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COVID-19 vaccination for children aged five to 11 is expected within days, following the FDA’s emergency use authorization on Friday. Many parents are wildly cheering that news, counting the days until it becomes a reality. But, as with so many times during the coronavirus pandemic when the voices of people who aren’t doing the right thing for public health are elevated above those who are, the media won’t give you so many chances to hear from parents who are ready and waiting to protect their children, their families, and their communities.

And sure, lots of people are hesitating to get their kids vaccinated—just as too many adults have hesitated to get themselves vaccinated. But why not report on the people who are eager to do the right thing? Why not elevate their voices? Instead, we watch again and again as the small proportion of anti-maskers get more coverage than the majority of people who support public health measures, as the tiny percentage of people willing to leave their jobs rather than be vaccinated get widespread coverage. But parents counting the days until their kids can be vaccinated against COVID-19 just as they’ve been vaccinated against measles and chickenpox and tetanus and diphtheria and pertussis and rotavirus and polio and more? For some reason, we’re not so interesting to the media.

Jean-Pierre Jacquet is a New York educator with four children—a seven-year-old and five-year-old triplets. His wife is an OB/GYN who has had patients with COVID-19, but, he says, they were lucky—especially early on in the pandemic—that she had the personal protective equipment she needed. 

Speaking about what changes his family will make once the kids are vaccinated, Jacquet said that, for instance, his sister and her children were visiting: “We spent the weekend hanging out with each other, and we did a lot outside, but we’re masked indoors. When we’re eating, we’re eating in different rooms.” With vaccination, they can relax some of those restrictions. Similarly, “We’re at the age where we’d love to put them in different activities, not because they’re going to become a premier soccer player, but just for running around outside,” but with inconsistent safety protocols across organizations, they’ve waited.

For the 2020-2021 school year, the school where Jacquet works and his children are students adopted a hybrid model, and two of children have had to quarantine due to COVID-19 exposures. That experience informs another of the key reasons he looks forward to having them vaccinated. “Particularly because we have four kids, probably if they got COVID it would be relatively mild,” he says. “But if it ran through four kids, that would be like a month of our lives. That’s like a month of them being out of school. So for us, we’ve just been like, ‘We’re going to be really careful, and we’re going to keep the continuity of our work schedule and the kids’ school schedules.’”

One mother of two living in a Georgia county where less than 40% of residents have had one dose of COVID-19 vaccine said she waited until school started to vaccinate her 12-year-old. But now, her 11-year-old “is ASKING why she can’t get it. She wants it. As soon as it’s available for her, I will get it. If she feels informed enough at 11 to ask for it, there’s no way I will deny her when the rest of us in the house are vaccinated.” Her daughter doesn’t want to be quarantined and miss school—“Being at school is very important to her”—and they will be more able to be more comfortable visiting with elderly and at-risk family members once she’s vaccinated.

Highlighting the importance of advice from trusted figures, the mother added: “My pediatrician has also vaccinated her own children, and I have confidence in her as a mother.”

Here are some answers I got on Facebook to the simple invitation:

“Parent friends who are looking forward to having your 5-11s vaccinated and who don’t mind being quoted on the public internets (whether under your whole name or just first name or whatever), please tell me your thoughts/feelings/plans.”

A mother of two:

“As the parent of a high risk 5-11 kid living in Mississippi, I can’t wait to have her get a vaccine. Two years of dread over the potential consequences of joining in for ordinary kid activities is more than long enough!”

A mother of three:

“We have delayed a necessary move to a state where masking isn’t required in schools, waiting to move until our eight-year-olds can be vaccinated. We’re beyond relieved that it’s going to happen soon—couldn’t have put it off much longer.”

A father of two children under five:

“We can’t wait. It will relieve so much stress and make us feel comfortable doing really basic things that used to be treasured parts of our routine, like Charlie doing the grocery shopping with me.”

A mother in Rhode Island:

“We will be the first in line! Especially with four kids at three different schools, and our two foster children with weekly visitation with birth families. We can’t wait to mitigate the risk and inconvenience our family brings to the community every single time there is a potential exposure.”

Neil Sroka, the communications director at PL+US:

“Our family is literally counting the days until our soon-to-be five-year-old can get her shot. Aside from her toddler cousin, she’s the only one in the family who isn’t vaccinated yet. While occasionally my wife and I have gone out to eat inside a restaurant and taken a couple of necessary business trips since March 2020, it’ll finally feel like we can embrace a new, better normal once she’s vaccinated. We’ll obviously continue to follow the precautions suggested by the CDC in the months ahead (masking indoors, etc.), but I’m looking forward to the moment we know she’s got the best protection available from a disease that has killed millions, including thousands of kids, around the world. While things have gotten better, especially since the early, confusingly scary days of the pandemic, with her vaccinated, I think we’ll finally feel like we can fully exhale.”

A father of one:

“I will be booking an appointment the second one is available. We’ve had scares where people close to my son have caught it and we had to get tested several times. And the thought of him not only being sick but losing in person school again is terrifying. This vaccine hesitancy/resistance is insane and nothing will be normal again until everyone grows up and takes responsibility.”

A father in New Jersey said that while “I can’t wait,” his seven-year-old is “less enthusiastic since he is annoyed by the thought of having a sore arm for multiple days.” But “I asked him if he wanted friends over inside without masks and sleepovers and parties. And what about getting to take your mask off at school? He was still not happy at the thought of a sore arm, but he did agree that all those things together MIGHT be worth it.” The father added, “I am also in favor of anything that lessens the need for quarantines. Those have played havoc with my work productivity and mental health.”

A father of two:

“Can’t wait! Still have an infant in daycare but reducing the likelihood and intensity of our largest individual vector (preschool) means more time with vulnerable family and hopefully relaxed masking for the kids once it’s safer.”

The mother of a four-year-old in Boston, looking forward to her child’s birthday: 

“January cannot come soon enough.”

Many parents on Twitter also weighed in:

Pro-vaccine parents are more than willing to talk. If only the media was interested in hearing from them.

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House and Senate Democrats worked through the weekend negotiating to get prescription drug pricing back into the big reconciliation bill for President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. That bill will contain the “human infrastructure” companion to a roads and bridges bipartisan bill that already passed, including the climate change, education, health, and family support provisions of Biden’s plan. Democrats see this as their primary opportunity to get big things done for the country ahead of next year’s midterms and are using the budget reconciliation process because it is not subject to a filibuster and can be passed with only Democratic votes.

