Covid-19 restriction signs hang yesterday outside a restaurant in Austin, Texas.
“Four states have now announced rolling back mask mandates in major recalls of COVID-19 safety measures over the last month. But some of the nation’s largest retailers including Kroger, Best Buy, Macy’s, Starbucks and Target are not rolling back theirs . Cities, businesses, and families are often making their own choices of whether to wear masks or go to restaurants, despite governors in Mississippi, Texas, Montana and Iowa urging their residents to go back to a carefree life. President Joe Biden slammed decisions to reopen, the day after the Texas and Mississippi governors said they're discarding masking mandates, and said they're ‘a big mistake.’' ‘The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that, in the meantime, everything's fine, take off your mask, forget it,’ Biden said. ‘It still matters.’ Some businesses say they will continue to abide by guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that shield their frontline workers from exposure to COVID-19.
“Meanwhile, the European Union’s vaccine regulator has begun a review of Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V after complaints of slow vaccine rollouts. That vaccine has seen rising popularity in Latin America, and more countries are announcing deals. In the US, some Catholic bishops are discouraging people from getting the latest single-shot vaccine from Johnson & Johnson when alternatives are available because it contains lab-grown cells that descend from cells taken in the 1980s from the tissue of aborted fetuses.” Read more at CNN
“But some of the nation’s largest retailers including Kroger, Best Buy, Macy’s, Starbucks and Target are not rolling back theirs . Cities, businesses, and families are often making their own choices of whether to wear masks or go to restaurants, despite governors in Mississippi, Texas, Montana and Iowa urging their residents to go back to a carefree life. President Joe Biden slammed decisions to reopen, the day after the Texas and Mississippi governors said they're discarding masking mandates, and said they're ‘a big mistake.’ ‘The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that, in the meantime, everything's fine, take off your mask, forget it,’ Biden said. ‘It still matters.’ Some businesses say they will continue to abide by guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that shield their frontline workers from exposure to COVID-19.
“The U.S. has administered more than two million vaccine shots per dayover the past week.” Read more at New York Times
“The House late Wednesday night passed expansive legislation to create uniform national voting standards, overhaul campaign finance laws and outlaw partisan redistricting, advancing a centerpiece of the Democratic voting rights agenda amid fierce Republican attacks that threaten to stop it cold in the Senate.
The bill, titled the ‘For the People Act,’ was given the symbolic designation of H.R. 1 by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and it largely mirrors a bill passed two years ago in the early weeks of the House Democratic majority.
This year, however, the bill has taken on additional significance because of the new Democratic majority in the Senate and President Biden’s November win, as well as the efforts underway in dozens of Republican-controlled state legislatures to roll back voting access in reaction to former president Donald Trump’s loss and his subsequent campaign to question the election results….
The bill’s voting provisions would guarantee no-excuse mail voting and at least 15 days of early voting for federal elections; require states to use their existing government records to automatically register citizens to vote; restore voting rights to felons who have completed their prison sentences; and mandate the use of paper ballots.
Other provisions would create new disclosure requirements for “dark money” donations to political groups; require states to appoint independent commissions to draw congressional districts; and create new federal standards for election equipment vendors.
The bill also would require tech platforms to disclose political advertising information; establish a code of ethics for Supreme Court justices for the first time; restructure the Federal Election Commission to an odd number of members to break partisan deadlocks; and require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns.
The bill has become a lightning rod for Republican opposition, spurring claims that it is a partisan attempt to rewrite federal election laws in Democrats’ favor. No Republicans voted for the bill in 2019 or Wednesday night, when it was approved 220 to 210….
Although virtually all Democrats, including Biden, have signaled support for the bill, the solid GOP opposition means the legislation is in deep peril in the Senate, whose rules allow a 41-vote minority to block most legislation from coming to a final vote. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has made clear that Republicans plan to fight tooth and nail against it….
However, with Republicans firmly opposed, the bill’s only path into law may be through the willingness of Democrats to abandon the 60-vote filibuster rule. Several Democratic lawmakers have openly discussed creating a limited exception for civil rights legislation, but key Democrats — including Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) — have said they will not entertain any changes.
