Top Items:
Jane Mayer / New Yorker:
Inside the Koch-Backed Effort to Block the Largest Election-Reform Bill in Half a Century — On a leaked conference call, leaders of dark-money groups and an aide to Mitch McConnell expressed frustration with the popularity of the legislation—even among Republican voters.
Discussion:
Raw Story, Talking Points Memo, Politico and Balloon Juice
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Ali Zaslav / CNN:
Mitch McConnell: ‘I would encourage all Republican men’ to get vaccinated — See how vaccine-hesitant GOP participants react to Covid-19 focus group — (CNN)Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday encouraged “all Republican men” to get the Covid-19 vaccine, as new polls indicate …
Jason Easley / POLITICUSUSA:
A Leaked Call Catches Mitch McConnell And The Kochs Freaking Out Over Election Reform — A leaked phone call featuring Mitch McConnell's policy adviser and the Kochs revealed that they are freaking out over the popularity of election reform. — Jane Mayer reported in The New Yorker:
Benjamin Weiser / New York Times:
Ghislaine Maxwell Charged With Sex Trafficking of 14-Year-Old Girl — A new indictment accuses Ms. Maxwell of paying a victim of her longtime associate Jeffrey Epstein. — Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein, was charged on Monday for the first time with sex-trafficking …
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, USA Today, The Wrap, Courthouse News Service, Just The News, The Daily Caller and The Guardian
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Cdcmmwr / Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
What is already known about this topic? — What is added by this report? — Prospective cohorts of 3,950 health care personnel, first responders, and other essential and frontline workers completed weekly SARS-CoV-2 testing for 13 consecutive weeks. Under real-world conditions …
Discussion:
CNBC, KRDO, STAT, The Daily Caller, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Fox News, UPI, Washington Examiner and New York Post
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Gina Kolata / New York Times:
The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are very effective in real-world conditions at preventing infections, the C.D.C. reported. — The coronavirus vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are proving highly effective at preventing symptomatic and asymptomatic infections under real-world conditions …
Discussion:
CNN, Centers for Disease Control …, Insider, The Daily Caller, Gothamist, The Guardian and The Week
Vianney Gomez / Pew Research Center:
A partisan chasm in views of Trump's legacy — Two months after President Donald Trump left office, 38% of Americans say he made progress toward solving major problems facing the country during his administration - while a nearly identical share (37%) say he made these problems worse.
Discussion:
Courthouse News Service, Fox News and Washington Post
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Philip Bump / Washington Post:
Trump is losing the war over his legacy — On Sunday evening, CNN aired a special featuring interviews with the senior officials involved in the early coronavirus pandemic response under President Donald Trump. No longer operating under the Trump political umbrella, they offered assessments …
Discussion:
The Hill, HillReporter.com, POLITICUSUSA, Raw Story, IJR, Crooks and Liars and Washington Examiner
Jeff Stein / Washington Post:
White House dramatically increased tax proposal as it sought to address tensions over next big spending plan — Biden aides see next major legislative effort as comparable to LBJ's Great Society but face divisions among key allies — When President Biden's team began putting together …
Discussion:
The Boston Globe, The Gateway Pundit, Insider, Breitbart, New York Times, The Hill, Raw Story, Washington Times and CNN
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David J. Lynch / Washington Post:
How Larry Summers went from Obama's top economic adviser to one of Biden's loudest critics
How Larry Summers went from Obama's top economic adviser to one of Biden's loudest critics
Discussion:
New York Post and Political Wire
Brian Schwartz / CNBC:
New York business leaders push Biden, Schumer to ditch the cap on SALT deductions
New York business leaders push Biden, Schumer to ditch the cap on SALT deductions
Discussion:
Bloomberg
Dan Diamond / Washington Post:
Feuds, fibs and finger-pointing: Trump officials say coronavirus response was worse than known — 'That's what bothers me every day': Birx and others admit failures that hampered the White House response — Several top doctors in the Trump administration offered their most pointed …
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Brett Samuels / The Hill:
Trump targets Fauci, Birx in lengthy diatribe
Trump targets Fauci, Birx in lengthy diatribe
Discussion:
Townhall, New York Post, Mediaite, The Gateway Pundit, KRDO, Raw Story and Political Wire
Jonathan V. Last / The Triad:
Shame on Deborah Birx
Shame on Deborah Birx
Discussion:
Fox News, Townhall and The Daily Caller
Bloomberg:
CDC Chief Warns of ‘Impending Doom’ as Covid Cases, Deaths Rise — Walensky says she's scared by uptick that hints at fourth wave — U.S. doesn't have ‘luxury of inaction’ amid spike, she says — The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pleaded with Americans …
Discussion:
Forbes and Wall Street Journal
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Jane C. Timm / NBC News:
Florida Republicans considering new election bill that would effectively ban giving voters water — Florida Republicans are considering a bill that would effectively make it a crime to give voters food or drink, including water, within 150 feet of polling places.
