Opinion

The House of Representatives just passed their final version of the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion package aimed at ending the pandemic and restoring the economy to a hopefully better condition than it was when the coronavirus first hit American shores one year ago. President Joe Biden, whose White House proposed the draft that was largely adopted by Congress, is expected to sign the bill on Thursday ahead of a primetime address marking the somber anniversary of pandemic lockdowns.

Republicans in Congress, for their part, hate this bill.

A friend sent me a new study showing that the top five executives of major corporations pocketed between 15 and 19 cents of every dollar their companies gained from two recent tax cuts. This paper, by Eric Ohrn at Grinnell College, should be a really big deal.

The basic point is one that I, and others, have been making for a long time. CEOs and other top executives rip off the companies they work for. They are not worth the $20 million or more that many of them pocket each year.

Republican lawmakers couldn't please former President Donald Trump by attempting to overturn the election results on January 6, so they decided to change the laws for the next election. State legislatures have introduced more than 250 bills intended to significantly reduce voting rights across the country. These efforts in voter suppression have historically targeted minority voters, especially Black voters.

Voter suppression has been a fundamental feature of the formerly conservative party, and whether by gerrymandering, passing restrictive voter ID laws, upholding felony disenfranchisement, promoting voter registration purges, or eviscerating the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the Jim Crow era doesn't seem to be so long ago.

By now, we know that the overly loud ruckus raised by Congressional Republicans criticizing too much spending and a growing deficit is a message leveled only when that spending is aimed at those of us at the bottom and middle.

As progressives have argued endlessly, there was no Republican concern about lowering tax rates for the wealthy and corporations.

Americans and Britons alike are still processing the "what?!" heard round the world, courtesy of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's spilt tea during Sunday's "Oprah with Meghan and Harry" special on CBS. Now let's look closely at the context in which that particular bomb dropped.

Meghan, fully open but diplomatic in what she chooses to say, tells Oprah that a member of the royal family had expressed to Harry "concerns" about how dark the couple's son Archie might be when he was born.

After delaying long enough to cause serious anxiety among prominent public health experts, on Monday the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) finally released their recommendations for people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The delay was worrisome, especially in light of reports that there was a debate in the White House over how lenient the guidelines should be with regards to what vaccinated people can do. In the end, however, what was settled on was a little more freedom than earlier reports suggested. Not only do the guidelines say vaccinated people can socialize together, as was anticipated, they also indicate that vaccinated people can visit with unvaccinated people – so long as they are all low-risk and from the same house. Mostly described as the "you can hug your grandkids" rule in the press, the guideline also includes increased freedom for things like a vaccinated couple hosting an unvaccinated couple for dinner.

Many prominent public health experts celebrated the loosening of restrictions on vaccinated people because, as Harvard-based epidemiologist Julia Marcus explained on Twitter, "Vaccines provide a true reduction of risk, not a false sense of security." Others, such as Dr. Leana Wen, visiting professor at George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health, remain critical, not because they believe the new guidelines are too generous — but because they are still too strict.

One of the first lessons attorneys involved in high-stakes litigation learn is that it sometimes pays not to say the quiet part out loud, lest your client's true intentions be revealed.

Michael A. Carvin, a highly respected partner in the powerful Jones Day law firm based in Washington, D.C., may have forgotten this lesson during the oral arguments conducted by the Supreme Court on March 2 in a pair of appeals from Arizona involving Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). In a shocking comment made toward the end of his presentation, Carvin revealed the Republican Party's entrenched and dedicated commitment to partisan advantage and voter suppression. In the process, however, Carvin may have unwittingly opened the door to abolishing the legislative filibuster and enacting H.R. 1, the landmark omnibus voting rights bill entitled the "For the People Act of 2021" that has passed the House and is now pending before the Senate.

My formative experience of America came during this country's great summertime of resurgence. It was 1984, I was sixteen years old, and I had flown into Los Angeles on the eve of the Olympics. For the next six weeks, I watched, wide-eyed, as the long national nightmare of Vietnam, Watergate and the Iranian hostage crisis was brought to an end by a modern-day gold-rush.

A multi-racial team of US athletes, led by the likes of Carl Lewis, Mary Lou Retton, Michael Jordan and Greg Louganis, completely dominated the medal table. Team USA even performed well in some of the more obscure events - a calorific boon for customers of McDonalds, which ran a scratch-card promotion, planned presumably before the Soviet boycott, offering Big Macs, fries and Cokes when Americans won gold, silver or bronze. With the thumping chant of "USA, USA" echoing from coast to coast, it was hard, even as a visiting outsider, not to be swept up in this torrent of patriotism.

Quinton Lucas, one the nation's top big-city Black mayors, indicated today he's considering a run for the U.S Senate seat being vacated by veteran Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri.

Blunt made a surprise announcement Monday that he wouldn't seek reelection when his term expires in 2022. That move caught political insiders by surprise, but while most attention focused on the Republican free-for-all that will ensue in a scramble for the GOP nomination, Lucas is the Democrat most likely to have a serious chance to flip the seat blue were he to decide to run.

President Joe Biden and the Democratic Congress scored a huge victory this weekend with the passage of the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill in the U.S. Senate. It is a major accomplishment that, if signed into law, gives the average family of four more than $7,600 right away, makes Obamacare more affordable for more people, provides $27 billion in rental assistance and much-needed help to cities and states, and finally establishes a child allowance of $3000-$3600, which will hopefully become permanent over time. Upon the package's passage, none other than Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, gave this statement:

Critics of both Donald Trump and the Republican Party rejoiced on Saturday morning over the growing civil war between the two that has now led the ex-president having to threaten a lawsuit if they continue to use his name and likeness for fundraising purposes.

Trump, who is increasingly trying to take control of the Republican Party since he lost re-election, has set himself up as a kingmaker with his own PAC in Florida and is continuing to fundraise.

With that in mind, on Saturday it was reported he sent cease and desist letters to the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee demanding they stop using him to fundraise.

As one commenter on Twitter put it, Trump's growing war with the GOP is "f*cking hilarious."

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When Emily Brimmer's family dentist sent out an email that they were administering vaccines, she jumped at the opportunity. Brimmer is certainly entitled to get one: though only 36 years old, she has type 1 diabetes, lives with family and helps to take care of her 101-year-old aunt. But once inoculated, Brimmer wasn't prepared for one of the unexpected side effects: guilt.

This article originally appeared at Salon.