The Daily 202: Taylor Swift’s new album ends on a hopeful note – with echoes of Emily Dickinson

The five-minute song takes listeners on a journey from the depths of pandemic-induced melancholy to a feeling of reassurance that things cannot possibly stay this bad. The piano ballad leaves you with a sense of hope for the future. Perhaps it will emerge as the anthem for 2020.

In what sounds like a metaphor for the carnage and havoc wrought by the coronavirus, Swift refers to death and says she has felt “barefoot in the wildest winter.”

“Hey December,” she sings. “Guess I’m feeling unmoored. Can’t remember what I used to fight for. I rewind the tape, but all it does is pause on the very moment all was lost.”

The song becomes a duet as Justin Vernon from the indie folk band Bon Iver chimes in during the bridge. “Can’t not think of all the cost and the things that will be lost,” he says. “Oh, can we just get a pause? To be certain, we’ll be tall again – whether weather be the frost or the violence of the dog days. I’m on waves, out being tossed.”

“When I was shipwrecked, I thought of you,” Swift continues. “In the cracks of light, I dreamed of you. It was real enough to get me through. … I was catching my breath, floors of a cabin creaking under my step, and I couldn’t be sure. I had a feeling so peculiar this pain wouldn’t be forevermore.”

The album became available at the end of a day with as many ups and downs as the song. A record 3,347 covid-19 deaths were reported by state health departments, putting America’s death toll on course to surpass 300,000 in the coming days. “We are in the time frame now that, probably for the next 60 to 90 days, we’re going to have more deaths per day than we had at 9/11 or we had at Pearl Harbor,” CDC Director Robert Redfield said Thursday to the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Labor Department announced a few hours earlier that the number of new unemployment claims last week rose sharply to 853,000, an increase of 137,000 from the week before. This is worse than the very worst jobs report during the Great Recession in March 2009.

In the evening, a panel of federal advisers voted to endorse the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, making FDA authorization all but certain in the coming hours. Americans will probably start getting inoculated this weekend.

“Evermore” is a follow-up to “Folklore,” which came out on July 24. Swift said the isolation and inability to tour during the pandemic has made her prolific. “To put it plainly, we just couldn’t stop writing songs,” she wrote on Instagram. “To try and put it more poetically, it feels like we were standing on the edge of the folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn and go back or to travel further into the forest of this music. We chose to wander deeper in. …

“I loved the escapism I found in these imaginary/not imaginary tales,” she explained. “I loved the ways you welcomed the dreamscapes and tragedies and epic tales of love lost and found into your lives. So I just kept writing them.”

Swift, who turns 31 on Sunday, has spoken publicly about past periods of apparent depression. This is her ninth studio album. “Folklore” came out just 11 months after “Lover,” her previous album. That prolific run of new content comes after Swift took three years to release “Reputation” in 2017 after her previous album, “1989,” was a smash success. In a radio interview last year, Swift said that the long delay was because she needed a mental break and was not feeling “fresh” enough to create new music.

“There have been times where I needed to take years off because I just felt exhausted, or I felt like, really low or really bad,” she told Zach Sang in April 2019. “One thing to always keep tabs on is the fact that we have to know that there is no ‘happily ever after’ where we’re just happy forever. Happiness is always going to be a struggle and a challenge that we have to try and meet. … That’s not naturally how we’re going to feel all the time.”

Swift has evolved from country to pop to something that sounds more like alternative rock in these two most recent albums. One of the reasons many sophisticated people admire Swift, despite her bubblegum Top 40 background, is because her lyrics often allude with clever imagery to classic literature and poetry. “Evermore” is no different.

In an unusual move, Swift puts the title track as the 15th and final song. The kicker is her saying: “This pain wouldn’t be forevermore.” 

Emily Dickinson ended her poem, “One Sister Have I in Our House,” this way: “I spilt the dew / But took the morn, / I chose this single star / From out the wide night’s numbers / Sue – forevermore!”

Dickinson’s birthday was Thursday.

