for the first time in recorded history
- The 11 best staff Twitter accounts on Capitol Hill
Programming note: No newsletter on Monday, but I'll be back in your inbox first thing Tuesday.
With Phil Rosen.
Clockwise from top left: Greg Nash/AP; Seth Wenig/AP; Seth Wenig/AP; Jacquelyn Martin/AP; Alex Brandon/AP; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
1. INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE: Government watchdogs tore into Donald Trump's Cabinet. Several top officials later resigned under ethics-related clouds. Now, these same good-government types are frustrated with President Joe Biden, especially with the revolving-door nature of many of his picks who made millions working for or on behalf of major companies.
- Key quote: "They're hiring a lot of people connected to corporations or who were shadow lobbyists for corporations," Walter Shaub, a former director of the Office of Government Ethics, told my colleagues. Shaub, who once sought work in the administration, has become an outspoken critic of what he views as its failure to live up to Biden's promise of higher ethical standards.
Our road map for the income, past clients, and potential ethics land mines for Biden's top officials:
"A pro-'big law' bias" is how Jeff Hauser, the founder of the Revolving Door Project, sums up the administration's hiring trend.
- A few companies keep popping up: Take Uber: Secretary of State Antony Blinken's consulting firm advised it. Elizabeth Prelogar, the Justice Department's chief advocate before the Supreme Court, counted the ride-hailing giant as one of her clients at a major law firm. And Matt Olsen, Biden's pick to lead the DOJ's national security division, has worked at Uber since 2018 as chief security and trust officer.
- Some of the potential conflicts strike at the heart of their jobs: Tommy Beaudreau is the second-ranking official at the Interior Department. Beaudreau earned nearly $2.4 million from the law firm Latham & Watkins from 2020 to the early months of 2021. One of his clients was Vineyard Wind, the company behind a proposed wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts. Before his confirmation, the Biden administration touted its approval of the project.
Our full guide to the wealth - and potential ethical conflicts - of 31 top Biden appointees
2. The number of white people in the US fell for the first time in recorded history: New demographic data from the census revealed how America changed over the past decade. The US now has its most diverse population ever recorded, per the long-awaited release.
Redistricting will once again alter politics: The data's release kicks off the pandemic-delayed redrawing of political districts. Republicans hold far more of this power than Democrats, making it more likely the GOP will retake the US House and, perhaps, shore up its standing for the decade to come. Brutal court fights over district lines are expected to ensue.
- Retirees are powering the nation's biggest boom: The Villages in Florida is the fastest-growing US metro area, illustrating the continuing power of the fast-growing retirement community. This incredible growth continues to reshape politics, pushing the largest swing state closer to conservatives.
Rural America continues to shrink: As you can see from the map, large sections of South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, and Mississippi have experienced population declines in the past decade.
US Census Bureau
3. If you want to know what's happening on Capitol Hill, you have to follow these accounts: Capitol Hill staffers used to be invisible figures working behind the scenes. Now, Twitter has become a free-for-all of political debates, food reviews, and banter about some of the most powerful people in the world.
Here are three people from our list:
- Want to see all the weird charts your tax dollars help pay for?: There's a Twitter account for that. It's run by Bill Gray, a former C-SPAN producer who chronicles every chart from the serious to the red meat to the pop-culture references or whatever "Hot FERC Summer" is supposed to be.
- Glass houses: Historically and currently, the House and the Senate have always managed to irk each other. Aaron Fritschner, the communications director of Rep. Don Beyer, a Democrat of Virginia, has all the cross-Capitol drama you crave.
- The best photobombs: Staffers like Jake Wilkins, the communicators director for Sen. Kevin Cramer, a Republican of North Dakota, laugh when they accidentally photobomb their boss on TV.
Here's all 11 of the best staff Twitter accounts on Capitol Hill.
4. Supreme Court sided with New York landlords: The nation's highest court "lifted New York's pandemic-related ban on residential evictions, siding with a group of landlords who said their rights were being violated," The Washington Post reports. The three liberal justices opposed the court's order.
- Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected a challenge to a university's vax mandate: Barrett, who serves as the circuit justice for the federal appeals court involved in the case, made the decision by herself to reject an appeal to block Indiana University's vaccine requirement for students. This was SCOTUS' first time confronted with a legal challenge to a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
5. Pentagon sends troops to evacuate US Embassy in Kabul: Roughly 3,000 troops are being sent to the major airport of Afghanistan's capital to assist the State Department in evacuating more Americans as the Taliban continue to retake key cities. Officials denied the US was abandoning the embassy. Taliban fighters continue to advance faster than most expected, threatening the survival of Afghanistan's government.
6. Fauci says we'll all eventually need booster shots: "No vaccine, at least not within this category, is going to have an indefinite amount of protection," Dr. Anthony Fauci said on NBC's "Today" show. The FDA has signed off on immunocompromised Americans getting another dose.
7. Sen. Rand Paul faces questions over his wife's COVID-relevant stock trade: Paul has acknowledged his wife, Kelley Paul, purchased up to $15,000 in Gilead Sciences - the drugmaker behind the antiviral drug remdesivir - in February 2020. The disclosure comes 16 months late and also raises insider-knowledge questions since Paul made her trade before the coronavirus outbreak was classified as a pandemic. The lawmaker's office said the senator only recently learned that he failed to properly disclose the transaction. Dig into the rest of the story.
8. Britney Spears' dad promises to step down as conservator: Jamie Spears said in a court filing that he would work with the pop star's attorney to transition her to a new conservator. Spears also attacked his daughter's claims about the arrangement, suggesting she might not "know or remember" the things she's "complaining about." The latest on a story that has sparked a national discussion.
9. Season's greetings will be costlier: The US Postal Service is planning a price hike for shipping packages during the holidays to cover "extra costs." This all points to the underlying trend of pandemic-driven delays hampering the shipping industry, as well as the increasing popularity of online shopping. See the breakdown of what's going up, what's going down, and why you'll be paying more this holiday season.
Charlie Neibergall/AP
10. Almost heaven: They built it, and the Chicago White Sox came with an ending to remember for the first MLB game to be played in Iowa. The White Sox walked off with Tim Anderson's two-run blast into a row of corn, capping an incredible day near the site where "Field of Dreams" was filmed. The chef Guy Fieri even created apple-pie hotdogs for the occasion.
Today's trivia question: Incredibly, there is a connection between baseball and the census. Which book written by a former Census Bureau worker later became a beloved baseball movie classic? Email your guess and a suggested question to me at [email protected].
- Yesterday's answer: In the book "Field of Dreams" is based on, a fence separated the diamond from the cornfield. The movie allowed the corn to become the field's wall.