A Lot of Talk: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy spoke on the floor for eight and a half hours overnight in an effort to block a vote on President Biden’s giant climate change and social policy bill. McCarthy started talking at 8:38 last night and finished at  5:10 this morning.

  He said, “This is the single most reckless and irresponsible spending bill in our nation’s history.” When a few members booed, he said, “It’s alright, I got all night.” 

  The House was scheduled to return this morning to finish up and vote.

  The House does not have a filibuster so McCarthy used the “magic minute rule,” which allows the speaker, the majority leader, and the minority leader to talk forever if they want. 

 The debate over the bill had been scheduled to last 20 minutes. “I know some of you are mad at me, think I spoke too long,” he said at one point. “But I’ve had enough. America has had enough.”

  The  Democrats can afford to lose only a few votes to pass this bill and cost will be an issue. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found that the bill will add to the federal budget deficit by $160 billion over the next 10 years.

  The package would be largely paid for with tax increases on high earners and corporations, which were estimated to bring in nearly $1.5 trillion over 10 years. Savings in government spending on prescription drugs were estimated to bring in another $260 billion.

Last Minute: Just four hours before the scheduled execution of 41-year-old Julius Jones, a death row inmate whose case inspired a campaign for clemency including figures ranging from Kim Kardashian to the chairman of the American Conservative Union, and the Faith & Freedom Coalition, Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma called it off and commuted the sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

  Jones and his supporters have consistently insisted he is not guilty, and a state board voted twice to recommend parole.

  Jones who was 19 at the time of the murder, was convicted of killing Paul Howell, 45, during a carjacking in the driveway of his parents’ home in 1999.

  “I did not kill Mr. Howell,” Jones wrote to the parole board in April.” “I did not participate in any way in his murder; and the first time I saw him was on television when his death was reported.”

  Kelly Masters, a prominent Oklahoma lawyer was instrumental in convincing Gov. Stitt by bringing in politically conservative figures on behalf of Jones.  “I became convinced we were about to execute an innocent man,” Masters said. “I knew we had to bring conservative voices into the discussion and I knew that the faith community needed to weigh in.”

No Threat: The white Georgia man who shot and killed the 25-year-old black jogger Ahmaud Arbery admitted on the witness stand yesterday that Arbery never verbally threatened him and that he could have just stayed in his truck and followed Arbery until the police arrived.

  The defense rested at the end of the day and closing arguments are set for Monday.

  Prosecutor Linda Dunikoski said to Travis McMichael, “You could have driven behind and not spoken to him at all,” and “you could have stayed in your truck” instead of getting out and eventually drawing a gun.

  McMichael agreed “yes” to both propositions. His admission was potentially devastating to his claim that he had shot Arbery in self-defense after a long chase at the end of which Arbery tried to grab McMichael’s shotgun.

  He has also admitted that he never told the police that he, his father, and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan Jr. were trying to conduct a citizen’s arrest even though that’s what they now claim in their defense.

   Dunikoski pushed McMichael on his choices. “You could have driven behind (Arbery) and not spoken to him at all,” and “you could have stayed in your truck” instead of getting out and eventually drawing a gun, Dunikoski said.

  McMichael said that “if he would have got the shotgun from me, then it was, this is a life-or-death situation. And I’m gonna have to stop him from doing this, so I shot.”

  But the key here is whether McMichael, his father, and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan Jr. forced and created a situation that never should have occurred. 

Net Ball: The tennis world is in a spin after the Chinese women’s star Peng Shuai has gone missing following her accusation that she was forced to have sex with Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli at his home three years ago.

 No one in the outside world can get in touch with Peng and all mention of her has been erased from the Chinese internet.

  Her posted accusation on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, was deleted within 30 minutes of publication and her account with more than half a million followers is blocked.

  An email purportedly from Peng to the head of the Women’s Tennis Association claims that she’s fine and just resting, but no one believes that she wrote it.

The Spin Rack: The giant CVS drugstore chain announced that it’s closing about 900 stores over the next three years, about 10 percent of its shops. They did not reveal a list. — The judge in the Kyle Rittenhouse case in Kenosha has banned MSNBC from the court after a freelancer working for the network was accused of trying to follow the jury bus. Judge Bruce Schroeder has previously complained about the media, but everyone has complained about the judge.

-30-