“Congressional bickering over a new economic relief package escalated Thursday as lawmakers traded blame and put negotiations over critical legislation on the brink of collapse. And the finger-pointing even threatened to imperil a must-pass spending bill in the Senate, as lawmakers were still unsure whether they would be able to pass a measure by a deadline Friday night to avert a government shutdown,” Mike DeBonis and Jeff Stein report. “The worsening situation came as multiple lawmakers appeared to be pursuing conflicting goals, with little time to sort out disagreements. The House passed a spending bill Wednesday to fund the government for one week and avoid a shutdown deadline Friday night. The Senate must pass an identical bill — and have Trump sign it — to avoid a shutdown, but as of Thursday afternoon, lawmakers still weren’t sure how to do that with unanimous consent. 

“Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested Thursday that discussions over emergency legislation could stretch beyond Christmas, even though multiple critical programs expire at the end of this month and there are fresh signs the economy is weakening. … Further adding to the confusion, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on Thursday threatened the must-pass government spending bill in an attempt to force congressional leadership to allow a vote on another round of $1,200 stimulus checks next week. … Staffers for [Mitch] McConnell also told leadership offices in both parties Wednesday night that McConnell sees no possible path for a bipartisan group of lawmakers to reach an agreement on two contentious provisions that would be broadly acceptable to Senate Republicans … House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said House lawmakers would be sent home to their districts until a compromise measure was reached.” 

“In Maryland, Jean was successfully juggling college and a job, and had just bought her first car, when the pandemic crashed down like a sneaker wave. Her son’s day-care center suddenly closed in April, forcing her to give up her $15-an-hour job as a receptionist. But quitting meant she didn’t qualify for unemployment benefits. She says she was denied food stamps at least three times and gave up on local food banks because of the lines,” Abha Bhattarai and Hannah Denham report. “So she began sneaking food into her son’s stroller at the local Walmart. She said she’d take things like ground beef, rice or potatoes but always pay for something small, like a packet of M&M’s. Each time, she’d tell herself that God would understand. … 

“That tided her over until July, when she got a big break: a full-time job in a new state making $16 an hour. Jean has health insurance now and donates to the local food pantry. She hopes she’ll never have to steal again, though she says her sense of security is fleeting. ‘I know what it’s like to do everything you can and still not make it,’ she said. ‘And I know it could happen again.’”

“The thumbs’ up from the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee was the culmination of an all-day meeting during which the panel heard presentations on the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine, including plans to monitor its longer-term safety.” Laurie McGinley, Carolyn Johnson and Joel Achenbach report. “After the FDA authorization, an advisory committee to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will vote on whether to recommend the vaccine and for which groups. … States will have the final say on who gets the first shots and where they are administered. Those considerations are complicated by extreme logistics challenges, including the sub-Antarctic storage temperatures the vaccine requires. …

“The FDA has asked Pfizer to monitor vaccine recipients for ‘anaphylactic reactions’ as a potential risk following the British report. Much remains unknown about the cases in the United Kingdom, and experts said more data was urgently needed. A specific study could be done to see if the vaccine carried risk to people with severe allergies — data that might be essential to overcome concerns from Americans who heard alarming news reports. … In its review, the FDA found a slightly higher number of adverse events — ‘potentially representing allergic reactions’ — in the group that received the vaccine, compared with those who got the placebo. There were 137 ‘hypersensitivity-related’ reactions to the vaccine, compared with 111 such events in the placebo group. But there were no cases of anaphylactic reactions in the trial. Pregnant women have been excluded from coronavirus vaccine trials, but the FDA’s limited data suggests no specific risk to pregnant women or a fetus. … 

“The FDA will release its assessment of [Moderna’s] vaccine on Tuesday and the advisory committee will review it on Dec. 17. If it gets favorable evaluations, as expected, the FDA is likely to authorize that vaccine within days. … Despite the committee’s consensus that the vaccine is safe and effective, there was at least one cautionary note about the absence of long-term data. A. Oveta Fuller, associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Michigan, voted against the recommendation, expressing concerns about the lack of long-term safety data for a vaccine technology not used before in humans. She called the risk ‘limited’ but predicted ‘the uptake in the community is going to be very poor.’”

