Month: February 2021

This is a fascinating article by Perry Bacon at 538 that gets to what I think are the real divides in the Democratic party, as opposed to the stale ideological arguments which really aren’t all that acute. It’s not so much about policy as it is about politics and I think it’s extremely important:

Facing a Republican Party with a growing anti-democratic contingent, Democrats are debating what to do — to bolster their party and, in the view of some in the party, American democracy itself. At the heart of the discussion is how much structural reform do the nation’s governmental and electoral systems need.

However Democrats decide to proceed will have huge implications for the party and potentially the country. So let’s start by breaking down what I think are the three main camps in this debate and their visions:

Camp No. 1: We are in a Democratic and democratic emergency

Key figures: Former Attorney General Eric Holder, Rep. Mondaire Jones of New York, Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, author and Democratic activist Heather McGhee, and former top Obama adviser and “Pod Save America” host Dan Pfeiffer as well as the progressive groups Demand Justice and Indivisible.

Ideas: Persuade Justice Stephen Breyer to retire as soon as possible and quickly confirm his replacement; get rid of the filibuster; with the filibuster out of the way, pass structural reform legislation, such as an updated Voting Rights Act, a raft of electoral reforms (H.R. 1), statehood for Washington, D.C., and an expansion of the Supreme Court by adding four new justices, as well as creating additional judgeships at the lower court levels.

The people in this camp don’t agree on everything, but they foresee a nightmarish (and fairly plausible) scenario for Democrats, and they’re proposing a series of steps to avoid that calamity. Here’s the Democratic nightmare: Biden and congressional Democrats pass a few major bills over the next two years but leave the filibuster in place, preventing the passage of major reforms to America’s electoral system. A federal judiciary stacked with Trump appointees strikes down all or parts of many of the laws the Democrats do pass as well as many of Biden’s executive actions, leaving Democrats few permanent policy victories and driving down the president’s approval ratings.

Meanwhile, Republicans use their control of most state legislatures to draw state legislative and U.S. House district lines in ways that are even more favorable to the GOP than the current ones and enact laws that make it harder for liberal-leaning voting blocs to cast ballots. Combine gerrymandering, voting limitations, lackluster poll numbers for Biden and the historic trend of voters rejecting the party of the incumbent president in a midterm election, and it results in the Republicans winning control of the House and the Senate and making even more gains at the state legislative level in November 2022.

Post-2022, Republicans in Congress block everything Biden tries to do, further driving down his approval ratings. Meanwhile, Republicans use their enhanced power at the state level to continue to adopt laws that make it harder for people in liberal-leaning constituencies to vote and harder for Democrats to win in swing states. Then, these laws are upheld by lower courts and a U.S. Supreme Court still packed with Trump appointees. In 2024, Biden (or whomever the Democrats nominate) wins the popular vote but still loses the Electoral College — in part because Republicans have limited Democratic votes in some swing states. A GOP with control of the White House, Senate, House and most state governments in 2025 then effectively creates a system of “minority rule” in which Republicans can keep control of America’s government for decades even if the majority of voters favor Democrats as well as liberal and left-of-center policies.

In this scenario, the Democratic Party is in peril, but in some ways so is American democracy more broadly. So to this camp, Democrats must act aggressively and quickly over the next two years to forestall this outcome, by getting rid of the filibuster as it currently operates (most legislation requires 60 votes to pass in the Senate) and enacting an aggressive “democracy agenda.” This is a pro-democratic (small “d”) agenda in many ways, particularly in giving residents of Washington, D.C., representation in Congress and enhancing protections of the right to vote for Black Americans who live in GOP-dominated states. But it’s also clearly a pro-Democratic agenda (big “D”) in that it would, for example, add the two senators from D.C., who would almost certainly be Democrats.ADVERTISING

Pfeiffer describes whether the Democrats get rid of the filibuster in the next two years as “the decision that will decide the next decade.” He argues that keeping the filibuster may be effectively “a decision to return to the minority and stay there for at least a decade.”

“The door is closing quickly in terms of us staying a functioning democracy. We have no time to waste,” said Meagan Hatcher-Mays, director of democracy policy at Indivisible. “Democrats have been handed this power to save it. We don’t have two years. We have a year. The window to actually get things done is really closer to 10 months.”

