Former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) has launched a public push to serve as the incoming Biden administration’s “drug czar,” Stat reports.
“He’s the highest-profile candidate to join the early jockeying for the post, and already enjoys backing from prominent figures including a former drug czar, former surgeon general, and the former director of the National Institute of Mental Health.”
Senior Capitol Hill sources tell Playbook that the leadership hopes to file the omnibus spending bill by Tuesday. Omnibus means that the funding bill will keep government open through September 2021.
“Strategic benefit: Government spending is on autopilot through next fall, and President-elect Joe Biden doesn’t have to deal with a funding fight.”
“Downside: No hard deadline for more Covid relief in the first half of 2021.”
The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld Joe Biden’s win in the presidential race, handing Donald Trump a defeat less than an hour before the Electoral College was to meet, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
“The 4-3 ruling was the latest in a string of dozens of losses for the president across the country as Republicans pursue last-gasp efforts to give Trump a second term.”
Rick Hasen: “The three separate dissents from the three dissenters reach the merits to say that some of the challenges brought by the Trump campaign were meritorious, but they do not say what the remedy should be, and do not weigh in on whether to throw out the votes and award the results to Trump. Very odd to not say what the remedy should be.”
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“Michigan Republican legislative leaders pulled a GOP lawmaker from his committee assignments Monday after the lawmaker hinted he was part of a group that sought to disrupt or otherwise undermine the Electoral College vote slated to happen at the Capitol this afternoon,” the Detroit Free Press reports.
“Congressional negotiators are closing in on a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending deal to ward off a government shutdown on Friday at midnight, crossing one major priority off the legislative agenda and adding further urgency around the inclusion of coronavirus aid in a year-end package,” Politico reports.
“When Joe Biden won the presidential election, his top candidate to lead the nation’s most powerful environmental agency appeared clear: Mary Nichols, California’s clean air regulator and arguably the country’s most experienced climate change official, was seen as a lock to run the Environmental Protection Agency,” the New York Times reports.
“Now Mr. Biden’s team is scrambling to find someone else, according to several people who have spoken with the presidential transition team. The chief reason: This month, a group of more than 70 environmental justice groups wrote to the Biden transition charging that Ms. Nichols has a ‘bleak track record in addressing environmental racism.'”
New York City mayor Bill de Blasio (R) said New Yorkers should prepare for the possibility of a “full shutdown,” warning that December and January will be particularly difficult months in the city’s fight against coronavirus.
Said De Blasio: “We need to recognize that that may be coming and we’ve got to get ready for that now, because we cannot let this virus keep growing.”
Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, now on the board of Pfizer, told CNBC that the United States was offered more of the company’s successful coronavirus vaccine as recently as November — but didn’t take the deal.
“California Gov. Gavin Newsom has had a rough year. The next one might be even tougher as a recall effort appears to be gaining momentum, fueled partly by outrage over the first-term Democrat dining with friends at an opulent restaurant while telling state residents to spurn social gatherings and stay home,” the AP reports.
Michigan state Rep. Gary Eisen (R) told WPHM that there’s some kind of “Hail Mary” effort underway regarding today’s elector ceremony at the state capitol.
Said Eisen: “It’ll be all over the news later.”
When asked if he could assure listeners that no one would get hurt, Eisen replied: “No. I don’t know. Because what we’re doing today is uncharted.”
“A $908 billion bipartisan COVID-19 relief plan set to be introduced in the U.S. Congress as early as Monday will be split into two packages in a bid to win approval,” Reuters reports.
“One will be a $748 billion measure, which contains money for small businesses, the jobless and COVID-19 vaccine distribution. The other will include some key sticking points: liability protections for business and $160 billion for state and local governments.”
Election technology company Smartmatic announced that it is “issuing legal notices and retraction demand letters to Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network for publishing false and defamatory statements.”
Critical care nurse Sandra Lindsay in New York became one of the first Americans to receive the coronavirus vaccine this morning, NBC News reports.
Said Lindsay: “I would like to thank all the frontline workers, all my colleagues who have been doing a yeoman’s job despite this pandemic all over the world.”
She added: “I feel hopeful today, relieved. I hope this marks the beginning to the end of a very painful time in our history. I want to instill public confidence that the vaccine is safe. We’re in a pandemic, so we all need to do our parts.”
The Atlantic: How science beat the virus.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been a visible presence during Russia’s COVID-19 pandemic, but only on TV, shown working from his office at his official residence outside Moscow, the New York Times reports.
But Proekt reports that Putin’s isolated workaholism isn’t all that it appears. He has actually been working at an identical office set up at his residence in Sochi, a resort town and popular vacation destination on the Black Sea.
“President Trump said on Sunday night that he would delay a plan for senior White House staff members to receive the coronavirus vaccine in the coming days,” the New York Times reports.
“The shift came just hours after The New York Times reported that the administration was rapidly planning to distribute the vaccine to its staff at a time when the first doses are generally being reserved for high-risk health care workers.”
CNN is tracking the Electoral College vote as it comes in today.
White House adviser Stephen Miller told Fox & Friends that today’s meeting of the Electoral College is a mere formality and that Congress will ultimately declare Donald Trump the winner of the presidential election.
Said Miller: “There’s plenty of time left.”
Paul Campos: “The formalist answer would be that all these lawsuits were just an enormous pile of crap in terms of even the most basic legal rules, and that calling balls and strikes is easy when the pitcher throws the ball straight into the ground rather than tossing it at least somewhere in the general vicinity of the plate.”
“The realist answer is that at least some of these various state and federal judges who as a political matter very much wanted Trump to win the election still realized that these lawsuits were so preposterous on formal grounds that giving Trump any sort of even partial rhetorical victory (‘this litigation raises serious questions about the procedures used’ blah blah blah) would do far more damage to the institutional capital of the courts than it would help the long term goals of the American right wing.”
Jonathan Bernstein: “What I find interesting is that if this is correct — that these judges are acting to advance their political goals — the key is that their political program remains the substantive legal agenda they’ve had for some time. In this respect, Republican judges differ from many Republican legislators, who have increasingly become indifferent to public policy at all.”
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.
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