Getting those Democratic votes, however, has been a thing. On the one hand, you have Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who is so obsessed with the idea that working-class people are lazy and undeserving and looking for handouts from the government that, in talking to fellow lawmakers and staff, he “said a paid-leave program could invite fraud, likening it to those who tried to collect unemployment even when they were not eligible.” To keep people from faking the need for family and medical leave, Manchin “asked about work requirements, even though employment is a condition for one to take leave in the first place, some of the people said.”

No, that makes no sense, and it just a reflection of how out-of-his-depth the man is on any issue other than coal. Nonetheless, Senate Democrats are having to bow and scrape to him to get his vote. They’re still working on him to try to salvage paid leave, one of the elements jettisoned last week.

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The other problem vote in the Senate has been Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who probably has a much better grasp on how stuff actually works, but still wants to work it to maximize her own agenda. Whatever that is. The positive news out of the weekend is that she has engaged with fellow lawmakers in both the House and Senate—something she’s refused to do for months—on getting some kind of prescription drug pricing back into the bill. It was also missing from the framework President Biden released last Thursday, when he and Speaker Nancy Pelosi attempted to shoehorn House Democrats into a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill that same day. That failure, in which progressive Democrats en masse said “no,” might have helped Sinema come around to the idea that, yes, she really does have to help get Build Back Better passed if she wants the hard infrastructure bill she’s invested in to pass as well. Maybe.

This isn’t going to be what Democrats have been pushing for years—full authorization for Medicare to negotiate all drug prices, following the precedent of the veteran’s health system. It’s more likely to be a set of prescription drugs—namely those administered by providers, like IV drugs and vaccinations—than the prescription drugs people take at home every day. But there has been discussion of setting caps on how much Medicare enrollees and people in employer-sponsored health plans have to pay out-of-pocket for drugs.

On the Senate side, Sinema and Democrats Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders began talks Thursday that lasted into the weekend. They’ve been working with the White House and Energy and Commerce Chair Frank Pallone as well as Speaker Pelosi. Sinema herself has been in talks with Pelosi.

Pallone was optimistic on Thursday: “I think we’re very close to a deal. We’re going to get a bill that has negotiated prices and that’s going to make a difference in terms of people being able to afford their drugs.” On Sunday, Sanders told CNN that work had gone on Friday and Saturday and, “as soon as I leave the studio, I’m going to be going back home to get on the phone to make sure that we have it.” Sanders is also still working to restore his plan for Medicare expansion to include vision and dental coverage, along with hearing. As of Thursday, hearing was the only surviving element of that expansion. With some kind of drug pricing plan, though, enough could be saved to potentially add those programs back in.

“We’re in this fight because too many Americans are struggling to access their medications,” said U.S. Klobuchar told advocates in a roundtable discussion Saturday. “It is more expensive to get prescription drugs in our country than in other countries, even though it’s our taxpayers that have funded so much of the research in the past five years. That’s why I have been spearheading these efforts to let Medicare negotiate since I’ve been in the Senate. It’s common-sense policy.”

That call included patient advocates like Mindy Salango, a Type 1 Diabetic from West Virginia, who said Medicare price negotiation “is going to save lives.” Her message was geared to her senator, Joe Manchin. “That is what is at stake not only in West Virginia, but across the country. We need our leaders to step up and speak for us and help us because that’s what we voted for. That’s what we put them in office for. And this bill is completely across party lines. Diabetes didn’t ask me if I was a liberal or conservative when it decided to enter my life. People want it, we need it.”

Whether prescription drug pricing gets back in the bill remains uncertain, because Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, has also been fighting efforts by House Democrats to include Medicare negotiation. But if Sinema and Manchin sign on—not a guarantee at this point, but a possibility—Menendez will likely not be comfortable standing alone in opposition.

As for Manchin, Axios reports that he “stayed in contact with the speaker’s office, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, to explain his concerns.” Manchin talking to them is at least something. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, the CPC continues to hold firm on sticking to the months-long agreement for linkage of the two bills. They won’t vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill until there’s also a vote on the reconciliation bill. That could still happen this week.

The House Rules Committee had intended to meet Monday to mark up the reconciliation bill, the first step in sending it to the floor, but has postponed that hearing. A leadership aide said that the House is still planning to vote “as early as possible this week.”

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In yet another example of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ state of Florida plunge into fascism, now three University of Florida (UF) professors are being muzzled as they attempt to testify against a new state law that restricts people from the right to vote—a stunning hit blow free speech and First Amendment rights. 

In a case challenging Senate Bill 90, political science professors Daniel Smith, Michael McDonald, and Sharon Austin were notified via email that their request to serve as experts was denied. 

According to the ACLU, Senate Bill 90 forces voters to submit vote-by-mail requests more often than is currently required, cancels voters’ current vote-by-mail ballots retroactively, makes it a crime for a voter to ask a trusted friend or caregiver to pick up or drop off vote-by-mail ballots, and eliminates secure vote-by-mail drop boxes.

Smith is the chair of UF’s political science department; McDonald is a national expert on elections and Austin studies African American political behavior, per reporting from the Miami Herald. 

“Outside activities that may pose a conflict of interest to the executive branch of the State of Florida create a conflict for the University of Florida,’’ wrote David Richardson, dean of UF’s college of arts and sciences in response to Smith’s request. McDonald and Austin received similar emails. 

Barring the professors from testifying may be connected to an op-ed written by Smith and McDonald in the Tampa Bay Times, implicating the GOP-led state and its Republican lawmakers of using a “legal umbrella” to “violate the Fair Districts clause” in Florida’s Constitution and illegally restrict the state with outside contracts to intentionally hide gerrymandering information from the public. 

An attorney for the professors calls the decision by UF “retaliatory” and says the move “strikes at the very heart of academic freedom.” In a federal filing against the school, attorneys have requested to speak with DeSantis on his involvement. 

A spokesperson for UF, Hessy Fernandez, defended the school’s decision, saying that UF “has a long track record of supporting free speech and our faculty’s academic freedom, and we will continue to do so.”

“The university did not deny the First Amendment rights or academic freedom” of the professors, Fernandez said. “Rather, the university denied requests of these full-time employees to undertake outside paid work that is adverse to the university’s interests as a state of Florida institution.”

According to The New York Times, in the latest filing, Smith testified with UF’s permission in two voting rights lawsuits against Florida’s GOP-led government in 2018. One suit forced the state to provide ballots in Spanish for Latino voters and another overturned a state-imposed ban on early-voting polling places on college campuses. 

The United Faculty of Florida (UFF), the union representing 25,000 higher education teachers, has denounced the actions by UF, saying in a press release, “If UF does not rescind its decision, it will establish a terrifying precedent for any Floridian who works in local or state government.”  

Austin, a tenured professor and one of only 2% of full-time Black professors in the U.S., told the Herald she will continue to fight for the right to speak out. 

