Crooked Media - What A Day: Fifty-first waits

The push for DC statehood has gained fresh momentum as Democrats line up behind urgent pro-democracy reforms, with statehood advocates boldly prioritizing equal representation over the famous All States Must Have An Airport (As Soon As We Invent Those) Act of 1816.
 

• The House Oversight and Reform Committee held a hearing on legislation to grant statehood to Washington, DC, which would shrink the federal district to two square miles of federal buildings and overpriced salad franchises, while turning the rest of the city into the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth. It’s a straightforward fix to an undeniable problem: More than 700,000 people live and pay federal taxes in DC—a larger population than the states of Wyoming and Vermont—but they have no representatives or senators in Congress.
   
• Mayor Muriel Bowser and other statehood advocates at Monday’s hearing focused on disenfranchisement as a civil-rights issue: DC is a plurality-Black city, and has a long, gross history of white lawmakers denying its residents equal voting rights for that reason. Advocates also argued that DC’s lack of autonomy and authority to call in the National Guard without federal approval has left the city powerless to protect itself, particularly from violence incited by federal actors. If DC had been a state on January 6, the attack on the Capitol might have ended very differently.
   
• The Republicans opposed to granting full political rights to Black people and losing some of their artificial structural advantages in the Senate can’t very well say that, so their arguments on Monday centered around calling DC statehood unconstitutional (nope), framing it is a partisan power grab by Democrats (because denying representation to 700,000 Americans who are more likely to elect Democrats is the very opposite of a power grab, you see), and, uh, complaining about the unchecked power of DC residents’ lawn signs. Lawn signs AND a voice in the political process? Who do these people think they are?

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) introduced the first statehood bill nearly three decades ago, but the effort has never enjoyed the visibility or popularity it has today.
 

• The underground bill used to playing in local basements has hit the congressional Billboard (Bills-board?) charts. (Sorry.) Last year, the House approved statehood legislation for the first time. Senate Democrats introduced a bill in January with a record 38 cosponsors, and nearly all 50 Democrats have indicated they're on board. President Biden officially backed the effort on Thursday. With Democrats now framing DC statehood as a central voting-rights priority, public support has risen accordingly: A new Data for Progress/Democracy for All 2021 Action poll found that a record 54 percent of likely voters agree with making DC a state.
   
• At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this very good and popular proposal has little chance of making it through the Senate unless Democrats do something about the filibuster. At the risk of sounding like a broken record that nevertheless slaps, it seems like they just might! On Friday night, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) became the latest Democratic holdout to come out as reform-curious. Senate Disenfranchisement Leader Mitch McConnnell has published an op-ed in the Courier-Journal screeching that the filibuster is the last bulwark against socialism (while accidentally strengthening a pro-reform argument), evidently sensing that his filibustering days are numbered.
   

The case for making DC a state has always been unassailable, but Democrats suddenly have a unique opportunity to actually do something about it. The confluence of radical GOP attacks on democratic institutions and a literal insurrection have ramped up the urgency, and (most) Democrats have realized that unless they use their power to mitigate the partisan bias of the Senate, they may never get to do anything else. Time for the rest of us to get loud about it.

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President Biden’s economic advisors intend to present Congress a roughly $3 trillion Build Back Better package, which will contain measures to improve infrastructure, reduce carbon emissions, implement free community college and universal prekindergarten, and make a few fantastic-but-temporary provisions in the American Rescue Plan—like expanded health care subsidies and tax credits aimed at reducing child poverty—permanent. The economic team intends to finance that package, at least in part, by taxing the rich.

In a conveniently timed study, IRS researchers and economists found that high-income tax avoidance is a much bigger problem than the IRS had assumed: The top one percent of households failed to report an estimated 21 percent of their income, using a variety of strategies that audits (when the IRS even bothers, which is less and less often if you’re wealthy) don’t necessarily catch. Tax rich people who have only gotten richer during the pandemic, figure out how to make sure they actually pay it, and use the money to create jobs and avert climate disaster: Seems like a solid next project.

• A gunman opened fire at a grocery store in Boulder, CO, on Monday. Police have taken at least one person into custody, but authorities haven't released any details. It's still unclear how many people were hurt. Police intend to brief the public on the shooting later this evening.
   
• The Supreme Court will consider reinstating the death sentence for the Boston Marathon bomber, as the Trump administration requested. Even if the Court were to do so, nothing would compel President Biden to schedule an execution date. 
   
• The White House has dispatched NSC officials to Mexico and Guatemala to address the surge of asylum seekers at the border. Meanwhile, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) once again displayed her fine judgement by joining Sen. John “Humane Policies Are Bad” Cornyn (R-TX) in writing a letter to Biden urging him to Do Better. 
   
• Protesters gathered at rallies across the country in solidarity with Asian Americans over the weekend. For some thoughtful writing on the interconnected driving forces behind last week’s shootings in Atlanta, we highly recommended Abdul El-Sayed’s latest newsletter. 
   
• Officials in Miami Beach, FL, have extended a coronavirus curfew and state of emergency in response to overwhelming spring break crowds. Police there have arrested more than 1,000 people during this spring break season, and have sometimes used pepper balls to disperse crowds.
   
• In a Sunday 60 Minutes interview, Justice Department official Michael Sherwin (who was the lead prosecutor overseeing the January 6 investigation until last week) said that evidence from the Capitol attack likely supports sedition charges, and that DOJ hasn't ruled out criminal charges against Donald Trump.
   
• Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) is an absolute whirlwind of harmful misinformation, if anyone needed a reason to support Wisconsin Democrats today.
   
• The U.S. and several allies have announced coordinated sanctions on Chinese officials allegedly linked to the campaign of genocide against Uighur Muslims. China immediately announced sanctions against 10 E.U. politicians in response.
   
• Guy-Brice Parfait Kolélas, the main opposition leader in the Republic of Congo, died of coronavirus hours after voting ended in Sunday’s election.
   
• Rep. Filemon Vela (D-TX) announced he won’t run for reelection, which, given his district’s trend to the right and Republican gerrymandering plans, is not great news. Better news: Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY), who was considering a New York gubernatorial run until he was accused of sexual misconduct last week, also will not run for public office in 2022.
   
• Get vaxxed and let Krispy Kreme murder you with free doughnuts. This is America, and we will go out on our own delicious terms. 

The reverse coattail effect is a very real thing, according to a new study from Run For Something. The group analyzed 3,953 precincts in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, and Texas, comparing precincts where Republicans ran for state House or Senate seats uncontested to those where they faced Democratic opponents. The study found that even when Democratic candidates didn’t win, their mere presence on the ballot in state-legislature races provided Joe Biden with a boost of anywhere from 0.3 to 1.5 percent. In other words, simply having more Democrats run in down-ballot races can drive up voter participation and help swing national elections. That finding won’t come as a big surprise to anyone involved in local politics. And though we should await confirmation from further research across more elections, it’s a strong argument for Democrats to make bigger investments (of both time and money) in down-ballot candidates. 

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The U.S. trial for AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine found it to be safe and 79 percent effective overall, and 100 percent effective against severe illness. 

Over three-million shots per day all weekend, baby.

The USDA announced that it will increase SNAP benefits by 15 percent using pandemic-relief funds, providing around $3.5 billion to 41 million people in households experiencing food insecurity. 

The Interior Department, under the newly confirmed Secretary Deb Haaland, has withdrawn a Trump-era opinion that stripped ownership of a portion of the Missouri River from the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation.