Where Things Stand: TX Dems’ Flight To DC Is Also Stalling GOP’s Anti-Critical Race Theory Bill

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

Texas House Democrats venture to D.C. is not only keeping the state from passing restrictive voting laws during the state’s special session. It’s also at least temporarily blocking the state legislature from passing a new law that would further discourage teachers from discussing race and systemic racism in Texas classrooms.

Continue reading “Where Things Stand: TX Dems’ Flight To DC Is Also Stalling GOP’s Anti-Critical Race Theory Bill” →

‘Democracy Is In Trouble,’ Judge Says During First Felony Sentencing For Capitol Attack

Posted on by Matt Shuham

A federal judge on Monday issued the first sentence to a Capitol rioter who’d pleaded guilty to a felony charge, telling Paul Hodgkins he’d be spending eight months in prison as a result of his actions and saying the damage caused by the Capitol attack “will persist in this country for decades.” 

Continue reading “‘Democracy Is In Trouble,’ Judge Says During First Felony Sentencing For Capitol Attack” →

Looking for Answers

Posted on by Josh Marshall

We’re now more than two weeks into Donald Trump publicly insisting that the January 6th insurrection was a righteous act and that the federal government must free and/or drop charges against everyone involved. He also continues to demand retribution against the Capitol Police officer who shot Ashli Babbitt while defending Congress was the attack. To date, none of the journalists with access have pressed any congressional Republicans to respond to these demands from the leader of their political party.

Getting or recording responses is a major priority for us this week. If you see any examples in print or electronic media please contact us with details.

Put Up Or Shut Up

Posted on by Josh Marshall

The Republican plan in the Senate for months has been to cause delay and create uncertainty. As Democrats got behind a global reconciliation outline last week, Republicans insisted they needed more time to finalize the bipartisan mini-bill. Now Chuck Schumer says it’s got to come to a vote this week. No more delays. We’re live-blogging that story is it unfolds on Capitol Hill.

The Uncanny Delta Wave

Posted on by Josh Marshall

There’s no longer any question. We’re in the midst of a wave of new COVID infections, driven largely by the highly contagious Delta variant. Little more than a month ago Israel’s daily case count was in the single digits. It’s now crested over 1,000 a day. Great Britain has seen a similar trajectory and cases counts are rising rapidly in almost every US state. And these are only the parts of the world that have the luxury of widely available vaccines. But in those highly vaccinated countries, the chained relationship between infection, hospitalization and mortality has also clearly been broken. So are we heading back to something like we saw in the Spring of 2020 or the winter of 2020-21 or are reacting to infection numbers in a way that is simply outdated in the context of widespread vaccination?

Many public health experts and officials will tell you that this is the point of vaccines: to prevent death and serious illness, not notional infections which may cause no symptoms at all. Indeed, there’s a real debate about what constitutes infection or cases of COIVD. COVID can briefly take hold and reproduce in a person’s nasal cavity and upper respiratory system before being knocked down by effective vaccines. That will produce a positive result on a PCR COVID test. But it’s an open question whether we should be treating that as an infection or a case of COVID for the purposes of setting public policy or judging our success in emerging from the pandemic.

Continue reading “The Uncanny Delta Wave” →

As Coastal Flooding Worsens, Some Cities Are Retreating From The Water

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. 

When the tide gets exceptionally high in Charleston, South Carolina, coastal streets start to run with seawater. Some yards become ponds, and residents pull on rain boots. Continue reading “As Coastal Flooding Worsens, Some Cities Are Retreating From The Water” →

Keep Your Eye On the Ball: A Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal Is Not The Main Event

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.

Good morning! I’ll be helming the Morning Memo for the next couple of weeks while Cristina Cabrera is out. Send me the things.

How Much Does It Really Matter?

Get ready for a week of sturm and drang over the the centrist pursuit of a bipartisan infrastructure deal in the Senate. But, remember, so long as Senate Democrats remain committed to folding the elements of a bipartisan plan into the giant reconciliation bill no matter what happens, the Holy Grail of a bipartisan agreement isn’t the main show in town.

  • The Senate comes back to DC with the path forward on a bipartisan infrastructure deal less clear than before.
  • It’s almost comical how quickly Senate Republicans retreated from beefed up IRS enforcement. Cuts a little too close to home?

Democracy Reform On The Back Burner

Must Democrats choose between democracy reform and the landmark piece of liberal legislation packaged as infrastructure? Is it okay for infrastructure to go first?

But ideally you do both! And if that is your intent, you can at least see the argument for making sure nothing derails the economic agenda. Just thinking ahead to all the wailing indignation it would elicit, it’s easy to imagine democracy reform wrecking the jobs-and-families legislation; by contrast it’s at least theoretically conceivable to imagine Dems passing democracy protection once Biden’s signature plans to rebuild the country are already law. I think democracy protection is the more important priority, but in a world where both are going to happen, I’m agnostic as to which should go first, and can at least see the argument for stacking things this way.

MAGA’s Sonny and Cher Kicked To The Curb

Quite a weekend for Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had three California venues bail at the last minute on hosting their “America First” Rallies.

  • Trending for all the wrong reasons:

  • Check out the scene:

What About The Big Fish?

TPM on TV!

TPM’s Josh Kovensky interviewed by CBS News after his big story on the deeply racist dimensions to Ashli Babbit’s martyrdom.

This Townie

Ron Klain gets the sneering Mark Leibovich treatment.

The Pandemic Of The Unvaccinated

The devastation in the heartland continues.

  • The Washington Post and The Atlantic each with stories on Springfield, Missouri’s struggles.
  • The New York Times and the AP each with stories on Arkansas’ suffering, with the wire service offering this sharp jab at Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who is now barnstorming the state to encourage vaccinations:

Hutchinson has few tools left at his disposal after signing into law measures curbing his own authority to respond to the pandemic. They include bans on public schools and other government agencies mandating masks or requiring vaccinations.

  • This Charles Gaba chart was making the rounds this weekend:

  • In case there was any doubt, the former president’s discrediting of the vaccine – which he himself took and claims credit for developing – continues apace:

Joe Biden kept talking about how good of a job he’s doing on the distribution of the Vaccine that was developed by Operation Warp Speed or, quite simply, the Trump Administration. He’s not doing well at all. He’s way behind schedule, and people are refusing to take the Vaccine because they don’t trust his Administration, they don’t trust the Election results, and they certainly don’t trust the Fake News, which is refusing to tell the Truth.

The rest of the world continues to struggle with COVID’s devastation even without the MAGA overlay:

  • “The Pandemic Has a New Epicenter: Indonesia”–NYT
  • “The long-feared possibility that the Covid-19 pandemic could disrupt the Tokyo Olympics is rapidly emerging as a reality…”–WSJ

He’s Running?

NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof considering running for governor of Oregon.

Must Read

“Private Israeli spyware used to hack cellphones of journalists, activists worldwide”–Washington Post

‘A Special Sadness’

Twelve disabled residents of a group home in Germany drowned in last week’s floodwaters.

What Level of Hell Is This?

Realpolitik collides with reality TV:

Early on in the Trump administration, Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former co-star on “The Apprentice” and new adviser to the president, began pressing Mr. Trump and his aides to engage with Haiti and support Mr. Moïse.

 

Are there things that are happening that you want to see in tomorrow’s Morning Memo? Send us the things.