POLITICO NIGHTLY: I want you — to draw a new Uncle Sam

 

BY MATT WUERKER AND MARY NEWMAN Presented by With help from Renuka Rayasam and Myah Ward BLANK CANVAS — To create a successful political cartoon, Matt Wuerker relies on the news cycle, a politician’s unique physical characteristic, common tropes and famous symbology. A regular character in his POLITICO cartoons is Uncle Sam, a handy and durable symbol of the U.S. government. But as he sat down not long ago to draw another Uncle Sam, Wuerker found himself wondering if a tall, skinny, old white guy is an accurate representation of America. So now he’s on a quest, with the help of his “Punchlines” video producers, to update the old icon. He wants your help. We’ve started work on a limited-run “Punchlines” series about Uncle Sam and how best to change him. You can watch the teaser video for the series now. We’ll roll out all the episodes during inauguration week. Video producer Mary Newman, who’s working on the series, called Matt today to talk to him about why he wants to discover the origins and possible future of Uncle Sam. — Brooke Minters, executive producer, video Mary: So why Uncle Sam? Matt: Because in the midst of a crisis of democracy and a historic pandemic, the most important issues to deal with are of course cartoon issues! Kidding! It came to my mind over the last few years as an offshoot of our national conversation about the icons we seemed to take for granted, but maybe shouldn’t have. Here I’m speaking as a white guy who just accepted things like omnipresent Robert E. Lee statues, schools named for Confederate generals , Confederate flags at the race track. It gets you thinking about our nationalistic symbology — especially if you’re a cartoonist. I’m not in favor of chucking Sam just for the sake of revisionism. I mean, the old guy helped us defeat fascism in the last World War. That said, maybe those of us who use symbols like this could consider adjusting and updating him in ways that would make him more in keeping with where we are in 2020, a country that’s doing better when it comes to the struggle for equality across race, gender and sexual orientation. Mary: I know you’ve been talking to some of your professional cartoonist friends about this project. What have you heard from them? Matt: I’ve got a good range of prototypical Uncle Sam caricatures from them that I’m hoping we can figure out how to deploy. I got a little bit of pushback from the cartoonists, and even already on Twitter: “Leave him alone; don’t go near him; he’s a sacred icon.” But mostly everyone is intrigued. Our little effort in this regard may turn out to be no more lasting than the effort to come out with “New Coke.” But that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun with it. Mary: What has been the most surprising bit of information or history that you’ve found in your research so far? Matt: The thing that your team came up with, that Uncle Sam is dead and buried in Troy, N.Y., and has a gravestone even. Mary: Can you explain what we hope to accomplish with this Punchlines spinoff? Matt: It seemed like it might be a fun activity for all those creative souls hunkered down in their Covid bunkers. And since this is POLITICO, I’m sure we’ll get plenty of Sams with a whiff of Biden to him. I mean talk about an old white guy with white hair! On the other hand there’s also lots of potential with “Uncle Don.” But we do not come to bury Uncle Sam — more like revive him. The Punchlines team wants your artwork and concepts to update Uncle Sam. Send us your ideas. Our favorites will be featured on POLITICO in a larger interactive package next month. There are no rules, just submit your ideas and artwork with our form. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. ICYMI: Read Annie Snider’s piece on how one Colorado rancher is trying to solve the West’s water crisis. Will Jack Nicholson make a cameo in the film version? Reach out at mwuerker@politico.com, mnewman@politico.com and rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @wuerker, @marynewmanphoto and @renurayasam. A message from AARP: More than 94,000 residents and staff of nursing homes and long-term care facilities have died from COVID-19. With cases spiking across the country once again, desperate families demand that Congress take immediate action to save lives. aarp.org/nursinghomes   FIRST IN NIGHTLY THE 411 ON THE 1040 — States tax people based on where they live or where they work. But what happens when someone who normally works in an office in one state has spent the past nine months working from home in another? It’s a pandemic tax mess that lawmakers are pushing to sort out , writes senior tax reporter Brian Faler. Many lawmakers want to create a clear, uniform rule as part of the latest coronavirus relief efforts. The clock is ticking, with next year’s tax-filing season set to begin later next month. Pandemic work-from-home arrangements are creating big problems not only for individual Americans, but also for their employers, tax preparers and cash-strapped local governments. Some taxpayers now working in lower-tax states than the ones in which they normally work may spy an opportunity to save on their tax bills. Corporations could potentially find themselves on the hook for paying business taxes in places they don’t normally operate, simply because they now have employees working from home there. It’s even an issue within some states, with fights over whether cities should continue imposing commuter taxes on suburbanites who no longer have commutes. Senate Republicans have called for a national fix. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also has indicated she wants to address the issue. The holdout: Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer. New York is very assertive about its right to tax visitors, and the state’s budget relies heavily on taxes paid by nonresidents. Any federal proposal, even one that holds the state harmless for now, could set a precedent for lawmakers who’ve been pushing broader, more permanent changes that could curtail New York’s power to tax nonresidents.   TRACK THE TRANSITION: President-elect Biden has started to form a Cabinet and announce his senior White House staff. The appointments and staffing decisions made in the coming days send clear-cut signals about Biden's priorities. Transition Playbook is the definitive guide to one of the most consequential transfers of power in American history. Written for political insiders, it tracks the appointments, people, and the emerging power centers of the new administration. Track the transition and the first 100 days of the incoming Biden administration. Subscribe today.     