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Fred Hiatt: “When President John F. Kennedy took office in 1961, he needed Senate approval for 779 of his appointments.”
“Sixty years later, despite efforts at reform and widespread recognition of the irrationality, President Biden needs Senate approval for 1,237 positions — an increase of 59 percent.”
“The Post and the Partnership are tracking 799 of those positions (leaving out some advisory boards and less essential jobs). As of this week, only 112 of them have been filled.”
Texas Tribune: “A state district judge in Travis County issued an order blocking the arrest of House Democrats who have broken quorum by leaving the state, paving the way for those who remain outside of Texas to return home without threat of apprehension.”
The Pentagon will require members of the military to get the COVID-19 vaccine by Sept. 15, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a memo on Monday.
Washington Post: “The most sought after marijuana being trafficked across the U.S.-Mexico border is now the weed entering Mexico, not the weed leaving it.”
“Cannabis sold legally in California is heading south illegally, dominating a booming boutique market across Mexico, where buying and selling the drug is still outlawed.”
“The Biden administration faces the sobering reality that returning to the Iran nuclear deal may no longer be feasible, as the Islamic Republic finds ways to cope with U.S. sanctions and races toward the capacity to build a bomb,” Bloomberg reports.
Washington Examiner: “Reps. Ilhan Omar and Eric Swalwell top the list of Democratic members Republicans want to see removed from their committees if the GOP takes back the House in November 2022.”
“The Democratic majority took the unprecedented step of removing a member of the minority party from committee posts. They did this after Republicans refused to strip Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia of her assignments on the Education and Labor and Budget committees over provocative and threatening comments she made on social media prior to her time as a congressional lawmaker.”
Roll Call: “After nearly a decade of bureaucratic slowdowns, advocacy efforts and stalled legislation, veterans may be getting increased access to one of the more effective treatments for combat-related mental health conditions: a service dog.”
New York Times: “The fallout from a damaging report that found Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women widened on Monday when Roberta A. Kaplan, a nationally prominent lawyer with ties to the governor, resigned from Time’s Up, the organization founded by Hollywood women to fight sexual abuse and promote gender equality.”
“Ms. Kaplan, the chairwoman of Time’s Up and the co-founder of its legal defense fund, was one of several prominent figures whom the report found to be involved in an effort to discredit one of Mr. Cuomo’s alleged victims, and she has continuing legal ties to a former Cuomo aide accused of leading that effort.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told Senate Democrats on Monday that once the chamber passes the bipartisan infrastructure package this week, they will “immediately move” to pass a budget resolution that will allow their party to craft a $3.5 trillion social safety net bill, NBC News reports.
CNBC: “The number of job openings in the U.S. economy jumped to more than 10 million in June, the highest on record.”
“An unusual surge of short-term lending by cash-rich companies is raising concerns on Wall Street that a period of unrest may lie ahead,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Investors such as money-market funds and banks are parking over $1 trillion in spare cash overnight at the Federal Reserve. That is the most on record since the Fed opened its facility for these reverse repurchase agreements in 2013.”
Since last October, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison has contributed $10 million to an outside group aligned with Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Politico reports.
“Scott’s behind-the-scenes courtship of Ellison illustrates how the senator has quietly become a powerhouse fundraiser and a major force within the Republican Party. Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, has seen his profile rise since delivering the party’s response to President Joe Biden’s joint address to Congress in April and is developing a vast network of small- and large-dollar donors that spans his party’s ideological spectrum, helping him far outraise Senate colleagues this year.”
“With the top levels of the GOP divided over whether to remain in lockstep with Trump or break away from him, senior Republicans say Scott’s ability to win support from divergent wings of the party could be an asset should he wage a 2024 run.”
Associated Press: “Canada on Monday is lifting its prohibition on Americans crossing the border to shop, vacation or visit, but the United States is keeping similar restrictions in place for Canadians, part of a bumpy return to normalcy from COVID-19 travel bans.”
“Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday released the full text of Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget resolution, which the Senate is expected to pass without any Republican votes as early as this week,” Axios reports.
“What it doesn’t include: Language that would lift the debt limit. This means Senate Democrats face an ugly fight with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republicans over raising the limit, as they’ll need at least 10 GOP votes to meet the 60-vote requirement under regular order.”
Here’s one to bookmark: FiveThirtyEight has launched their redistricting tracker ahead of the 2022 House midterms.
“You can look up which party controls redistricting in each state, where the process currently stands and when to expect a new map to take effect; for states with proposed or final maps, you can also view the demographic and partisan breakdown of the new districts, see which party gained or lost ground and check if the map exhibits any signs of gerrymandering.”
Iowa Republican Party chair Jeff Kaufmann tweets: “Had a great 15 minute call from President Trump this evening. He asked about Iowa’s farmers and other topics including Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status.”
New York Times: “President Biden’s top aides were told on Friday that experts studying the mysterious illnesses affecting scores of diplomats, spies and their family members were still struggling to find evidence to back up the leading theory, that microwave attacks are being launched by Russian agents.”
“The report came in an unusual, classified meeting called by the director of national intelligence.”
Washington Post: “The coronavirus pandemic in America has become a delta pandemic. By the end of July, it accounted for 93.4 percent of new infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The speed with which it dominated the pandemic has left scientists nervous about what the virus will do next. The variant battles of 2021 are part of a longer war, one that is far from over.”
“Epidemiologists had hoped getting 70 or 80 percent of the population vaccinated, in combination with immunity from natural infections, would bring the virus under control. But a more contagious virus means the vaccination target has to be much higher, perhaps in the range of 90 percent. Globally, that could take years.”
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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