Newsweek: “The social network Parler was flooded with a wave of angry comments on Friday after it emerged that the ‘free speech’ platform had repeatedly collaborated with the FBI in the weeks leading up to the January 6 Capitol riot.”
Supreme Court Will Take Up Abortion Case
Politico: “The Supreme Court on Monday announced it will hear its first abortion case with a newly fortified 6-3 conservative majority, taking up a procedural question of who has the power to defend state abortion restrictions in court.”
“The justices agreed to hear the Kentucky attorney general’s bid to intervene in a lawsuit over a state abortion ban that the governor refused to defend. However, the court refused the Kentucky attorney general’s request to consider whether a lower court decision striking down the ban should be thrown out.”
Inside the Koch-Backed Effort to Save Dark Money
Jane Meyer: “A recording obtained by The New Yorker of a private conference call on January 8th, between a policy adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell and the leaders of several prominent conservative groups—including one run by the Koch brothers’ network—reveals the participants’ worry that the proposed election reforms garner wide support not just from liberals but from conservative voters, too.”
“The speakers on the call expressed alarm at the broad popularity of the bill’s provision calling for more public disclosure about secret political donors. The participants conceded that the bill, which would stem the flow of dark money from such political donors as the billionaire oil magnate Charles Koch, was so popular that it wasn’t worth trying to mount a public-advocacy campaign to shift opinion.”
“Instead, a senior Koch operative said that opponents would be better off ignoring the will of American voters and trying to kill the bill in Congress.”
CDC Chief Warns of ‘Impending Doom’
“The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pleaded with Americans to wear masks and stick with Covid-19 mitigation measures, warning of ‘impending doom’ as cases, hospitalizations and deaths begin to rise again,” Bloomberg reports.
Said Rochelle Walensky: “I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom. We do not have the luxury of inaction. For the health of our country, we must work together now to prevent a fourth surge.”
The Angry Town Halls Of the Past Are Gone
Daily Beast: “In town halls hosted by members of Congress last week, Democrats were not accosted. No personal threats were levied. In fact, Democrats hardly got any critical questions about the stimulus.”
“Instead, they were treated like glorified customer service representatives for a dramatic expansion in the American social safety net. The most common questions were these: When will I receive my stimulus check? Am I going to get vaccinated any quicker? When will I get my child tax credits?”
Church Membership Keeps Falling
Gallup: “Americans’ membership in houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup’s eight-decade trend.”
“In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque, down from 50% in 2018 and 70% in 1999.”
Path from Clinton to Biden Takes U-Turn
Associated Press: “President Joe Biden is dealing with harsh 21st century realities and his approach has been the exact opposite: Borrow to spur growth, offer government aid without mandating work and bring global supply chains back to the United States.”
“This change in Democratic policy reflects the unique crises caused by the pandemic, as well as decades-old trends such as the rise of economic inequality, the downward slope of interest rates that made borrowing easier and globalization’s pitfalls as factories departed the Midwest. White House aides are comparing the scope of Biden’s policy ambitions to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s after the Great Depression.”
The Perils of Being Vice President
Associated Press: “For decades, the job of a vice president was to try to stay relevant, to avoid being viewed, in the words of one occupant of the post, as ‘standby equipment.’ But in recent administrations, the seconds-in-command have increasingly been deputized with special policy assignments that add some weight — and political risk — to the job.”
“Harris’ team has clarified that the vice president does not own all of immigration policy. She will be focused on the diplomatic side, working with Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to try to stop the flow of migrants from those countries, and not on the difficult task of deciding who is let into the U.S., where they are housed and what to do with the children who arrive without their parents.”
“Still, Harris’ project is central to Biden’s argument that he’ll succeed in restoring American influence and credibility abroad and making the immigration process more humane.”
No End to the Surge of Migrants
Washington Post: “The Biden administration’s attention along the Mexico border has been consumed for the past several weeks by the record numbers of migrant teenagers and children crossing into the United States without their parents, at a rate that far exceeds the government’s ability to care for them.”