But with GOP legislatures moving quickly ahead of the 2022 midterms, an internal pressure campaign among Democrats is likely to ensue regardless.” Read more at Washington Post
“The U.S. House of Representatives passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act on Wednesday night in a 220-212 vote, ushering in a series of police reform measures in the wake of national uprising against racial injustice and police brutality.
The policing reform bill aims to bolster police accountability and prevent problem officers from moving from one department to another by creating a national registry to track those with checkered records. It also would end certain police practices that have been under scrutiny after the deaths of Black Americans in the last year.” Read more at USA Today
“Federal law enforcement is on high alert today after an intelligence bulletin this week warned of a group of violent militia extremists discussing plans to take control of the US Capitol and remove Democratic lawmakers on or about March 4. The date is central to a fringe conspiracy theory among supporters of former President Trump, some of whom believe today is the ‘real’ inauguration and that he will somehow regain power. The House even changed its schedule in light of the threat to avoid being in session. The Senate will still meet to debate the Covid-19 bill. Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, says Trump has a duty to call off any supporters planning action today.” Read more at CNN
“Many questions remain unanswered about the failure to prevent the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. But after six congressional hearings, it’s clear that the Capitol Police were unprepared and overwhelmed as hundreds of Donald Trump’s supporters laid siege to the building. It’s also clear that no one wants to take responsibility for it.
Officials who were in charge of protecting the Capitol, and the people inside it, have pointed fingers at each other in testimony to the House and Senate. Their deflections are indicative of the chaos of that day, the lack of intelligence leading up to the attack and the fact that none of the law enforcement agencies involved imagined that so many of Trump’s supporters would violently lay siege to the Capitol with the mission of overturning his defeat.
So far, lawmakers have focused on the lack of clear intelligence about the plans of the rioters, given that Trump’s supporters openly discussed the insurrection online. They have also questioned military and law enforcement leaders about why it took more than three hours for the National Guard to get to the Capitol when the rioters were already inside.
Five people died as a result of the violence, including a Capitol Police officer and a woman who was shot by police as she tried to break into the House chamber through a broken window.
What we have learned so far about the failures that led to the Jan. 6 insurrection:
BROAD FAILURES, ACROSS THE BOARD ...
Congress hasn’t pinned the blame on any one agency or official as it investigates the riot, as it’s obvious there were failures on all levels. The rioters easily broke through police barriers and overwhelmed the officers who were there, injuring many of them, as the Capitol Police had planned for a much smaller event. The National Guard did not arrive for several hours after a mob of around 800 people broke the doors and windows of the Capitol, entered the Senate shortly after it had been evacuated and tried to beat down the doors of the House with lawmakers still inside.
As all of that was happening, law enforcement and national security officials at multiple agencies have described frantic pleas for help from Capitol Police that were followed by layers of required approvals, conversations about optics and the logistics of hastily readying a response.
Capitol Police officials made clear that they never envisioned anything close to the scope of what happened. ‘We had planned for the possibility of violence, the possibility of some people being armed, not the possibility of a coordinated military-style attack involving thousands against the Capitol,’ said former chief Steven Sund, who was ousted from his job the day after the attack.
… BUT FEW WILLING TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY
The acting Capitol Police chief, Yogananda Pittman, told a House appropriations subcommittee in February that the force ‘failed to meet its own high standards as well as yours.’ She listed several missteps: not having enough manpower or supplies on hand, not following through with a lockdown order she issued during the siege and not having a sufficient communications plan for a crisis.
But she has also defended their role and suggested police couldn’t have known how bad it would be.
In the hearings — so far two in the Senate and four in the House — most every official has deflected responsibility, blaming either the intelligence failures, the Pentagon for failing to send the National Guard more quickly or each other.
Sund described the difficult process of navigating the Capitol Police Board, which includes the two officials in charge of security for the House and Senate and the Architect of the Capitol. The House and Senate sergeants-at-arms, who were both forced to resign immediately after the rioting, have given conflicting accounts of the conversations the day of the riot, and in the days before, as Sund begged for National Guard support.
NATIONAL GUARD DELAYS
Multiple law enforcement officials, including Sund, Robert Contee, the acting chief of police for the Metropolitan Police Department, and Maj. Gen. William Walker, commanding general of the District of Columbia National Guard, have blamed Pentagon officials for delaying for around three hours as they sought approval for National Guard troops.