Camp No. 2: Maybe there’s an emergency, maybe not; either way, just do popular stuff

Key figures: Former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams, Rep. James Clyburn, former President Barack Obama, Sen. Bernie Sanders and the liberal group Data for Progress.

Ideas: Get rid of the filibuster to pass popular legislation such as a new Voting Rights Act (H.R. 1), expanded background checks on gun purchases and an increased minimum wage.

The people in this group generally aren’t as alarmist as the this-is-an-emergency camp. They aren’t arguing that American democracy and the Democratic Party are at risk. And thus, this group generally isn’t pushing the most aggressive reform ideas, such as adding justices to the Supreme Court.

But they are pushing for some democratic reforms — in particular, getting rid of the filibuster. I included a number of major Black politicians in this camp because they tend to focus on getting rid of the filibuster as a means of passing laws that protect voting rights. From this camp’s point of view, an updated Voting Rights Act is a moral imperative, regardless of its electoral impact, and the filibuster must go if it stands in the way. When Obama referred to the filibuster as a “Jim Crow relic” in his speech last year at Rep. John Lewis’s funeral, he shifted the discourse in the Democratic Party on the filibuster, in my view, by casting it as a barrier to racial justice, a powerful message in an increasingly “woke” party.

This camp is thinking electorally too, though. For people in this camp, getting rid of the filibuster is a path to passing a bunch of provisions that are popular with the public, such as making it easier to vote and increasing the minimum wage. Getting those kinds of bills passed, in this camp’s view, would help Democrats win in 2022 and 2024. So one reason this group is not likely to push for adding seats to the Supreme Court, even if the filibuster is gone, is that adding justices isn’t that popular an idea. In fact, there is talk in liberal circles about carving out exceptions to the filibuster for voting rights bills instead of completely gutting it. That approach might appeal to this bloc in particular.

Camp No. 3: We can and should work with Republicans

Key figures: Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

Ideas: Keep the filibuster in place and get more legislation passed on a bipartisan basis.

[…]

Yeah, whatever…

Biden seems undecided

Bacon points out that Biden was originally very much in Camp number 3 but changed course during the campaign and has been governing so far in the first category (and with COVID relief in the second as well.) He’s been cagey about the filibuster, refusing to take a stand, which is smart. There is no upside to pressing the case until they pick their time to end it (if they decide to do that.)

Bacon also suggests, though, that Biden and his team aren’t convinced that they have to enact electoral reforms which is kind of scary:

When I talked recently to John Anzalone, who was Biden’s lead pollster during the 2020 campaign and remains one of his political advisers, he said he disagreed with the assumption that Republicans would make gains in next year’s congressional elections simply because of the historical trend that voters favor the opposition party in a midterm.

“The rules are changing. … All of that is out the door now,” Anzalone said.

He added, “I think we can’t underestimate how transactional voters are right now. They want action. I think that has major implications for 2022.” Anzalone argued that voters would see Republicans as a party of “inaction” if they spend the next two years blocking everything Biden tries to do, particularly in terms of dealing with COVID-19 and the economy.

It is, of course, entirely unsurprising that Biden’s political advisers are not conceding defeat in the November 2022 midterms six weeks into Biden’s first year in office. So perhaps Anzalone was just spinning me. But Biden and his team may determine they can accomplish some big policy goals, keep the president’s popularity up and do well in the midterms without having a big intraparty fight over the filibuster. Maybe they can do enough popular stuff with the filibuster in place.

Anzalone declined to comment on the filibuster question itself but said that, in his view, “voters don’t care about process.”

“People want bipartisanship. But action is more important than bipartisanship,” he argued.

Meanwhile, all the states with Republican legislatures are busily enacting draconian vote suppression laws, so I’m not sure it really matters. Or do they think that the Trump voters are going to vote for Democrats because of COVID relief and a good economy? What are they smoking?

Here’s how Bacon sees this potentially playing out:

Democrats can pass a lot of their economic priorities through the reconciliation process. But almost all the rest of their agenda can be blocked by Republicans as long as the filibuster remains in place. So the big question over the next two years is whether the party moves toward a final confrontation with Republicans and the bipartisanship camp over the filibuster. Here’s how such a confrontation would work:

1. House Democrats pass one or a series of bills that are very popular within the party and poll well with the public overall (so a new Voting Rights Act, a background check on gun purchases bill, etc.);

2. Senate Democrats hold votes on those provisions and get a majority of senators but not the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster;

3. Biden and other party elites, like Obama, publicly say the bill or bills must pass and that if the filibuster is the barrier, it needs to go or at least be reformed. Biden would frame his embrace of gutting the filibuster as essentially, “I didn’t want to do this, but Republicans left me no choice.”