“But as they race to add shelter capacity for these minors, Department of Homeland Security officials are privately warning about what they see as the next phase of a migration surge that could be the largest in two decades, driven by a much greater number of families.
Feinstein Is California’s Longest Serving Senator
Los Angeles Times: “Feinstein has been in office for 10,372 days, breaking the record set by Hiram Johnson, a former governor who took office in the Senate in March 1917 and served until his death in August 1945.”
Anti-Trump Group Steps Up Attacks on Election Deniers
“A group that opposes former President Donald Trump is dialing up the pressure on GOP lawmakers who objected to the certification of the 2020 presidential election results,” McClatchy reports.
“The Republican Accountability Project is spending $1 million on a new round of TV and digital ads criticizing six GOP members of Congress the group says ‘encouraged a deadly attack’ on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as Electoral College votes were being counted.”
Democrats Flip Flop on Mitt Romney
Hayes Brown: “Thinking through Romney’s political arc, has anyone gone through such a wildly positive transformation as he has in these last 10 years?”
“Since 2012, Romney’s reputation among Democrats has gone from the plutocratic embodiment of everything that’s wrong with the GOP to the Republican Party’s moral center, the one conservative willing to do what’s right.”
Pandemic Task Force Members Say Alex Azar Interfered
Axios: “Two senior members of former President Trump’s White House coronavirus task force accused former Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar of political interference.”
“Critics had long accused the Trump administration of intentionally downplaying the threat of the coronavirus to the American public and interfering with CDC and other health officials, but this is the first time Redfield and Hahn have given insight into tensions with Azar.”
Will Sloppy Language Imperil Pandemic Relief Law?
New Republic: “From President Biden’s first day in office, when he sent his American Rescue Plan Act to Congress, until March 11, when he signed the $1.9 trillion economic relief package into law, his top officials and allies on the Hill were laser-focused on keeping the Democrats’ slim majorities on board.”
“But they paid less attention to one potential source of danger: the need to screen out provisions which, after enactment, could give right-wing judges openings to shred Biden’s blockbuster reform—just as, a decade earlier, hostile judges nearly managed to shred his predecessor’s signature accomplishment, the Affordable Care Act.”
National Eviction Ban Extended
The CDC will announce on Monday an extension to its national ban on evictions through the end of June, CNBC reports.
“The protection was scheduled to expire in two days, and advocates warned of a spike of evictions if it was not kept in effect.”
“Around 20% of adult renters said they didn’t pay last month’s rent… Closer to 33% of Black renters reported the same.”
Economists Bullish on Biden’s Infrastructure Plan
“Economists are becoming positively giddy about the potential for economic growth this year as President Biden and Congressional Democrats look set to push forward a $3 trillion infrastructure bill,” Axios reports.
“S&P predicts Biden’s infrastructure plan will create 2.3 million jobs by 2024, inject $5.7 trillion into the economy — which would be 10 times what was lost during the recession — and raise per-capita income by $2,400.”
Buttigieg Has a Bridge to Sell You
Politico: “Buttigieg may be the youngest of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet secretaries and the one with the most on-the-job learning to do. But he also comes with the most prominent reputation — a small-town mayor with big ideas and even bigger ambitions; the type of person who plunges so deep into new subjects that he might spend a casual evening sifting through a digital library on transportation and actually enjoy it.”
“With the White House’s massive infrastructure bill set for its formal unveiling, he and his boss are looking to turn that reputation into a political asset. They want to make him one of the package’s chief pitchmen.”
Vox: Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, explained.
Moderate Democrats Buck Biden on Taxes
“President Biden’s plan to pay for his coming infrastructure package with big tax hikes already is meeting some resistance from moderate Democrats, a stumbling block for his progressive ambitions,” Axios reports.
“If this discomfort turns to outright opposition in the House and Senate, Biden will face a complicated path to cover more than $3 trillion he is expected to seek, in multiple proposals, for infrastructure as well as social welfare.”