Discussion:
Washington Post, Second Nexus, The Hill, HillReporter.com, The American Independent, CBS News, Vanity Fair and Mock Paper Scissors
Michael Kunzelman / Associated Press:
Capitol riot suspect wore ‘I Was There’ shirt when arrested — Garret Miller didn't speak to the law enforcement officers who arrested him on charges he stormed the U.S. Capitol in January, but the T-shirt he was wearing at his Dallas home that day sent a clear and possibly incriminating message.
Discussion:
The Hill, The Daily Caller, Crooks and Liars, POLITICUSUSA, Law & Crime, Raw Story and Political Wire
Jeffrey M. Jones / Gallup:
U.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time — WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans' membership in houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup's eight-decade trend. In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church …
Discussion:
Axios, The Daily Caller, Raw Story, New York Magazine, OutKick, Forbes, The Hill, Fox News and Washington Examiner
James David Dickson / Detroit News:
Judge tosses terrorism threat charge against 3 accused in alleged Whitmer plot — Three men accused in an alleged plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will not face false report or threat of terrorism charges, a Jackson County judge ruled Monday. — Judge Michael Klaeren of 12th District Court …
Discussion:
The Hill, Washington Examiner, Detroit Free Press, The Gateway Pundit, Law & Crime, UPI and The Last Refuge
Politico:
POLITICO Playbook: Chuck Schumer's 51-vote gambit — DRIVING THE DAY — BREAKING OVERNIGHT — EVER GONE? ... “Aided by Moon and Tide, Giant Ship Is Partially Refloated,” NYT — SPOTTED: MIKE and KAREN PENCE car shopping at Ourisman Honda in Tysons Corner.
Discussion:
Axios, Talking Points Memo, Washington Examiner, NPR, Daily Kos, Raw Story, Outside the Beltway, CBS News and The Babylon Bee
New York Times:
The Biden administration makes a swath of ocean between New York and New Jersey an offshore wind zone. — The Biden administration on Monday announced it will designate an area between the South Shore of Long Island and the New Jersey coast as a priority offshore wind zone …
Discussion:
Common Dreams
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Katherine Doyle / Washington Examiner:
White House seeks to right ‘confusion’ surrounding Kamala Harris's migrant crisis role
White House seeks to right ‘confusion’ surrounding Kamala Harris's migrant crisis role
Discussion:
Washington Post and Breitbart
John Ganz / Unpopular Front:
The Dumbest Tweet I Have Ever Seen — Not Really, but C'mon — I usually defend a high degree of license verging on irresponsibility when it comes to Tweets—I think its fine for them to be half-baked, ironical, whimsical, the first drafts of ideas, or one's most cranky and maybe not most-well-informed opinions.
