Daybook
Daybook posts are a Wolves and sheep Extra feature. If you are an Extra member, the excerpts below will take you to the Wolves and Sheep Patreon site where you can read all of the Daybook posts.
To become a Wolves and Sheep Extra member, please visit the Wolves and Sheep Extra page.
12/6/2021 Daybook
More on our broken politics
What’s a little dysfunction among friends?
Members can read more at https://www.patreon.com/posts/59583269
11/29/2021 Daybook
11/22/2021 Daybook
Thanksgiving break
More calm before another storm.
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11/19/2021 Daybook
Just don’t bet against Pelosi
Worth waiting for.
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11/15/2021 Daybook
Garland finally acts
Contemptuous toward Congress.
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11/12/2021 Daybook
Out of hand
When voting to repair bridges is a capital offense.
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11/8/2021 Daybook
Victory Lap
It was the worst of weeks. It was the best of weeks.
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11/1/2021 Daybook
The light at the end
Finally? Maybe?
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10/29/2021 Daybook
Half the distance
We’re not quite there yet.
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10/25/2021 Daybook
No word yet
Is a breakthrough in sight?
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10/22/2021 Daybook
10/18/2021 Daybook
Interpreting the silence
There’s good news and bad news. And it’s the same news.
Members can read more at https://www.patreon.com/posts/57544893
10/15/2021 Daybook
Criminal contempt
Wheels are turning.
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10/11/2021 Daybook
Crisis delayed but not defused
Dysfunction on display.
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10/3/2021 Daybook
Adventures in lazy journalism
Let’s get it right.
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10/1/2021 Daybook
Infrastructure week
I warned you it would be ugly.
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9/27/2021 Daybook
Intensity
It’s a pivotal week in congress.
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9/24/2021 Daybook
Sure it looks ugly
Things are moving.
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9/20/2021 Daybook
9/17/2021 Daybook
Trump card
What California taught us.
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9/13/2021 Daybook
9/6/2021 Daybook
A little extortion
What’s a little extortion among friends?
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9/3/2021 Daybook
Biden’s domestic bet
We are pulling ourselves apart at an accelerated rate.
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8/30/2021 Daybook
A little perspective
Is Biden’s presidency over? Not quite yet.
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8/27/2021 Daybook
Busy Day
One of the all-time greats makes it look easy.
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8/23/2021 Daybook
A new product
Just an old-fashioned feeding frenzy.
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8/12/2021 Daybook
Up all night
An all-nighter brings progress, but the real test is still ahead.
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8/9/2021 Daybook
A little context
Is it a historic accomplishment to just do your job?
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8/3/2021 Daybook
Now the hard part
It took incredible effort to shape a bipartisan infrastructure agreement. But that was easy.
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7/30/2021 Daybook
Something has changed
I should go away more often.
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7/22/2021 Daybook
Of course they did
How real is that bipartisan commitment?
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7/19/2021 Daybook
More on that new governing paradigm
Shades of the Civil War.
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7/16/2021 Daybook
Multitasking
Congress walks and chews gum at the same time.
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7/12/2021 Daybook
Here we go
Apart from determining the future of the republic, it looks like another sleepy summer in the Senate.
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7/6/2021 Daybook
Reflections on Independence Day
Are we on the way to calm horizons or are we in the eye of the storm?
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7/2/2021 Daybook
About that investigation
Will they regret saying no?
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6/28/2021 Daybook
Partisan Blowback
Pigs aren’t flying after all.
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6/25/2021 Daybook
Are pigs flying?
Republican obstruction and bipartisanship? Here’s why after a busy week not much has changed in Washington.
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6/21/2021 Daybook
Looking back
A healthy political party would never think of doing this.
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6/18/2021 Daybook
Movement
What looked speculative on Monday became conventional wisdom by Friday.
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6/14/2021 Daybook
Following the money
Nancy Pelosi sounds surprisingly upbeat about the potential for Joe Manchin to change his mind on voting rights legislation. Could her optimism have something to do with this?
Members can read more at https://www.patreon.com/posts/52495456
6/11/2021 Daybook
Who could have seen this coming?
You can’t negotiate with someone who already has what they want.
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6/7/2021 Daybook
Parallel realities
Washington is experiencing a surreal moment, caught between conducting business as usual and a looming existential threat.
