Are you having trouble keeping up on the press discussion of a ‘lab leak’ theory of the origins of COVID? Here are a few pointers.

Broadly speaking, there’s seldom been an example of a more rapid shift in public opinion or rather elite conventional wisdom in the face of so little changing evidence. A bunch of right wing or right-adjacent columnists are running around high-fiving each other and patting themselves on the back about how “the media” got it wrong.

On balance, this isn’t true. What happened is that from the outset China-hawks who were largely out to defend Donald Trump made a series of baseless accusations about COVID either being a bioweapon or the accidental release of a Chinese biological warfare weapon. When that got shot down (there’s strong genomic evidence against this), they retreated to a more conventional lab accident as their pet theory. The best one can say is that most journalists became reflexively skeptical to all such claims since they were mainly coming from people who are professional liars with obvious axes to grind.

A few prominent Republicans and Trump allies opted to celebrate one of America’s more patriotic federal holidays by hanging out with QAnon supporters and promoting the big lie.

I took a peek at Joe Biden’s poll numbers yesterday evening. They’re holding up pretty well four months into his presidency. 538 has a composite approval rating this morning of 53.6%. By longterm historical standards that’s anemic for an incoming president. It’s decent by more recent standards. But what jumps out more than anything is the stability. Biden’s support has undulated only slightly in a narrow two or three point band. Indeed, Biden looks like the inverse of Donald Trump – with support in the low-mind 50s and disapproval hovering just over 40%. The same basic division is in place from last year to this, as though nothing had happened – except that that narrow majority – mid-low-50s – has their president in office.

If it were anyone else but Benjamin Netanyahu it would be 100% clear his Prime Ministership is over and a new government will be sworn in later this week. That still seems highly likely. But since it is Benjamin Netanyahu, who has 900 political lives and has managed to remain Prime Minister after multiple losses and stalemate elections, no one can be sure.

Even with all this it is remarkable to watch the wild and desperate moves from Netanyahu and his supporters to upend what seems increasingly close to inevitable. They have unleashed a fusillade of attacks and incitement against Naftali Bennett and his political ally Ayelet Shaked, both members of the religious zionist Yamina party. Not a few have compared the current climate of incitement against these two and Yair Lapid, the architect of the new government, to that in weeks preceding the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet, has ordered increased security for Bennett and Shaked. Lapid already has a security detail as head of the opposition.

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Here’s an article in Ha’aretz describing concerns about Israeli national security and foreign policy officials about the extent of damage to the country’s relationship with the Democratic party during Benjamin Netanyahu’s long reign. Not surprisingly they are less concerned about the high profile criticism of AOC or Rashida Tlaib than the uncharacteristically muted and equivocal support from stalwarts like Jerry Nadler and Robert Menendez.

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Never say never and all that. But it looks like Benjamin Netanyahu’s dozen years as PM may be on the verge of ending. He was on the same precipice two weeks ago when his erstwhile ally and protege Naftali Bennett was negotiating to form a government with opposition leader Yair Lapid. Then the outbreak of inter-communal violence within Israel and another shooting war with Gaza led Bennett to foreswear that option and go back to negotiating with Netanyahu. Now Bennett is back to apparently finalizing that deal with Lapid.

Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) continued their tour of terribleness last night.

As arguably the most Trumpy and scandal-plagued lawmakers in the House, the two have been holding a series of weird MAGA rallies around the country in recent weeks for unclear reasons — perhaps to prove their fealty to the master, to burnish their brand, or just because the two have nothing better to do. One has no committee assignments because she threatened violence against her now-colleagues on social media in the past. The other is under federal investigation for the possible sex trafficking of a minor. As Trump maintains — only the best people.

Senate Republicans using the filibuster to block the creation of a Jan 6th Commission is both despicable and entirely unsurprising. But the vote itself – which was 54 Yeas and 35 neas – compels us to note and consider a few points.

As far as I can tell, no one thinks HR1/S1 is going to be passed in this Congress. Negotiations over a ‘hard’ infrastructure bill currently have a White House proposal of $1.7 trillion and a GOP proposal which, once you wipe away the whip cream and sprinkles, is about $200 billion. And yet negotiations are continuing.

In recent days I see lots of complaints that ‘the Democrats’ are about to blow it on electoral reform, infrastructure and much else. This is wrong. The issue isn’t ‘the Democrats’. It’s a handful of centrist Senate Democrats who simply refuse to use the power at their disposal to pass these laws with 50 votes. In fact, it’s really just Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and probably at the end of the day just Manchin. The distinction is important because it’s easy to demoralize yourself. It’s easy for a political party to demoralize itself. It’s easy for people who have their own agendas to demoralize people because they think it serves their factional political interests. If you lived through the Obama years and think, ‘wow, did we really not learn this lesson?’ ‘what’s wrong with you people?’ well, that’s going to cause a lot of frustration and make you wonder just who’s calling the shots and what they’re thinking.

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is now live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss the news of the day, including GOP obstruction in the Senate, an upswell in violence against local government officials and the battle over a memo related to the Mueller report.

Watch below and email us your questions for next week’s episode.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.