“As Omicron continues to spread, schools across the U.S. are struggling with teacher shortages that have forced them to consolidate classes and lean on administrative staff to fill in as substitutes,” Axios reports.
“School closures and virtual classes can do lasting damage to kids’ academic achievement — but so can some of the accommodations schools have had to make in order to stay open.”
“The day before the Australian Open was set to begin, Novak Djokovic, possibly the greatest tennis player of all time, ran up against a group of determined opponents that no amount of talent, training, money or willpower could overcome,” the New York Times reports.
“He lost his final bid to stay in Australia on Sunday when a three-judge panel upheld the government’s decision to cancel his visa.”
“More broadly, he lost to a government determined to make him a symbol of unvaccinated celebrity entitlement; to an immigration law that gives godlike authority to border enforcement; and to a public outcry over what was widely seen as Djokovic’s reckless disregard for others, particularly after he said that he had tested positive for Covid last month and met with two journalists anyway.”
NBC News: “Since it arrived in the United States, the Covid-19 virus has been a national story that is felt at the local level. Different communities have experienced the worst of the pandemic at different times. The pandemic started as a coastal story back in 2020, but it wasn’t long until it moved into the country as the virus spread.”
“Now, the omicron variant could take those local differences to new heights, driven by discrepancies in vaccination rates and hospital availability, and the data suggests that rural communities, in particular, could be headed for some hard weeks ahead.”
New York Times: U.S. surgeon general warns that Omicron has not yet peaked.
“The outlook for economic growth in the first quarter and 2022 is darkening amid the latest wave of Covid-19, as consumers grapple with high inflation and businesses juggle labor and production disruptions,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Forecasters surveyed by The Wall Street Journal this month slashed their expectation for growth in the first quarter by more than a percentage point, to a 3% annual rate from their forecast of 4.2% in the October survey.”
New York Times: Supply chain woes could worsen as China imposes new Covid policies.
“Christopher Miller, who was acting secretary of defense during the Jan. 6 riot, met Friday with members of the House committee investigating the origins of the attack on the Capitol,” NBC News reports.
“Hotels, fitness clubs, tour bus companies and minor league ball clubs are part of a long line of businesses seeking billions of dollars in new Covid-19 relief aid—if they can overcome opposition from many Republicans who say Congress has already given enough,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Lobbyists for the businesses say their campaign has taken on new urgency as the Omicron variant sweeps across the country, forcing many companies to scale back or shut down operations as employees call in sick and customers cancel orders and reservations.”
“The Justice Department’s decision to charge Oath Keepers with seditious conspiracy last week makes clear that prosecutors consider the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol part of an organized assault to prevent the peaceful transfer of presidential power,” the Washington Post reports.
“But so far the department does not appear to be directly investigating the person whose desperate bid to stay in office motivated the mayhem — former president Donald Trump — either for potentially inciting a riot or for what some observers see as a related pressure campaign to overturn the results of the election.”
“Microsoft warned on Saturday evening that it had detected a highly destructive form of malware in dozens of government and private computer networks in Ukraine that appeared to be waiting to be triggered by an unknown actor,” the New York Times reports.
“Europe’s relations with Russia are sinking to depths unprecedented in the three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
After more than 20 years in power, President Vladimir Putin is rattling his European neighbors more than ever, signaling that he might invade Ukraine, deploying troops to shore up the autocracy in Kazakhstan, weaponizing his country’s natural-gas exports and demanding sweeping security concessions from the West.
The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee is encouraging Team USA to use disposable or “burner” phones instead of bringing their own devices to China, because of possible surveillance during the Games that begin Feb. 4, the Washington Post reports.
Dan Balz: “Looking to November, absent a turnaround, the more the elections become a pure referendum on the president, the more his party will suffer. Biden’s opportunity could be to try to shift the focus, to prompt swing suburban voters to ask themselves whether a Republican Congress would return the country to the chaos of the Trump years, with House GOP leaders promising retribution if they take control and the party generally lacking a clear governing agenda.”
Former President Donald Trump held his first political rally of the new year in Arizona on Friday, continuing to insist that he had won the 2020 election without evidence, the New York Post reports.
Said Trump: “Last year we had a rigged election and the proof is all over the place. We have a lot of proof and they know it’s proof. They always talk about the Big Lie — they’re the Big Lie.”
He added: “The Big Lie is a lot of bullshit, that’s what it is.”
Washington Post: “If he entered office a year ago with promises of a forceful new era of government action, the past week displayed, like few of the 50 weeks that preceded it, the struggles he is facing on the cusp of his second year in office…”
“Biden has always considered himself an optimist, hoping for positive outcomes and casting aside pessimistic prognosticators. But the past week crystallized that, at least in the current political, economic and foreign policy environment, Biden is struggling to shape events and instead is finding himself shaped by them.”
Wall Street Journal: The week Biden’s agenda hit a wall.
“Democrats whine too much… Just quit being a whiny party and get out there and fight and tell people what you did, and tell people the exact truth.”
— James Carville, on Meet the Press.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) immediately issued executive orders scrapping mask mandates in schools and COVID-19 vaccine requirements for state workers, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
Youngkin’s very first executive order bans the teaching of “divisive concepts” in schools, including “critical race theory,” a term Republicans use to refer to lessons on systemic racism.
“Tennis star Novak Djokovic has left Australia after losing his legal challenge to remain in the country and compete in the Australian Open despite not being vaccinated against the coronavirus,” the Washington Post reports.
“No one expected much progress from this past week’s diplomatic marathon to defuse the security crisis Russia has ignited in Eastern Europe by surrounding Ukraine on three sides with 100,000 troops and then, by the White House’s accounting, sending in saboteurs to create a pretext for invasion,” the New York Times reports.
“But as the Biden administration and NATO conduct tabletop simulations about how the next few months could unfold, they are increasingly wary of another set of options for President Vladimir V. Putin, steps that are more far-reaching than simply rolling his troops and armor over Ukraine’s border.”
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.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.