Vanita Gupta, President Joe Biden's nominee for associate attorney general, is among the Obama-era officials he has picked for his administration — and she has come under attack from the far-right Judicial Crisis Network. Washington Post opinion writer Jonathan Capehart defends Gupta in a column published this week, arguing that she should be confirmed regardless of what the JCN thinks.

"For a couple of weeks now, my morning newspaper-reading over coffee and yogurt has been interrupted by the aural pollution that is the attack ad against Gupta from the Judicial Crisis Network," Capehart explains. "As the Post's editorial board pointed out over the weekend, the Network's television ad 'is a doozy, mainly notable for the magnitude of the lies and distortions it crams into 30 seconds.'"

On CNN Tuesday, anchor Chris Cuomo laid into Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) for his decision to lift all business restrictions, including a statewide mask order, put in place to protect the public from COVID-19, even as his state is trailing the nation in vaccines administered.

"The head of the CDC just said, we must be careful, especially if relaxing any protective measures," said Cuomo, who himself contracted COVID-19 last year. "So, what did Texas announce right after that? The governor announces they are throwing caution to the wind and reopening 100 percent. The same governor who did not prepare the state for bad weather, is now leaving it exposed to a deadly virus. Just as hope is on the horizon."

The Supreme Court expressed skepticism on Tuesday about a voting rights case pushing for the prohibition of two restrictions on voting in Arizona, an important test case for the fate of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

One restriction requires that ballot officials throw out votes cast in the wrong precinct. The other prohibits the practice of "ballot harvesting," which allows third parties, such as organizers, community activists, or even family members, to deliver ballots on voters' behalf.