“For me, this is about my role as an African American female mentor,’’ Austin wrote in a statement included in the UF news release. “A Southern Black woman who is not fighting for voting rights is a sell-out to her community. I refuse to teach my students that it is important to fight for voting and civil rights and then not fight for those rights myself.”

“My father was born in 1938 and my mother in 1940 in Robinsonville, Mississippi. They couldn’t even think about voting for many years and lived in poverty as sharecroppers until they moved to the city of Memphis as young adults. They would be outraged if they knew that their daughter has a Ph.D., is a tenured professor, is among only 2% of black female full professors in the nation, but is now refusing to fight to protect voting rights. If Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hamer could lose their jobs, then I could lose mine too, but not without a fight.

UF should defend the rights of three of its most committed and award-winning faculty members and not cave into pressure from outside statewide forces,” Austin said.

In a letter to UF, attorneys Paul Donnelly and Conor Flynn wrote, “The university cannot silence the professors on matters of great public importance. These professors are citizens entitled to participate in the marketplace of ideas.”

Friday, McDonald tweeted a video of Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.” He and his colleagues “are the faculty being denied our constitutional right to free speech by the university,” he wrote.

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An unidentified Virginia mother’s claim that a public school history lesson led to her white daughter questioning whether she was evil is triggering Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones’ BS detector, and it should be. The mother formerly in the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) district spoke at a school board meeting Tuesday about a host of concerns from school closings stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic to allegations of a sexual assault coverup in the district. She said what sparked her decision to change school districts was the “swift and uncompromising political agenda” forced on parents by former superintendent Eric Williams, interim superintendent Scott Ziegler, and the school board.

“First, it was in the early spring of 2020 when my six-year-old somberly came to me and asked me if she was born evil because she was a white person. Something she learned in a history lesson at school,” the mother said. “Then, you kept the schools closed for a year-and-a-half, despite the science indicating it was safe for kids to return. Now, you’ve covered up a rape, and arrested, humiliated, and falsely accused parents of being domestic terrorists.”

Actually, the more than 745,000 COVID-19 related deaths and recent spikes in cases would indicate kids returning to school wasn’t safe for the larger community, and the National School Boards Association’s assertion that violence and threats against school officials could be “equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes” is far from an overreach. 

President of the National School Boards Association Viola Garcia, and Chip Slaven, interim executive director, signed a letter to President Joe Biden detailing how “threats or actual acts of violence against our school districts are impacting the delivery of educational services.” They listed:

An individual was arrested in Illinois for aggravated battery and disorderly conduct during a school board meeting. During two separate school board meetings in Michigan, an individual yelled a Nazi salute in protest to masking requirements, and another individual prompted the board to calla recess because of opposition to critical race theory.

In New Jersey, Ohio, and other states, anti-mask proponents are inciting chaos during board meetings. In Virginia, an individual was arrested, another man was ticketed for trespassing, and a third person was hurt during a school board meeting discussion distinguishing current curricula from critical race theory and regarding equity issues. In other states including Washington, Texas, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Tennessee, school boards have been confronted by angry mobs and forced to end meetings abruptly.

“America’s public schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat,” Garcia and Slaven wrote. One white woman’s claim otherwise should hardly be taken as fact when it’s up against actual reports of violence from school officials, but here we are. Just one video of the white mother tweeted by writer Christopher Rufo had amassed 1.4 million views by Monday morning.

When Hannah-Jones came across the woman’s claims, the journalist tweeted on Sunday: “The teaching staff in London County Schools is 87 percent white, but we are to somehow believe all these white teachers are teaching white children that they are evil for being born white. It didn’t happen.”

She added in her Twitter thread:

”Some facts about Loudon County. It is one of the wealthiest districts in the country and it last year apologized for how it 1) threatened to stop funding public schools if Black children were allowed into white schools. 2) threatened to close schools facing desegregation orders

3) Withheld money from Black schools unless the parents pledged to support segregation 4) Supporter constructional amendment to allow white children to attend private school instead of be forced to share a classroom with Black kids.

So, yeah, these parents do not want this history taught because they’d rather not let their children know about the proud white community that supported depriving Black kids of an education rather than integrate schools Black parents were also paying taxes for bc it IS SHAMEFUL.”

Hannah-Jones has been targeted by Republicans for her “1619 Project” in The New York Times Magazine and her correct assertion in the piece that slavery has had an undeniable effect on American society. She highlighted the Loudoun County mom’s video specifically after Republican parents in the district swarmed a school board meeting in opposition to critical race theory, which they have accepted to mean anything remotely related to racism in America. In actuality, elementary or even high school campuses were never under any real “threat” of the framework reaching students; it is a higher-level academic framework more frequently taught in law schools. Critical race theory maintains that America’s legal system is largely based on its history with racism, a truth privileged Republicans apparently still aren’t ready to grapple with.

The Washington Post journalist Hannah Natanson said in her analysis of the Loudoun County district’s contribution to this struggle this summer that the county, “a wealthy and diversifying slice of purple-turning-blue suburban Northern Virginia, is fast becoming the face of the nation’s culture wars.” Natanson described:

“Angry parents battling over critical race theory at rallies, outside school buildings and in rival Facebook groups. A teacher suing the school system after he was suspended for refusing to use transgender students’ pronouns. A raucous school board meeting that began with dueling protests over transgender rights and culminated in an arrest.“

Wendall Fisher, the first Black person elected to the Loudoun County School Board, told The Washington Post in July, “it’s shameful.” 

“It’s just shameful,” he said.

Fisher is right.

RELATED: Virginia mom and GOP strategist says teaching racism should be up to parents, not teachers

RELATED: Students and teachers walk out of Loudoun County high schools to show support for assault survivors

RELATED: The Venn diagram of anti-maskers and those railing against critical race theory is probably a circle

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You may be seeing the phrase “Let’s go Brandon” all over social media, but who is Brandon, and why are they cheering him on? The phrase isn’t a cheer for someone named Brandon… the truth is it’s actually a vulgar term essentially telling Biden to fuck himself. It’s popular among conservatives and members of the GOP who think they are being slick and in unison by using it.

But how exactly did it start and why Brandon? As do many other stupid and horrible things, the phrase began at a NASCAR race at the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama. After a 28-year-old driver, Brandon Brown won his first Xfinity Series on Oct. 2, crowds chanted what reporters thought was “Let’s go Brandon.”  “As you can hear the chants from the crowd — ‘Let’s go, Brandon,’” an NBC News reporter mistakenly commented. But in reality, the crowds were chanting “Fuck Joe Biden.” And that my friends is how the phrase came to be— no one cared about the reporter’s mistake instead they took to using the phrase for their own agenda.

