I’m seeing a lot of lefties talking about a failure to appeal to the working class but I think we should be more specific about some of the tensions embedded in this conversation, and I’m going to start with one of Biden’s signature policies - the expanded child tax credit /1 The expanded CTC passed was part of the pandemic relief program, and delivered hundreds of dollars into parents’ bank accounts every month in 2021, ultimately helping 65 million children and keeping 3.7 million of them out of poverty /2

I largely agree with this @jessesingal post, and think a lot of journalism is headed to where public health went during the pandemic (1/4) jessesingal.substack.com/p/it-isnt-jour… if you consciously hide relevant information or avoid salient topics because you worry readers will do the wrong thing with it, assume it will backfire. people will stop paying attention to you, and they’ll turn elsewhere for information. (2/4)

some observations on the CRT discourse.. when Republicans like Youngkin talk about banning teaching CRT, they are saying among other things that they won't support teaching that America is fundamentally racist, that some people are inherently disadvantaged/oppressed, advantaged, oppressive/1

https://twitter.com/ericbradner/status/1456065398319853574?s=21

the CDC school guidance convo is a lot. Those who overstated "the science” for months are frustrated that the new guidelines don't really endorse what they thought was basically fact. And it seems to be dawning on others that there's good-faith debate among experts re: standards? It's legit to disagree with, or question the CDC! I question why they didn't focus much on ventilation. But that doesn't mean they're "covering for the unions" (jesus christ). It also might mean that experts you see always quoted in media have a POV that merits scrutiny too

Got a lot of DMs today about the new Post washingtonpost.com/education/cdc-… and NYT stories on school reopenings, nytimes.com/2021/01/26/wor… so going to put my thoughts here /1 Just to be clear, despite framing, this was not new CDC guidance. It was covering an article written by epidemiologists affiliated with CDC, but the Biden admin recently directed the ED and HHS to issue school reopening guidance, and this is not that /2

Incredibly important study published yesterday

https://twitter.com/aliciacita/status/1352719270895992832

Cooks in California were 60 percent more likely to die between March-Dec 2020, relative to non-Covid times.

Bakers, 50 percent more likely

Maids and housekeeping cleaners, 33 percent more likely

Teaching assistants, 28 percent more likely

new @WSJ piece summarizing "a consensus emerging consensus in Europe that children are a considerable factor in the spread of Covid-19" and why "more countries are shutting schools for the first time since the spring"
wsj.com/articles/europ… “In the second wave we acquired much more evidence that schoolchildren are almost equally, if not more infected by SARS-CoV-2 than others,“ said Antoine Flahault, director of the University of Geneva’s Institute of Global Health wsj.com/articles/europ…

Federal funding for school testing is good, but I hope the Biden administration does not then _overstate_ safety of in-person schooling for individual families, especially at a time when we’re collectively working to help hesitant people take a vaccine /1

https://twitter.com/adamcancryn/status/1341838490665955328

Need to be clear on what routine testing can do and help prevent, while not downplaying the remaining risks, so people who are already feeling distrustful can make their decisions for the rest of the year /2

a new study looks at Michigan + Washington this fall, found when community transmission rates were low, in-person school was not linked to increased community spread. but when community rates increased, in-person schooling did contribute to higher spread epicedpolicy.org/wp-content/upl… one notable thing about this study is that what's considered "high" rates in the fall would arguably be considered "low" or "moderate" today

It's not widely known that Congress originally subsidized the delivery of newspapers far more than other kinds of mail, because it believed this whole democracy thing wouldn't work unless citizens were informed on their communities and leadership (1/4)

https://twitter.com/GrahamVyse/status/1338474058959249410

Back in the summer, when the nation was panicking over Louis DeJoy and the possibility of a privatized mail system, people instinctively understood that relying on UPS, Fedex and Amazon alone would mean some communities would simply suffer and lose out (2/4)

