| | | | | |  | | By Michael Grunwald | Presented by |  | | | With help from Renuka Rayasam and Myah Ward THE DISASTER HEADED OUR WAY — The polar vortex that has frozen Texas into an unfamiliar state of paralysis has driven America into a very familiar form of political warfare. You could call it the polarized vortex, the cultural battleground where extreme-weather disasters inevitably inspire blizzards of ideologically convenient explanations of why the mess is the other team's fault. But there's really only one clear lesson to be drawn from this mess, which is that in an era of climate change, extreme-weather disasters are getting more common and more costly. The 2021 Texas "snowado," like the 2020 California "firenado" and Iowa "derecho," is just the latest sign we need to upgrade our vocabularies as well as our infrastructure for the disasters heading our way. The right wants to blame the blackouts in Texas on renewable energy, as if the Republicans who run the state had accidentally adopted a Green New Deal that eliminated fossil fuels and destroyed the reliability of the grid. In fact, Texas is still fossil-fueled, and most of its generation problems this week stemmed from frozen fossil plants and pipelines. Meanwhile, some progressives have pointed fingers at the deregulation of Texas electricity markets, but that seems mostly irrelevant to the current crisis. They've also blasted conservative Republicans for failing to make long-term investments that could have made Texas more resilient to extreme weather, which is a fairer critique, except that liberal Democratic states have neglected to invest in resilient infrastructure as well. The real problem in Texas is the freaky weather, and unfortunately, climate change is delivering a lot more freaky weather. It may seem counterintuitive that global warming would create a record cold wave, but that's why Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe calls it "global weirding." It's not just about heat, although 19 of the 20 hottest years in the Earth's recorded history have occurred in the last 20 years. It's about the discombobulation of the atmosphere — hotter hots, colder colds, bigger and wetter and stronger storms, odd toggles in the polar vortex and Gulf Stream and other natural forces we take for granted. Today, only a fool expects a hundred-year drought or flood or snowfall event to happen once every hundred years. What we should expect is the unexpected, and the pain and expense that comes with it. America had a record 22 billion-dollar disasters in 2020. It spent a record $300 billion on disaster relief in 2017. As President Joe Biden likes to point out when he's pushing his $2 trillion climate action plan, the costs of climate inaction are even worse. Admittedly, that's a political talking point. Climate science, and to some extent all science, has gotten drafted into America's never-ending political culture wars; taking it seriously has become yet another partisan identifier. But as the litany of Texas Republicans who mocked California's rolling blackouts as a symbol of Democratic dysfunction in 2020 found out in 2021, the climate doesn't care whether or not politicians believe it's changing — or who they blame for its messes. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news and tips at mgrunwald@politico.com and rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @mikegrunwald and @renurayasam.
| | | | A message from The ACLU: The ACLU launches new Systemic Equality agenda: Since its founding, the fabric of American society has been woven with unjust, racist policies that harm Black and Indigenous people of color. We must address America's legacy of racism and systemic discrimination. The ACLU is calling on the Biden administration and Congress to advance societal equity, close the racial wealth gap, and seek reconciliation for our past. Learn more. | | | | | | | 
A sign states that a Fiesta Mart is closed because of a power outage in Austin. Millions of Texans are still without water and electricity as winter storms continue. | Getty Images | THE HUMAN TOLL — Transportation editor and native Texan Kathryn A. Wolfe writes: Heading into Day 4 with little relief in sight, Texans are still wrestling with how to get basic needs met. How do you deal with no power, no water — and no reinforcements in sight? The city of Galveston, a barrier island just outside of Houston, has virtually no power, and as of today, virtually no water. Anna Olivares, a longtime teacher there, said there's little food available to buy — and what remains is cash-only. "And the food in your refrigerator is spoiled by now. If it wasn't so dire it would be funny, [but people have] had to put food outside on their porches — it keeps better there," she said. Jason Webb, a small business owner in Dallas, said as temperatures outside dipped to 1 degree Fahrenheit, he used a small camping heater to keep his sleeping kids warm. With carbon monoxide a concern, "we used it in 5-minute increments, heating up one room and then we'd go and lightly heat up another room," he said. His children, ages 8 and 12, were bundled up, but "their faces kept getting cold. So I would just go in there and periodically warm them up." But the heater was small, and their house still barely stayed above freezing. Webb and his wife also had pets to manage — a cat, two guinea pigs and a turtle, who they kept warm by heating up water for his tank. "I'm a proud Texan but … we're really pissed off, and they need to do a hard look" at what caused the situation, he said. For Sanjay Bapat, an attorney and aide to former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, the outages have meant migrating from one family home to another, chasing power as one home after the next went dark, with their newborn and 2-year-old in tow. "It feels like a Steinbeck novel where you're just trying to wander your way toward electricity," he said. "My poor wife had to do this [with the kids.]" And that, said Melissa Arredondo, Bapat's wife, is a gamble too. "We're doing this while the roads are still icy. … Can we make it to the house, will that house continue to have power? And you don't know what's coming next. We still don't, we don't know what's going to happen today. And we have means — this is happening to everyone." "Everyone in the city — the whole state — is just effed," Bapat said.