• One of the vaccines the U.S. government made a big bet on – from drugmakers Sanofi and GSK – is going back to the drawing board after it failed to trigger a promising immune response in older adults. (Johnson)
• The Australian government ended the trial of a vaccine developed at the University of Queensland after some patients received false-positive HIV tests. The vaccine was developed using a coronavirus spike protein and a protein from the human immunodeficiency virus that could not infect people, but still stimulated the production of antibodies in some trial participants. The antibodies then spurred the false-positive HIV tests. (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Hong Kong’s government said it secured coronavirus vaccine supplies from both Pfizer and China’s state-backed Sinovac. (Shibani Mahtani)
• New Mexico suspended all nonessential surgeries and activated “crisis care” standards, a move that clears the way for a system of rationing, Griff Witte reports. Under the twin orders, elective surgeries will be banned until Jan. 4.
• Between 205,000 to 300,000 coronavirus cases in the U.S. may be linked to the Biogen conference held in the Marriott Long Wharf hotel in Boston in February, according to a study published in Science. (Katie Shepherd)

“Maribel Martinez has no qualms about getting the coronavirus vaccine. She watched as covid-19 attacked and weakened her husband for days during the summer before he relented and went to the hospital. He survived, but the experience so shook Martinez that she is determined to get the vaccine as soon as it is available. She said that puts her out of step with most of her friends and neighbors in a predominantly Latino neighborhood in Baltimore where many are resistant to the idea of inoculation,” Ian Duncan and Arelis Hernández report. “‘We have a big problem,’ said Martinez, 43. ‘The majority of the people around me are relying on what they hear from others, see on social media or their religious beliefs without knowing what it is to have the virus.’ … There are swaths of people who, like Martinez’s neighbors, are apprehensive. For many, the speed with which the vaccines have been developed and evaluated by the Trump administration is reason to be cautious. … ‘They really rushed,’ said [Iowa truck driver Candace Marley, who frets about bringing the virus home from the road]. ‘Even if they make us a priority, I’ll probably wait a couple months after they start to see how everyone else is handling it.’”

“Trump’s erratic, unrealistic and untruthful leadership during the U.S. pandemic response left the country poorly prepared for the concerted fight,” Christopher Rowland reports. Biden “must counsel patience and continued mask-wearing. … At the same time, he will need to embark on a comprehensive education campaign to convince people that it is in their — and their neighbors’ — best interest to get vaccinated. … The slow buildup of vaccine stockpiles through the first half of 2021 will give more time for leaders to mount that persuasion campaign for those showing early reluctance … Overcoming that hesitancy will require a broad-based education campaign from federal, state and local governments, featuring corporate and religious leaders, celebrities, sports stars and influencers, say experts. They will be up against an explosion of disinformation.”

Richard Hinch, 71, “died just a week after he was sworn in as speaker — and about three weeks after an indoor meeting of his caucus that led to several members contracting the virus, an event that Mr. Hinch had tried to play down in public remarks,” the New York Times reports. “The news will undoubtedly heighten tensions among state lawmakers, who have been at odds over the refusal of many Republican lawmakers to wear masks or take other pandemic precautions seriously. Splits have opened not just along partisan lines but also within the Republican ranks. … The Democratic former speaker, Steve Shurtleff, said he was troubled by Mr. Hinch’s support of Republican lawmakers who refused to wear masks on the House floor, whom Mr. Hinch had called the ‘patriot section’ and the ‘freedom group.’ ‘It’s so ironic, looking back,’ Mr. Shurtleff said. ‘I know he was just doing his job as a Republican leader, defending his members and his caucus, but it seems so senseless now.’”

A candidate for a Texas judgeship dies six days before a runoff election.

“Lillian E. Blancas, a widely respected lawyer in El Paso, always wanted to be a judge. She was expected to achieve her goal on Saturday in a runoff election, in which she was the favorite,” the Times reports. “Ms. Blancas died at a hospital in the city on Monday. She was 47. The cause was Covid-19, her brother Moises Blancas said. … Her death came too late to remove her name from the ballot. If she wins, the City Council would appoint a replacement. … Among her many friends, who called her Lila, was her opponent in the runoff, Enrique A. Holguin, who met her in 2013 when he joined the district attorney’s office. … Ms. Blancas tested positive for Covid on Halloween; three days later, she won 40 percent of the vote in the election, sending her and Mr. Holguin to a runoff. … After the election, Mr. Holguin, her opponent, texted her his congratulations. “You’re going to have a head start, because I have Covid,’ Mr. Holguin said she responded. ‘I was ready to lose this election,’ he said, ‘but I wasn’t ready to lose a friend.’” 