4. There are public efforts by Democratic organizations like Indivisible to get their members to contact Feinstein, Manchin, Sinema and others in the bipartisanship camp and try to browbeat those senators into changing their minds on the filibuster; and

5. There are private efforts from party elites, including Biden, to move these senators.

So technically, it’s not just Biden driving this process, since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer would need to put these bills up for votes in their chambers. But in reality, I suspect they would defer to Biden. And in laying out that scenario, you can also see why this is a complicated process in which people can’t say exactly where they stand right now. If Manchin, Sinema and that bloc are never, ever going to back any changes to the filibuster, it might be unwise for the Democrats to do much to pressure them. Setting up Manchin and Sinema to be blamed by the entire Democratic Party for effectively preventing a new Voting Rights Act from passing is not ideal for them or for Biden. He might be pissing off the two senators who are most apt to tank his entire agenda anyway.

At the same time, you can see how this five-step process might be the most effective way to push these senators. Opposing getting rid of the filibuster in the abstract is one thing. It’s another thing to be the white senator who opposes getting rid of the filibuster when the filibuster is the barrier to passing a bill called the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act that is supported by basically all Democratic voters, top Black leaders such as Abrams and Obama and the sitting president from your own party.

I think this is right. I don’t think Manchin and Sinema want to be the Strom Thurmonds of their time. That really isn’t their profile. So, I suspect that voting rights is going to be the issue that nukes the filibuster — as it should be since it has been used for far too long to deny Black Americans equal rights.

Bacon concludes:

As you can see, the arguments about the filibuster are really arguments about much deeper questions around race, democracy, bipartisanship, norms and electoral politics. At the same time, there is a simple, binary question at hand here: Will Democrats leave the filibuster in place as it is now, or change it? This decision is ostensibly up to the 50 senators and in particular the focus-on-bipartisanship bloc. But it’s also a broader conversation that includes Biden, other Democratic elites and potentially rank-and-file Democratic voters too.

For now, the bipartisan/Manchin (No. 3) camp has the votes on its side. And it might throughout the next two years. But you could see the vote count changing — because Republicans’ increasingly radical behavior may be validating the alarmism of the this-is-an-emergency camp and strengthening their case that drastic measures are needed to preserve both democracy and the Democratic Party’s ability to win power.

If Trump would shut up and fade into the woodwork, I would think the Republicans have a good chance of coming back strong in 2022. Democrats rarely politically benefit immediately from doing the right thing, unfortunately. (You can look it up.) But with the GOP going further and further down the rabbit hole, it’s not at all clear to me that Democrats need to choose between necessary reform and delivering material benefits to the people because Trump is going to be out there reminding everyone, every single day, about what the Republican party has become while his sycophants and henchman parrot his every utterance.

So, I’m firmly in Camp #1 and Camp #2. I think it would be suicidal to pretend that something very dangerous has not happened to the right wing in this country and simply go about our business as if it’s all about money and if we just get material benefits to people this will all straighten itself out. I just don’t think economic determinism works here. The right wing extremists who stormed the capitol were not downtrodden working class folks who’ve been exploited. They are largely middle class and upper middle class and their beef is about status, race, pride, religion, and psychology way more than money.

Obviously, that doesn’t mean the Democrats shouldn’t deliver the material benefits they’ve promised. That’s what people voted for them need as well as a lot of people who didn’t, whether they voted for Trump or didn’t vote at all. Their families deserve the help that Democrats are offering. But that’s just one priority. The other is to save democracy from this increasingly radical factions that’s taken over the Republican party. They must do both.

The Republicans always played hardball:

The GOP fired the Senate parliamentarian over reconciliation in a 50-50 Senate in 2001.

It was such a non-scandal that NYT’s reporting on the GOP replacement was a 57-word stub on the bottom of A22.

It was such a non-scandal that it appears never to have been mentioned on CSPAN, possibly the only TV outlet that could be counted on to cover such news.

https://www.c-span.org/search/?sdate=05%2F01%2F2001&edate=05%2F30%2F2001&congressSelect=&yearSelect=&searchtype=Mentions&sort=Newest&unidSpeakers=1&all%5B%5D=parliamentarian

It was such a non-scandal that @joshtpm, in writing about it shortly after, genuinely asked: ‘Is this a scandal?’

It was such a non-scandal that the fired parliamentarian, Robert Dove, noted in 2010 that ‘various parliamentarians have been replaced over the years…when the Majority Leader was unhappy.’

https://oneill.law.georgetown.edu/reconciling-reconciliation-an-interview-with-robert-dove/

Originally tweeted by Nico Pitney (@nicopitney) on February 26, 2021.

These were supposedly glory days of bipartisan comity before all this “polarization” ruined everything. But the fact is that there wasn’t much bipartisan comity then either. It’s just that the assumption was that the Democrats would roll over for the Republicans because everyone knew that the US was “a conservative country” and they knew what was best. And so they did. And each time they did it, the next set of policies was even further right than the previous ones.

It was this dynamic that created the original netroots in which liberal voters who had been watching this from afar with dismay started using the new technology to make their voices heard. It was that energy that fueled the Dean campaign in 2004, which was far less about policy than it was about ending this reflexive capitulation, particularly in the wake of the disastrous Iraq war decision.

As you can see, this is a problem that has not completely resolved almost 20 years later. The Democrats are treating a decision by the parliamentarian as a commandment from Mt Sinai. And if they were to fire her you can bet the news would treat it as if they’d well … stormed the capitol to overturn the vote or something, just as they would have back then. Hardball is expected of Republicans, admired even, and the subject of derision is Democrats try it.

And, of course, let’s face facts. If Joe Manchin won’t let Biden have his choice of OMB director because he wants to restore bipartisanship and unity in the US Senate, it’s easy to imagine that he (and other Democrats) would go apeshit if Schumer fired the parliamentarian. That’s just how they roll.

From HuffPost:

Holy Moses! A gold statue of Donald Trump at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, is generating snark of biblical proportions.

Video of the statue being admired as it’s wheeled into place prompted people on social media to compare it to a much older example of idol worship. 

Trump is scheduled to speak at the gathering on Sunday, but it looks like his presence is already being felt.

Bloomberg’s William Turton posted the clip: 

https://twitter.com/WilliamTurton/status/1365109969490567169?s=20

And social media erupted in jokes about the golden calf ― you know, the idol that the Old Testament says got Moses so furious that he shattered the Ten Commandments tablets when he saw people worshipping it.

I can’t remember the last time a major piece of legislation was embraced by three-quarters of the American people but we have one now. According to a new Politico/Morning Consult poll, 76% of Americans including 60% of Republicans are in favor of the Biden administration’s Covid relief package. “Hurrah,” you might say, “the logjam has finally broken and a large majority of the country has come together to support vital legislation!” It’s a nice thought but the sad fact is that while 60% of Republicans out in the country support the bill, 100% of Republicans in Washington oppose it. Yes, even our allegedly moderate hero Mitt Romney, who called the plan “a clunker.”

We hear ad nauseum that the Republicans in Washington are supposedly so beholden to their base that they have absolutely no agency. It’s just the way it is, nothing they can do. Yet here we see them openly defying 60% of them. Apparently, they are only in thrall to their voters when it comes to fealty to Donald Trump. Otherwise, they are free to “vote their conscience.” And, as always, their conscience is telling them to dismiss the misery of average Americans, even their own constituents, and pretend to be serving some abstract antipathy to budget deficits and big government.

The pattern of Republican governance has been predictable for the past 40 years. A GOP president comes in, spend massively on the military, cuts vital programs that benefit people, enacts tax cuts for the wealthy, drives the economy into recession and then leaves the mess for the Democrats to clean up while they criticize from the sidelines and try to obstruct everything they do. This is, of course, stunningly hypocritical but, as we know, hypocrisy is no longer operative among Republicans. They are shameless.

But the good news is that the deficit argument doesn’t seem to be in play in this round.

Perhaps it is because this state of emergency is felt by every American and the urgency is so real that the public isn’t interested in abstractions? Or maybe it’s the result of the GOP and Trump willingly spending the money in round one and so people have turned a deaf ear to complaints about it? And it’s more than possible that since the incessant whining about deficits for the past 40 years has never once proven to result in the catastrophe they are always predicting, most recently during the last time Democrats had to do the heavy lifting to fix the financial crisis, the public finally sees through it. At some point, people stop believing the boy who cried wolf. Moreover, as the economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has pointed out repeatedly, there has actually never been a better time for the government to borrow money than there is now.

That hasn’t stopped Republicans from trotting out various other stale reasons for opposing the bill that 75% of the country supports. Republican Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, for instance, dutifully followed the GOP talking points and tweeted out a few cherry-picked items in the bill to imply that they are liberal pork:

We’ve run the numbers and here’s your receipt, @SpeakerPelosi @SenSchumer. pic.twitter.com/e2cAG8st8W

— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) February 24, 2021

I’m going to guess that all those college-educated suburbanites who fled the GOP in the past four years understand that money for such lineitems represents aid to businesses, institutions and workers and don’t find it wasteful at all. Perhaps Republicans don’t care about that anymore but it’s hard to see how it convinces the 60% of their voters who back Covid relief that the bill should fail on this basis.

One of the arguments that did get traction, however, is opposition to a raise in the minimum wage to $15 per hour. They managed to persuade a couple of Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, to threaten to vote against the package if it contained that provision. The Democrats had intended to include it in the bill anyway, and work on the two spoilers to change their minds, but on Thursday night the Senate parliamentarian ruled that it was not admissible in a reconciliation process which is what they are using to avoid a Republican filibuster. (Republicans used the same process to pass their gargantuan tax cuts for the rich in 2017 and their failed attempt to repeal Obamacare.)

The Republicans no doubt cheered at the news the Democrats would not use other methods at their disposal to include the provision, such as having the president of the Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris overrule the decision and then let the Republicans try to find 60 votes to sustain a filibuster. The White House and the Senate leadership ruled that out. Neither does it appear they are going to do what former Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Ms, did in the early days of the George W. Bush administration with a 50-50 Senate, which is fire the parliamentarian when he failed to deliver the decision they needed to —you guessed it — pass yet another massive package of tax cuts.

Perhaps they believe that Manchin and Sinema really are prepared to sink the entire relief bill and destroy the Biden presidency before it gets started over the $15 minimum wage, but in any case, there is little reason to think the White House or the Senate leadership will change their minds. Budget Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, put out a statement saying they will try to adjust the tax code and provide incentives in the bill to make $15 a de facto minimum wage. It’s a very clumsy way to get this done but they seem convinced that a more dramatic show of strength would endanger the passage of the bill.

Regardless of what the Democrats do, the Republicans in Washington are clearly going to complain that unless Biden is passing their agenda, he is failing to unify the country.

Jamming a $1.9 trillion COVID package through Congress is the furthest thing from unity I've ever seen. President Biden: work with Republicans and find a better way forward. pic.twitter.com/fcTH59B6mi

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) February 25, 2021

Nobody is fooled. The Republicans have no intention of “working with” Biden on a relief bill. As Salon’s Jon Skolnik reported, they’ve even brought in former Vice President Mike Pence this week to instruct them on how they successfully obstructed President Obama’s agenda. They plan to win in 2022 by making the country fail. It’s their go-to strategy.

But as much as they would like to party like it’s 2009, it’s 2021.

Republicans still have Donald Trump out there who is going to do his own thing, always reminding those suburban voters how much better it is that Joe Biden is in the White House instead of him. And this pandemic is of a very different character than the financial crisis of 2009. There is the matter of half a million dead and the atrocious government performance under Trump and the Republicans in dealing with it. After what they did, caterwauling about “the swamp” and whining about bipartisanship just makes them look worse.

More importantly, if the Democrats can get this needed relief out to the people and the institutions they depend on so they can just hold on a little longer, within months most people are going to be vaccinated, the economy is going to recover, kids will be back in school and the Republicans’ hope for 2022 is going to be a long shot. I don’t think the public is going to be yearning for a return to the Trump years any time soon. And that’s all the GOP has to offer.

Salon

They were as children who had lost their faith. They were perverse and crooked and rebellious against God. They did eat the bread of wickedness and drank the wine of violence, and they did evil in the eyes of the Lord. And the people cried, “The graven image hath brought us joy.” And they worshipped the golden calf and scarificed unto it.