Within days, “Let’s go Brandon” became the go-to phrase to curse off Biden. Groups across the nation took to it including those supporting local candidates or protesting.

Republicans even thought it would be okay to show up to Congress yelling the profanity. While Rep. Bill Posey of Florida ended a House floor speech with a fist pump and the phrase “Let’s go Brandon” on Oct. 21, South Carolina’s Jeff Duncan wore a “Let’s Go Brandon” face mask at the Capitol last week. But the phrase goes beyond political events.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz posed with a “Let’s go Brandon” sign at the World Series and Sen. Mitch McConnell’s press secretary retweeted a photo of the phrase on a construction sign in Virginia.

Republicans think they are so slick in using the term to portray vulgarity without using vulgar language itself but there is nothing funny or classy about using it.

“Unless you are living in a cave, you know what it means,” Veteran GOP ad maker Jim Innocenzis said.“But it’s done with a little bit of a class. And if you object and are taking it too seriously, go away.”

The viral phrase is not only being shared by lawmakers but of course, was picked up by Donald Trump. What else would an uncreative mind do than attempt to capitalize on the top trending phrase against his so-called enemy? Trump’s campaign team announced the addition of the phrase to his “Save America” shirts on Oct. 28. Those shirts are priced at $45 each.  “#FJB or LET’S GO BRANDON? Either way, President Trump wants YOU to have our ICONIC new shirt,” a message advertising the shirts read.

Trump isn’t the only one to hop on the capitalism bandwagon though. According to The Miami Herald, a rapper also released a “Let’s go Brandon” rap song, the song topped Apple’s iTunes charts for multiple days.

Some have taken the phrase so far to even claim they will dress as it for Halloween… In conversation with other Fox News hosts, Harris Faulkner said she was planning to go as “Brandon” from “Let’s go Brandon.”

While vulgarities and phrases like this are not new to America’s history of hate towards presidents, what makes this different is the amplification through social media

“We have a sense of the dignity of the office of president that has consistently been violated to our horror over the course of American history,” Cal Jillson said, a politics expert and professor in the political science department at Southern Methodist University. “We never fail to be horrified by some new outrage.”

Most recently, it was used by a pilot on a Southwest Airlines flight during the pilot’s greeting to passengers over the plane’s public address system last week, the Associated Press reported. As a result, Southwest Airlines announced Sunday it is conducting an internal investigation into the pilot’s use of the phrase. 

In a statement, the airline said: it would “address the situation directly with any Employee involved while continuing to remind all Employees that public expression of personal opinions while on duty is unacceptable.”

“Southwest does not condone Employees sharing their personal political opinions while on the job serving our Customers, and one Employee’s individual perspective should not be interpreted as the viewpoint of Southwest and its collective 54,000 Employees,” the statement continued.

But alas the phrase isn’t all fun and games and while those who don’t know may think Brandon is being cheered on nationwide, the reality is the Brandon who the phrase is coined after is struggling for sponsorships and partners since the slogan went viral. Maybe he should’ve thought out the consequences before expressing his support for the phrase, huh.

Yet, ‘let’s go Brandon’ is not the only embarrassing thing GOP officials have garnered a liking to. I guess Lauren Boebert thought ‘hey if someone can make a music video— why can’t I?’

I’m just gonna leave that there, no further comments are needed.

Watch the video that started it all here:

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The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

● IL Redistricting: On Friday, the day after both chambers of the Democratic-led state legislature passed Illinois’ new congressional map in a late-night session, Democratic Reps. Sean Casten and Marie Newman each said that they’d run for the new 6th District in Chicago’s western suburbs, while Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger announced his retirement from the House (see our IL-16 item below for more on that latter development).

Republicans may also be in for their own incumbent vs. incumbent primary between Reps. Mike Bost and Mary Miller in the 12th District in downstate Illinois, but only Bost has confirmed he’s running again; as we’ll discuss, Miller could instead decide to take on fellow Rep. Rodney Davis.

Before we talk about both of those pairs of double-bunked members, as well as what the new map could mean for other 2022 congressional races in Illinois, we’ll hit Thursday’s drama that kept political watchers guessing throughout the day how things would end. Legislative Democrats earlier in the day released their third congressional redistricting plan which, just like the second incarnation, created a new Latino 3rd District in the Chicago area by excising the northern “earmuff” from Democratic Rep. Chuy Garcia’s 4th District. That was still unhappy news, though, for both Newman, who represents the current 3rd District, and Casten, who did not relish the idea of a difficult primary.

Greg Hinz of Crain’s, meanwhile, suggested that day that Democratic leaders may not have had enough votes to pass the map, due to unspecified concerns “concentrated in the Latino caucus.” Throughout Thursday it wasn’t clear if Democrats would be able to finish redistricting this year because a 60% supermajority was required for passage during the legislature’s session that was set to end that day—a threshold Democrats only narrowly exceed, particularly in the House. That bar would get lowered to a simple majority should lawmakers punt and reconvene in January, but doing so would likely have required that they delay the start of the candidate petitioning process, which is set to begin Jan. 13.

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Late Thursday, though, Democrats introduced a fourth map similar to the third, but with one important change: Newman’s hometown of La Grange was moved from the new 6th District to Garcia’s 4th District. Newman, who was elected the previous year, blasted this revision as “a clear attempt to appease one person and a small handful of affluent insiders,” but she was powerless to stop it. Democrats in each chamber went on to pass the map with exactly the numbers required.

It’s now up to Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker to sign the new boundaries, which will reduce Illinois’ congressional districts from 18 to 17, into law, but the Chicago Tribune says this is “expected” to happen. Altogether, Biden would have carried 14 of the state’s 17 new seats compared to 12 of the 18 existing districts.

We’ll start with our look at the new 6th District, which, according to data from Dave’s Redistricting App, supported Joe Biden 55-44. Our initial analysis finds that 41% of the residents of the new 6th District are Newman’s constituents compared to 23% for Casten. However, Politico’s Ally Mutnick tweets that Casten’s portion of the new constituency contains far more Democratic voters, writing, “Biden won Newman’s area by 3.8% but Biden won Casten’s area by 20.2%, per an analysis shared with Politico.”

The new 12th District well to the south is overwhelmingly red turf at 71-28 Trump, so all the action will be in the GOP primary. Bost represents 53% of the new seat compared to 47% for Miller, and he quickly made it clear Friday he’d be running here.