Members can read more at https://www.patreon.com/posts/52215149
6/4/2021 Daybook
Tea leaf
The first special election of the Biden era was notable for what didn’t happen.
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6/1/2021 Daybook
Assumptions
Republicans will retake Congress next year . . . unless they don’t.
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6/1/2021 Daybook
Assumptions
Republicans will retake Congress next year . . . unless they don’t.
Members can read more at https://www.patreon.com/posts/51982134
5/28/2021 Daybook
Irreconcilable differences
One word captures the state of the Republican Party four months into the Biden presidency.
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5/24/2021 Daybook
The urgency paradox
Democrats know they have to move quickly and decisively to avoid losing the window to act on Biden’s ambitious agenda. There’s only one thing standing in their way.
Members can read more at https://www.patreon.com/posts/51653743
5/21/2021 Daybook
The bipartisanship fallacy
We shouldn’t expect Republicans and Democrats to come together around anything if they can’t come together around this one thing. And they can’t.
Members can read more at https://www.patreon.com/posts/51534624
5/17/2021 Daybook
Commission watch
Is it possible to investigate something that one side sees as an attempt to violently overthrow the government and the other side sees as a tourist event? The reality gap that divides the two parties will be put to the test this week as Congress nears a vote on one of the most important issues of our day.
Members can read more at https://www.patreon.com/posts/51370215
5/14/2021 Daybook
Words or actions?
In the wake of Liz Cheney’s ouster from congressional leadership, a group of high-profile former Republican officials said now is the time to free their party from Trump’s influence. Together, there is one thing they can do to make this happen. But will they?
Members can read more at https://www.patreon.com/posts/51269269
5/10/2021 Daybook
More purge politics
With Congress returning to Washington this week, the political world will be consumed by the power struggle in the Republican House caucus, where Liz Cheney is poised to be ousted from the number three leadership spot. As political dramas go, this one has zero suspense. The challenge to Cheney’s leadership has been brewing for months and everyone in Washington expects it to end with Cheney being replaced by upstate New York congresswoman and Trump opponent-turned-acolyte Elise Stefanik. What makes this gripping political theater is the fact that it is happening to a legacy figure in the conservative movement and what it says about the present and future state of the Republican Party.
Members can read more at https://www.patreon.com/posts/51100402
5/7/2021 Daybook
Group identity
In the coming weeks you will see a lot of stories about how the White House is open to bipartisan compromise with Republicans on the massive infrastructure legislation working its way through Congress and how West Virginia’s Joe Manchin is confident he can work in good faith across the aisle. But several events this week point to why these efforts rest somewhere between bad theater and wishful thinking. If we connect the dots across what’s happening this week in Arizona, on the Hill and in Florida, we see Republicans telegraphing that they are animated not by policy objectives or ideology but by nurturing and defending a shared identity built around a worldview unsupported by external reality. No longer a conventional political party, Republicans are turning into a faith group united by the false belief that massive fraud by voters of color illegitimately removed Donald Trump from power, a wrong that has to be righted at any cost.
Members can read more at https://www.patreon.com/posts/50978418
5/3/2021 Daybook
Mitt
There was an incident over the weekend in which Mitt Romney was booed at a state convention of Utah Republicans for having twice voted to convict Donald Trump at his impeachment trials (and – reality check – impeachment may seem like ancient history, but the most recent trial ended less than three months ago). If you’re looking for a measure of the health of the post-Trump Republican Party, you can stop here.
Members can read more at https://www.patreon.com/posts/50813088
4/29/2021 Daybook
Biden’s ordinary extraordinary speech
Joe Biden’s speech to a socially distanced joint session of Congress Wednesday night lacked some of the pomp and grandeur we normally associate with such events, but Biden made the largely empty room work to his advantage. Speaking softly enough to make viewers want to lean in to their screens, modulating his voice for emphasis, Biden delivered his remarks in the casual cadence of a friend or neighbor in what felt like a 21st century Fireside Chat.
Members can read more at https://www.patreon.com/posts/50640067
4/16/2021 Daybook
It’s been quiet . . . but . . .
The Biden administration launched with a flurry of activity, culminating in passage of the $1.9 trillion Covid relief package. For several weeks we had wave upon wave of executive orders and cabinet nominations, and while Biden intentionally toned things way down he remained a presence in the news. Then things seemed to get quiet.
Members can read more at https://www.patreon.com/posts/wolves-and-sheep-50109945.