Top Items:
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 …
Discussion:
Mother Jones
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Sarah K. Burris / Raw Story:
Former CDC director says Sec. Alex Azar pressured them to falsify COVID-19 data doctors needed
CNN:
10 things the ‘pandemic doctors’ revealed to Dr. Sanjay Gupta about their time fighting Covid-19
10 things the ‘pandemic doctors’ revealed to Dr. Sanjay Gupta about their time fighting Covid-19
Discussion:
Insider, IJR and Crooks and Liars
Sheryl Gay Stolberg / New York Times:
Trump's former pandemic coordinator suggests a restrained response may have cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
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:
Washington Examiner, The Hill, Raw Story, IJR and The Daily Caller
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Emily Singer / The American Independent:
Fox News hires Lara Trump after 5 years as ‘an unofficial member of the team’ — Donald Trump's daughter-in-law is now a paid contributor while also mulling a run for office. — Fox News on Monday announced that it has hired Lara Trump, the wife of Eric Trump and a senior Donald Trump campaign adviser, as its newest contributor.
Discussion:
The Daily Beast, Mediaite, The Hill, Variety, The Daily Caller, Deadline, The Wrap and TVNewser
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.
Lena H. Sun / Washington Post:
Pfizer, Moderna vaccines 90 percent effective in preventing coronavirus infections in U.S. study of essential workers, CDC says — Strong protection after two doses provides real-world confirmation of clinical trial results — The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines being deployed to fight …
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Derek Thompson / The Atlantic:
How mRNA Technology Could Change the World — Synthetic mRNA, the ingenious technology behind the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, might seem like a sudden breakthrough, or a new discovery. One year ago, almost nobody in the world knew what an mRNA vaccine was, for the good reason …
Discussion:
STAT
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 Hill, Washington Examiner and Forbes
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, Bloomberg, NBC Los Angeles, The Week and Mashable
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:
New York 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 — Economist battles with former colleagues about the risks of getting economic policy wrong — Brian Deese, the current head of the National Economic Council, was one of his closest aides during the financial crisis.
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:
Politico
Axios:
Scoop: Moderate Democrats buck Biden tax hikes — President Biden's plan to pay for his coming infrastructure package with big tax hikes already is meeting some resistance from moderate Democrats, a stumbling block for his progressive ambitions. — Why it matters: If this discomfort turns …
Discussion:
Breitbart, The Dispatch and CNN
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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, Washington Post, Outside the Beltway, CBS News, Raw Story, NPR and The Babylon Bee
Caitlin Dickerson / The Atlantic:
America's Immigration Amnesia — In the early 2000s, Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas were accustomed to encountering a few hundred children attempting to cross the American border alone each month. Some hoped to sneak into the country unnoticed …
Discussion:
Common Dreams
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Ben Smith / New York Times:
Inside America's Most Interesting Magazine, and Media's Oddest Workplace — The publication of the “Harper's letter” attracted huge attention. Most people had stopped reading the magazine, which is stranger and better than you might expect. — Last August, when the pandemic seemed endless …
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 …
Associated Press:
Ban on renter evictions during COVID-19 pandemic is extended — The Biden administration is extending a federal moratorium on evictions of tenants who've fallen behind on rent during the coronavirus pandemic — Sheriff padlocks NYC pub infamous for flouting COVID-19 restrictions
Discussion:
Politico
RELATED:
Annie Nova / CNBC:
CDC will extend national eviction ban through June 30
CDC will extend national eviction ban through June 30
Discussion:
UPI and Mock Paper Scissors
The Bulwark:
The State Assault on Voting Rights Hurts All of Us — Republicans are cynically supporting anti-voting measures that will ultimately hurt both parties—and our country. — When John F. Kennedy squared off against Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election, 64 percent …
Discussion:
USA Today, Reason, FiveThirtyEight and Spokesman.com
Mary Papenfuss / HuffPost:
Lindsey Graham Says He Could Shoot Gangs With His AR-15, Twitter Critics Go Ballistic — “If there's a natural disaster in South Carolina where the cops can't protect my neighborhood, my house will be the last one that the gang will come to,” he said. — In the event of a natural disaster …
Discussion:
CBS News, The Root, TheBlaze, Washington Post and Insider
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Reid Wilson / The Hill:
Trump lawyer Lin Wood to run for South Carolina GOP chair
Trump lawyer Lin Wood to run for South Carolina GOP chair
Discussion:
Raw Story, Forbes and Talking Points Memo
Associated Press:
AP Exclusive: WHO report says animals likely source of COVID — BEIJING (AP) — A joint WHO-China study on the origins of COVID-19 says that transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal is the most likely scenario and that a lab leak is “extremely unlikely,” …
Discussion:
The Hill, New York Post, Breitbart, National Review, HotAir, FOX 5 San Diego, Forbes, The Week and Fox News
Mark Judge / The Stream:
Defending ‘Risky Business’ from Feminist Revisionists — Given the left's propensity to lie about so many things, it's time to defend Risky Business. — In fall 2018, when I was near the bullseye of a nasty political hit, the subject of 1980s teen movies came into the public consciousness.
Washington Post:
For racially biased conservative Whites, owning a gun is just part of being a good citizen — They see gun regulations as attacks on their patriotism and moral superiority — With two mass shootings in one week, in Georgia and Colorado, the United States is again discussing how to prevent gun violence.
Discussion:
Raw Story
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:
Insider, Raw Story and Political Wire, more at Techmeme »
Dion Rabouin / Axios:
Economists bullish on Biden's $3 trillion infrastructure plan — Economists are becoming positively giddy about the potential for economic growth this year as President Biden and Congressional Democrats look set to push forward a $3 trillion infrastructure bill.
David Dayen / American Prospect:
The Education Department's Slow-Walk on Student Debt — Activists are frustrated by a lack of action, and not just on mass cancellation. — Education Secretary Miguel Cardona speaks during a press briefing at the White House, March 17, 2021, in Washington.