My husband just entered the U.S. for the first time, and the U.S. CBP agent who interviewed him was an Arab who joyfully shouted "Salaam aleikum, welcome to America" at the top of his lungs while stamping his passport, so I'd say it's pretty clear the atmosphere has changed.
— Sulome (@SulomeAnderson) February 8, 2021
P.S. there is still so much work to do, but we have been trying to get my husband a visa since 2017. We moved three countries and maybe a dozen houses. Every time we thought they couldn't screw us around anymore, they did. We're tired and numb, but we're coming home. It's a start
— Sulome (@SulomeAnderson) February 8, 2021
This is one of those times when living well is the best revenge, so it's weird to see it framed this way. "Punishing" the GOP is just a byproduct of passing something voters really like without their help. https://t.co/wt6zs0mHpq
— Liam Donovan (@LPDonovan) February 8, 2021
Wait, actions are gonna have consequences?!? For Republicans?!?…
… Already, there’s talk about midterm attack ads portraying Republicans as willing to slash taxes for the wealthy but too stingy to cut checks for people struggling during the deadly pandemic. And President Joe Biden’s aides and allies are vowing not to make the same mistakes as previous administrations going into the midterms elections. They are pulling together plans to ensure Americans know about every dollar delivered and job kept because of the bill they’re crafting. And there is confidence that the Covid-19 relief package will ultimately emerge not as a liability for Democrats, but as an election year battering ram.
“This is one of those rare instances — maybe not exceedingly rare, but it doesn’t happen often — where the best policy perfectly aligns with the politics,” said Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), a Biden ally. “If I’m a candidate in 2022 running for the House or Senate, I think I’d want to be able to say we’ve had a robust Covid-19 relief bill, we raised the minimum wage, we made progress on health care, we’ve started to make progress on combating climate change and a whole range of issues candidates would want to run on.”…
Biden and advisers insist they would prefer Republican cooperation on the $1.9 trillion legislation, which calls for direct checks, money for school reopenings and funds for a robust vaccine effort. But their eyes have also started to drift toward what comes after the package becomes law: a major political undertaking to cement the bill’s popularity among voters.
The effort will include a giant outreach effort touting the package’s benefits as well as pledges from the Democratic House and Senate campaign arms to promote it in their own messaging. The Democratic National Committee, working with state parties across battlegrounds, is mobilizing to highlight Biden’s legislation as helping to save lives and create jobs, which officials expect to ramp up in the coming months….
In October, 68% of Republicans said democracy was working well. The number is now 36%.
Dems went from 37% to 70%.https://t.co/amRtW45RMf
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) February 8, 2021
.@PressSec on what Biden meant by unity, and how it didn't mean that he was going to do what Republicans in Congress wanted him to do: "the president ran on uniting the country, not creating one political party"
— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) February 8, 2021
Tuesday Morning Open Thread: PerspectivePost + Comments (206)