-Marjorie Taylor Greene, ready for a visit to both the Holocaust and Soup Museums

Democratic governors are hurriedly unfurling the Back To Normal banners amid plummeting Omicron case numbers, in a move that public-health experts say may be premature.
 

• New York and Illinois have joined a growing list of blue states to announce plans this week to lift their indoor mask mandates (though not necessarily school mask requirements) in February and March, pointing to declining infection rates and rising hospital capacity. Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) kicked off the Great Unmasking effort last fall, based on a series of post-election focus groups that suggested Democratic voters were growing impatient with COVID restrictions. 
   
• While the Biden administration has also been preparing to usher in a “new normal”—an optimistic Dr. Anthony Fauci said this week that the U.S. is “certainly” heading out of the “full-blown pandemic phase”—the Democratic governors ditching mandates have jumped out ahead of federal guidance. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a Tuesday interview, “We have and continue to recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission—that is essentially everywhere in the country in public, indoor settings.” 
   
• White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that the Biden administration had no beef with the blue states lifting restrictions, since local school districts can still choose to require masks, but that Americans should continue to follow CDC masking guidelines. (Another crystal-clear moment in public health messaging!) Some outside health experts say lifting those mandates now is simply unwise, based on current vaccination and transmission rates, and on how well that worked for us last time around.

The uncomfortable reality is that nobody knows what happens after Omicron—in either a public-health sense, or with respect to the political implications of a tentative “normal.”
 

• U.S. coronavirus cases have declined 44 percent in the past week, though the seven-day average of daily deaths has gone up to 2,600, and on Friday the U.S. tipped past the appalling milestone of 900,000 confirmed COVID deaths. If the world gets lucky, no more dangerous variant will emerge in Omicron’s wake, but Americans will need to be ready to dig their N95s back out of the trash if one does.


• There’s also no guarantee that relieving mask exhaustion alone will help Democrats in the midterms. Republicans have already begun dishonestly pointing to lifted mandates as evidence that they were right all along, and this week hounded an apology out of Stacey Abrams by pretending to be furious about a maskless photo she took with masked elementary school kids. Most reasonable people would agree that the hypocrisy of GOP leaders getting vaxxed and then railing against live-saving vaccine mandates is vastly worse, but Democrats will have to actually make that case.

In an America with higher vaccination rates and more public trust in health authorities, decisions about adjusting mitigation measures wouldn’t be so agonizing. Unfortunately, GOP opposition to vaccine mandates (or any form of COVID mitigation) and rampant right-wing misinformation have left Democratic leaders with no great options, and that’s as necessary to communicate to voters as when to take their masks off. 

Check out an all new episode of Keep It! This week, Ira, Louis, and Aida discuss the Oscar nominations and whether or not Lady Gaga was snubbed, how Black History Month has already gone terribly awry, Kanye and Kim’s messy divorce, and more. Plus, Nicole Byer joins to discuss being the busiest woman in show business and pandemic routines we’ve already abandoned. New episodes of Keep It drop every Wednesday. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Rudy Giuliani asked a GOP Michigan prosecutor to round up his county’s voting machines and give them to Trump’s team, weeks before he reportedly “vehemently opposed” a plan to have the military do the seizing. Antrim County prosecutor James Rossiter told the Washington Post that Giuliani and several colleagues called him around November 20, after the county initially misreported its election results, to make the request. Rossiter said he refused: “I said, ‘I can’t just say: give them here.’ We don’t have that magical power to just demand things as prosecutors. You need probable cause.” In other behind-the-scenes coup preparations, the FBI is investigating a meeting of several far-right figures in a downtown Washington, DC, garage (ok, Creep Throat) the day before the insurrection. That meeting included Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, who was recently indicted on seditious conspiracy charges, and then-Proud Boys Chairman Enrique Tarrio.

• The National Archives has reportedly asked the Justice Department to investigate Donald Trump’s improper handling of White House records, in the latest contribution to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s prized collection of “u up?” texts.
   
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stopped short of endorsing a stock trading ban for members of Congress, saying she would be open to following members’ lead on a ban as long as it also applies to the judicial branch, including the Supreme Court.
   
• The White House has approved a Pentagon plan for U.S. troops in Poland to help Americans leaving Ukraine if Russia invades, in an effort to avoid any situation like the hurried evacuation from Afghanistan.
   
• Russian President Vladimir Putin’s yacht abruptly gunned it out of the German port where it was supposed to be repaired, evidently because Putin feared it would get caught up in Western sanctions if he were to escalate the Ukraine crisis. 
   
• The North Carolina State Board of Elections said in a filing that it has the power to block Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) from running for re-election if he’s found to have played a role in the January 6 insurrection.
   
• Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY) poked Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) in the back and told her to “kiss my ass” when she asked him to put a mask on. Rogers apologized later on Tuesday after Beatty called him out publicly.
   
• Starbucks has fired seven workers who were part of a unionization effort in Memphis, TN. Starbucks Workers United filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday night, accusing the company of illegal union-busting.
   
• The Missouri Supreme Court has indefinitely suspended the law licenses of the McCloskeys, in connection with the whole “brandishing guns at protesters” thing. 
   
• The Yellow Springs, OH, village council voted down an affordable housing plan after Dave Chapelle, among others, spoke out against it. Chapelle threatened to pull his business interests from the village unless the plan was nixed. 
   
• A hacked Facebook account is behind much of the “Freedom Convoy” organizing and crowdfunded donations have poured in from the U.S., all suggesting that American right-wing figures are using the Canadian trucker protests as a proxy battle.
   
• In what’s somehow the second yacht story of the day, the Dutch have pledged to hurl eggs at Jeff Bezos’s yacht if the city of Rotterdam goes through with a plan to temporarily dismantle a historic bridge to let the yacht pass through. 

Today in Big Yikes (Not Progressives’ Fault), recipients of the expanded child tax credit have begun turning on Democrats now that it’s expired. At the end of 2021, President Biden and congressional Democrats enjoyed strong support from voters who received the monthly payments under the American Rescue Plan. After Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) killed the Build Back Better package that would have extended them, that advantage is virtually gone. Three in four child tax credit recipients said the end of the payments will have at least a “minor” impact on their financial security, including 37 percent who expect the impact to be “major.” Biden’s approval rating among those voters has declined by 13 since December, down to 43 percent. And just 44 percent say they would vote for the Democratic congressional candidate this year, down from 49 percent in December, while 43 percent would support the Republican, a six point gain.

It’s the middle of winter, and time to get real about layers, lining—everything that’s going to keep you warm and comfortable when you head out the door.

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European scientists say they’ve made a major breakthrough on nuclear-fusion energy, which doesn’t produce greenhouse gases or long-lasting radioactive waste. 

The House has passed the Postal Service Reform Act, which aims to fix some of the agency’s financial difficulties. 

Dolly Parton’s Dollywood announced it will cover all tuition costs, fees, and books for employees who pursue higher education. 

The Senate has confirmed Chantale Wong as U.S. director of the Asian Development Bank, making her the first out LGBTQ person of color to serve in an ambassador-level position.