Perry Bacon, Jr./FiveThirtyEight:
Why Republicans Don’t Fear An Electoral Backlash For Opposing Really Popular Parts Of Biden’s Agenda
Put another way: The opposition party can guarantee a lack of bipartisan support — and then criticize the president for lacking bipartisan support.
My town municipal center is literally calling everyone in town in age reverse order (oldest first) to see if their shot has been scheduled, and if they need assistance. It’s a joint effort between the health department and local social services. It’s good to see.
Jennifer Rubin/WaPo:
Why Republicans’ argument against state and local aid is wrong
The New York Times refers to data that many Republicans rely upon to dispute state and local aid: “New data shows that a year after the pandemic wrought economic devastation around the country, forcing states to revise their revenue forecasts and prepare for the worst, for many the worst didn’t come.” But revenue statistics are meaningless without knowing outlays — especially outlays needed to make up for the economic hit and dislocation associated with the dual crises of the pandemic and recession.
Former chair of the Council on Economic Advisers Jason Furman explains: “States also had unusually high spending needs last year and this year. A full accounting for policy purposes needs to include their rainy day funds, saving from furloughs, previous transfers and set these against the revenue losses and additional spending needs.”
Ron Brownstein/CNN:
Why millennials and Gen Z have the most to lose in the voting wars
Even as Republican-controlled states, drawing on former President Donald Trump's groundless claims of massive fraud in 2020, are advancing a wave of
proposals making it tougher to vote, House Democrats this week will consider HR 1, sweeping legislation that would establish a nationwide baseline of voting rights.
Although many of the provisions in HR 1 would ease the way for more young people to participate in politics, particularly important may be its measures requiring every state to create systems for automatic, same-day and online voter registration. That could significantly reduce what many experts consider the biggest barrier to more young people voting in American elections: a
complex and varying registration system that far fewer younger than older voters have been able, or willing, to navigate.
Kurt Bardella/USA Today:
The Republican civil war was over 5 years ago. Trump and the winners have a new target: Us
Trump needed only tweets and cowardly Republicans to occupy the party. Nothing has shaken their devotion. The Capitol attack was just the opening act.
There is no “Civil War” brewing within the Republican Party.
Sure, there are a few, and I mean a few, folks who happen to still be in the Republican Party, who oppose what Donald Trump has done to the GOP, but let’s be very clear here: They are outliers. They are the fringe. They are the exception, not the rule.
For all of the talk and headlines about there being some kind of GOP “Civil War” playing out in front of our eyes, the functional reality is that this so-called war was fought and decided five years ago, when Donald Trump insulted his way to the Republican nomination.
Maybe there’s an alternate reality somewhere, one in which Republican leaders united against Trump, risking the 2016 election to preserve the substance of their party. In this timeline, Fox News doesn’t become the TV version of Breitbart News. Would-be conservative standard-bearers like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Lindsay Graham refuse to relent on their opposition to Trump (they were against him before they were for him, after all). Mike Pence doesn’t forfeit his dignity to serve as Trump’s whipping boy, I mean running mate. Sure, Republicans probably lose the election to Hillary Clinton in this scenario, but their orthodoxy remains intact.
Greg Sargent/WaPo:
Trump’s big CPAC lie unmasks a vile truth. Democrats ignore it at their peril.
Trump’s speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday, one message should be regarded as arguably more important than all the others combined.
It’s this: The former president told his audience that the Republican Party’s success in coming years depends, in no small part, on its commitment to being an anti-democracy party.
Trump didn’t say this in precisely those words, of course. But that message blared through all the background noise like a loud, clanging alarm bell.
This will require Democrats to redouble their focus on passing their big package of pro-democracy reforms as soon as possible — and to be prepared to nix the legislative filibuster to get it into law. It may be tempting to dismiss or ignore Trump’s deranged rantings, but Democrats should see this one message as an actionable one.
LA Times:
Newsom, legislators strike deal to offer schools $2 billion in incentives to reopen campuses
Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders announced an agreement Monday to give school districts $2 billion to open schools for students in transitional kindergarten through second grade by April 1, focusing on California’s youngest children after almost a year of distance learning.
The plan, detailed in Assembly Bill 86, provides financial incentives to school districts that offer in-person instruction at the beginning of next month in counties with fewer than 25 new daily confirmed coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents, a threshold almost all California counties currently meet as the winter’s rapid spread of the virus slowed.
School districts in counties in the state’s red tier, with seven or fewer cases per 100,000 residents, would be required to extend classroom learning to all elementary school students and at least one grade of middle or high school in order to access all available funds.