Playbook: “President Joe Biden just signed the first BFD of his administration — a massive Covid relief bill to boost the fortunes of everyday Americans. But you barely heard a peep about it from his own administration on the Sunday shows. Yes, Biden is hitting the road this week to sell the package. But on his way out the door, he skipped a major audience on Sunday — a day many people will actually sit back and watch something of substance, hence the gangbuster ratings for CBS’ 60 Minutes.”
Protests Expected Across Australia
“Thousands of protesters are expected to descend on Australia’s capital on Monday when the country’s parliament resumes as part of nationwide demonstrations, intensifying pressure on Prime Minister Scott Morrison,” Reuters reports.
“Spurred by rape allegations against Attorney-General Christian Porter and a former employee of Morrison’s Liberal party, 43 protests are planned across the country on Monday to demand equality and justice for women.”
“Porter denies the allegation, which surfaced recently, of the alleged 1988 rape.”
Voting Rights Groups Pressure Big Corporations
“Civil rights and activist groups are turning up the pressure on large Georgia companies like Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines to oppose sweeping voting restrictions proposed by Republican state legislators,” CNBC reports.
Americans See Better Days Ahead
CBS News Poll: “Though ‘exhausted’ from a year-long pandemic, confidence about containing the coronavirus is hitting new highs as more vaccines roll out, and Americans say they’re also ‘grateful’ and widely optimistic about the coming months. The economy seems poised for its own shot in the arm, with Americans bullish about its prospects, both nationally and locally, and looking forward to fueling it by traveling, shopping and dining out more — once they think it’s safe.”
Trump Finds Himself Adrift
Politico: “He backed away from creating a third party and has soured on the costly prospect of launching his own TV empire or social media startup.”
“His vow to target disloyal Republicans with personally-recruited primary challengers has taken a backseat to conventional endorsements of senators who refused to indulge his quest to overturn the 2020 election.”
“And though he was supposed to build a massive political apparatus to keep his MAGA movement afloat, it’s unclear to Republicans what his PAC is actually doing, beyond entangling itself in disputes with Republican icons and the party’s fundraising arms.”
Trump Left $1 Trillion War Chest for Biden to Deploy
“Republicans are bashing the new $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package for further ballooning the federal debt, but it’s the Trump administration that greased the path for a smooth federal spending spree,” Politico reports.
“The Treasury has a cash pile of well over $1 trillion, which will allow the government to quickly disburse money in line with the sweeping new law, including direct checks to millions of Americans that are expected to start hitting bank accounts in the coming week. That robust rainy-day fund was built last year by then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who preemptively cranked up the pace of government borrowing, unsure of how and when Congress might mandate further relief measures.”
North Korea Unresponsive to Biden Outreach
North Korea has not responded to behind-the-scenes diplomatic outreach since mid-February by President Joe Biden’s administration, Reuters reports.
Andrew Cuomo Biographer Has Stories
Michael Shnayerson: “In 2012, I began writing an unauthorized biography of the governor of New York, who’d been in office a year. I talked to his associates and enemies. I gathered a dossier on his bullying ways and confrontational tactics. I pored over court documents surrounding his nasty split, a decade before, from his wife, Kerry Kennedy, a member of another powerful Democratic dynasty. As I plunged into writing, I hoped he might even agree to sit for an interview—and he did agree, sort of.”
“By the time I was about to hand in my manuscript, the governor had a book of his own in the works. It was titled All Things Possible. And his intention was to beat me to market. But I was ahead. Back came word that if I would let his book appear first, he would grant me all the interview time I wanted. So I agreed. But the governor pulled a fast one. I never did get that interview; his book came out in October 2014, a full five months ahead of mine. And there was, after all, no longer anything he needed from me. It was a quintessential Cuomo move: underhanded, stealthy, self-serving, and hard-ass.”
Biden Sends FEMA to the Mexico Border
“The Biden administration is mobilizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help care for the overwhelming number of unaccompanied migrant teens and children filling detention cells and tent shelters along the Mexico border, the Department of Homeland Security said Saturday evening,” the Washington Post reports.
“The FEMA deployment will support what DHS called a 90-day government-wide effort at the border, where the Biden administration is struggling to care for a record number of teenagers and children arriving without their parents. The minors are arriving at a rate that far exceeds authorities’ ability to house them.”
Majority of Iowans Don’t Want Grassley to Run Again
A new Des Moines Register poll finds 55% hope Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) does not run for U.S. Senate again in 2022, while 28% think he should and another 17% are not sure.
GOP Appeal to Jeff Bezos Backfires
HuffPost: “Amazon announced plans to stop selling all books that frame transgender and other sexual identities as mental illness, a decision it reached after four Republican senators complained to CEO Jeff Bezos last month when the company pulled a single book on the subject from its virtual shelves.”
The Dangers of Kicking People On the Way Up
New York Times: “Be it his self-regard, his disdain for fellow Democrats or his imperious demeanor, Mr. Cuomo alienated allies and enemies alike on his way up in politics, and now finds himself sliding from hero-level worship to pariah-like status with the kind of astonishing speed that only the friendless suffer. It is a downfall foretold in a decade-long reign of ruthlessness and governance by brute force.”
“For Mr. Cuomo, politics has always been a zero-sum game: For him to win, someone else must lose, whether it is the legislator whose idea he is taking credit for, or Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose initiatives he routinely stomped.”
Mike Allen: “An occasional adviser who has known Andrew Cuomo for nearly 40 years tells me that the New York governor — after a career of playing hardball, including over-the-line threats — has ‘no net of good will’ to catch him.”
Let the Economic Optimism Begin
Neil Irwin sees 17 reasons why things are lining up for roaring economic growth in the United States.
Tribal Politics In the New Washington
Janan Ganesh: “Join me in a thought experiment that has been circling my mind for a year now. Imagine, at the very start of the pandemic, that it was the world’s progressive leaders who strove to keep things open and the populists who imposed lockdowns. You won’t have to force it: there is nothing innate about liberalism that favors stricture, or about the right that deplores it. In this counter-factual timeline, I wager that such culture war as there has been over the virus would be exactly inverted. Masks are something of a heartland staple in this Bizarro 2021. Open schools are a progressive statement. On the basis of early cues from tribal elders — draconian Donald Trump, lax Jacinda Ardern — people thus arranged themselves. Only then came the rationalization.”
“If this is too cynical, remember that we have already lived through a much profounder switcheroo.”
Pelosi Begins Work on Infrastructure
Following passage of President Joe Biden’s relief plan, Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement where she “called upon the Chairs of the Committees of Jurisdiction to work with their Republican counterparts to craft a big, bold, transformational infrastructure package.”
The Five Tribes of the Republican Party
New York Times: “The Republican Party in the era following Donald J. Trump’s presidency is comprised of five ‘tribes’ that have ranging affinity for the former president and different desires when it comes to seeing him continue to lead the party, according to a new survey by Mr. Trump’s former pollster.”
According to the survey, those “tribes” and their percentage of the party are:
- Trump Boosters: 28%
- Die-hard Trumpers: 27%
- Post-Trump GOP: 20%
- Never Trumpers: 15%
- InfoWars GOP: 10%
Wyoming Set to Receive Most Covid Relief Aid
Philip Bump crunches the numbers and discovers that Wyoming will receive the most state aid in the American Rescue Plan per capita, followed by Vermont and Alaska.
These are the three least populous states in the Union.
Anti-Abortion Bills Abound
Associated Press: “At an intense pace, lawmakers in Republican-governed states are considering an array of tough anti-abortion restrictions they hope might reach the Supreme Court and win approval from its conservative majority, overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a nationwide right to abortion.”