At a hearing on Wednesday, Walker told senators that Sund requested troops in a ‘voice cracking with emotion’ in a 1:49 p.m. call just before rioters broke into the Capitol. He said he wasn’t notified of approval until 5:08 p.m.
A senior Pentagon official, Robert Salesses, testified that it took time for the Army to sort out what the National Guard was being asked to do and what its support might look like, especially since the Capitol Police days earlier had not asked for any help. Military officials were also concerned about the optics of a substantial National Guard presence at the Capitol, and that such visuals could inflame the rioters, Walker said.
‘Three hours and nineteen minutes,’ said Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, the top Republican on the Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee, one of the two panels that conducted the hearing. ‘That can’t happen again.’
MISSING INTELLIGENCE
All of the law enforcement officials have blamed failures of intelligence, saying they didn’t realize the severity of the threat, even though extremists were planning some of it openly online.
Many of the questions have centered on the FBI’s handling of a Jan. 5 bulletin from its Norfolk, Virginia, field office that warned of online posts foreshadowing a ‘war’ in Washington the following day. Capitol Police leaders have said they were unaware of the report at the time, even though it had been forwarded to the office.
The Capitol Police also did its own intelligence assessment warning that Congress could be targeted on Jan. 6. But that report assessed the probability of civil disobedience or arrests, based on the information they had, as ‘remote’ to ‘improbable’ for the groups expected to demonstrate.
Four House committees are probing what went wrong with that data collection, including the House intelligence committee. California Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of that panel, said his impression is that those failures ‘contributed to the tragedy on Jan. 6.’
‘We need to answer the question why and what do we need to do differently,’ Schiff said in an interview this week.
EVERYTHING BUT TRUMP
The congressional investigations have picked up speed in the wake of the Senate’s acquittal of Trump in his impeachment trial, where he faced a charge of inciting the insurrection. While Democrats — and even some Republicans — believe that Trump is ultimately responsible for the attack, it is clear after his acquittal that there are not the votes in Congress to officially lay the blame on the former president and prevent him from running for office again.
As a result, Congress is focusing on the security failures that day, and how law enforcement and the military could have been better prepared. The House Oversight and Reform Committee is investigating how right-wing social media could have contributed to the attack, and the Senate Judiciary Committee is looking at extremism.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner said his committee will look at extremism around the world — a problem that began long before Trump’s supporters broke into the Capitol. He says he thinks he could get bipartisan support for the probe even despite the ‘broad ideological breadth’ of senators on the committee.
‘I don’t want our committee’s examination to be about Trump or about Jan. 6,’ Warner, D-Va., said in an interview. ‘This is a problem that didn’t start on Jan. 6.’
NEXT STEPS UNCERTAIN
With the committee probes just begun, it’s unclear how the Capitol will return to normal — or what steps will be taken to prevent another attack. Thousands of National Guard troops still guard the Capitol, which is now surrounded by fencing and barbed wire and closed off to the public.
Lawmakers have talked about legislation to overhaul the Capitol Police Board, but that could be far off, likely after the investigations are complete. Senators in both parties have said that they will likely want to talk to more Pentagon officials to understand how the National Guard was delayed for so many hours.
‘Any minute that we lost, I need to know why,’ said Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.” Read more at AP
"New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo apologized for acting in a way that made women feel ‘uncomfortable,’ but insisted that he has ‘never touched anyone inappropriately’ and said he will not resign.
Scoop: Republican Rep. Tom Reed has begun hiring staffers to work on a campaign for governor of New York, Axios' Alayna Treene reports. Read more at Axios
“President Biden has agreed to narrow eligibility for a new round of $1,400 stimulus payments in his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, a concession to moderate Senate Democrats as party leaders moved Wednesday to lock down support and finalize the sweeping legislation.
Under the new structure, the checks would phase out faster for those at higher income levels, compared to the way the direct payments were structured in Biden’s initial proposal and the version of the bill passed by the House on Saturday.