PALACE INTRIGUE POMPEO’S END CIRCUMSTANCE — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo long ago developed a reputation for defiance. He’s ignored diplomatic norms by speaking at the RNC, refused to cooperate with congressional investigations, and breezed ahead with activities that have raised questions about his (and his wife’s) use of taxpayer-funded resources. But, foreign affairs correspondent Nahal Toosi emails Nightly, Pompeo’s latest move — holding a series of holiday gatherings during the rampant coronavirus pandemic — is leading to unusual outcry. Even the cautious union that represents U.S. diplomats is criticizing the plans, arguing they seem to violate Foggy Bottom’s own guidelines. According to The Washington Post, which first reported on the gatherings, at least 900 people have been invited to one event. Pompeo aides haven’t been able to fully explain how they will enforce social distancing rules during the get-togethers, which will be held at the State Department as well as Blair House. The plans are upsetting department employees, including contract catering staff, who fear exposure to the virus. They also pose a headache for foreign officials, who may worry that spurning an invitation could be a diplomatic faux pas. But as of this evening, Pompeo appeared unwilling to cancel the plans. He may be thinking of his boss, President Donald Trump, whose White House is hosting its own holiday events despite Covid-19 concerns. Pompeo, after all, is eyeing a 2024 presidential run, and he’ll need Trump voters’ support (if Trump himself doesn’t run again). Why break with the Republican kingmaker now? BIDENOLOGY Matt Wuerker Welcome to Bidenology, Nightly’s look at the president-elect and what to expect in his administration. Tonight, energy reporter Zack Colman examines Biden’s climate plans: The friction between the lore of Biden as a union ally and the policies of a future President Biden was laid bare in Oct. 22’s final debate: Biden, standing next to President Trump, said a “transition” away from oil and natural gas was in the offing. Such a transition is ostensibly a prerequisite for Biden’s ambitious climate change agenda, including his proposal to neutralize emissions from the power grid by 2035 and do the same for the whole economy by 2050. But fossil fuels and power plants have higher rates of organized labor than their renewable alternatives. This is expected to create tension between the young, environmentally minded voters who warmed to Biden’s bold climate promises and the union workers who have long been a fixture of the Democratic base. Biden, of course, won the election, including Pennsylvania — even after Trump’s consistent message that Biden’s “transition” meant killing energy and union jobs. And the transition is already underway in the marketplace, as even oil majors like BP are ditching carbon-heavy assets in favor of renewable power. (Biden’s climate plan, for what it’s worth, does allow for continued oil, gas and coal if their emissions can be offset, likely through currently expensive carbon capture, storage and utilization technology.) Yet talk of a “just transition” in which workers are taken care of with better-paying jobs and benefits is so far just that — talk. There is quiet acknowledgment among environmentalists and elected Democrats that some occupations will lose in a transition, even if the U.S. economy overall could benefit from excelling in emerging clean energy industries. But arguments about the broad economic benefits are likely to do little to comfort union workers who are still reeling over promises made in the 1990s about the job training and other economic transition policies that would accompany NAFTA. Unionization in solar installation is 4 percent, compared with a 6 percent national average. Fossil fuels fare better, with unionization rates of 10 percent in coal-fired generation, 11 percent in the natural gas industry and 17 percent in transmission, distribution and storage of power, according to a report by the Energy Futures Initiative — run by former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz — and the National Association of State Energy Officials. Of course, labor is far broader than the energy sector — many unions support the emphasis on clean energy. But energy sector unions will present political roadblocks — they report better pay, wages and benefits in the oil and gas sector than workers in renewables do, according to a July survey by North America’s Building Trade Unions, which endorsed Biden for president. And some unions have raised concerns that buzzy cleantech like electric vehicles require fewer parts and, therefore, fewer jobs.       ON THE HILL ‘BIG, STRONG VOTE’ — Pelosi said today she wants to attach a coronavirus relief bill to a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending package that would avert a government shutdown later this month, raising the prospects of long-stalled stimulus relief finally being signed into law, Heather Caygle and Caitlin Emma report. The California Democrat said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed with her about combining the annual spending measures with coronavirus relief during their conversation Thursday, the first time in weeks the two leaders have discussed moving a relief bill. “That would be a hope, because that is the vehicle leaving the station,” Pelosi said of attaching pandemic aid to a must-pass fiscal 2021 funding package during her weekly press conference. “We would want a big, strong vote.” NDAA GETS ITS DAY — The House will vote Tuesday on compromise defense policy legislation, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced today, as lawmakers in both the House and Senate prepare to buck Trump’s threat to veto the legislation. The move comes after the president lashed out against one of his top allies on the Hill, calling Senate Armed Services Chair Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) out by name and faulting him for not repealing legal protections for social media companies as part of the legislation. Hoyer announced the Tuesday vote via Twitter a day after the House and Senate Armed Services committees rolled out their final version of the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act. FROM THE TRANSPORTATION DESK BY LAND, BY AIR, BY CDC — Despite warnings from the CDC, air travel soared over Thanksgiving week — and even more people are expected to travel in the coming weeks for the holidays. In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, transportation reporter Sam Mintz breaks down what we know — and don’t know — about the safety of airplanes during the pandemic. Listen to the latest POLITICO Dispatch podcast ASK THE AUDIENCE Nightly asks you: Every December, the news media reflects on the lives we lost this year, and 2020 has been especially deadly. Tell us who you’ll miss the most — a family member, a civic leader, a celebrity — and how you’ll remember them. Send us your answers in our form, and we’ll publish select responses next week.   