“Stephanie Lynn Smith and Jamie Bassett were looking forward to getting married Nov. 13. They had planned for Smith’s older brother to officiate the wedding in front of their parents at a scaled-down ceremony in a field in Lubbock, Texas, where Bassett had proposed,” NBC News reports. “But the couple did not marry. Smith spent her wedding day in a hospital where she had tested positive for the coronavirus and was diagnosed with pneumonia. … Five days later, Bassett and Smith’s family would rush to the hospital, only to learn that she had died. She was 29.”

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) imposed a statewide curfew to keep residents home late at night and an extended mask mandate. The measures, which will take effect on Monday, lower the number of people allowed in social gatherings but do not change rules for restaurants, stores or houses of worship. (Laura Vozzella, Rachel Chason, Erin Cox and Michael Brice-Saddler)

D.C. says it is being shortchanged on vaccines for health-care workers, but federal officials are sticking with their decision to allocate doses based on a jurisdiction’s population instead of its workforce. Around 75 percent of the District’s 85,000 health-care workers commute in from Maryland and Virginia. As a result, the District expects to receive just 6,825 doses of the vaccine in its first shipment. (Lola Fadulu)

Despite the objection of two board members, Metro leaders moved a step closer to adopting a plan that severely cuts transit service. If Congress or the incoming Biden administration were to provide federal aid, cuts could be rolled back, board members said. Without aid, Metro has proposed eliminating weekend Metrorail service, while ending weekday service two hours early. Fewer trains would mean waits between 15 and 30 minutes. Metrobus routes would be cut by more than half. (Justin George)

The General Services Administration says the White House will be deep cleaned after Trump exits to protect Biden and his team, who have taken the contagion far more seriously than their predecessors. (Newsweek)

“In a morning tweet, Trump called on the court to ‘save our Country from the greatest Election abuse in the history of the United States,’ repeating his baseless claims of widespread fraud. He had a private lunch at the White House with some of the attorneys general from 18 Republican-led states asking the court to dismiss the results in four swing states that Biden won, an effort supported by the Trump administration,” David Nakamura and Robert Barnes report. “By late afternoon, 106 GOP House members — a majority of the 196-member Republican caucus — had signed on to an amicus brief to support the Texas-led motion, among them Minority Whip Steve Scalise (La.) and Rep. Tom Emmer (Minn.), the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee. … Democrats denounced the last-ditch legal effort — filed this week by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a staunch Trump supporter who attended the White House lunch — to negate 10.4 million votes in favor of Biden in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. … Each of the targeted states filed an objection to Texas’s intentions and, taken together, offered the court a wide range of reasons not to get involved. … Legal experts predicted that the Supreme Court will quickly dismiss the Texas filing.”

“Texas has not suffered harm simply because it dislikes the result of the election, and nothing in the text, history, or structure of the Constitution supports Texas’s view that it can dictate the manner in which four other states run their elections,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) wrote in his response to the Supreme Court. “Texas does not seek to have the Court interpret the Constitution, so much as disregard it.”

Among them was Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.), who was formerly chief of staff to Sen. Ted Cruz (R). Cruz, who definitely knows better, has agreed to argue the Texas lawsuit if the Supreme Court takes it up. The senator is pretty clearly doing this to further his 2024 presidential ambitions, even if it means further squandering his reputation as a serious lawyer. On Twitter, Roy distanced himself from his old boss by explaining that this case “represents a dangerous violation of federalism” and “sets a precedent to have one state asking federal courts to police the voting procedures of other states.” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) chastised his colleagues who signed the brief in a video: “The election was real — it counts — and we need to move forward. Failing to accept this reality puts the country in a very dangerous moment in time.” Felicia Sonmez notes that only one member of House GOP leadership signed onto the amicus brief: House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (La.).