The change came as the Senate prepared to take an initial procedural vote to move forward on the bill as early as Wednesday evening. Biden and Senate Democratic leaders were scrambling to keep their caucus united since they cannot lose a single Democrat in the 50-50 Senate if Republicans unite against the legislation.” Read more at Washington Post
“The Transportation Department’s inspector general asked the Justice Department in December to consider a criminal investigation into what it said was Elaine Chao’s misuse of her office as transportation secretary in the Trump administration to help promote her family’s shipping business, which is run by her sister and has extensive business ties with China.
In a report made public on Wednesday, the inspector general said the Justice Department’s criminal and public integrity divisions both declined to take up the matter in the closing weeks of the Trump administration, even after the inspector general found repeated examples of Ms. Chao using her staff and her office to help benefit her family and their business operations and revealed that staff members at the agency had raised ethics concerns.
‘A formal investigation into potential misuses of position was warranted,’ Mitch Behm, the department’s deputy inspector general, said on Tuesday in a letter to House lawmakers, accompanying a 44-page report detailing the investigation and the findings of wrongdoing.
Ms. Chao, the wife of Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, announced her resignation on Jan. 7, the day after the Capitol riot. At the time of her departure, an aide to Ms. Chao said her resignation was unrelated to the forthcoming release of the investigation.” Read more at New York Times
“Another deadly day of protests rocked Myanmar as the country’s security forces opened fire on young peaceful protesters in scenes described as ‘a war zone.’ At least 38 people were killed in the clashes. That marks the bloodiest day since the early February coup, which began after military leaders baselessly alleged voter fraud in the country’s November elections. The United Nations said the total death toll since the coup had risen to 50, though activists say it's higher. UN officials and human rights groups are trying to mobilize the international community to demand an end to the violence. The US State Department has condemned the violence and says Washington is reviewing policy options to respond to the recent escalations.” Read more at CNN
“Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Tex.), a former White House physician to two presidents, bullied his staff, made inappropriate sexual comments about a female subordinate and exhibited an array of other concerning behavior, according to a Defense Department inspector general report released Wednesday.
Jackson’s former colleagues vastly disapproved of his conduct and leadership within the White House Medical Unit, including incidents where he screamed, belittled staff and erupted into fits of rage, which demoralized nurses and doctors, the report found.” Read more at Washington Post
“Facebook will finally allow advertisers to resume running political and social issue ads in the U.S. on Thursday, according to a company update.
The big picture: Facebook and rival Google instituted political ad bans to slow the spread of misinformation and curb confusion around the presidential election and its aftermath.
Catch up quick: Google and Facebook both implemented political ad bans following poll closures on Nov. 3.
Google lifted its political ad ban Dec. 10, allowing campaigns to run ads around the Georgia runoff election in January. It reinstated its political ad ban following the Capitol siege and then lifted it in late February.
Facebook never fully lifted its political ad ban following the November election, but it did temporarily let advertisers run ads targeting Georgia voters about the state's Jan. 5 runoff elections, starting Dec. 16.
Details: Facebook said that it put the temporary political ad ban in place after the November 2020 election to avoid confusion or abuse following Election Day. It admitted that its ban needed to include issue ads to be effective.
Facebook said that it's hoping to spend some time refining the process to avoid any future confusion or concerns.
Between the lines: Some candidates and campaign officials expressed frustration with the ad bans, arguing that the bans limit transparency of digital political advertising broadly.
Ad buyers expressed initial frustration with the lack of clarity around how ad bans would be implemented and when they would expire….
What's next: Facebook says advertisers who have completed the ad authorization process may submit new ads that require a ‘Paid for by’ disclaimer or edit existing, eligible ads to turn them back on.” Read more at Axios
“Texas power grid operator fires CEO. The board of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or Ercot, voted to terminate Bill Magness less than a month after the state’s power grid experienced massive blackouts for several days during freezing weather and came within minutes of collapse.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Amazon in talks to carry many NFL games exclusively. The league is on the verge of signing an agreement that would bring a significant number of Thursday night games to Prime Video, as well as new rights deals that could see TV networks pay as much as double their current rate, people familiar with the matter said.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The audience for NBC’s Sunday night broadcast of the Golden Globes fell dramatically, with 6.9 million people watching the annual Hollywood ceremony, according to Nielsen.
Even by the standards of declining award-show ratings, this one was a whopper. The viewing audience shrank by 62 percent compared with last year’s show, which drew more than 18 million people. It was the smallest audience for any Globes ceremony since NBC started broadcasting the event in 1996.