NEXT WEEK - DON'T MISS THE MILKEN INSTITUTE FUTURE OF HEALTH SUMMIT 2020: POLITICO will feature a special edition Future Pulse newsletter at the Milken Institute Future of Health Summit. The newsletter takes readers inside one of the most influential gatherings of global health industry leaders and innovators determined to confront and conquer the most significant health challenges. Covid-19 has exposed weaknesses across our health systems, particularly in the treatment of our most vulnerable communities, driving the focus of the 2020 conference on the converging crises of public health, economic insecurity, and social justice. Sign up today to receive exclusive coverage from December 7–9.     AROUND THE NATION ‘WHAT A FOOL’ — New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy admonished Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz today for attending a large gala event in the state after it was forced out of its original location in New York City under pressure from local officials, Nick Niedzwiadek writes. “What a fool,” the Democratic governor told reporters during a press briefing. “You are not welcome in New Jersey, and frankly I don’t ever want you back in this state.” Pictures of the event show dozens of attendees, including Gaetz, milling about in close proximity to one another and scarce mask wearing. The Florida Republican was the back-up headliner of the event — put on by the New York Young Republican Club — after former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin backed out of the indoor event. James O’Keefe, the leader of the conservative outfit Project Veritas, was also on the billing. Gaetz’s profile has grown considerably in the Trump years, as the congressman is one of his most fervent backers in Washington and frequently spars with critics online. Murphy, echoing the president’s penchant for derisive nicknames, referred to Gaetz as “Matt Putz,” using a term for a foolish person. “It is obvious being a knucklehead is not beyond the pale for him,” Murphy said while commenting on a photo taken of Gaetz at the event. NIGHTLY NUMBER 245,000 The number of jobs added by U.S. employers last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, half of what economists were expecting and a sharp step down from October’s 610,000. PUNCHLINES ‘INFUSIONS OF REALITY’ — Matt brings us the latest in political satire and cartoons in the Weekend Wrap-Up , including the virus’ continuing march, rumors of rampant presidential pardons and the ongoing wild cries of election fraud. THE GLOBAL FIGHT BUON NATALE, NON VIAGGIARE — Italy enacted tough new measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus over the Christmas period, including a ban on travel across the country’s internal regional borders between Dec. 21 and Jan. 6, Paola Tamma writes. A decree detailing dos and don’ts over the holiday period, adopted by the government late on Thursday, states that all movement around the country is “strongly discouraged.” It prevents people from leaving their town on Christmas Day, Dec. 26 and Jan. 1. PARTING WORDS GREEN BOOM — The House today passed a landmark bill that would remove federal penalties on marijuana and erase cannabis-related criminal records. The bill passed by a vote of 228-164, with several Republicans on board. While the MORE Act is not expected to come up in the Senate this year, and likely won’t in the next session of Congress either, its passage nevertheless marks a monumental step in marijuana policy. The MORE Act passage joins a series of huge events in the world of cannabis recently, including a narrow vote by the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs to loosen restrictions on cannabis under an international treaty. And our colleagues at Morning Cannabis tell us that this year’s Thanksgiving cannabis sales continued the trend of strong holiday sales. The latest figures from Akerna and Headset: $238 million — That’s total sales nationwide from Nov. 25 to 28. $122.64 — The average purchase by a medical customer during those four days. $33.2 million — That’s sales on the day before Thanksgiving in the five states — California, Colorado, Nevada, Washington and Oregon — tracked by Headset. That was a 12.9 percent increase over 2019. $11.2 million — Sales on Thanksgiving in those same five states, a 15.2 percent increase over last year. $31.1 million — Sales on Black Friday in those five states — a 0.9 percent dip from 2019. A message from AARP: SENIORS DEMAND ACTION It is an outrage that more than 94,000 residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have died from COVID-19, representing 40% of all COVID-19 deaths nationwide, even though nursing home residents make up less than one percent of the U.S. population. Cases are spiking across the country once again and Congress must act now to help save lives in these facilities. Congress must ensure residents and staff have regular and prioritized testing and personal protective equipment (PPE), that facilities are adequately staffed and that residents have access to virtual visits with their loved ones. Additionally, Congress must make sure taxpayer dollars going to nursing homes are spent only on items directly related to resident care, COVID-19 prevention and treatment. Tell Congress to act now to protect the residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. aarp.org/nursinghomes   Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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RSN: FOCUS: The Naked Corruption of Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue

