Reuters:
Biden, Democrats aim for deal on spending package this week
One source said a deal could be announced midweek if things go well; two others said the White House was hoping for an announcement in coming days.
A spending package that was originally estimated at $3.5 trillion over a decade could be $1.9 trillion to $2.2 trillion, said Representative Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives, after meeting with Biden.
WaPo:
Biden tells Democrats that package of up to $1.9 trillion should be new target of talks
The president met with key party members as they race to secure a pact.
By the White House’s calculations, a package up to $1.9 trillion would allow them to accomplish some of their most significant priorities. That includes at least some expansion of Medicare to offer new benefits to seniors, the introduction of universal prekindergarten, and billions of dollars to address climate change, the sources said, cautioning that many of the details must still be worked out.
Michael Tomasky/TNR:
Joe Biden Is Not in Free Fall
The president has faced some serious headwinds, but rumors of his demise have been greatly exaggerated.
First, assuming these two bills pass in some form, the narrative about the Biden administration will change instantly. Reporters and columnists will get back to writing “Biden agenda: biggest since FDR” stories and it will be as if this alleged “free fall” period never even happened. Cable news is entirely about the zeitgeist of the moment, and it lives for alarmism—the louder the sirens, the better. If you get asked onto a cable news segment today and you’re told it’s about Biden’s approval numbers, you know going in that you’re supposed to say that he’s in deep trouble.
But he’s not. He’s at 45–49. That’s not good, but it isn’t horrible. The last 10 polls—tossing out two Rasmussen entries because they’re always cooked against Democrats—have him averaging 46.6 percent. At this point in 2017, Trump was at 38–55. But he governed, and his supporters behaved, as if he were at 55–38. And that is exactly how Biden and his supporters should act, too.
NY Times:
Mix-and-Match Covid Boosters: Why They Just Might Work
The F.D.A. may authorize booster shots of vaccines different from the ones that Americans originally received. The science behind the move is promising.
Scientists have long suspected that heterologous prime-boosts sometimes work better than two identical doses. The designers of the Sputnik V vaccine were concerned that the first shot of Ad5 would create antibodies not just against the coronavirus proteins it delivered, but also against Ad5 itself. A second shot of Ad5 might be wiped out by people’s immune systems before it could boost protection against Covid-19.
Studies of experimental H.I.V. vaccines also suggested that mixing vaccines could create a broader, more potent response than multiple doses of a single vaccine. Different types stimulate the immune system in different ways, and switching between two vaccines might give people the best of both worlds.
Digby:
Biden's agenda may end up falling apart — but the GOP is eating itself alive
The Republican Party is making the Democrats look like rank amateurs when it comes to being in "disarray"
So the Biden Agenda may end up falling apart. It was always going to be a heavy lift to do big things with such a narrow majority. But they still might pull it off and if the process is messy and exhausting it's just how progress happens. If one wants an example of a political party that's in a state of full-blown internal chaos, just look to the right and check out what's going on in the GOP. Sure, Republicans are in lock-step obstruction mode in Congress, fighting anything and everything the Democrats are trying to do. But the party is actually eating itself alive, so energetically in fact that the media is beginning to take notice.
Good thread, you can read it here.
Tom Sullivan/Hullabaloo:
Trumpist lost causes
The following quote hitherto unknown to me appears in David Graham’s new essay, “The New Lost Cause,” in The Atlantic. The quote references Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg:
“For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863,” William Faulkner wrote in 1948.
Two decades later during the latter part of the Civil Rights era when my high school in South Carolina had yet to integrate, those sentiments were still there just below the surface.
NY Times:
Why Public Health Faces a Crisis Across the U.S.
An examination of hundreds of health departments around the country shows that the nation may be less prepared for the next pandemic than it was for the current one.
When the pandemic first hit the northern edge of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, Dr. Berry was a popular family physician and local health officer, trained in biostatistics and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University. She processed Covid-19 test kits in her garage and delivered supplies to people in quarantine, leading a mobilization that kept her counties with some of the fewest deaths in the nation.
But this summer, as a Delta variant wave pushed case numbers to alarming levels, Dr. Berry announced a mask mandate. In September, she ordered vaccination requirements for indoor dining.
By then, to many in the community, the enemy was not the virus. It was her.
Dr. Berry should be attacked “on sight,” one resident wrote online. Someone else suggested bringing back public hangings. “Dr. Berry, we are coming for you,” a man warned at a public meeting. An angry crowd swarmed into the courthouse during a briefing on the Covid-19 response one day, looking for her, and protesters also showed up at her house, until they learned that Dr. Berry was no longer living there.