That was a far different response than Miller, whom Politico says “began to scurry away when” asked, but she doesn’t sound like she plans to retire after just one term. When the congresswoman finally provided a response to whether she’d be willing to take on a fellow incumbent she replied, “I have no idea, but I can say I laughed when I read that they think they’re terrorizing me. Because I am not scared.” The Belleville-News Democrats’ Kelsey Landis writes Miller’s family farm is located about a mile south of the new 12th District in the 13th, a new seat that supported Biden 54-43 and that would likely be unwinnable for the far-right congresswoman.

A Bost-Miller match still isn’t guaranteed, though, as Landis speculates that Miller could instead decide to go up against a different Republican colleague, Rodney Davis, in the safely red 15th District. Miller might have more appeal to primary voters than Davis, who held a competitive seat for a decade by presenting himself as a moderate, and she’d have a small geographic advantage, as she represents 31% of the new 15th compared to 28% for Davis. A spokesperson for Davis, who previously threatened to run for governor if he wound up in an unfavorable seat, said his boss would “make a formal announcement on his 2022 plans” after Pritzker signs the redistricting bill into law.

The new map, meanwhile, strengthens Democrats in two competitive districts compared to the existing boundaries. Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood’s new 14th District in the Chicago exurbs backed Biden 55-43, while the current seat with the same number supported him just 50-48. The new 17th District along the Iowa border, which will be open because of Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos’ retirement, also went for Biden 53-46, a big shift from Trump’s 50-48 win in the current 17th.

Inexplicably, though, the new map also makes the 14th and 17th a point redder compared to the second version by stranding some blue precincts in surrounding GOP districts. However, Illinois map-drawers haven’t seemed focused on fine-tuning their districts despite their eagerness to pass an aggressive pro-Democratic gerrymander. 

Election Night

● Election Night: Buffalo, Bucks, and Babka: The big night is almost here, and we have a lot of big races to watch on Tuesday. Democrats aren’t just trying to hold their hard-won gains in Virginia, they’re also trying to score big wins in Pennsylvania by flipping a seat on the state Supreme Court and taking the offices of Bucks County district attorney and Erie County executive. Voters in the latter race would also make history by electing the first trans county executive in American history should Democrat Tyler Titus prevail over Republican Brenton Davis.

But that’s not all. Republicans are hoping to take back the Bucks County sheriff’s office and score big wins in Nassau County, New York, where Team Red’s successes in 2009 and 2013 foreshadowed the following year’s red waves. And while there’s little reason for Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy to worry about his re-election prospects in New Jersey, both parties are looking to make gains in the state legislature. There’s additionally a very crowded Democratic primary for Florida’s 20th Congressional District as well as special U.S. House races in Ohio.

Oh, that’s not all. We also have on tap a high-profile ballot measure in Minneapolis that would replace the police department with a new Department of Public Safety as well as greatly strengthen the mayor’s office. We have on tap crowded contests for mayor of Atlanta and Minneapolis; showdowns to lead Boston, Cleveland, and Seattle; and a closely watched race in Buffalo, where India Walton is trying to fend off a write-in campaign by Mayor Byron Brown, the four-term incumbent she beat in a June Democratic primary upset. You can find all this, as well as even more, in our hour-by-hour guide to election night.

We’re also pleased to announce that the annual Daily Kos Elections’ prediction contest is back! Once again, the exceptional Green’s Bakery is generously sponsoring our annual prediction contest! For more details, including contest rules and our submission form, click here.

We’ll be liveblogging Tuesday’s election results at Daily Kos Elections starting at 7 PM ET, and tweeting as well. We hope to see you there!

Redistricting

● AR Redistricting: The state Board of Apportionment, which consists of Arkansas’ Republican governor, secretary of state, and attorney general, has released initial draft maps for the state House and Senate. The board plans to vote on the maps on Nov. 29, and you can find detailed maps and population summary data here.

● AZ Redistricting: Arizona’s independent redistricting commission has unanimously voted to adopt draft maps for Congress and the state legislature (both the state Senate and House use the same district lines), setting off a 30-day period for public comments. Commissioners plan to give final approval to new maps by Dec. 22 after incorporating public feedback over the next several weeks. You can find data files for the new maps here, and we have also uploaded the congressional map to Dave’s Redistricting App, which has partisan and racial statistics.

The new congressional map in particular scrambles both the district numbers and the partisan composition of several districts when compared to the current map (one of several criteria requires commissioners to consider competitiveness). Three Democrats would see their seats shift to the right and become much more competitive or even GOP-leaning, while two Republicans would see their districts move considerably to the left to become much more swingy. While the map preserves the current two Latino-majority seats held by Democratic Reps. Raúl Grijalva and Ruben Gallego, it would make it harder for Native American voters, who are a solidly Democratic constituency, to elect their preferred candidates in one district.

Democratic Rep. Tom O’Halleran’s 1st District in the northeastern part of the state would be renumbered the 2nd District and lurch to the right from backing Joe Biden 50-48 last year under the current lines to supporting Donald Trump 53-45 according to DRA. O’Halleran would likely start at a significant disadvantage if he chooses to seek re-election next year after he won just 52-48 in 2020, a margin of only 3 points after rounding. The new 2nd District’s eligible voter population would also be 21% Native American, making it one of the most heavily Native districts in the country, but unlike the current 1st District where Native voters have a chance to elect their chosen candidates — Democrats — the new 2nd makes that much more difficult.

Elsewhere in the state, retiring Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick’s Tucson-based 2nd District would be renumbered the 6th District and shift from 55-45 Biden to just 51-47 Biden. Fellow Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton’s suburban Phoenix-based 9th District would get renumbered the 4th and move from 61-37 Biden to a much narrower 53-45 Biden.

On the flip side, Republican Rep. David Schweikert’s 6th District in the northern Phoenix suburbs would become the new 1st District and swing from 51-47 Trump to 50-48 Biden. Schweikert faced a hotly contested 2020 election and only won by 52-48, meaning he could be very vulnerable in another Democratic-leaning year. Lastly, Republican Rep. Debbie Lesko’s 8th District in Phoenix’s northwestern suburbs keeps the current district number but zooms leftward from 57-41 Trump to just 50-48 Trump. Meanwhile, Republican Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs would continue to hold safely red seats.

Thus, Republicans would have a chance to win a 7-2 majority in a favorable year, but Democrats could be able to win a 6-3 advantage if Arizona and the Phoenix suburbs in particular continue to trend blue.

● IA Redistricting: Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds still hasn’t put her signature on the new congressional and legislative maps proposed by the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency, which both chambers of Iowa’s Republican-controlled legislature passed by almost unanimous votes last week, but it’s not too early to analyze the new congressional boundaries. Under this map, just like with the current one, Donald Trump carried the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Districts by small margins while overwhelmingly winning the 4th District in western Iowa.