| | | | NEW – "THE RECAST" NEWSLETTER: Power dynamics are changing. "Influence" is changing. More people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that all politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. "The Recast" is our new twice-weekly newsletter that breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics, policy, and power in America. And POLITICO is recasting how we report on this crucial intersection, bringing you fresh insights, scoops, dispatches from across the country, and new voices that challenge "business as usual." Don't miss out on this important new newsletter, SUBSCRIBE NOW. | | | | | | | | WORKER SUBSIDIES MAY DROP IN COVID BILL — Policies aimed at helping American workers stay home when they have the coronavirus have been scaled back in the Covid relief bill now moving through Congress and could be narrowed further, reviving a heated debate over how to balance fixing the economy with sound public health measures, writes health care reporter Alice Miranda Ollstein. Costly provisions such as paid federal sick leave, a higher minimum wage and insurance subsidies for laid-off workers are facing Republican resistance as negotiators try to cut down the size of the nearly $2 trillion package. Some may be jettisoned entirely. Public health experts say dropping those provisions will worsen disease spread. One study in Health Affairs found that states without guaranteed sick leave saw 400 fewer Covid cases a day after Congress temporarily mandated it last year. A separate study by University of Chicago researchers found people who hadn't received federal stimulus checks were likelier to flout social distancing rules.
| | | |   | | | | | | AGREE TO DISAGREE — Covid cases are down from a January peak, but new variants are spreading nationwide. Even experts are having a hard time agreeing on whether the pandemic threat is passing or still very much lurks. Nightly reached out to two researchers today who have polar opposite thoughts on the virus trajectory and have publicly sparred before: Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and a member of Biden's Covid-19 Advisory Board. Here's where they stand on a handful of issues. This conversation has been edited. The threats of variants like B117 first detected in the U.K. "Certainly variants are more contagious. I agree the doubling time [of the B117 variant] is 10 days, but why are all the cases going down? "It's roughly 28 million people who are said to have been infected, but those are people who have been tested and found to be infected. Let's assume it is off by a factor of three to four. Now you're talking about 80 million plus people that have been exposed to this virus. That's about 25 percent of the population. We have paid an enormous price: Roughly 500,000 people died to get that 25 percent previous infection rate. "Vaccines are also a small contributor. Assume another 10 percent. So roughly one of every three people is at some level of immunity. That's not a lot. We need about 70 to 80 percent of the population to be immune in order to really stop the spread of this virus. But it would not be shocking that you're slowing the spread of the virus." — Offit "The CDC put out a publication on B117 showing that this is very likely to be a major issue in late February and throughout the month of March. This is exactly what we've seen happening in the European countries that have been houses on fires. We're following that very same path. If you look at activity right now, B117's are doubling about every ten days in the United States. This is a harbinger of things to come. This is just a matter of time and no amount of happy talk is gonna change that. "People will say — Paul does this — there's so many people that are protected today because of infection. That's simply not true. At best, CDC estimates that we're somewhere in the ballpark of about 80 million people who have likely been infected by this virus who might have residual protection. That's a far cry from 330 million. If we keep up the current rate of vaccination through the end of March, 30 million out of the 53 million individuals 65 years of age or older will not have had a drop of vaccine. That 30 million in the month of March is a powder keg waiting for this virus to hit." — Osterholm Covid seasonality "He is wrong about the winter. If you look at the curves, there was definitely less spread in the summer months. This virus is still spread by small droplets and small droplets in humid climates don't do as well. The warm weather is to our advantage. It is stunning to me that in mid-February, when this virus, which is at its heart, a winter respiratory virus and should be raging, isn't." — Offit "When people talk about seasonality, they don't know what they mean. Last summer in the hottest month in July the entire Sunbelt states lit up. It's a natural wave. We're not driving this tiger. We're just riding it." — Osterholm Transmission rates "Then there's the fact that the people who are most infectable have been infected. People who are working jobs where they're coming in contact with people. Probably the people who were the most likely to die from this have died. Who's left? People who may be more likely to mask and social distance. People who work in jobs in which they don't have a lot of contact with the public." — Offit "Then you look at, what are we doing right now? We're opening up this country unlike anything we've done in the last year. Mask mandates are gone. Restaurants are open again. We're seeing all kinds of weddings and funerals. You saw on President's Day weekend, four million people flew. We're also doing everything we possibly could right now to help to help this virus basically transmit." — Osterholm The surge "This is a really good trend and in part due to population immunity. I think there may be a little bump as we move along. I'm going to predict there is not a huge big fourth surge. I'm going to predict Michael Osterholm is wrong. Either he is wrong or I am wrong, we'll see." — Offit "Go look at any prediction I've made. Last year on Joe Rogan on March 10, I said we could expect to see 480,000 deaths in this country. I got panned. When people are critical like that I stick by my record." — Osterholm
| | | | GET TRANSITION PLAYBOOK TO 100K: In three months, our scoop-filled Transition Playbook newsletter has grown from zero to more than 90,000 subscribers. Find out what's really happening inside the West Wing, who really has the ear of the president, and what's about to happen, before it occurs. Transition Playbook chronicles the people, policies, and emerging power centers of the Biden administration. Don't miss out, subscribe today. And once you do, we'd be grateful if you could spread the word to your friends and colleagues, or, even better, post about Transition Playbook on Facebook or Twitter using this link: politico.com/newsletters/transition-playbook | | | | | | | | — Rush Limbaugh dead at 70: The conservative voice who made himself into a powerhouse political figure on talk radio for the past three decades died today . Kathryn Rogers, the longtime radio host's wife, announced her husband's death at the beginning of his show today. The cause of death was complications from lung cancer, she said. — Bibi and Joe chat: Biden spoke by phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel today, for the first time since taking office about Iran and strengthening the U.S.-Israeli relationship, according to a statement from Netanyahu's media adviser. — DOJ charges North Koreans in cyberattacks: Federal prosecutors announced charges against three North Korean government hackers accused of participating in a wide range of cyberattacks, including the destructive 2014 assault on Sony Pictures Entertainment, the global WannaCry ransomware attack in 2017 and a range of digital bank heists. — Fauci: 'Non-workable' to vaccinate teachers before schools open: Anthony Fauci said vaccinating all teachers against Covid-19 before reopening schools is "non-workable," wading into an issue that has taken center stage for the Biden administration during the ongoing pandemic.
