Between the rapidly spreading Delta variant and a stubborn strain of right-wing anti-vax propaganda, the Biden administration’s vaccination efforts have only become more urgent—and more Sisyphean.
 

• The more-contagious Delta variant now accounts for 51.7 percent of all U.S. coronavirus cases, according to CDC data. The good news is, preliminary data from an Israeli study suggests that the variant is still no match for existing mRNA vaccines, which remain astonishingly effective at protecting against severe illness and death, if potentially less effective at preventing any infection. The bad news is, the folks who most need to hear that are watching Tucker Carlson make up frightening lies for profit.
   
• The combination of a more transmissible strain and under-vaccinated populations in red states has already led to alarming localized outbreaks in parts of the south, southwest, and midwest. The Biden administration has deployed a federal surge response team to Missouri, where just 45 percent of residents have received at least one vaccine dose, as coronavirus caseloads start to overwhelm hospitals in the Springfield area. 
   
• On Tuesday, President Biden announced the administration’s next push to reach unvaccinated Americans, which will include sending people door-to-door, setting up clinics at workplaces, and encouraging employers to give workers paid time off to get jabbed. Some health experts, including former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, say that increased access and coaxing may no longer be enough, and that it’s time for Biden to encourage states, colleges, and businesses to issue vaccine mandates.

On the one hand, anti-vax Republicans would undoubtedly go apeshit. On the other hand, they’re doing that anyway.
 

• A number of far-right House Republicans have already called Biden’s door-to-door campaign a HIPAA violation (no), unconstitutional (also no), or no different from Nazi Germany (hoo boy). Just three weeks after her middle-aged revelation that there is “nothing comparable” to the Holocaust, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) once again compared public-health measures to the Holocaust: “People have a choice, they don’t need your medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations.” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has yet to say a word.
   
• Berserk anti-vax misinformation from the far-right combined with a deafening silence on vaccines from more middle-of-the-road Republicans is how we’ve arrived at this gridlock: According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, 47 percent of Republicans say they likely won’t get vaccinated, compared with just six percent of Democrats. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans said they thought health officials were exaggerating the threat of the Delta variant. 
   

The Biden administration can and should continue working to help Americans overcome barriers to vaccine access, but at this point the factor prolonging the pandemic is a stubborn right-wing skepticism that Democratic leaders aren’t in a position to address. The GOP has prioritized sabotaging the Biden administration over ending this awful chapter, and that choice has and will cost lives.

On this week’s episode of Keep It!, Black Widow star David Harbour stops by to discuss joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, mentoring the Stranger Things kids, and even talks about his relationship with singer Lily Allen.

Don’t miss out! New episodes of Keep It! drop every Wednesday. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) has scheduled a special legislative session to begin on Thursday, meaning Texas Republicans are likely about to pass the voter-suppression bill that Democrats temporarily blocked with a last-minute walkout back in May. Abbott released a slate of issues to be considered during the 30 day session, which includes “legislation strengthening the integrity of elections in Texas.” More accurately, legislation that would slash early voting hours, ban drive-through voting, and make it harder to vote by mail, if the May version of the bill is any indication. Texas Democrats have successfully forced Republicans to abandon a disastrous provision that would have made it easier for the GOP to overturn elections, and they haven’t foreclosed another walkout. But they would have a much harder time this go-round, because they'd have to break quorum for 30 days. Preeminent Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias has pledged to sue as soon as the law is enacted.

• Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated at his home early on Wednesday, potentially throwing Haiti into deeper political turmoil. Moïse had been ruling by decree for over a year amid mass protests after failing to hold parliamentary elections.
   
• Russian hackers appear to have breached an RNC contractor last week, at around the same time that a Russian hacking group launched the largest ransomware attack on record.
   
• Leneal Frazier, Darnella Frazier’s uncle, was killed in a crash with a Minneapolis police car that was chasing a robbery suspect at high speeds on a residential road.
   
• Donald Trump has sued Facebook, Twitter, and Google, along with their CEOs,  in a sad little bid to restore his social media accounts.
   
• Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has asked Attorney General Mark Brnovich to open a criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to influence Maricopa County officials during the ballot count, which, given Brnovich’s zeal for preserving election integrity, he’ll surely not hesitate to do.
   
• Rudy Giuliani has been suspended from practicing law in Washington, DC, pending a disciplinary proceeding in New York.
   
• Tucker Carlson was trying to set up an interview with Vladimir Putin in the days before he started claiming that the NSA was spying on him. Tucker has yet to back up that claim with a shred of evidence.
   
• The Japanese government is expected to declare a new state of emergency in Tokyo as coronavirus cases surge, just two weeks before the Olympics.
   
• By decreeing that cruise ships must welcome unvaccinated passengers aboard, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has created a two-class cruise system that everyone hates, and now ship experts say it’s only a matter of time before a vaxxed cruiser and an unvaxxed cruiser are canoodling in a steamy car down in the cargo hold. 
   
• A new University of Wisconsin study estimates that Wisconsin’s gray wolf population dropped by up to one-third after the Trump administration ended federal protections.
   
• The very richer Americans now hold a higher concentration of wealth than the robber barons of the Gilded Age. To be clear, we are talking about this fucking dork. 

President Biden is expected to sign an executive order designed to increase competition across the economy and it will contain significant victories for American workers. The order will ask the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on noncompete clauses, which employers frequently use to stop workers from quitting for better jobs, and to ban “unnecessary” occupational-licensing restrictions, which can make it tricky to find new work, especially in a new state. The order would also encourage the FTC and DOJ to make it harder for employers to collude to keep wages down. Many of the most problematic policies for workers (like licensing requirements) are set at the state level, limiting the direct changes Biden can implement, but the planned order marks the most aggressive federal effort to give workers more leverage in recent history.

The U.S. vaccine rollout was fast enough to prevent 279,000 deaths and 1.25 million hospitalizations, according to a new Yale study.

Gov. John Carney (D-DE) has signed a law implementing automatic voter registration at the DMV, and potentially at more state agencies in the future.

Moderna has launched a clinical trial of its mRNA flu vaccine.

Icelandic trials found that the four-day workweek...works!