The new map essentially means that the 1st and 2nd Districts would trade numbers. Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson unsurprisingly confirmed Friday that she’d run for the new 2nd District, which is home to over 85% of her current 1st District. Democratic state Sen. Liz Mathis, who announced her bid against Hinson before the new map was released, likewise announced that she’d be continuing her campaign against Hinson. The new 2nd District, which is located in the northeast corner of the state, supported Trump 51.3-46.9, which makes it a tick redder than his 50.8-47.4 showing in the current 1st.

The new 1st District in southeastern Iowa, meanwhile, is home to a similar proportion of Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ current 2nd District, so it would be somewhat surprising if she didn’t run for re-election here. However, Miller-Meeks’ Wapello County home was shifted to the new 3rd District, and the congresswoman hasn’t ruled out running there instead. She said Friday, “I will be evaluating the new districts to determine my next step, which I will be announcing shortly.”

Trump won the new 1st District 50.5-47.6, which is a little more than a point smaller than his 51.1-47.1 performance in the current 2nd. That shift to the left could make all the difference for Miller-Meeks, who won her 2020 race by all of 6 votes.

The new 3rd District, which is home to Des Moines, went for Trump 49.3-48.9, which makes it a little redder than his 49.1-49.0 showing in the current 3rd. Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne, who also represents about 85% of this new seat, has not yet announced her 2022 plans, and her team said Friday she was still “weighing options in the third district including running for Congress or running for governor.”

There’s not likely to be much drama in the new 4th District, though, which gave Trump a 62-36 win that wasn’t much different from his 63-36 victory in the current version of the seat. GOP Rep. Randy Feenstra represents just over 80% of the new seat, and there’s no indication that any notable Republicans are considering taking him on in a primary.

Governors

● NJ-Gov: Fairleigh Dickinson University: Phil Murphy (D-inc): 53, Jack Ciattarelli (R): 44 (June: 48-33 Murphy)

● NY-Gov, NY-AG: On Friday, Attorney General Tish James became the first prominent New York Democrat to announce a primary challenge to Gov. Kathy Hochul, who ascended from the lieutenant governorship in August after Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace. James’ kickoff video did not mention the incumbent and instead focused on her record in office, including how she “sued the Trump administration 76 times, but who’s counting?”

James also alluded to her investigation into the sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo that directly led to his departure (he announced he was quitting a week after James released a blockbuster report concluding that he’d harassed 11 women and retaliated against at least one). James, without mentioning the ex-governor, told the audience, “I’ve held accountable those who mistreat and harass women in the workplace, no matter how powerful the offenders.”

James would be the first Black woman elected governor of any state, but early polls indicate that she starts out at a disadvantage. An early October poll from Marist showed Hochul leading James 44-28 in what was at the time a hypothetical matchup, while a Siena survey done days later put the incumbent’s edge at 47-31. Other candidates may also run: New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams recently filed paperwork for a bid, while New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, and Rep. Tom Suozzi are among the Empire State Democrats who have also shown an interest in the job.

Still, the attorney general presents Hochul with a high-profile opponent who has won difficult primaries before. James, who got her start in elected office holding a Brooklyn-based seat on the New York City Council, ran citywide in 2013 to succeed de Blasio as public advocate. James found herself in a primary runoff against state Sen. Dan Squadron, but she benefited from her extensive backing from the city’s labor movement. Her extremely strong showing in the city’s predominantly Black areas, as well as strong performance in Hispanic precincts, propelled her to a 59-41 win, and she had no trouble in the general election.

Plenty of political observers spent years expecting James to run for mayor in 2021, but she unexpectedly got an earlier shot at a promotion when Attorney General Eric Schneiderman resigned in May of 2018 after multiple women accused him of sexual assault. James consolidated the support of Cuomo and other members of the state party establishment, but she still faced serious primary opposition from law professor Zephyr Teachout, who had challenged Cuomo from the left in 2014 and lost a high-profile House race two years later, and Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney. James ended up beating Teachout 40-31 before easily securing victory in November.

James’ decision to challenge Hochul now also means that the Empire State is in for what will likely be a competitive Democratic primary to succeed her in one of the most influential attorneys general offices in America. We’ll have more about the potential field for this post in a future Digest.

● VA-Gov, VA-LG, VA-AG: We have quite a few polls to run down. First up are the gubernatorial numbers:

• Abt Associates for the Washington Post and George Mason University: Terry McAuliffe (D): 49, Glenn Youngkin (R): 48 (Sept.: 50-47 McAuliffe)
• Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company (R) for Fox: Youngkin (R): 53, McAuliffe (D): 45 (mid-October: 51-46 McAuliffe)
• Co/Efficient (R) for Winsome Sears: Youngkin (R): 47, McAuliffe (D): 43, Princess Blanding (Liberation Party): 5 (Aug.: 47-45 McAuliffe)
• Echelon Insights (R): Youngkin (R): 49, McAuliffe (D): 46, Blanding (L): 2

The Fox poll not only finds a truly massive swing to Youngkin in the span of just two weeks that no other public poll has picked up on, it also gives him the largest lead we’ve seen in any poll.

Co/Efficient gives Blanding, who is an anti-police brutality activist, a hefty 5% of the vote, which is also larger than what any other pollster has shown. Many firms, however, haven’t asked about Blanding in their surveys.

Three of these surveys also took a look at the races for lieutenant governor and attorney general. For lieutenant governor, Abt gives Democrat Hala Ayala a 50-46 edge over Republican Winsome Sears. Sears’ internal from co/efficient, though, has her narrowly up 47-46, while Echelon finds the Republican similarly situated at 48-46.

For attorney general, finally, Abt has Democratic incumbent Mark Herring beating Republican Jason Miyares 50-44, while co/efficient and Echelon put Miyares’ lead at 46-45 and 48-47, respectively. The last time one party didn’t sweep all three statewide races was 2005, when Democrat Tim Kaine was elected governor as Republicans Bill Bolling and Bob McDonnell were pulling off tight races for lieutenant governor and attorney general.

● WI-Gov, WI-Sen: While state Rep. John Macco initially said that he and businessman Eric Hovde would be fielding a joint poll, paid by Hovde, to assess which of them should seek the Republican nomination for governor, Macco quickly backed off after Hovde’s camp disputed the existence of the alliance.

The state representative said Wednesday, “At this point, there is no poll. I was under the understanding that we were going to get one put out, but that’s not happening at this point.” He added, “I may have misunderstood that, that that (potential poll) was a joint effort.” Macco said he’d now be deciding on his own whether or not to take on Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

Hovde, who unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination for Senate in 2012, has yet to comment on his interest in running for governor. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, though, says that unnamed people close to Hovde think he’s mulling the idea over, as well as another upper chamber run should Republican Sen. Ron Johnson retire in 2022.

