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Where Things Stand: Some House Members Are Reportedly Refusing To Get Vaccinated 
As Josh Kovensky reported today, the rate of getting shots into people’s arms has dramatically ramped up since January thanks to a few key factors, including the arrival of federal funding for the roll out.
Shape Of Nationwide Voting Restriction Push Begins To Firm Up
What Happened to Trump?
The future is hard to predict because all of our perceptions are all shaped by the present that is always passing. But it’s not too soon to note that some of our assumptions about ex-President Trump’s post-presidency missed the mark. With the exception of his CPAC speech which was generally regarded as a flat, low-energy affair Trump has been almost entirely out of the spotlight. He did pick this fight over whether money should go to GOP party committees or only to him directly. But the follow through has been scattered and Sen. Rick Scott’s visit to Mar a Lago suggests it was mainly a push for attention.
Where Things Stand: The GOP’s Gotta Worry About Greitens Again
He’s back. Maybe.
If you remember, TPM alum Allegra Kirkland covered the swift downfall of former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R) back in 2018, exclusively breaking a particularly disturbing detail of the story, which involved accusations of blackmail and an alleged assault: She reported that the former governor slapped the woman he had been accused of blackmailing over an extramarital affair.
Why Did Trump Decide Not to Have a Plan to Vaccinate the Country?
As we noted in various articles over the last two days the Trump administration (albeit mainly career civil servants) deserve some credit for Operation Warp Speed, which backstopped the risk in private pharmaceutical companies of going all out in vaccine creation and production. But on the distribution front, their record was close to catastrophic. As Josh Kovensky and Kate Riga explain here, they literally had no plan to do anything. The “plan” was not to have a plan. The military would airlift the supplies to designated airports in each state and then it was up to the states.
So why did the administration at least do the basic blocking and tackling of federal support for vaccine development and drop the ball entirely on a plan to get the country vaccinated?
From TPM Reader JM (this one got to me perhaps more than any other we’ve published so far) …
My COVID moment was the culmination of a year of thinking we were going to be OK, and then realizing we weren’t.
In 2019, months before the COVID crisis struck, my elderly but still brilliant mother moved from Florida to the NY exurbs to live with my family. Like anyone in their late 80s, my mother had her share of age related health issues but overall was in remarkable shape. When the crisis struck last year, we seemed to be doing all the right things: working and attending school from home, wiping down our groceries, wearing masks, etc.
However, I have teenagers, one of whom has been slowly radicalized by sociopaths on YouTube (Ben Shapiro is a favorite.). At some point, my teen decided that COVID was overblown, masks were stupid, and it would all be over on election day. (I might be a recovering conservative, but I believe in math and science like some people believe in Q or flying saucers.)
Where Things Stand: Pence Is Biding His Time With Little Side Gigs ‘Til 2024
First it was his conservative podcast for the youths. Then his op-ed in the Daily Signal, hyping Trump’s “Big Lie.” Then meetings with an agency that reps former politicos on the speaking circuit.
Now, it’s narrating a four-part Fox Nation series commemorating racist shock jock Rush Limbaugh (this, according to Politico Playbook).
Below I publish TPM Reader WH‘s note. He’s also pretty high on President Biden’s speech. But he asks whether there’s any good rundown about what’s true and not true about vaccine preparation under Biden and Trump. Is it really true, as a number of publications like the Times have reported in recent days that the Biden administration is taking credit for a lot of great stuff Trump had underway? Or resorting to the devious trick of underpromising and overdelivering? (Yes, really.) Our team was actually pretty deep into the reporting on this story last year. So we are going to put that piece together. Look out for it. But I think I can preview that briefly.
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