.@dcpave polled 939 families in DC about their experience with virtual learning, the pandemic, and thoughts about going back to school dropbox.com/s/108939nqds8p…

I had a chance to read @AlecMacGillis's new story on remote learning. propublica.org/article/the-st… It's definitely worth a read, but I do feel some important aspects of school reopening debates were omitted or mischaracterized, and I want to lay out a few here /1 Alec is right that risks for children getting severely ill are low, and some politicians, including the Biden campaign, have overstated that. But risks of children transmitting the virus to other adults is real. New CDC study on this just a few weeks ago:

https://twitter.com/CDCDirector/status/1304530665052999686

Goodwin clarifies he supports eviction protections "as long as we determine we can afford it." I do not think his listed bullet-points really summarize his answer but I'll just post the video clip below so people can watch for themselves (1/3)

https://twitter.com/GoodWinForDC/status/1306980647282581504

Note the question from was: “do the rest of the candidates support banning evictions as Ed has suggested” — and @edlazere had suggested in his prior answer banning evictions through the course of the pandemic. (2/3)

there have been many stories that frame opposition to school reopenings as driven primarily by teacher unions and then *maybe* as a footnote later on acknowledge oh also parents oppose it, and oh also school administrators axios.com/axios-ipsos-co…

Melton-Meaux just sent out a campaign email saying "We’re so proud and honored that we’ve consistently raised more money from our district and state than our opponent since entering the race"

https://twitter.com/gabemschneider/status/1285320500894367745

these were the stats he included in the email, along with an "Fundraising FAQ" with questions like "Will the money you’ve received from the Jewish community influence your policy decisions?"

HuffPost/YouGov found little support for defunding the police, but a lot of support for other reforms huffpost.com/entry/defund-p… When those surveyed were asked to describe what "defund the police" meant — 19% defined it as “completely abolishing police forces” while 56% majority saw it as a proposal to significantly decrease the size of police forces and the scope of their work. 25 percent were unsure

this is a good, thoughtful @IngaSaffron column on destroying buildings inquirer.com/columnists/flo… the conversation around property damage has been hard. on one hand — protestors are right: buildings are not people! property destruction is not close to murder, it’s *not* like police violence. but as @IngaSaffron, a great rhetorical slogan obscures a lot too

I come to this work as a white Jewish girl, that I know. But like any journalist worth their salt, I'm a good listener, I read widely, I know that people with the biggest platforms don’t always speak for who they claim to, that polls matter, as do individuals' lived experiences/1 I did a lot of reporting back in Baltimore during the Freddie Gray protests, and covered gun violence and policing there for several years thereafter vice.com/en_us/contribu… I also did a longish piece on Minneapolis police brutality issues last spring theintercept.com/2019/05/02/min… /2

NEW: Despite skyrocketing unemployment, Tennessee Valley Authority plans to outsource hundreds of federal jobs to overseas companies interc.pt/2SDlaWJ The TVA was literally founded with a mandate to promote economic development in the Tennessee Valley region, and management admits their proposed layoffs isn't to save money, or even because there has been any identified problem with the quality of the work.

I'll prob regret posting this but I've seen a lot of talk lately on Twitter about how Warren supporters should vote Sanders now, or they'll be to blame if he loses. It's a weird argument, as if it's not the job of the campaigns to win the votes /1 Expecting voters to be these savvy delegate-counting math wizards is pretty futile, our top political journalists can barely do it. People are gonna vote for who they like or who they can be persuaded to support based on a number of factors — some rational, some less so /2

I'm going to do a thread about this story since I know it’s a long, and at times, dense, piece.

(Forgive me for that, this looks at lawyers debating details of law that will impact millions of people. Not exactly clickbait, but it's important.)

https://twitter.com/rmc031/status/1222960480815341568

The American Law Institute is a nearly-century old private organization. It’s invite-only, with ~4,000 members, and only the most elite lawyers are invited. (All Supreme Court justices are members, top litigators, law professors, judges etc.)