House

● FL-20: EMILY’s List on Friday endorsed Broward County Commissioner Barbara Sharief, a development that came days before the crowded special election Democratic primary. Inside Elections’ Jacob Rubashkin, though, says that EMILY has been “heavily involved” with her bid for months, including in mid-July when it helped “overhaul her campaign team.”

● IL-16: Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger announced Friday that he would not seek a seventh term in the House, a development that came hours after Illinois’ Democratic legislature passed a new congressional map that would have placed him in the same seat as fellow GOP Rep. Darrin LaHood. That would have likely been an impossible primary for Kinzinger, who was one of just 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Donald Trump in January. (One of his compatriots, Ohio Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, announced his own retirement from Congress in September.)

We may not have seen the last of Kinzinger, though, as he said, “This isn’t the end of my political future, but the beginning.” The outgoing congressman didn’t rule out running for the Senate or governor earlier this year, but he’d still face a difficult task winning over a Trump-worshipping electorate before he could concentrate on trying to prevail in the general election in this very blue state.

It’s almost hard to believe, given the circumstances of his departure from the House, but Kinzinger was elected as part of the 2010 tea party wave and, with the backing of his party leadership, won a primary two years later against a fellow incumbent. Kinzinger first sought elected office in 1998 when, as a college sophomore, he unseated a Democratic member of the McLean County Board (he would recount that he was inspired to run after someone initially suggested the idea as a joke). He later enlisted in the Air Force after the 9/11 attacks and went on to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Kinzinger, who had left elected office in 2003, formed an exploratory committee in 2009 to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Debbie Halverson in what was then numbered the 11th District, though he couldn’t formally announce until his deployment ended in the summer. Halverson had flipped this historically Republican seat in the Chicago suburbs in a 58-34 landslide as Barack Obama was winning 53-45 here, but while she didn’t look vulnerable at first, Kinzinger released a poll showing him beating her as early as March of the next year.

Kinzinger, who made sure to cultivate tea party groups early, easily won the GOP nomination. Halverson went after the Republican for his support for free trade agreements and portrayed him as an opponent of Social Security, but Kinzinger ended up winning 57-43 in a truly ugly year for Team Blue.

The new congressman couldn’t rest for long, though: The Democratic legislature soon drew him into the same safely red North-central Illinois seat, now numbered the 16th District, as 10-term GOP Rep. Don Manzullo.

Manzullo represented more of the new district than Kinzinger and had a more conservative reputation. However, in an unusual turn of events, party leaders like Speaker John Boehner, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, and especially Majority Leader Eric Cantor donated to or outright backed the more junior Kinzinger (the media reported during the campaign that Manzullo had said years before that Cantor, who is Jewish, could not be “saved,” a remark Manzullo’s team denied), while conservative outside groups stood by Manzullo.

The campaign turned into a generational battle between Manzullo and Kinzinger, who was all of 14 years old when his opponent was first elected to Congress, though they also spent plenty of time arguing the other was insufficiently conservative. And in a line that foreshadowed Kinzinger’s eventual falling out with the base, one tea party leader declared, “Kinzinger jumped on the tea party wave but once he got elected he didn’t do a damn thing for us.” The usually laid-back Manzullo surprised many observers by running an aggressive campaign, but Kinzinger prevailed 54-46.

Kinzinger quickly became entrenched, but his willingness to criticize left him with a difficult relationship with the administration. Kinzinger voted against impeaching Trump in 2019, but he stood out the next year as one of the few Republicans willing to call out his lies about the election. Things escalated after the Jan. 6 attack, though, and this time, the congressman supported Trump’s removal. Several Republicans announced primary challenges soon after, but his fate wasn’t truly sealed until the legislature passed its new map late Thursday.

● IL-17: VoteVets has endorsed Rockford Alderman Jonathan Logemann in the unfolding Democratic primary to succeed retiring Rep. Cheri Bustos in the redrawn 17th District.

● OR-05, OR-06: Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader said Thursday that he had yet to decide whether he’d run for the new 5th or 6th District but would be announcing his plans in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, Democratic state Rep. Andrea Salinas also said she’d make up her mind in the coming weeks whether she’d campaign for the 6th District.

● TX-08: Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, whose position as leader of the state Senate makes him one of the far right’s most powerful figures in Texas, has endorsed Navy SEAL veteran Morgan Luttrell in the Republican primary to succeed retiring Rep. Kevin Brady for this safely red seat north of Houston. Luttrell ended September with $665,000 on-hand, which made him the only well-funded contender. Christian Collins, who is Brady’s former campaign manager, announced the next month, though, and he quickly secured the support of Sen. Ted Cruz.

● TX-28: Businessman Ed Cabrera recently announced that he would seek the Republican nomination to take on conservative Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar. The new 28th District, according to data from Dave’s Redistricting App, backed Joe Biden 53-46, compared to 52-47 under the current map.

Cuellar, meanwhile, faces a primary match against Jessica Cisneros, a progressive who held him to a 52-48 victory in 2020. Cuellar outraised Cisneros $645,000 to $420,000 during the inaugural quarter of her new campaign, and he ended September with a huge $2.2 million to $310,000 cash-on-hand lead.

Obituaries

● Former Virginia Gov. Linwood Holton, the first Republican to hold this post since the 1880s and the father-in-law of Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, died Thursday at the age of 98. Holton was the second-oldest former governor in the nation, being three days older than Minnesota Republican Al Quie.

Holton, who was elected in 1969 to his only term, made a name for himself through his attempts to integrate public schools, including by enrolling his daughters in almost entirely Black schools, though he opposed employing busing to end segregation. Holton also was the first governor in decades to appoint African Americans to important government posts, though this did not include judgeships. Over the years he drifted away from his party and backed several Democrats, including Douglas Wilder in his successful 1989 bid to be the first Black person elected governor of any state, Kaine, and Barack Obama.

Holton, who served in the Navy during World War II, first ran for office in 1955 when the Republican, who called for the state to comply with Brown v. Board of Education, sought a state House seat in the Roanoke area. Virginia at the time was a Democratic-dominated state controlled by the infamous political Byrd machine whose leader, Sen. Harry Byrd, was one of the most prominent segregationists in the nation, and Holton lost in a close race. Holton, who waged another failed bid two years later, would concentrate on building up the state GOP, efforts that would gradually bear fruit in the following years.

Holton ran for governor in 1965 against Democratic Mills Godwin in a race he understood was about building him up for his next campaign rather than actually winning, and sure enough, Godwin prevailed 48-37. Holton ran again in 1969 to succeed the termed-out Godwin (Virginia still famously prohibits governors from running for re-election), a campaign that took place a year after the Holton-backed Richard Nixon carried the state, and this time, he had a serious shot.

