New York Times: “That Cheney was willing to face Trump’s wrath called attention to the fact that most of them were not — a factor in the aggrievement directed at Cheney in the meeting.”
“Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania said that Cheney had ‘a low E.Q.,’ or emotional quotient.”
Said one GOP congressman: “I just got to spend four hours listening to a bunch of men complain to a woman that she doesn’t take their emotions into account.”
Former pro-wrestler Dan Rodimer (R) is drawing Team Trump’s ire with ads designed to falsely imply the ex-president’s backing in a Texas special election, Axios reports.
“Trump did endorse Rodimer when he ran for a House seat in Nevada last year. But he has not backed a candidate in the Texas’s special election.”
Associated Press: “The number of Americans applying for unemployment aid fell last week to 547,000, the lowest point since the pandemic struck and an encouraging sign that layoffs are slowing on the strength of an improving job market.”
“Senior Senate Republicans offered a $568 billion counter to President Joe Biden’s $2.25 trillion jobs package Thursday, one that’s focused on more traditional infrastructure like roads and bridges and doesn’t have the corporate tax hikes that Democrats are seeking,” Bloomberg reports.
“Former President Donald Trump’s backing of football great Herschel Walker to run for the Georgia Senate seat has been enough to effectively freeze the GOP field in place — even though some Republicans privately worry the political neophyte might fizzle against Sen. Raphael Warnock in a high-stakes general election,” CNN reports.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told party officials that she’s considered stepping down from her post to challenge Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) in 2022, Politico reports.
“How serious McDaniel is about running for governor is unclear. Several people familiar with her remarks say that, while she has given consideration to waging a 2022 campaign, she was speaking more out of frustration on Wednesday.”
New York Times: “Research shows that a voting generation is typically shaped for life by what happens politically in their teen years and early 20s. What have teenagers taken away from all this?”
“The survey revealed a generation of soon-to-be voters who felt disillusioned by government and politics, and already hardened along political lines — something political scientists said was new for people this young. But it also revealed a significant share of teenagers who felt motivated to become involved themselves, whether out of inspiration or frustration.”
Jonathan Bernstein: “Here comes the stupidest debate in Washington again. Yup: It’s the debt limit, which will need to be raised sometime this summer or fall.”
“Everything about this process is pointless. To be sure, there are legitimate arguments to be had over federal budget deficits, and about specific government expenditures and tax measures. The debt limit itself, however, has no place in those arguments. Nothing would change if there was no statutory ceiling on government borrowing. Policies would still produce the deficits, balance or surplus that Congress intended, and those totals would likely be exactly the same as they are now. All the debt limit does is require a vote that no one wants to take and create the unlikely but real possibility that the U.S. could default — a possibility so disastrous that it causes a drag on the entire economy.”
“In short, the debt limit should be abolished. Unfortunately, the politics involved have only become worse over time. It’s always been fairly normal for the out-party to vote against raising the limit, forcing the majority to supply the votes. Majorities have, in the past, fought back by attaching increased funding to some popular program, forcing the minority to either support lifting the ceiling or look bad for opposing something constituents want. A stupid piece of political theater on both sides, but mostly harmless.”
The House has passed the bill to make the District of Columbia the 51st US state, in a vote of 216 to 208.
The vote fell exactly along party lines with all House Democrats supporting the bill.
“It is easy to feel as if the coronavirus pandemic is getting out of control again. The rate of new cases hit a record last week, with 5.2m people around the world getting infected,” the Financial Times reports.
“But the flurry of depressing headlines cannot disguise one thing: it is now clear that the vaccines are working. In countries where cases have been falling in recent months, the vaccines have saved lives. And in countries that are still struggling to suppress a third or fourth wave, the vaccines have also saved lives.”
“An FT analysis of data from five countries — each facing very different scenarios — finds that rates of infections, hospitalization and death have traced a lower path among the older, most vaccinated age groups than among younger cohorts, who are least likely to have received the jab. This is regardless of the viral caseload — whether infections are rising or falling, or if a country is grappling with one of the new variants.”
“Federal health authorities are leaning toward recommending that use of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine resume, possibly as soon as this weekend — a move that would include a new warning about a rare complication involving blood clots but probably not call for age restrictions,” the Washington Post reports.
The Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill banning state and local governments from requiring COVID-19 vaccines, The Hill reports.
“Mike Pompeo is leveraging relationships with House Republicans to stay front and center with GOP voters as the former secretary of state mulls a 2024 presidential bid,” the Washington Examiner reports.
“On Wednesday, Pompeo joined the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of House conservatives, to promote legislation cracking down on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The news conference, in the shadow of the United States Capitol, attracted liberal Code Pink protesters who used a bullhorn to interrupt the former secretary’s comments and advocate for President Joe Biden’s bid for Washington to rejoin the Iran deal vacated by former President Donald Trump.”
“For the GOP, Trump is like a fire, too close and you get burned, too far away and you are out in the cold.”
— GOP operative Ed Rogers, quoted by the New York Times.
“The next phase of President Biden’s $4 trillion push to overhaul the American economy will raise taxes on millionaire investors to fund education and other spending plans, but it will not take steps to expand health coverage or reduce prescription drug prices,” the New York Times reports.
“Administration officials had planned to include a health care expansion of up to $700 billion, offset by efforts to reduce government spending on prescription drugs. But they have decided to instead pursue health care as a separate initiative.”
“All of the tax provisions would keep with Mr. Biden’s campaign promise not to raise taxes on individuals or households earning less than $400,000 a year.”
Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic:
“When Alexei Navalny boarded a plane to Moscow on January 17, he turned his life into a metaphor. He knew it, his wife knew it, and everybody else on the plane knew it. So did the millions of people who had watched his documentary videos, who had seen the witty interviews he did on the plane, who have since joined demonstrations in his name. So did the leaders of Russia, including the country’s dictator and president, Vladimir Putin. This, Navalny was telling all of them, is what courage looks like.”
“The number of scientists who emigrate from Russia every year has increased five-fold since President Putin returned to the presidency in 2012,” the Times of London reports.
Said Nikolai Dolgushkin, an official at the country’s Academy of Sciences: “Russia is the only developed country where the number of scientists has been decreasing for several decades in a row.”
The Guardian: “The country has descended into a tragedy of unprecedented proportions. Almost 1.6 million cases have been registered in a week, bringing total cases to more than 15 million. In the space of just 12 days, the Covid positivity rate doubled to 17%, while in Delhi it hit 30%. Hospitals across the country have filled to capacity but this time it is predominately the young taking up the beds; in Delhi, 65% of cases are under 40 years old.”
“While the unprecedented spread of the virus has been partly blamed on a more contagious variant that has emerged in India, Modi’s government has also been accused of failures of political leadership from the top, with lax attitudes emulated by state and local leaders from all parties and even health officials across the country, which led many to falsely believe in recent months that India had defeated Covid.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.