The show had a lot going against it. Because of the pandemic, it was moved out of its customary January time slot, meaning it lost its usual lead-in, a National Football League playoff game. This year’s event also skipped the red-carpet parade of stars wearing the latest in fashion from name designers.
Hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler on separate coasts, the ceremony took place in front of a small crowd of emergency medical workers and others with essential jobs instead of Hollywood celebrities seated elbow-to-elbow in the cramped Beverly Hilton ballroom as drinks flowed. With winners and nominees beamed in remotely, the night also included technical glitches. And because movie theaters have been shut down, viewers were not as likely to have seen — or even to have heard of — many of the movies that were up for awards.” Read more at New York Times
“$2 billion — The approximate amount in income that billionaire Robert Brockman is accused of hiding from the federal government to avoid paying taxes. Before the software entrepreneur’s indictment last fall, Brockman—who has pleaded not guilty 39 criminal charges in what is the biggest U.S. tax-fraud case ever—was virtually unknown outside a small circle of people in Houston.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“1,294 — The number of people known to have been arrested, charged or sentenced amid protests against the military coup in Myanmar since Feb. 1, according to the nonprofit Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Dozens of people have also been gunned down in the streets by government authorities during demonstrations calling for a return to the country's decadelong transition to democracy. The killings show that the generals now in charge are using the same playbook for crushing dissent that the nation’s earlier military dictatorship deployed: bloodshed, nightly raids and mass arrests.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Prince Philip has had a successful heart procedure at a London hospital and is expected to remain for several days of ‘rest and recuperation,’ Buckingham Palace said Thursday.
The palace said the 99-year-old husband of Queen Elizabeth II ‘underwent a successful procedure for a pre-existing heart condition at St Bartholomew’s Hospital.’” Read more at AP
“Germany placed the far-right political party Alternative for Germany under surveillance as a threat to democracy.” Read more at New York Times
“Marathon hearing | Dozens of Hong Kong opposition figures have spent four days in court to see if they’ll be jailed before their trials on national security charges, but the unusually long arraignment may have already done lasting damage to the justice system’s reputation. Sessions have stretched late into the night, prompting some defendants to seek hospital care.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Hong Kong has disappeared from the annual Heritage Foundation ranking of the world’s freest economies, which it led for a quarter of a century.” Read more at Bloomberg
“U.S. war powers. A bipartisan pair of U.S. Senators have introduced a bill to enhance the power of Congress to authorize military actions, following the Biden administration’s decision to bomb Iranian-linked targets in Syria last week. The bill would repeal two authorizations for the use of military force, in place since 1991 and 2002 respectively, that have been used by successive presidents as legal pretexts for military action in the region.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Brazil’s senate backed a $7.8 billion package of aid for the poor in a first-round vote as the pandemic batters the economy and pushes the health system to the brink of collapse.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Border crisis | The Biden administration is racing to head off a potential humanitarian and political crisis on the border with Mexico where the crossing of thousands of unaccompanied children threatens to overwhelm government holding areas. Officials are moving to clear shelter space, which was about 90% occupied late last month, by speeding the release of minors to relatives or sponsors in the U.S.” Read more at Bloomberg
“A White House official told Mexican authorities that key aspects of the two countries’ fight against drug trafficking aren’t working and that the U.S. is open to pursuing new strategies together.under surveillance as a threat to democracy.” Read more at Bloomberg
"We’ve got about 1,000 of them running around out there," Ryan Tuohy of Starship tells Axios. Photo courtesy of Starship Technologies
As small robots proliferate on sidewalks and city streets, so does legislation that grants them generous access rights and even classifies them, in the case of Pennsylvania, as ‘pedestrians,’ Axios Cities author Jennifer A. Kingson writes.
Why it matters: Fears of a dystopian urban world where people dodge heavy, fast-moving droids are colliding with the aims of robot developers — including Amazon and FedEx — to deploy delivery fleets.
The laws are a boon to Amazon's Scout delivery robot and FedEx's Roxo, which are being tested in urban and suburban settings.
The other side: The National Association of City Transportation Officials says: ‘Drone delivery could significantly increase noise pollution and add a new dimension of chaos to urban streets.’” Read more at Axios