Meanwhile, as the Richmond Times-Dispatch‘s Jeff Schapiro explains, Democrats went through an ugly primary where William Battle, the son of a Byrd machine governor from the early 1950s, narrowly beat state Rep. Henry Howell, who had the backing of African American voters and labor groups. The AFL-CIO and the prominent Black group Crusade for Voters saw their chance to defeat what was left of the Byrd network and backed Holton. Howell, meanwhile, only gave Battle a perfunctory endorsement, saying his supporters were “free spirits.”

Holton ended up winning 53-45, though his ticket mates for lieutenant governor and attorney general weren’t so successful. The latter contender, Richard Obenshain, would become a prominent intra-party rival for the new governor, and it would be Obenshain’s vision of a conservative GOP that would prevail over Holton’s more moderate platform.

Holton in 1973 backed the successful campaign of Godwin, the old Democratic rival who defected to the Republicans before launching his comeback, and he went on to hold posts in the Nixon administration. Holton ran for office one more time in 1978 when he sought the GOP nomination for the Senate, but he acknowledged he was now an “elder statesman” after losing the party convention to Obenshain. Obenshain would die in a plane crash during that campaign and be replaced as the party’s nominee by John Warner, a Holton friend and fellow moderate who would hold the seat for 30 years.

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This post was originally published on this site

BBC:

Conspiracist charged over alleged French coup plot

Rémy Daillet is accused of forming an extremist group to plan a series of attacks against the French state.

French reports say he allegedly recruited soldiers for an attempt to seize the presidential palace in Paris.

Mr Daillet’s lawyer denied the allegations and called him a “political prisoner”.

Once a regional leader of a centrist political party, Mr Daillet, 54, has become an influential figure in French conspiracy circles.

The Frenchman was already being prosecuted for allegedly organising the abduction of an eight-year-old girl at her mother’s request in eastern France in April.

Aaron Blake/WaPo:

The most shocking new revelation about John Eastman

He and Trump were not just pressing forward despite the mob; they apparently were trying to leverage it.

“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump told House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), as relayed by another GOP lawmaker.

The comment is characteristically Trumpian. It was suggestive that maybe McCarthy might heed what the mob was trying to tell him, even if Trump didn’t say so explicitly. And thanks to Trump’s efforts to block disclosures to the Jan. 6 committee and the tight lips of McCarthy and other Republicans who spoke with Trump during the riot, we don’t know much about what Trump was saying or doing that day.

But new revelations from The Washington Post on Friday night reinforce that there was indeed an effort to leverage the mob — quite explicitly.

Madeline Holcombe/CNN:

Gen Z is growing up during a pandemic. They have a message for the rest of us

Many young people told CNN they felt helpless while others worried about their mental health. “This pandemic has brought me self-reflection and analysis, but it also was a test on the world and this country, and I fear we are failing,” said Ella Stromberg, a 17-year-old from Vancouver, Washington.

Young Americans may not have autonomy over how they attend school, if their families get vaccinated or the policies elected officials implement, but they are observing the victories and pitfalls of those who do.

NY Times:

Covid Shots Are a Go for Children, but Parents Are Reluctant to Consent

Vaccinating 5- to 11-year-olds could be a big step toward returning to normal life in the U.S., but even parents who got the shot are worried about how it might affect their kids.

But a report this month from researchers at Northeastern, Harvard, Rutgers and Northwestern universities found that parental concerns around the Covid vaccination had increased “significantly” from June through September. Chief among them, researchers said, were the newness of the vaccine, whether it has been sufficiently tested, efficacy, side effects and long-term health consequences.

According to a survey released Thursday by Kaiser Family Foundation, scarcely one in three parents will permit their children in this newly eligible age group to be vaccinated immediately. Two-thirds were either reluctant or adamantly opposed. An Axios-Ipsos poll found that 42 percent of parents of these children said they were unlikely to have their children vaccinated.

Glenn Kessler/WaPo:

The repeated claim that Fauci lied to Congress about ‘gain-of-function’ research

But we see no reason to change the Two Pinocchio rating we awarded [Senator Rand] Paul. There is a split in the scientific community about what constitutes gain-of-function research. To this day, NIH says this research did not meet the criteria — a stance that is not an outlier in the scientific community. Indeed, it appears as if EcoHealth halted the experiment as soon as it seemed to veer in that direction.

Meanwhile, [Senators] Cotton and Cruz are spinning the letter as confirming what it does not say. They are welcome to offer an opinion about its meaning. But, so far, it’s not a fact that NIH has admitted funding gain-of-function research. So they also earn Two Pinocchios.

The Hill:

Subpoenas are a real worry for lawmakers facing Jan. 6 questions

Lawmakers who may have been involved with the planning of rallies on Jan. 6 are coming under renewed scrutiny over their roles, teeing up questions of whether the committee investigating the attack on the Capitol may take the historic step of subpoenaing sitting members of Congress.

A Sunday story from Rolling Stone didn’t directly tie Republican lawmakers to the violent assault, but two sources who are cooperating with the committee instead detailed multiple meetings with members of Congress to coordinate contesting the election results and plan the rallies that preceded the attack.

Ariel Edwards-Levy/CNN:

What the polls agree on about Biden’s approval rating

Notably, however, the polls provide a much narrower range in their estimates of how many people disapprove of Biden — all seven of those surveys put Biden’s disapproval rating somewhere between 48% and 52%. Instead, a good chunk of the variation has to do with the share of Americans who say they aren’t sure. Two of Biden’s worst recent polls, the Quinnipiac and Grinnell surveys, both found 12% saying they’re unsure about Biden’s job performance, or declining to offer an opinion. In the CNN, CBS and AP-NORC polls, by contrast, 1% or fewer didn’t weigh in.

EJ Dionne/WaPo:

Take the win, Democrats, and don’t look back

But however it turns out, the Virginia contest should force Democrats to confront the imperative of shifting the terms of the political debate. In a state Biden carried by 10 points, Youngkin managed to dominate the campaign’s final weeks with a shameful focus on critical race theory — which is not taught anywhere in the state — and the suppression of challenging books in high school curriculums.

Youngkin’s trafficking in racial backlash could work as well as it did, because Democrats have fallen short in fulfilling one of the most important aspirations of the Biden era. They hoped that politics could be defined more by how government can get useful things done and less by manufactured issues that promote moral panic among conservatives and sharpen divisions around race, immigration and culture.

Passing Biden’s program and defending it successfully offer all wings of his party the best opportunity they will have to push the day-to-day dialogue toward the tangible and the achievable.