Ashish K Jha, MD MPH/Twitter:

The conversation about the coming Omicron wave vacillates between
OMG — Omicron will be cataclysmic
to
I’m done with this pandemic and have moved on
Neither is helpful
A middle course can help navigate this complex time without massive disruptions or a lot of deaths

Dylan Scott/Vox:

Omicron is coming and lockdowns aren’t coming back. So what can we do?

There is no grand plan for stopping omicron — but that doesn’t mean we’re powerless.

So: Nearly two years into the pandemic, a lot of people are simply burnt out. But that doesn’t mean we are powerless. Covid-19 will always be circulating and the world isn’t going to shut down every time cases rise. But that doesn’t mean apathy is the solution. Individual people making individual decisions to take the virus seriously — by wearing masks, getting vaccinated, and being thoughtful about what activities they participate in — can help slow down the virus, at least a little bit, and give the health system a fighting chance.

“Fatalism is not an effective means of infection control or public health,” Bill Hanage, a Harvard University epidemiologist, told me.

Roll Call:

Senate parliamentarian rejects ‘Plan C’ immigration plan

It was the third attempt by Democrats to include immigration provisions in their sweeping social spending plan

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., said Thursday evening he was “disappointed” with the ruling, adding that “we’re considering what options remain.”

Democrats and Republicans presented their opposing arguments to MacDonough at a formal meeting Dec. 1 to go over the immigration provisions. They had hoped to pass the overall bill before Christmas, but acknowledged this week that timeline would likely slide to January.

AB Stoddard/Bulwark:

The Attempted Republican Coup Should Be the Democrats’ Leading Message

For most of 2021, the Democratic party in Washington has earnestly tended to deck chair displays as the ship of democracy sinks. The entire party’s governing apparatus has focused on what was once quaintly referred to as “kitchen table issues”: rolling out vaccines, passing a COVID stimulus to rescue small businesses, creating a child tax credit to help foundering families, and pursuing, with the monomania of a crazed Eagle Scout, an infrastructure bill that passed muster with a large number of Republicans supporting it. As if proving that bipartisanship wasn’t dead could keep democracy alive.

Much of this governing was admirable. After all, defeating COVID was a large part of Biden’s mandate. As was renewing bipartisan legislating and a sense of normalcy to Washington.

Yet Democrats ought to realize that their time in power is drawing to a close. And so they must choose wisely how they spend the months left. Perhaps they might work on preserving the constitutional order?

WaPo:

After decades, some of America’s most toxic sites will finally get cleaned up

The revival of a long-lapsed tax on chemical makers in the bipartisan infrastructure law means cities like Newark will get money to restore toxic Superfund sites

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Douglas Freeman, who runs youth sports programs in nearby Weequahic Park, said on a recent gray autumn afternoon, gesturing to the crumbling brick buildings and junk cars that show how the Superfund site has stunted the city’s revitalization efforts.

But three decades after federal officials declared it one of America’s most toxic spots, it is about to get a jolt.

On that same day in November, President Biden signed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that revives a polluter’s tax that will inject a new stream of cash into the nation’s troubled Superfund program. The renewed excise fees, which disappeared more than 25 years ago, are expected to raise $14.5 billion in revenue over the next decade and could accelerate cleanups of many sites that are increasingly threatened by climate change.

On the sentencing of Robert Scott Palmer to 63 months: