Crooked Media - What A Day: PRO pain accessories

President Biden’s coronavirus relief package has cleared its final hurdle on its way to becoming law, as congressional Democrats reveled in the long-forgotten (and hopefully addictive) experience of Getting a Big Thing Done. 
 

• House Democrats passed the final version of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan on Wednesday with, once again, zero Republican votes. President Biden will sign the bill on Friday, triggering the disbursement of $1400 stimulus checks to most Americans, an extension of unemployment benefits, and enacting an incredibly progressive slate of federal programs geared toward people who need help most. After that, the White House just needs to figure out how to take credit. (Pitches: Distribution of free t-shirts featuring this image, tactical deployment of old-timey newsboys, preloaded MP4 file on the secret vaccine microchip.)
   
• There’s good reason to make sure voters hear about the sheer magnitude of this bill. According to a Tax Policy Center estimate, the poorest 20 percent of households will see a 20 percent boost to their after-tax income. A new Urban Institute analysis of the final package found that it will reduce the poverty rate among children by more than 52 percent in 2021. Poverty is projected to fall by around 42 percent for Black people, 39 percent for Hispanic people, and 34 percent for white people, reducing racial disparities. The overall poverty rate will fall by more than one-third, lifting 16 million people above the line.
   
• The bill’s so good that the Republicans who opposed it are now preemptively trying to divorce it from the economic recovery they know it will usher in. “We're about to have a boom. And if we do have a boom, it will have absolutely nothing to do with this $1.9 trillion,” said Senate Coincidences Believer Mitch McConnell, as he and his members got down to the much more pressing business of, let’s see here, trying to repeal the estate tax. Okey-dokey. Eight-figure workers everywhere rejoice.

Meanwhile, with more vaccine funding and supplies on the way, states are getting ready to jab like never before. 
 

• States’ biggest limiting factor in vaccinations is still the limited supply of doses, but that’s set to change very quickly. The Biden administration has reportedly advised state health officials to plan for between 22 and 24 million doses a week by early April, an increase of up to 50 percent above current allocations. States will need to be ready with more mass vaccination sites and recruit more staff, as the federal government scales up FEMA sites and allocations to pharmacies.
   
• On Wednesday, Biden announced plans to purchase another 100 million doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, likely to be delivered in the second half of the year. Those doses will set up the country to vaccinate children, once those shots are authorized, and provide booster shots to guard against coronavirus variants, if necessary. Responding to warnings about the widening vaccination gap between rich and developing countries, Biden said that he would share any U.S. vaccine surplus with the rest of the world. 

In the day-to-day scuffles over the relief package, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture: The bill is a historic boon to millions of struggling Americans, and neither it nor the vastly improved vaccine rollout would have been possible if Democrats hadn’t won the White House, Senate, and House. There’s a straight line from your volunteer work to an enormous reduction in poverty and sickness, so make sure to take your own credit, and stay in the fight.

This week on Pod Save The World, Tommy and Ben are joined by Verónica Gago, an Argentinian activist who launched a feminist movement against gender-based violence. Check out the interview and subscribe to Pod Save The World wherever you get your podcasts →

The House has passed the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would mark one of the most dramatic overhauls of U.S. labor laws in decades. The bill’s main aims are to make it easier for workers to unionize by creating tougher penalties for employers who try to thwart unionization efforts, and to strengthen unions that already exist with a policy overriding state right-to-work laws that allow unionized workers to skip out on paying dues. The PRO Act would also give independent contractors and gig workers the power to collectively bargain alongside employees. The House bill had three GOP cosponsors but passed with a measly five GOP votes, which probably won’t make Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) any less righteously pissed off. As with just about everything good that Democrats hope to accomplish post-Rescue Plan, passing the PRO Act in the Senate will first require reforming the filibuster.

A surge of unaccompanied minors at the border has meant that thousands of children are stuck in Border Patrol custody for more than four days on average, a dramatic increase from just a week ago. Over the last 21 days, CPB has taken in an average of 435 unaccompanied kids daily, up from a previous average of 345. Under U.S. law, they’re only supposed to remain in DHS custody for up to 72 hours, but due to shortages of appropriate shelter care resulting from coronavirus restrictions, they’re now staying in unfit facilities for 107 hours on average. There are several factors that might have driven the sudden surge, like the pandemic’s devastating toll on Latin America, two recent hurricanes in the region, and the Biden administration ending Trump’s policy to immediately expel unaccompanied minors. The White House has pointedly refused to call the situation a “crisis,” but Biden’s larger immigration overhaul will take months, if not years, to implement, as HHS scrambles to find humane shelter space in the meantime.

In 2021 mental health is finally a thing, especially as people are not feeling like their normal selves. Let’s support one another and talk openly. Whether or not therapy is your thing, knowing it’s available and affordable is important, for you or perhaps a loved one.  

Millions of people are trying and loving online therapy It doesn’t have to be sitting around just talking about your feelings.

So, what is therapy, exactly? It’s whatever you want it to be.

You can privately talk to someone if your stress is too much to manage, you’re battling a temper, having relationship issues, anxiety, depression, etc… Whatever you need, there’s no more shame in these normal human struggles. We take care of our bodies, why not our minds, too? Without a healthy mind, being truly happy and at peace is HARD.

BetterHelp is customized online therapy that offers video, phone and even live chat sessions with your therapist, so you don’t have to see anyone on camera if you don’t want to. It’s much more affordable than in-person therapy and you can start communicating with your therapist in under 48 hours.

It’s always a good time to invest in yourself, because you are your greatest asset. See if online therapy is for you by heading to BetterHelp.com/crooked for 10% off your first month.

The USDA announced that it will extend its effort to provide free meals to children through the summer. 

Vaccinated nursing-home residents have gotten the federal go-ahead to once again receive hugs. 

Eli Lilly announced that its coronavirus antibody treatment reduced the risk of hospitalization and death by 87 percent. 

Guam has taken a major step towards restoring abortion access, after the ACLU scored a victory in a lawsuit aiming to ensure that residents can obtain abortion drugs from remote health-care providers.