Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) chose to use his time during a Senate hearing on the Capitol riot last week to read a Federalist column that made unsubstantiated claims about antifa being involved in the insurrection — giving a national megaphone to conspiracy theories about the deadly attack that have been floated by Republicans since Jan. 6.

But now he claims he’s just asking questions ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’m reading through your descriptions of your ‘moment’ with COVID, as we hit the one year mark. They are fascinating to read and incredibly edifying for me in putting the story in context as news and history. Please keep them coming. I will be publishing many of them, as you can see below.

There’s an interesting preview in Israel right now of what we might see over the summer months as vaccines allow the US to unwind the patchwork of restrictions and mitigation of the COVID epidemic. A stunning 82% of the over 50 population has already been vaccinated. Israel is far away moving the fastest to vaccinate their whole population. But in recent days they’re seeing an uptick in the spread coefficient of the disease. The “R” value is now at .99 and that’s before the impact of Purim, which may be seen as roughly equivalent of Thanksgiving or Christmas in terms of people congregating together.

We are either coming up on or just now hitting the first anniversary of the COVID pandemic. We’ve been at this a year! Of course one year tolled in December or January if your point of reference is China. It moves next to Iran and Italy. But here I’m talking about the moment at which it became a stark and life-changing reality in the United States. I’m talking about the moment it became a stark and life-changing reality for you.

I’ll go first but I want to hear your story, your moment.

From TPM Reader MM …

I grew up across the road from 4096 acres of protected public woodland and watershed, a small residuum of the climax forest that greeted the first settlers to the area. Looking out the picture window of our living room and off to the left (west), White Oak Ridge Road did little dogleg. By ill-considered design, a utility pole had been planted right at the elbow of the dogleg, directly in line with the course of the road east of the dogleg. In icy conditions, caution was definitely necessary. Over my eighteen years in that house, several drivers hit that pole.

From TPM Reader JB …

For what it’s worth, my view as to how to get a minimum wage increase through Congress — really, through the Senate — has a lot in common with my view about getting people vaccinated against COVID19. Simpler is better.

We’re talking here, first of all, about procedure. I enjoy thinking and talking about legislative procedure, which makes me a member of one of the very smallest minorities in the United States. The overwhelming majority of Americans don’t track this subject at all.

This means that unless including a minimum wage increase in a so-called Reconciliation package can be definitely and quickly accomplished, it should not be attempted. That goes double for cutesy-poo maneuvers like the one Sen. Sanders is reported to be thinking about (tax credits for corporations that raise their starting wage. Or penalties for corporations that don’t. Whatever), because Sanders would add complexities of implementation to complexities of procedure.

Read More

Here’s a brief update on this tussling over what to do about the minimum wage hike and the fact that the Senate parliamentarian has ruled that it shouldn’t be included in a reconciliation bill. Yesterday I wrote that it seemed like advocates were right when they claimed that Vice President Harris could reverse the decision in a way that required 60 senators to, in turn, overrule her. (It’s a bit convoluted; here’s the post from yesterday that walks through it.) Since I wrote that post I’ve found out some more information that suggests the 60 vote thing isn’t even real. Or rather that it would take 60 votes to overrule Harris and if that vote failed then they could vote again and on the second round would only need 51 votes, which would make the whole thing a mirage.

I want to take a moment to unpack the positioning, politics and parliamentary rules behind this confrontation over including the minimum wage hike in the COVID relief bill. It’s quite complicated. And at least some of the advocacy is significantly misleading.

The Senate parliamentarian has ruled that the minimum wage hike doesn’t qualify to include in a reconciliation bill – i.e., one that cannot be filibustered. Parliamentarians can be fired or overruled. But there’s a major hitch. At least two Senators – Manchin and Sinema – say they don’t support overruling the parliamentarian or including the minimum wage in the COVID relief bill. Indeed, neither currently supports hiking the minimum to $15 at all. (There’s some question about that with Sinema. But Manchin is clear and he’s enough.)