Crooked Media - What A Day: Tweeters never prosper

Senate Republicans have spent the week aggressively opposing President Biden’s cabinet nominees of color for transparently made-up reasons, illustrating both their default mode of total obstruction, and the dizzying level of power that our old pal Joe Manchin enjoys as a result.
 

• Two Senate committees delayed votes on Neera Tanden’s nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget, while the White House scrambled to find enough votes to confirm her. After Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said he’d vote against her on account of her controversial tweets, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell snatched up the opportunity to obstruct President Biden and told Republicans to stick together to tank her confirmation, which is now in serious jeopardy.
   
• White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday that the White House nevertheless stands by Tanden, the only reasonable response to bad-faith attacks from Republicans who spent the last five years pretending not to see Donald Trump’s daily cyclone of toxic Twitter chaos, only to turn around and clutch their pearls about Tanden’s years-old posts. Many of the current Anti-Poster lawmakers (including Manchin) also had no problem confirming Richard Grenell, an online hell demon, to the post of U.S. ambassador to Germany back in 2018. 
   
• Tanden’s confirmation now depends on whether Sen. Lisa Murkowksi (R-AK) goes rogue to support her, and, uh, Murkowski just saw an old Tanden tweet calling her “high on her own supply” for the first time. If that somehow goes south, Shalanda Young, whom Biden nominated as deputy director of OMB (and who does not have a Twitter account), looks like the frontrunner to replace Tanden if necessary. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), the highest ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee (who's retiring in 2022), said he would back her nomination. 

Republicans have run the same fake-outrage play against other Biden nominees who happen to be women of color, but it falls apart when Democrats stick together. 
 

• On Wednesday, Manchin announced he will vote to confirm Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM) as Interior Secretary, following two days of confirmation hearings in which Republicans attacked her as “radical” for her views on the reality of climate change. In their lines of questioning, GOP members of the Energy and Natural Resources committee focused aggressively on oil and gas drilling and pipelines, completely ignoring other aspects of the role—like oversight of Native American affairs. 
   
• But (bear with us here) they might not be ~exclusively~ worried about lost fossil-fuel jobs: Republicans on the committee have collectively received more than $4 million in donations from the oil and gas industry. Murkowski, who has strong ties to the Alaska Native community, is also the biggest oil and gas recipient on the list. (Manchin’s support means that Haaland’s confirmation probably won’t depend on how Murkowski sorts out her divided loyalties, but it’s an interesting pickle.) Anyway, the Republicans pretending to find Haaland’s nomination alarming all happily voted to confirm disgraced former Interior Secretary/Scandal Machine Ryan Zinke, so there’s no need to take them seriously now. 

The Neera Tanden confirmation debacle should serve as an important reminder to Democrats that Republican pleas for bipartisanship end the second they see a window to exert control and sabotage progressive gains. The success of Joe Biden’s agenda will depend on whether Democrats can unite around slamming those windows shut. 

Writer Roxane Gay joins the Keep It crew this week to talk her new Master Class, writing for social change, and why smart people love pop culture. Listen and subscribe to Keep It to hear the interview wherever you listen to podcasts → 

South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg, who hit and killed a man with his car last September, is facing calls to resign and a possible impeachment. Last week Ravnsborg was charged with careless driving, using a cell phone, and failing to stay in his lane on the night of the crash—all misdemeanors. Ravnsborg initially told police he thought he had hit a deer, and said he only discovered the body of 55-year-old Joseph Boever when he came back the next morning. But in newly released interviews with Ravnsborg from days after the accident, detectives told him that they had found Boever’s reading glasses in his car, meaning that Boever’s face had come through his windshield. That revelation prompted a bipartisan group of lawmakers to file two articles of impeachment against Ravnsborg, and even noted endagerer of human life Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) has called for his resignation. Ravnsborg has said he won’t step down.

Democrats are at odds over what to do about Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who on Wednesday told lawmakers that he plans to remain in his role for a “long time. Get used to me.” DeJoy’s trademark mail delays have continued to plague the Postal Service—nationwide on-time delivery is currently 64 percent for first class mail and 45 percent for periodicals, with even worse delays in some parts of the country. After apologizing again for the very thing Donald Trump installed him to do, DeJoy confirmed that his strategic 10-year plan for the Postal Service involves….slowing down the mail. Only the USPS Board of Governors can get rid of DeJoy, but President Biden wouldn’t have to fire anyone to make that happen: There are enough vacancies for him to appoint four new members, creating a Democratic majority that can oust DeJoy at will. Some Democrats are strongly in favor of that plan, while others, including House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, believe they can work with DeJoy to secure GOP support for a Postal Service reform bill. As long as no one can think of any reasons not to trust Louis DeJoy, this seems like a risk-free plan!

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The FDA has confirmed that Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose coronavirus vaccine is safe, effective, and completely protective against hospitalizations and deaths. That vaccine could be authorized as soon as this weekend. 

The Biden administration will send 25 million cloth masks to community health centers and food pantries. 

Ghana has received its first vaccine doses from COVAX, officially kicking off the global initiative to immunize billions of people. 

A Southern Poverty Law Center survey found that at least 160 Confederate symbols were taken down or moved from public spaces in 2020.