— narration from The Ten Commandments (1956)

https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1365141354960084994?s=20

And sandals too.

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled Thursday night that the $15 minimum wage is not allowed as part of the budget reconciliation package. Democrats let out groans and moans.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) called for MacDonough’s firing. (Imagine the reaction from Democrats if that call came from Republicans who lost such a ruling.)

Others in the Democratic caucus were more tactical:

“The Senate parliamentarian issues an advisory opinion,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said in a tweet Thursday evening. “The VP can overrule them — as has been done before. We should do EVERYTHING we can to keep our promise, deliver a $15 minimum wage, and give 27 million workers a raise.”

Vice President Harris could tread that road as Senate president but would need the vote of Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) to do it. White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain has ruled out trying to overrule the parliamentarian. President Biden, Manchin and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema view the option as setting the stage for eliminating the filibuster rule they support.

“We still need to pass the minimum wage, and if that means getting rid of the filibuster, so be it,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowed to keep the minimum wage provision in the House package headed to a floor vote today.

President Biden said earlier this month that if the provision was not included in the relief package he would push for a stand-alone bill. Those opposed would have nowhere to hide.

Slate’s Jim Newell reports that Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is exploring a Plan B:

“In the coming days, I will be working with my colleagues in the Senate to move forward with an amendment to take tax deductions away from large, profitable corporations that don’t pay workers at least $15 an hour and to provide small businesses with the incentives they need to raise wages,” Sanders said. “That amendment must be included in this reconciliation bill.” While certainly better than nothing, this fallback would rely on firms’ behavior to get the job done.

Costco maybe.

How much fight have Democrats got in them? Are they winners? Let them act like it.

I know it's unfamiliar but we're the winning team. Let's keep declaring it and govern accordingly.

— Anat Shenker-Osorio 🟧 (@anatosaurus) February 25, 2021

Of course:

McConnell says he would support Trump if he was the Republican nominee pic.twitter.com/l0hRgpcmM8

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 25, 2021

McConnell said that there was “no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking” what happened on January 6, and that the former president’s “actions that preceded the [Capitol] riot were a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty.”

The Capitol rioters “believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president,” who “seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision, or else torch our institutions on the way out.”

And the rioters “having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet earth.”

But hey, inciting an insurrection based upon a “growing crescendo of false statement, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole” isn’t disqualifying. I mean, come on.

Vaccines distribution is really starting to roll:

United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp. are ramping up vaccine distribution, with plans for additional gains if Johnson & Johnson’s inoculation is cleared by U.S. regulators.

The couriers are handling about 10 million does a week on a combined basis and that number is set to climb to 14 million next week, said Wes Wheeler, chief of UPS’s health care unit. That doesn’t include the Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine, which hasn’t yet been granted an emergency use authorization but has been found by U.S. regulators to be safe and effective.

Peak vaccine distribution will probably occur in May when other manufacturers, such as Novavax Inc., begin to ship their products, Wheeler said. The volume now is about a third of the expected peak level and there’s plenty of capacity to handle the surge, he said. Even when UPS reaches the maximum distribution level, the company estimates that vaccines will account for about 6% of the 24.7 million packages it delivers worldwide every day.

“We made sure that even during the peak periods that we would have enough capacity in our network to be able to prioritize all vaccines,” Wheeler said in an interview.

Deliveries are also fanning out as the couriers add more pharmacy chains and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Distribution points have climbed to 100,000 on a combined basis for UPS and FedEx from about 14,000 at the beginning.

I can’t wait. Currently, I’m pretty much at the end of the line here in California and probably won’t be fully vaccinated until late spring at the earliest. (I’m old, but not old enough — and I’m healthy, knock on wood.) But I’m fine with that. I’m lucky enough not to have to go out and mingle with humans very much so I’m happy to let those who need it more than I do get protected.

But, man. I’m really looking forward getting my shots and returning to some semblance of normal life. Not to mention losing the ongoing fear in the pit of my stomach that I’m going to get this and either die or give it to someone. I’m just worn out with this as I’m sure you all are too.

