From TPM Reader JA …

I appreciate the series on Covid moments. This has been a hard time for many, in so many different ways. I appreciate the small amount of solidarity and humanness the stories bring in a year where so much feels disconnected.

For me, my Covid moment came early this year. My husband and I work at home, each with our own home office, and our son is 15 and glued to his computer in his room anyway. Remote high school has been fine, and he has a group from school he talks with all the time during online games. We have one other couple with kids my son’s age and my mom in our “social bubble.” Overall, we have been fine, not totally isolated — even saved money by not eating out so much. It seemed like something to just get through, numbers to watch.

It’s done. Senate passes Biden COVID relief bill. Now goes back to the House to reconcile differences between the two bills.

The passage of Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill is a massive political triumph. In the nature of online conversations there’s focus on the negatives. But it is difficult to convey how surprising and remarkable it is they managed to get this bill through all but untouched. This was a very aggressive proposal and almost certainly part of that was an effort to make a high opening bid because the need to get literal unanimity in the 50 senator Democratic caucus would get it whittled down. But they got it through all but untouched.

But I’ll say this again. A big, consistent and concerted messaging plan is critical to explain to the public just what is in the bill, how those things which are in it will connect to events over the next year and where everyone stood. There’s time. But I see little evidence of that happening so far. And it is critical because – as I keep saying – everything that happens from January 20th on needs to be part of an argument to voters (an explicit and voluble argument) about why they should keep Democrats in power in the 2022 midterm election.

As I mentioned Thursday, the sole thing that has given me any hope for passing legislation with 51 votes in the Senate is that the people really working this issue – the filibuster reform activists who’ve been at this for a long time – have been consistently more optimistic than I am. This morning on Meet the Press and Fox News Sunday, Joe Manchin (D-WV) opened the door as clearly as he has to date on game-changing ‘reforms’ to the Senate filibuster.

I feel sheepish admitting this. But after seeing Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) comments on the Sunday shows yesterday I felt pretty optimistic that this year might be significantly different than I’d anticipated and that the legislative possibilities are more expansive than I’d imagined. More than optimistic – I felt a hint of excitement. Yes, yes, there might as well be a bible verse that says ‘Put not your faith in Joe Manchin!’

But it’s not quite like that.

Leaving off the Trump Era we are now headlong into the Joe Manchin Tea Leaf Reading Era. But here from Manchin this morning we have yet more evidence that we’re not in Fiscal Policy Kansas anymore.

In addition to his tour of the Sunday shows yesterday, Manchin sat for an interview with Axios/HBO and Mike Allen. In it Manchin says he’s ready to back a big infrastructure bill – in the neighborhood of $2 to $4 trillion. But he’s got a big demand first.

His demand? He wants a higher corporate tax rate and a rollback of most of Trump’s tax cut. From Axios …

Russian intelligence, it appears, are attempting to sow distrust in the U.S. COVID-19 vaccine in order to bolster the sale of its own supply.

According to a new Wall Street Journal report, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center has identified at least four publications that have been used as Russian intel fronts in the past that are publishing articles questioning the safety of the Pfizer vaccine and other Western vaccine companies.

Here’s part two of ex-President Trump’s cease and desist letter to GOP campaign committees, demanding they stop using his name and likeness in their fundraising appeals.

He didn’t start his own party, which is complicated to do and be competitive, but Trump is trying to set himself up as the place where money for Republicans should go as opposed to GOP committees pic.twitter.com/IPaiXTaIEy

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 9, 2021

The House is set to vote on President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill tomorrow, sending it to the President’s desk. The bill is stuffed with a litany of underreported positives for the progressive agenda — putting more than $7,000 into the pockets of the average family of four, reducing health care costs, and at least temporarily addressing child poverty.

Yet the Republican rhetoric surrounding the bill has become increasingly bizarre — perhaps that’s how you know it’s good.

From TPM Reader FS …

Our COVID moment happened early Saturday morning with my mother-in-law’s passing. Her smoking, diabetes, obesity, age and chronic emphysema made her as high a risk of severe infection as you’d calculate. But her test was negative.