Garland on the not-so-hot seat
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Next steps on the Covid relief bill, the Equality Act and the first confirmation hearing of Merrick Garland, oh my! A lot of things are happening this week in a compressed time frame. Here’s what to expect:
COVID RELIEF PACKAGE ON TRACK: House Democrats are planning to pass President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package by the end of this week, likely without the support of Republicans.
The House Budget Committee will meet this afternoon to tee up the legislation for a floor vote on Friday or Saturday, which will then punt the action over to the Senate as early as next week. Unemployment benefits expire March 14.
Joe Biden for traveling amid the pandemic drew fire, and some mockery, from Twitter users.
“Biden flying to Delaware despite CDC warnings to avoid travel,” read both the report’s headline and its accompanying tweet:
Biden flying to Delaware despite CDC warnings to avoid travelhttps://t.co/NwOhjutfDW
“Biden, who has a home outside Wilmington, Delaware, is expected to fly on Air Force One and will avoid much of the travel risks associated with commercial flights or traveling on other methods of public transportation like bus or train,” the report later clarifies, adding, “Former President Trump made multiple trips to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. amid the pandemic last year.”
WASHINGTON — As troops with long guns patrolled a newly erected security fence surrounding much of Capitol Hill on Saturday, some neighbors were pleased by the tougher security presence while
Twelve days.
In the scripted video he released on Thursday afternoon, President Trump promised this final week and a half of his administration would now be the occasion for a “smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power.”
In the hours after that much-overdue pledge, some long-delayed moves toward a transition occurred: Administration officials, for example, sent a notice to all political appointees telling them they must resign as of Jan. 20, a routine step that Trump had blocked since November’s election.
Whether Trump will stick to his words remains a question. In the past, he has several times succumbed to pressure from aides to say or do the right thing only to rebel within days and snap back to his more typical, fight-at-all-costs approach.
What a year.
That’s how these kinds of year-end pieces always start, right? But if there’s a year that cliché is true, it’s 2020 the year “unprecedented” became hackneyed.
An unprecedented impeachment trial? Check.
An unprecedented once-in-a-century pandemic? Check.
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An unprecedented presidential election? Check.
Amid the whiplash of 2020, it’s easy to forget all that happened, or at the very least, how it happened. One of my favorite 2020 Times stories wasn’t about politics at all. It was this piece by audience engagement editor Rachel Schnalzer on how the conditions of 2020 were
Now we have an opportunity to recalibrate. In this newsletter, we zoom out and explore the broader context of the news of the week how do all these pieces make up a whole? The whole is clear: a year that was at turns chaotic and triumphant in both Washington and Sacramento. Worth our consideration are the events that made it that way. Without further ado, here’s