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House Republicans have radicalized themselves right out of a role in the January 6 investigation, Senate Republicans have taken another step towards denying themselves any say in the infrastructure deal, and in a refreshing turn of events, Democrats in both chambers have responded with a serene “okey-dokey.”
- On Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of the GOP Big Lie peddlers House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy selected to serve on the January 6 committee, citing the plain fact that Reps. Jim Banks (R-IN) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) would jeopardize “the integrity of the investigation” by shrieking ‘what about Antifa!!!’ at regular intervals. (Strangely, Pelosi did not object to McCarthy’s appointment of Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX), who also voted against certifying the election results.)
- McCarthy was considerate enough to finish the job for her, yanking all of his appointees from the panel. Rather than send less-brain-poisoned members to participate in (a closer approximation of) good faith, McCarthy announced that House Republicans will simply launch their own very objective investigation into the insurrection they helped incite. Democrats’ committee will still be bipartisan thanks to the involvement of Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who said she agreed with Pelosi’s decision: “At every opportunity, the minority leader has attempted to prevent the American people from understanding what happened.”
- Judging by the state of the GOP base, those attempts have been at least somewhat successful. A new CBS News poll found that 55 percent of Trump voters describe the attack on Capitol as “defending freedom” and 51 percent describe it as “patriotism,” while only 20 percent would call it “an insurrection.” Anyway, the reason a high-profile committee now has the chance to loudly set the story straight is that Republicans shot themselves in the wiener by filibustering a toothless bipartisan commission, and all of their tearful denunciations of Pelosi’s Partisan Sham are just various iterations of, “oh no, my wiener.”
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On the other side of the Capitol, Senate Republicans are getting tantalizingly close to pulling the same trigger.
- Republicans blocked a vote to move to debate on the bipartisan infrastructure bill on Wednesday, arguing that they couldn’t possibly agree to continue considering legislation before the full text was available. A group of 11 Republicans said they would be ready to advance the bill on Monday, but with GOP negotiators still reopening talks on financing mechanisms and funding for public transit, it’s not at all clear that a deal will be ready by then. If Republicans ultimately derail it, Democrats can just wrap the physical-infrastructure measures into their reconciliation bill. That is, so long as moderate Democrats are sufficiently convinced that Republicans were invited to the table and chose to flip it over.
- Here’s one more data point for them: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has threatened to hold the debt-ceiling hostage just 10 days before the deadline to raise it—effectively threatening to tank the economy unless Democrats agree to enact the GOP agenda. Thanks to extraordinary measures that the Treasury Department can take to stave off a crisis until October, Democrats can raise the debt limit themselves in their reconciliation bill, or tie it to annual government appropriations in the fall. But after they repeatedly voted with Republicans to approve necessary increases during the Trump administration, it should be abundantly clear to anyone paying attention that McConnell’s maneuvering is, in Schumer’s words, “shameless, cynical, and totally political.”
Republicans’ open contempt for boring legislative business like “investigating an attack on Congress” and “preventing a climate apocalypse” should be an invitation to Democrats to pursue both efforts unilaterally and aggressively. By imposing hard limits on sabotage and delays, they’re at least laying the groundwork to do just that.
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This week on Keep It!, Ira, Louis, and Aida discuss Olivia Rodrigo's White House visit, Leo season, bad Grindr etiquette, Space Jam 2, and their cultural blindspots. Writer Rebecca carroll joins to discuss her memoir Surviving the White Gaze. New episodes of Keep It! drop every Wednesday. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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The GOP assault on democracy includes a wave of legislation that’s gotten less attention than voter-suppression or election-subversion bills, but which should make you just as steamed: Bills aimed at preventing voters from approving progressive policies at the ballot box. State lawmakers have introduced a record 146 bills to change the ballot-referendum process in 36 states, from requiring a certain font size on ballot petitions to mandating that a certain percentage of signatures come from every legislative district, all with the goal of making it harder for organizers to get popular issues like marijuana legalization and Medicaid expansion on the ballot. Red states have enacted 24 of those laws so far, and several GOP-controlled legislatures have also moved to invalidate successful ballot initiatives retroactively. As the saying goes, if you can’t beat ‘em, rewrite the rules and subject ‘em to your unpopular policies anyway!
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- U.S. life expectancy fell by a year and a half in 2020, the sharpest drop since World War II. The decline was particularly stark among Hispanic Americans (three years) and Black Americans (2.9 years).
- An Alabama doctor offered a heartbreaking account of treating dying, unvaccinated coronavirus patients, if you have a vaccine skeptic in your contacts who could use a little eye opening.
- Johnson & Johnson and three drug distributors have reached a $26 billion deal with states that would release the companies from all liability in the opioid crisis, and fund addiction treatment programs and prevention services across the country.
- A Biden official said the administration isn’t sure why the Russian ransomware group REVil went offline, which indicates either that the U.S, had nothing to do with, or that the U.S. “had nothing to do with it.”
- Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) is more popular among Arizona Democrats than Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) by a 53 point margin, according to a new poll, but on the other hand, Sinema is up 33 points among the Republicans who still won’t support her re-election. Maybe they’ll do a lil curtsy as they vote her out of office?
- Hundreds of Frito-Lay workers in Topeka, KS, are in their third week of a strike, seeking better pay and an end to the plant’s regular use of forced time. Workers have called for a national boycott of Frito-Lay and PepsiCo products until the strike is settled.
- A far-right Michigan sheriff has been sending a deputy and private investigator around to interrogate election officials about imaginary voter fraud, having been inspired by the conspiratorial stylings of MyPillow Guy Mike Lindell.
- The couple whose gender-reveal party sparked last year’s El Dorado Fire in Southern California have been charged with manslaughter. The wildfire killed a firefighter, injured 13 other people, and forced the evacuation of hundreds.
- Norway’s women’s beach handball team was fined after wearing shorts instead of bikini bottoms in a Sunday game. “Handball fans come to games expecting to holler ‘awooga’ and have their bowties spin around, and our rules are designed to reflect that,” said the European Handball Federation, slapping a reporter’s ass.
- Facebook representatives tried to frame a Russian “Muslims for Clinton” ad from 2016 as pro-Clinton as part of their argument that Russia wasn’t boosting any one party in particular, according to the new book An Ugly Truth. More like (sorry) Face-value-book, amirite? (Wasn't worth it.)
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Huge swaths of Siberia, a region best known for being quite cold, are once again very much on fire. Extreme summer heat in Siberia has caused wildfires to accelerate badly in the last three years, threatening the sustainability of a forest ecosystem that residents rely on. Last year’s wildfires burned through a record 60,000 square miles, an area the size of Florida. This year’s fires are on pace to exceed that: More than 30,000 square miles have already burned in Russia, just two weeks into the region’s peak fire season. It’s both an acute crisis—the 320,000 residents of the city of Yakutsk have been warned to stay inside to avoid toxic air pollution—and a global one: The fires release staggering quantities of greenhouse gases and destroy Siberia’s carbon-absorbing forests—feedback loops that accelerate climate change.
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DC lawmakers have approved a measure to raise the marginal tax rate on the highest-income residente and use the funds to create a monthly basic income program for low-income families, among other things.
Gov. John Bel Edwards's (D-LA) veto of an anti-trans sports bill will stand, after Louisiana Republicans failed to overturn it.
A federal judge has temporarily blocked an Arkansas ban on gender-affirming health care for trans youth.
South Carolina State University has used coronavirus relief funding to eliminate the debt of more than 2,500 students.
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