 

 

04 December 20

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04 December 20

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FOCUS: The Naked Corruption of Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue

Ryan Cooper, The Week
Cooper writes: "Control of the United States Senate hinges on two January 5 runoff elections in Georgia, where incumbent Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are facing Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock respectively." 

 Most immediately, the race is a contest over whether President-elect Joe Biden and the Democratic Party will be able to govern — especially by passing another big coronavirus rescue package.

However, Loeffler and Perdue are also excellent examples of what interests the Republican Party serves — namely, the ultra-rich, which includes both Loeffler and Perdue personally. These are two people who were rich before they got into politics, and leveraged their power as senators to make themselves even more rich — by profiteering off the pandemic. It is government of, by, and for the top 0.1 percent.

Let me consider their cases in turn. David Perdue is a longtime businessman who served as CEO of Dollar General in the mid-2000s, where he worked diligently to source more products from China. According to his financial disclosures, he is worth between $15 million and $43 million.

As Michela Tindera writes at Forbes, Kelly Loeffler and her husband Jeffrey Sprecher own a big stake in International Exchange, a financial clearinghouse company that Sprecher founded and where he remains CEO and chairman. (That company also owns the New York Stock Exchange, where Sprecher is again chairman.) After closely examining Loeffler's financial disclosure forms and other information, Tindera estimates that the couple is worth at least $800 million, and likely over $1 billion — or roughly quadruple the wealth of the second-richest member of Congress, Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah).

Here's how the pandemic profiteering worked. On January 24, there was a private all-Senate briefing about the looming disaster — long before there was a broad public understanding that the U.S. was going to get slammed by COVID-19. Immediately afterward, both Loeffler and Perdue started trading strategic stocks. As The Daily Beast reported at the time, Loeffler executed 29 transactions valued between $1.275 and $3.1 million in the following days before the market crashed, almost all of them sales — one exception was a purchase of Citrix, which sells teleworking software. (Also, Loeffler recently violated the legal prohibition on soliciting campaign funds in a Senate office building.)

Perdue made a similar number of trades, but bought more than Loeffler — in particular, an investment of up to $850,000 in DuPont, which manufactures personal protective equipment. And as The Associated Press reports, in late January he sold between $1 million and $5 million in shares of Cardlytics, a financial technology firm, at $86 per share. Then, when the market had bottomed out in March, he snapped up between $200,000 and $500,000 of Cardlytics shares at $30 apiece; since then the share price has shot back up to $121. Nice tidy little profit to counterbalance the 270,000 dead Americans. (The Daily Beast also reports that in 2019, Perdue bought up shares of a submarine parts manufacturer before voting to give the company a lucrative contract, then sold it for another handsome profit.)

When reports of these trades first came out, both Loeffler and Perdue insisted they had nothing to do personally with the moves. "I have never used any confidential information I received while performing my Senate duties as a means of making a private profit ... professionals buy and sell stocks on our behalf," wrote Loeffler in an April 8 Wall Street Journal op-ed. Perdue told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that advisers made his investment decisions on their own.

In the first place, candidates not taking direct control of their stock trades does not actually remove the conflict of interest. If you are a senator, and you hire a bunch of asset managers to look after your investments without any kind of blind trust, you still know what those investments are. You can make decisions knowing that your Goldman Sachs lackeys will make the profit-maximizing move in response — which is the best-case scenario of what happened here.

But realistically speaking, it is virtually impossible to believe that all these trades had nothing to do with the two senators. Are we really to believe it was a coincidence that these asset managers started making "there is a pandemic coming" trades the very same day the two were receiving classified briefings on the disaster? Come on. Indeed, The New York Times recently reported that Perdue was lying with his blanket denial — he did directly instruct his manager to sell the Cardlytics shares after receiving a cryptic email mentioning "upcoming changes" from the company's then-CEO. (Perdue and Loeffler have been cleared of legal wrongdoing by the Department of Justice, but given that Attorney General Barr is a shameless Trump stooge, that is hardly reassuring.)

Since then, both Perdue and Loeffler have largely downplayed the pandemic. Unlike Ossoff and Warnock, both have been holding large, in-person rallies. In July, both Loeffler and Perdue came out against extending the boost to unemployment insurance in the CARES Act, and since then neither have answered questions about further economic rescue measures from Atlanta Magazine. Instead, since the election they have amplified Trump's flagrant lies that Georgia's Republican governor and secretary of state somehow helped Joe Biden steal the election there.

Over the last decade or so, there has been a long discussion of why Democrats are bleeding votes in rural areas (precisely where Republicans run up huge margins in Georgia). And on one level it's an important debate — there is good evidence that as Democrats embraced austerity, deregulation, and free trade that harmed such places, it hurt their vote share.

But on another level, it is frankly staggering that the Republican Party has swooped in to replace them. The Democrats may not be much of a friend to the working class or rural farmers, but Republicans are straight-up picking their pockets. If you want a couple senators to govern solely on behalf of their massive asset portfolio while leaving everyone else twisting in the wind, vote Perdue and Loeffler.

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RSN: Paul Krugman | How Will Biden Deal With Republican Sabotage?

 

 

04 December 20

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Supporters of President Donald Trump hold 'Stop the Steal' signs as they stand outside of the Clark County Elections Department in Nevada on November 7. (photo: Wong Maye/AP)

Paul Krugman | How Will Biden Deal With Republican Sabotage?

Paul Krugman, The New York Times
Krugman writes: "When Joe Biden is inaugurated, he will immediately be confronted with an unprecedented challenge - and I don't mean the pandemic, although Covid-19 will almost surely be killing thousands of Americans every day. I mean, instead, that he'll be the first modern U.S. president trying to govern in the face of an opposition that refuses to accept his legitimacy."

And no, Democrats by and large were not claiming Donald Trump was illegitimate, just that he was incompetent and dangerous.

It goes without saying that Donald Trump, whose conspiracy theories are getting wilder and wilder, will never concede, and that millions of his followers will always believe — or at least say they believe — that the election was stolen.

Most Republicans in Congress certainly know this is a lie, although even on Capitol Hill there are a lot more crazy than we’d like to imagine. But it doesn’t matter; they still won’t accept that Biden has any legitimacy, even though he won the popular vote by a large margin.

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Community leaders organized a vigil at the Jackson County Courthouse in Medford on Wednesday, Dec. 2, for Aidan Ellison. (photo: Erik Neumann)

Black Teen Shot, Killed in Oregon Over Music
David K. Li and Matteo Moschella, NBC News
Excerpt: "A dispute over loud music ended with a 47-year-old Oregon man fatally shooting a Black teenager in a hotel parking lot just days before Thanksgiving, police said."

"The only thing that caused this murder was suspect's actions," said Ashland Police Chief Tighe O'Meara.

 dispute over loud music ended with a 47-year-old Oregon man fatally shooting a Black teenager in a hotel parking lot just days before Thanksgiving, police said.

