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.
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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:
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:
Washington Post and Fox News
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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:
POLITICUSUSA, The Hill, Washington Examiner, Crooks and Liars, Breitbart, HillReporter.com and Raw Story
Emily Singer / The American Independent:
Fox News hires Lara Trump after 5 years as ‘an unofficial member of the team’
Fox News hires Lara Trump after 5 years as ‘an unofficial member of the team’
Discussion:
New York Times, Washington Post, Deadline, IJR, The Daily Caller, Variety and The Wrap
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:
Centers for Disease Control …, CNN, Washington Examiner, New York Post and Fox News
RELATED:
Lena H. Sun / Washington Post:
Pfizer, Moderna vaccines are 90% effective after two doses in study of real-life conditions, CDC confirms — Report on essential workers is one of the first to estimate protection against any infection, regardless of symptoms — The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines being deployed …
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 Hill, Insider, The Gateway Pundit, Raw Story, New York Times and CNN
RELATED:
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:
Political Wire
Ella Nilsen / Vox:
Joe Biden's coming infrastructure push, explained
Joe Biden's coming infrastructure push, explained
Discussion:
The Boston Globe, Daily Kos, New Republic, Associated Press and The Babylon Bee
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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Jonathan V. Last / The Triad:
Shame on Deborah Birx — She wasn't doing her best in a bad situation. She was aiding and abetting the federal government's COVID disaster. — 1. Culpability — Doctor Deborah Birx is out trying to rehabilitate herself. Most recently she sat down with CNN for an interview.
Discussion:
CNN, The Daily Caller and KRDO
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, New York Magazine, The Hill, Raw Story, Forbes and Washington Examiner
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:
Balloon Juice
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 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:
Washington Examiner, Axios, Raw Story, NPR, Outside the Beltway and CBS News
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:
Reason, FiveThirtyEight, Raw Story, Fox News and Spokesman.com
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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, The Week, NBC Los Angeles and Bloomberg
The White House:
FACT SHEET: President Biden Announces 90% of the Adult U.S. Population will be Eligible for Vaccination and 90% will have a Vaccination Site Within 5 Miles of Home by April 19 … The President to Outline New Actions to Accomplish Goal: Expanding Pharmacy Program and Launching a New Program …
Discussion:
The Hill, Insider, WAVY-TV, Deadline, abc7NY, Boston Herald and NBC 6 South Florida
RELATED:
Erin Banco / Politico:
Biden admin remakes vaccine strategy after mass vaccination sites fizzle
Biden admin remakes vaccine strategy after mass vaccination sites fizzle
Discussion:
The Capitolist
Washington Post:
Biden administration launches major push to expand offshore wind power — Initiative by Commerce, Energy, Interior and Transportation departments aims to tackle climate change while boosting union jobs — The White House announced on Monday an ambitious plan to expand wind farms along …
RELATED:
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 and Washington Post
RELATED:
Peter Boogaard / USA Today:
Cruelty at the border is not the same as strength or an effective immigration strategy
Cruelty at the border is not the same as strength or an effective immigration strategy
Discussion:
America's Voice, Louder With Crowder and The Daily Caller
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.
The Frontier:
In pro-Trump Oklahoma, a challenge to an incumbent senator taps into election anger — The 2022 Senate race is shaping up as a test of fidelity to the former president and highlights shifts in the Republican party. — Reading Time Posted In — By most accounts, Sen. James Lankford …
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:
Right Wing Watch, USA Today and Twitchy
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 »
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:
Wall Street Journal and Associated Press
Kristin Tate / The Hill:
Democrats are seeking to turn the nation into one massive blue state — Liberal control over Congress has already resulted in a number of measures that shift state and local autonomy to bureaucrats in Washington. The original framework and function of the Constitution is slipping away …
Alex Seitz-Wald / NBC News:
Millennials, forged by recession and ridicule, are ascendant in Washington — WASHINGTON — When the Senate's first millennial, Jon Ossoff, heads to a vote, he skips the golden, senators-only elevator and takes the back stairs, two at a time — maybe because he's a young man in a hurry or maybe because he needs the steps.
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:
Nick Adams, Breitbart, The Dispatch and HuffPost