Editors’ Blog

I don’t really know what it means to “punt” BBB until next year. I’m serious.

We’re going to hear that phrase a lot, with a certain baked-in assumption that it means something. But it’s not like the assurance that I’m going to finish my homework tomorrow, or complete my term paper this weekend, or turn in this client project by the end of next week. There’s no certainty that this will ever get done.

NBC sparked a flurry of discussion a couple hours ago when it reported that Democrats were “shelving” the Build Back Better bill and switching to passing voting rights legislation.

So many people involved in the “voter fraud” sham are simply stone cold liars or the types who play act believing things with some winks and nods to themselves. But the movement also has lots of people who genuinely believe. And now one of them has been indicted for running a guy off the road and putting a gun to his head back in October 2020.

Mark Aguirre is a former Houston PD captain who was hired by a straight-out-of-central-casting “conservative activist” named Steven Hotze. They were operating as what Aguirre identified to police as the “Liberty Center,” which seems to have been a self-styled private Big Lie-centered investigation. (It’s full legal name is The Liberty Center for God and Country, because of course it is.)

I’m sorry I’ve done less posting than usual over the last week or so. I’ve been trying to put together my ideas about the last 5 or 6 years and the way America often today seems embattled and besieged in a global system and media landscape that she herself largely created. How did we get here from the breezy global primary America enjoyed in the 1990s? What broad lessons can we draw or what connections can we make connecting our current moment to the beginning of our era in 1989, 1990 and 1991?

It’s a challenging topic in itself. But it’s also challenging for me because my writing muscles aren’t really trained for writing at length. TPM has given me a lot of practice writing a rapid fire thousand words or even closer to two thousand. I can do it multiple times a day if the need arises. But much over that length is where writing shifts from the dynamics of a sprint to something more like distance or endurance running. There’s more pacing involved, more strategy and organization than just run absolutely as fast as you can until the finish line. Anyway, it’s giving me a chance to flex some of these muscles. So I’ll report back when I can.

I want to give you another update on COVID. The outlook … well, it’s not good. Certainly not in the near-term. Here is a good summary of the emerging science of Omicron from Dr. Eric Topol. We now have at least ten lab studies that look at immune response to Omicron, specifically neutralization studies which broadly measure the body’s first line of defense against infection. The more studies we see the more they reinforce each other. Very limited protection against infection with a two dose mRNA regimen, though presumably still substantial protection against severe illness and death. A booster appears to get up towards the level of protection against infection two doses provided against Delta, though not quite as high. Two doses and prior infection also seems to produce fairly effective protection. Three doses and two doses plus infection seem to be in the same ballpark of protection.

We keep running into a relatively new and unfamiliar dynamic where the tools of investigative journalism as they are usually deployed wind up obscuring the truth rather than illuminating it.

It’s playing out now in the coverage of the Jan. 6 attack, especially over the last few days. First with the controversial PowerPoint presentation that’s been circulating, and since last night with the Mark Meadows texts.

Cristina Cabrera has all the top quotes from the Fox hosts with their hair on fire begging Mark Meadows to get the President to condemn and end the insurrection as it happened on January 6th. But for my money the best isn’t even a Fox host, or at least not formally: It’s Donald Trump Jr. “He’s got to condemn this shit ASAP. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough.”

As the first anniversary of the insurrection approaches, the Jan. 6 committee will probably vote later this evening to refer Mark Meadows for prosecution for contempt of Congress. It’s a proper and necessary step. But it is also singularly unsatisfying and insufficient.

A contempt conviction and a modest jail term for Meadows or Steven Bannon or any other Trumpster determined not to cooperate with Congress doesn’t produce either justice or a warm feeling of schadenfreude. Only a criminal investigation by the Justice Department can bring to bear the resources and stiff punishments that will do justice to the severity of what happened in 2020 and culminated on Jan. 6.

Earlier we noted the mystery of congressional candidate George A. Santos’ driving habits. Despite having a short commute (in miles if not in time) of 15 miles from Queens into Manhattan he apparently manages to drive at least 1,000 miles a week. And it’s costing him a ton of money. But now TPM Reader AL may have solved the mystery: Santos might be commuting each day to work in Florida!

Spiking gas prices have been an issue for many Americans over the last six months. Both on their own and as a primary driver of inflation they’ve hit President Biden’s popularity hard. But one New York City candidate, George Santos, apparently got a little carried away with himself trying to illustrate the point.

Santos is running in New York’s 3rd congressional district, currently represented by Tom Suozzi (D). The 3rd is basically the North Shore of Long Island in Nassau County, suburbs of New York City. But it also includes a slice of northeastern Queens (i.e., New York City proper) and a bit of Suffolk County, which is eastern Long Island.

Which brings us to Santos’ lament.