Wow, I thought I had seen some bad behavior from Rand Paul, but this is just a grotesque display of bigotry:

Dr. Rachel Levine, the first transgender person to be nominated for a Senate-confirmed position in the federal government, had been seated in her confirmation hearing to become the nation’s assistant secretary of health for a little less than an hour when she was grilled about “genital mutilation” of minor children by a Republican committee member.

“American culture is down normalizing the idea that minors can be given hormones,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said on Thursday, likening standards of care for transgender minors to castration and female circumcision and blaming increasing rates of trans-identified youth on “the social pressure to conform and do what others do.”

“Do you believe minors are capable of making such a life changing decision of changing one’s sex?” Paul asked Levine,

In response, Levine thanked Paul for his “interest” in the question of transgender medicine, calling it “a very complex and nuanced field with robust research and standards of care that have been developed” by pediatricians.

“If I’m fortunate enough to be confirmed, I will look forward to working with you and your office and coming to your office to discuss the particulars of the standards of care for transgender medicine,” Levine said. Levine, who currently serves as Pennsylvania’s secretary of health, is a pediatrician and former state physician general whose handling of the coronavirus pandemic in Pennsylvania has drawn widespread praise, did not address the substance of the question, or attempt to correct Paul’s apparent misunderstanding of medical transition for transgender youth.

Paul, a former self-certified ophthalmologist, repeated his question of whether Levine supported access to hormone blockers and “reconstruction of genitalia” for minors, before relaying the story of Keira Bell, a British citizen who was assigned female at birth before taking puberty blockers and supplemental testosterone as a teenager. Bell, who later de-transitioned when she was an adult, led a court case that effectively blocked transgender children under 16 from medical transition in the United Kingdom. It is not standard medical practice to perform gender confirmation surgery on minors in the United States, and Bell’s surgery was not performed until she was 20.

“I’m alarmed that you’re not saying they should be prevented from making decisions to amputate their breasts or genitalia,” Paul said. “We have always said that minors do not have full rights—will you make a more firm decision on whether or not minors should be involved in these decisions?”

Levine reiterated that transgender medicine is “a very complex and nuanced field,” as well as her offer to talk with Paul and his staff about the issue, upon which Paul asked the record to show that she refused to answer his question and likened trans men being given testosterone to hydroxychloroquine being used to treat COVID-19.

This just turns my stomach. But even that isn’t a horrific as this:

After a contentious debate on the Equality Act, which would extend civil rights protections to the LGBTQ community, Rep. Marie Newman (D-Ill.) on Wednesday raised a transgender pride flag outside her office — which happens to sit directly across from the office of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), one of the bill’s most vocal opponents.

“Our neighbor, [Greene], tried to block the Equality Act because she believes prohibiting discrimination against trans Americans is ‘disgusting, immoral, and evil,’” Newman, who has a transgender daughter, wrote on Twitter with a video of her hanging the flag. “Thought we’d put up our Transgender flag so she can look at it every time she opens her door.”

Greene, who lost her committee memberships by promoting false and extremist claims, quickly responded with her own video mocking Newman’s earlier tweet as she hung up a poster that said: “There are TWO genders: Male & Female. Trust The Science!”

“Thought we’d put up ours so [Newman] can look at it every time she opens her door,” Greene said.

[…]Newman’s fellow Illinois Democrat, Rep. Sean Casten, called Greene’s poster “sickening, pathetic, unimaginably cruel.”

“This hate is exactly why the #EqualityAct is necessary and what we must protect [Newman’s] daughter and all our LGBTQ+ loved ones against,” he said in a tweet.

This exchange came about following an emotional exchange on the floor in which Newman gave an emotional speech in favor of passage of the Equality Act in which she said, “the right time to pass this act was decades ago. The second best time is right now. I’m voting yes on the Equality Act for Evie Newman, my daughter and the strongest, bravest person I know.”

Green spoke in opposition and tried to maneuver the House to adjourn so it couldn’t pass. 9I guess we can see her role in this congress.) That wasn’t all she said — she tweeted this over a video of Newman’s floor speech, cruelly describing Newman’s daughter as her “biological son.”

“As mothers, we all love and support our children. But your biological son does NOT belong in my daughters’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams.”

It’s as low as it gets. I can think of a dozen ways that one might express their transphobic views that don’t verbally attack a colleague’s transgender daughter. This woman is a psychopath. Rand Paul is little better. And from what I can tell 90% of the GOP is just fine with this.