Discussion:
Althouse
Matt Taibbi / TK News:
Dear Joe Scarborough: Nice Smear. Now Invite Me To Debate Your Network's Russiagate Coverage — “Morning Joe” says those who reported on Russia errors are a “joke” and might be “on Russia's payroll.” MSNBC should break its four-year freeze-out and invite a skeptic to respond — 2 hr ago
Discussion:
Fox News, National Review and Mediaite
Matthew Haag / New York Times:
Remote Work Is Here to Stay. Manhattan May Never Be the Same. — New York City, long buoyed by the flow of commuters into its towering office buildings, faces a cataclysmic challenge, even when the pandemic ends. — Spotify's headquarters in the United States fills 16 floors of 4 World Trade Center …
Discussion:
Kevin Drum and Balloon Juice
Josh Lederman / NBC News:
Biden task force to probe science manipulation under Trump — WASHINGTON — A new White House task force will examine instances where the Trump administration may have distorted or suppressed science in critical government decisions, with an eye toward creating fail-safes to prevent it from happening again, the White House said Monday.
Discussion:
Newsweek
Matthew Harwood / Reason:
The Republican Attack on Voting Rights — The father of the Constitution wasn't having it. — On August 7, 1787, toward the end of what would become known as the Constitutional Convention, the delegates debated what powers state legislatures and the Congress would have when it came to federal election administration.
Discussion:
New York Times, Rolling Stone, FiveThirtyEight, Chicago Sun-Times, Bulwark+ and The American Spectator
Jacob Knutson / Axios:
Massive container ship freed from Suez Canal — Rescuers fully dislodged the “Ever Given” from the banks of the Suez Canal on Monday, sending the skyscraper-sized container ship on its way after six days of drama that paralyzed the vital shipping route, according to canal authorities.
Discussion:
New York Times, NBC Los Angeles, The Week and Bloomberg
Ken Klippenstein / The Intercept:
Document: Amazon Security Staff Reported Its Own Hostile Tweets as “Suspicious,” Fearing They'd Been Hacked … After Amazon's public relations account sent a number of tweets taunting public officials, staffers were so concerned about the “unnecessarily antagonistic” tone that a security engineer filed …
Discussion:
Bloomberg, Occupy Democrats, Washington Free Beacon, Breitbart and Raw Story, more at Techmeme »
Julia Manchester / The Hill:
64 percent view ‘cancel culture’ as threat to freedom: poll — A majority of Americans say they view “cancel culture” as a threat to their freedom, according to a new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey released exclusively to The Hill on Monday. — Sixty-four percent of respondents said that there is …
Discussion:
National Review, RedState and IJR
Alan Suderman / Associated Press:
AP sources: SolarWinds hack got emails of top DHS officials — Suspected Russian hackers gained access to email accounts belonging to the Trump administration's head of the Department of Homeland Security and members of the department's cybersecurity staff whose jobs included hunting threats …
Discussion:
The Daily Beast, Insider, Raw Story and Political Wire, more at Techmeme »
Troy Closson / New York Times:
New York Must Offer Vaccine to All Prisoners Immediately, Judge Rules — A judge in the Bronx ruled that people incarcerated in the state's prisons and jails had been arbitrarily excluded from the coronavirus vaccine rollout. — New York must immediately begin to offer Covid vaccines …
Jason Samenow / Washington Post:
Japan's Kyoto cherry blossoms peak on earliest date in 1,200 years, a sign of climate change — Amid an exceptionally warm March in Japan, the cherry blossoms in Kyoto peaked Friday, the earliest in more than 1,200 years of records. The record bloom fits into a long-term pattern toward …
Glenn Greenwald:
Journalists Attack the Powerless, Then Self-Victimize to Bar Criticisms of Themselves — Powerful media figures now invoke sexist and racist tropes to cast themselves as so fragile and marginalized that critiques of their work constitute bullying and assault.
Discussion:
The Daily Dot, Right Wing Watch, Twitchy, Page Array, The Federalist and USA Today