Gallup finds 35% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, the highest rating Congress has received in this poll in a dozen years. What was happening a dozen years ago? Oh, right, a dozen years ago was the last time we thought Congress was going to do anything. In May of 2009, Congress actually had a 63% approval rating, and that would be something to write home about! And maybe this time, if we stay on them, they'll actually keep doing good works for their entire term and thus avoid the disaster of the 2010 midterms.
There's so much to say about the data in this USA Today report, but I will mention that when I see that nearly three-quarters of Trump voters say Joe Biden didn't really win the 2020 election, I'd still want to see similar poll figures for, say, the 2000 election; a lot of folks (myself included!) never called George W. Bush President after 2000, and they had a better case then than Trump voters do now. Trump voters point to a kaleidoscope of rubbish "voter fraud" evidence to justify their belief, but all we had to do was describe actual events in Florida.
When ProPublica reports on "How Texas Repeatedly Failed to Protect Its Power Grid Against Extreme Weather," the key word is, of course, "repeatedly." After all, it's not like a winter storm has never hit the Lone Star State! Most odious, perhaps, is the corporation that, you know, repeatedly had winter storm-related failures claiming it was just impossible to winterize because "(e)ach weather event (is) dynamic." How has anyone ever prepared for the future? It's just so hard! Unless you, you know, prepare for the worst you could imagine, using the best available science.
Right-wingers who whine about "cancel culture" should note that the Conservative (sic) Political Action Committee has un-invited a speaker named Young Pharaoh, who does not believe Judaism is a "real religion." He has other, ah, interesting beliefs, and seems to think everyone owes him a debate, which, given his propensity for using shouty caps, he'd probably "win" by yelling until the auditorium empties. And yet you do still to wonder if CPAC finds it easier to "cancel" him because he's not white.
A "senior House Republican" says he expects "zero" Republicans to vote for President Biden's COVID package in the House because there's been "(n)o effort to reach out to House Republicanss by the majority or White House." To which I say: we can only hope! You reach out to Republicans, they slap your hand back, plus they tried to overturn an election on the basis of complaints to ludicrous right-wing judges wouldn't bless them, so Democrats might as well try treating Republicans like they don't even exist, like I've been telling them to do since time immemorial.
Finally, in a related note, Sens. Romney (R-UT) and Cotton (R-AK) offer a bill that would raise the minimum wage to $10/hour, though it would also require businesses to use the ridiculous E-Verify system that purportedly catches out undocumented immigrant workers. Let this be the moment everyone finally sees that "reaching out to Republicans" doesn't get them to move, and that the only thing that does get them to move is standing your ground.
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