Sadly, I don’t think they’ve reached the bottom yet.

This piece by Josh Marshall on the current fight over the January 6th Commission is right on. I just hope they listen:

I’ve mentioned a number of times that to avoid the errors of the Obama years Democrats must make a firm commitment not to engage with bad faith arguments or bad faith actors. “This to me is the greatest negative lesson of the Obama era: the willing engagement of good faith with bad faith in which bad faith is, by definition, always the winner.” This necessity has cropped up again with Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plan to create a commission to investigate the January 6th insurrection against the US capitol.

Congressional Republicans are doing everything they can to scuttle the idea. They’re opposing Pelosi’s plan to give Democrats a 7-4 majority on the panel (that’s not an unreasonable argument in the abstract) and more tellingly insisting that they can only support the idea if it also looks at violence during the summer protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. In other words, the Republican response is to whatabout the insurrection at the Capitol and the attempt to overturn the 2020 election by force. The latest gambit comes from Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who says he could agree to the whataboutist model – Capitol insurrection but also antifa and everything that happened last summer – or a much narrower commission focused solely on Capitol security procedures.

What is notable is how this resistance is being portrayed by DC insider publications. Politico says that Pelosi’s effort to “create a broad bipartisan review of the Jan. 6 insurrection is in peril” because of McConnell’s opposition and later that McConnell’s new terms “underscore the steep challenge Democrats face if they hope to create the spirit of the 9/11 Commission, a bipartisan review of the 2001 terrorist attacks that’s considered a model for intensive after-action reviews of nationally significant moments.”

As I said, you simply can’t engage bad faith arguments because the bad faith actors are definitionally the victors. Always. This is no different from the recidivist Lucy-footballing Republicans did through the Obama years and their current insistence that the only way to achieve national unity – as per President Biden’s pledge – is to grant Republicans a veto over Democratic policy making when Democrats control the White House and Congress.

It is no surprise that Republicans don’t want this commission to be impanelled. Virtually the entire GOP was complicit in the events leading up to the insurrection; many actively participated in it and the party’s leader instigated and incited it. The core problem is that the GOP continues to embrace the insurrection or deny it ever happened. (In this sense, insisting that national unity can only be achieved by agreeing never to discuss it again is no different from denying it happened.) As long as this is the case any investigation cannot help but be ‘partisan’ inasmuch as one party supports the insurrection and the other does not. There’s simply no way around that.

In a sense one can hardly blame Republicans for opposing it: the man they have lined up this week to commit to as the leader of their party did it! How can they possibly get behind getting to the bottom of such an event? Of course they can’t. It’s umbilically tied to their commitment of loyalty to ex-President Trump.

As you can see from the Politico quotes, establishment DC press thinking makes this a failing on the part of ‘Democrats’ or Nancy Pelosi. As long as you accept that premise you’re basically making a mockery of yourself and trying to mount an investigation over which the suspects exercise a veto. As long as Republicans stick with this stance it can’t help but be ‘partisan’ since the Republican demand is not to allow an actual investigation.

Democrats simply can’t play this game. Pelosi doesn’t need McConnell’s permission. Democrats have majorities in both chambers. They can create it if they want to. They should. McConnell and fellow Republicans are insisting that it can only be ‘bipartisan’ if Republicans are allowed to prevent an investigation from actually happening. If that’s the standard there’s no point. Republicans have created this situation with their actions. As long as one party supports and covers for the insurrection and the other doesn’t any investigation perforce must be ‘partisan’. So be it.

I have a feeling this is going nowhere but maybe the Democrats will surprise us. Or perhaps the DOJ will look into it or maybe the president will name some commission. McConnell does not want a real congressional bipartisan committee to investigate this, obviously. He knows that it will inflame the Trump cult and he seems to have made the calculation that he’s said his piece and now it’s time to carry on, perhaps hoping that Trump will decided not to interfere in the 22 races. (Fat chance.)

The bottom line is that it appears until Donald Trump shuffles off his mortal coil there will not be any real reckoning with what happened. A few of the “bad apples” will do some time and that will be that. I hope I’m wrong. This was a very dangerous development but I think that because the Trump cultists are widely seen as Real Americans who really love the flag and maybe got a little carried away, many people believe it doesn’t carry a threat for the future. And yes, quite a few Republicans are fully on board with the violence.