A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.
Don’t Try This At Home
While you may have been tracking the latest developments in the infrastructure dance in the Senate or the evolving understanding of the Delta variant or the Tokyo Olympics or even the MLB trade deadline, House Republicans were busy Thursday undertaking not one but TWO different stunts to cement its status as the pro-pandemic/pro-insurrection party:
- Stunt One: House GOPers “visited” the Senate side of the Capitol to protest the differential mask-wearing requirements in the two chambers.
- The Senate is almost universally vaccinated. The House remains a COVID cesspool of unvaccinated and militantly anti-mask Republicans.
- Watching the unmasked House Republicans milling about outside the Senate, it was hard not to see this as a quiet attempted coup: All it takes is infecting one elderly Democratic senator from a red state to flip the Senate back to GOP control.
House Republicans are protesting the mask mandate by walking to the Senate, where masks are not mandated by Capitol physician pic.twitter.com/sFD6AVnbr3
— Scott Wong (@scottwongDC) July 29, 2021
- Stunt Two: House GOPers trooped over to the DC jail ostensibly to protest the conditions in which the Jan. 6 defendants are being held.
- It’s all part of the right-wing effort to recast the insurrectionists as political prisoners.
- One very important point: Notice the House GOP wearing masks at the jail!
Again, if GOP lawmakers feel it is beyond the pale for Democrats to require masks to be worn in the House chamber, then why is it okay for Republicans to be wearing masks a few blocks away at the DC jail?pic.twitter.com/hpQaBH3cuy
— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) July 29, 2021
The QAnon Dog Whistle
What is Kevin McCarthy doing here?
And here’s Kevin McCarthy using a Qanon catch phrase. This is madness. https://t.co/G5XMOdXeNv
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) July 29, 2021
Bumble Vigilantism
An amazing story from TPM alum Ryan Reilly on how one Capitol rioter was taken down by a clever 20-something on Bumble.
Are The Rioters Getting Off Too Easy?
A federal judge questions the Justice Department’s misdemeanor charges for some insurrectionists.
Credit Where Due
Two GOPers – a senator and a congressman – are calling out the right-wing veneration of Ashli Babbit for the nonsense that it is.
Delta Is For Real
Internal CDC communications about the Delta variant reflect sense of urgency that the COVID game has changed – and not for the better:
- The CDC slideshow was obtained by the Washington Post.
- Delta is highly contagious, on par with chicken pox but deadlier: It spreads faster than ebola, smallpox, Spanish flu, MERS, SARS, and the common cold.
- Delta produces more severe infections than the original COVID.
- Vaccines are still super effective at preventing hospitalizations and deaths from Delta.
- Most troubling, vaccinated people may spread Delta as much as unvaccinated people. Hence, the new masking guidance from the CDC.
- Informed reaction from a medical professional here.
COVID Eviction Moratorium Expires Saturday
Democrats are scrambling to extend it.
Marco Rubio Befools Himself Again
The Florida senator is complaining about “embarrassing COVID theatre” after the secretary of defense complied with his host country’s request that his traveling party wear face masks and shields:
We were told prior to arrival in Manila that the Philippines required everyone getting off @SecDef ‘s plane to wear a mask and face shield. I am traveling with Austin as a member of the press and had to wear both as well. #COVID19 cases are surging here. https://t.co/CKVng6HLhI
— Carla Babb (@CarlaBabbVOA) July 29, 2021
Carl Levin, 1934-2021
The longest serving senator from Michigan (1979-2015) was an oversight maven. From the NYT obit:
With his longish silver hair, affable smile and glasses perched low on the nose, he looked more like a kindly Old-World shoemaker than the terror of the Senate. But he confronted the titans of JPMorgan Chase, Apple, American Express and other corporate giants like a barbarian at the gates, and extracted admissions about overseas banking havens and mind-boggling tax-avoidance maneuvers that rendered profits invisible and made tax burdens vanish into thin air.
Defrocked Cardinal Theodore McCarrick Charged
The former archbishop of Washington, D.C., becomes the highest ranking U.S. Catholic clergyman to face criminal charges for alleged sex abuse.
- McCarrick, 91, was charged in Massachusetts for allegedly assaulting a 16-year-old boy in the 1970s.
First Lady Recovering From Foot Injury
The Bidens went to Walter Reed Hospital Thursday evening so Jill Biden could have a puncture wound in her foot treated.
- She apparently suffered the injury while walking on the beach on an official trip to Hawaii last weekend.
- It’s not known what she stepped on.
Most Popular At TPM
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!