| | | HOW TO COUNT TO 10 — In today's Punchlines , Matt Wuerker talks to the Room Rater guy — Claude Taylor — about the Twitter phenomenon he started at the beginning of the pandemic, and the secrets to scoring a 10. Stay tuned all the way to the end for a blooper.
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| | | | GREEN LIGHT FOR NEW U.K VIRUS STUDY — The U.K. is set to begin the world's first trial of healthy volunteers being intentionally infected with coronavirus, after the study received ethics approval. The so-called human challenge study will begin within a month, the U.K. Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said in a statement today, with up to 90 people being exposed to a very small amount of coronavirus in a safe and controlled environment. These kinds of trials are controversial, as they expose healthy volunteers to diseases that may be deadly. The next stage of the study, which has not yet been approved, will involve giving a coronavirus vaccine to different volunteers and then exposing them to coronavirus. Only vaccines that "have proven to be safe in clinical trials" will be used. However, researchers are still a "long way" from this stage of the study, according to Terence Stephenson, chair of the Health Research Authority, which gave ethics approval.
| | | | | One-third The approximate proportion of troops who have declined to take the coronavirus vaccine so far , Pentagon officials told the House Armed Services Committee today. Maj. Gen. Jeff Taliaferro, the vice director of operations for the Joint Staff, said the military has a two-thirds acceptance rate for the vaccine. The vaccine is not yet mandatory for service members. | | | | | | 
Fans look on during the bottom of the fifth inning of a Grapefruit League spring training game between the Washington Nationals and the New York Yankees on March 12, 2020 in West Palm Beach, Fla. | Getty Images | DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER — Our colleague Marty Kady writes: After a bleak, pandemic-stricken winter, baseball fans heard the words they've been waiting for today: Pitchers and catchers have reported to spring training. Last year, at this exact time, my 10-year-old son and I were packing our Washington Nationals jerseys and World Series champions hats for our first father-son trip to spring training in West Palm Beach, where the Nats were set to open the exhibition season against the Houston Astros. It was the last time we were on a plane. Just a few weeks after those late February games at The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, the world shut down. Now, Major League Baseball is starting its second pandemic season, with new Covid rules and a year's worth of lessons. Here's what's different : Fans will be limited, sitting in pods with masks and social distancing during spring training. Teams will have very limited travel during spring training, sticking to one of the two Florida coasts, while the Cactus League in Arizona will have a normal schedule. Players are prohibited from gatherings of more than 10 people, and they must quarantine at home when they're not at their training facilities. The testing regime is expansive, and baseball clearly wants to avoid any setbacks to the start of the regular season. It's all a reminder that we are entering the second year of the pandemic, and nothing is returning to normal any time soon — including America's pastime. "We all know the commitment it will take from each of us to keep everyone safe as we get back to playing baseball, and these enhanced protocols will help us do it together," an MLB spokesperson says. Most of us baseball fans will be staying home during spring training this year. For now, I'm spending this frigid February day in Virginia staring at pictures of me and my son at the ballpark, before we knew how the world would be turned upside down.
| | | | A message from The ACLU: Systemic Equality = Freedom and justice for all
The ACLU is calling on the Biden administration and Congress to advance societal equity, close the racial wealth gap, and seek reconciliation for our nation's racist past.
People of color, especially Black people, continue to endure systemic exclusion and discrimination – over 150 years after the abolition of slavery.
Systems of oppression have been codified on the federal and state level, leaving generations of Black communities underrepresented in the policy decisions and legislation that has a direct impact on their communities – housing, voting, hiring, education, banking, technology and more.
The long-standing damage caused by systemic injustice is unmistakable, as Black Americans endure violence and death at the hands of the state, while disproportionately bearing the economic, financial, and community burdens of COVID-19. It's time for a new racial justice agenda.
Learn about the ACLU's Systemic Equality agenda here. | | | Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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