Good day,

Let’s start with a reaction that I bet Joe Manchin wasn’t anticipating, per CNN.com:

Ratings agencies, which don’t watch cable news or follow Twitter, base their forecasts on facts. And the fact of Manchin’s decision is that it is bad for the economy. So all these people who carry on about socialism and spending money we don’t have and all the rest have it completely backward. Public investment is investment. It helps goose the economy. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar or an idiot.

I tried to go to the Charleston Gazette-Mail on Monday morning to see what the local reaction to Manchin’s announcement was. It’s West Virginia’s flagship newspaper and was once known as a great, crusading, fearless newspaper, a strong liberal voice in what was once a heavily Democratic state. That was the Gazette. The Daily Mail was the right-wing paper. A few years ago, times being what they are, they merged.

This morning, I was hoping to see an editorial at least politely rapping Manchin on the knuckles. I had some issues with my login info, so I couldn’t read much, but I saw enough. There was no editorial criticizing Manchin, and the lead story early Monday morning was about a family adopting a dog (later in the morning, the site did highlight a piece featuring quotes from West Virginians who support Build Back Better). Back in the old days, legendary publisher Ned Chilton, a champion of racial integration and progressive ideas and a quiet hero of American journalism in the twentieth century, lived by the motto “Sustained Outrage.” I didn’t see any outrage today. And this is part of how someone like Manchin gets away with doing this.

One piece really worth reading today is Politico’s thorough and detailed examination of 14 items that are in the current version of Build Back Better and Manchin’s position on each of them. Some of them you know, like paid family leave; others you probably haven’t even heard of, like the methane fee. It’s really good reporting, and it suggests that there is a way forward here for Democrats to pass something early next year.

Moving on: CNN.com dropped a bomb Friday on the January 6 front, with a piece from Jake Tapper and Jamie Gangel reporting that the famous November 4 text urging an “agressive [sic] strategy” to push three states to ignore the will of their voters and overturn the election results may have been written by former Energy Secretary Rick Perry—a surprising development, given that Perry had not heretofore been thought to have been involved in all this. Perry denied authorship but “multiple people” told CNN that the phone number from which the text message originated was Perry’s. This was in the tranche of material Mark Meadows turned over to the select committee before he stopped cooperating. So if indeed Perry was the author, we have a Cabinet secretary suggesting behavior that is unethical and, oh yeah, illegal. Can’t help but wonder what else the committee knows.

For a little breather from the bad news, check out this amazing Washington Post story about Robert Todd Lincoln, the president’s son. He was at his father’s side when he passed away at the house opposite Ford’s Theater. Robert Todd Lincoln was standing a few feet away from James Garfield when he was assassinated. And he had just arrived in Buffalo, New York, to join William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition when he got the news that McKinley had been shot. Small wonder he resisted repeated entreaties to run for president himself.

At NewRepublic.com, read Grace Segers on the post–Manchin announcement state of play on Capitol Hill; my own column on Manchin’s decision, a little dose of the old sustained outrage; and Marion Renault’s fascinating report on conservationists’ search for one particular oak tree in Texas (in an 880,000-acre national park) and what it tells us about conservation efforts more broadly. 

Happy Monday,
—Michael Tomasky, editor

Every day, our journalists are exposing the right’s assaults on our democracy—and pushing the Democrats to go bold to preserve the republic. Here’s a special offer from The New Republic so you won’t miss their scoops and sharp analysis.

Friday’s question: Too many political junkies overreact to polls by assuming that nothing will change between now and the 2022 elections. But history is littered with October Surprises, most notably the Cuban Missile Crisis just before the 1962 midterm elections. Thanks to JFK preventing nuclear war, the Democrats gained three Senate seats while losing four in the House.

There were not one—but two—major foreign policy crises at the end of October in another post–World War II election year. Name the twin (and unrelated) crises, the year, and the electoral result that November.

Answer: The relevant year is 1956. On October 23, the Hungarian people rebelled, and on November 4, two days before the presidential election, Soviet troops moved in. Meanwhile, on October 29, Israel, backed by Britain and France, seized the Suez Canal from Egypt. The United States and Russia eventually worked through the U.N. to pressure a withdrawal from Suez, thereby diluting European influence in the Middle East and limiting Israeli gains. None of this stopped Dwight Eisenhower from carrying 41 states with 457 electoral votes. 

No holiday song more infuriates the War Against Christmas Brigades than Frank Loesser’s 1947 hit, “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” In a shocking triumph of secular humanism, Christmas isn’t even alluded to. But Loesser, who wrote Guys and Dolls, hated the way that his New Year’s Eve tune was played regularly in December. Why was Loesser irked? (Hint: The answer has nothing to do with royalties.)

Answer: The lovesick singer is making a commitment for New Year’s Eve months in advance. In her book, A Most Remarkable Fella: Frank Loesser and the Guys and Dolls in His Life, Susan Loesser writes, “It always annoyed my father when the song was sung during the holidays.”

Today’s political history question: Speaking of Robert Todd Lincoln, there’s one fact from his life that’s even more mind-blowing than his proximity to multiple presidential assassinations. He was once saved from injury or possible death on a train platform in New Jersey by the brother of someone whom fate would connect to the Lincoln name for all time. Who were these brothers?

Today’s Christmas question: It’s an Italian tradition that on Christmas Eve, seafood is served, and is served in that Italian way, to excess (it’s OK—I’m half Italian!). It’s called the Feast of the __ Fishes, the blank being a number. How many fish dishes are traditionally served?