The shooting happened in front of the Stratford Inn in Ashland, about 16 miles north of the California-Oregon border, in the early morning hours of Nov. 23, authorities said.

Aidan Ellison, 19, was staying at the hotel with his friend Sara Jones and her cousin when the young man couldn't sleep that night.

"I gave Aidan my car keys to listen to music," Jones, 35, told NBC News on Monday.

"I had fallen back asleep because I had to work in a few hours. Around 4:50 a.m. I get a knock at the door from police asking, 'Is there a young black male that stayed with me?' I said, 'Yes, that would be Aidan.' They asked me if I knew where he was. I said, 'Yes, I'll take you to him, he's in my car.' They said he wasn't in trouble. He was possibly shot and it was a matter of life or death and they needed to find him."

When she and the police got downstairs, Jones said she saw Ellison's body near a tree and some shrubs as paramedics attended to him. Police said in a statement that though paramedics attempted to render aid on the scene, Ellison was "beyond help" and died on scene.

"From what I was told was there was an argument over loud music, the front desk clerk tried to break up the argument but when he went back inside is when Aidan was shot," said Jones, who lives at the hotel and knew Ellison from their work at a local fast food restaurant.

While the deadly dispute may have started over loud music, Ashland Police Chief Tighe O'Meara said in a statement that this tragedy is "100%" the fault of suspect Robert Paul Keegan.

"The only thing that caused this murder was suspect's actions," O'Meara said. "It is completely immaterial what led up to it."

The chief added: "Yes, there was an argument over music, no, this did not happen because of loud music, it happened because the suspect chose to bring a gun with him and chose to use it."

Keegan allegedly pulled a gun from inside his coat "and fired a single shot, striking the victim in the chest," according to a police statement.

Police were investigating whether race could have played a role in the deadly encounter.

"That's a very legitimate and important thing for us to look at," O'Meara said.

"Right now we can't substantiate that race was a factor. If that changes at some point, then some different charges will be considered. So yes, could it have ben a factor? Or course. But without having the benefit knowing what Keegan is thinking, we can't substantiate it."

Jim Tumpane, owner of the Stratford Inn, said he and his staff are "heartbroken, shocked, and angered by the senseless murder" Ellison.

"Our hearts grieve for his family and friends. We appreciate the vigils that have been coordinated," Tumpane said in a statement. "We also welcome and greatly encourage the posting of 'Black Lives Matter' signs on our property. We are thankful for the community's support towards all of those affected, including Aidan's loved ones, our staff, and our residents here at the Stratford Inn."

Keegan, who lives in nearby Talent, was arrested at the scene and was still in Jackson County Jail on Monday, booked on suspicion of second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter, reckless endangering and unlawful possession of a firearm.

Keegan had not hired an attorney by Monday, according to the Jackson County Public Defender's office.

Ellison's friend Sunmoon Oh said the victim battled homelessness but was always generous with what little he had.

“I could tell you all the stereotypical stuff. He was special, he was kind, he was a great guy, but he was so much more than that,” Oh told NBC affiliate KOBI. “He had nothing, but yet even if he had something he would give it to you no questions asked."

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President Trump speaks in front of U.S. troops. (photo: Yasin Ozturk/Getty)

Trump Vows to Veto Defense Bill Unless Shield for Big Tech Is Scrapped
Jaclyn Diaz, NPR
Diaz writes: "President Trump is threatening to veto a critical defense spending bill unless Congress agrees to repeal a liability shield for social media companies."

The president tweeted late Tuesday that Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act is "a serious threat to our National Security & Election Integrity."

Section 230 provides legal protection for technology companies over content from third parties and users. Trump referred to the provision as a "liability shielding gift" to "Big Tech."

If he doesn't get his way, Trump is threatening to nix this year's National Defense Authorization Act — a crucial piece of annual legislation that covers authorization for pay raises and other spending needs for the nation's military.

The veto threat is the latest move by the president in his war against social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter. He and other conservatives believe tech companies are biased against conservative political views — censoring posts they don't like. However, the social media platforms say they are only trying to stop the spread of false claims and disinformation.

Trump previously threatened a veto of the NDAA in July because it included language renaming U.S. military installations honoring Confederate generals.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, who have largely rejected a wholesale repeal of Section 230, have nonetheless proposed revisions, in part to modernize the policy, but no concrete legislative steps have been taken.

Lawmakers on the NDAA conference committee are set to meet Wednesday over the legislation.

This is the 60th year Congress has crafted an annual defense policy bill and it usually passes with overwhelming bipartisan, veto-proof majorities.