President Joe Biden s’n visit to Atlanta was supposed to be a victory lap. He and Vice President Kamala Harris would tout the $ 1.9 trillion stimulus package — and all the local sweeteners inside — in the state responsible for flipping the Senate majority to the Democrats, which helped make the whole thing possible.
Instede, a gunman’s senseless acts of violence at spas near Atlanta wrenched the spotlight back to a seething issue in America: racism and its dangerous and deadly impacts.
Now Biden will meet with members of the Asian American community in Georgia as he and others decry the violence and discrimination the community has faced since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
It’s a bitter reminder that amid all of the change and progress over the last year, efforts to address racism must continue.
Intussen, America’s state and local leaders continue to roll out the Covid-19 vaccines in a patchwork manner, with varying degrees of success, as the threat of dangerous new variants and a potential third surge looms.
Back in Washington, true bipartisanship still feels like a pipe dream. A House measure to award Capitol and Metropolitan police officers the Congressional Gold Medal for their work protecting the US Capitol on January 6 passed handily: 413-12. Yet those dozen “nay” stemme, all from Republicans, reveal an ongoing and growing gulf.
Their issue was with semantics: The bill referred to the riot as an “insurrection.” Watter, for the record, Dit was.
At the US-Mexico border, where the Biden administration still refuses to call the situation a “krisis” despite the 14,000 migrant children in custody, there is apparent bipartisan agreement that the current setup is untenable. Republikeine, Democrats and bipartisan groups have traveled to the border to highlight the situation.
Yet despite the apparent consensus, die path forward, at least on Capitol Hill, seems murkier than ever.
Die punt: Many times this week, it felt as though America’s divisions were on full display.