“Rush Limbaugh isn’t saying he wants the country to split into red and blue factions as a result of conservative fury over the election results. As he attempted to make clear Thursday, he’s just saying that other people are saying it,” Paul Farhi reports. “‘I know that there’s a sizable and growing sentiment for people who believe that’s we’re headed to, whether we want to get there or not, secession,’ he said on his nationwide radio program. ‘Now, I didn’t advocate for it. I never would advocate for secession. I’m simply repeating what I have heard.’ Limbaugh’s clarification came after his earlier comments on the topic went viral on social media. He didn’t say where he’s heard anyone float the notion of states seceding, let alone spell out how such a neo-Civil War separation might take place. … ‘I actually think that we’re trending toward secession,’ he said on Wednesday’s show. ‘I see more and more people asking what in the world do we have in common with the people who live in, say, New York?’” For what it’s worth, Limbaugh spent much of his career broadcasting from New York.

“Morocco and Israel agreed Thursday to establish diplomatic relations in a deal brokered by the United States, making the North African nation the fourth Arab-majority country in recent months to say it would normalize ties with Israel. The agreement with Morocco had been anticipated for months, but was held up by Moroccan demands that the United States recognize its sovereignty over a disputed border region,” Anne Gearan, Karoun Demirjian, Mike DeBonis and Souad Mekhennet report. “That logjam broke this month, as Trump’s tenure nears its end. No other Western democracy has backed Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara region, and Trump’s turnabout ends more than 40 years of official neutrality. Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), a Trump ally and powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has championed the cause of Algerian-backed separatists in that region for years. ‘He could have made this deal without trading away the rights of this voiceless people,’ Inhofe said on the Senate floor, referring to Trump. Trump’s decision came a week after he had criticized Inhofe for refusing to hold up the annual defense spending bill over Trump’s demand that it be used to repeal a federal law granting liability protection to technology companies.”

• The United States flew a pair of B-52 strategic bombers from a base in Louisiana to the Middle East as a show of force against Iran, as tensions between Tehran and Washington escalate during Trump’s final days. (Paul Sonne)
• The State Department’s acting inspector general is leaving his job Friday following an attack on his office by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s spokesperson concerning a damning report about official trips Pompeo took with his wife, Susan. (John Hudson) 
• The Trump administration is considering whether to pull back military support for the CIA’s counterterrorism efforts, the Times reports. One option under consideration by the administration would reduce the number of Pentagon personnel sent to the agency, while another, broader change would make it harder for the agency to work out of military bases.

This is one of five death sentences that Trump’s team hopes to carry out before an opponent of capital punishment replaces him. “This schedule has spurred significant pushback, with critics arguing against carrying out a wave of executions in the narrow window before Biden, who opposes capital punishment, takes office,” Mark Berman reports. “Bernard’s case had drawn high-profile condemnation, with Kim Kardashian West, among others, tweeting about his case and sharing a petition calling for his death sentence to be commuted to life in prison. On Thursday evening, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Bernard’s stay request, clearing the way for his execution to proceed. The court’s three liberal justices — Stephen G. Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — said they would have granted the stay. … Bernard was the ninth federal death-row inmate executed this year. Bernard and Christopher Vialva, his co-defendant, were convicted of murder in 2000 for their roles in the killing of two youth ministers, Todd and Stacie Bagley, the previous year. … Bernard was 18 at the time.”

• Manhattan’s district attorney is intensifying his investigation of Trump, interviewing employees of his lender and insurance brokerage, a significant escalation and an indication that the president faces the potential threat of criminal charges once he leaves office. (NYT)
• A federal judge rejected Trump’s effort to reinstate rules requiring women seeking abortion medication to visit a doctor’s office or clinic in person during the pandemic. (Ann Marimow)

“Biden appeared to blame the ‘defund the police’ movement for contributing to surprising Democratic down-ballot losses last month, telling civil rights leaders this week that they should proceed carefully on criminal justice issues,” NBC News reports. “‘That’s how they beat the living hell out of us across the country, saying that we’re talking about defunding the police. We’re not. We’re talking about holding them accountable,’ Biden said Tuesday in a virtual meeting with civil rights leaders, according to audio excerpts posted Thursday in a podcast from The Intercept. Biden pledged that he would follow through on his promises to address systemic racism, but he warned about getting ‘too far ahead of ourselves’ with critical Senate runoff elections in Georgia on Jan. 5.”

• During the meeting, civil rights leaders urged Biden to take a slew of executive actions. He said there are some things he’ll be able to do by executive order, but he’s “not going to violate the Constitution. Executive authority that my progressive friends talk about is way beyond the bounds.” (Intercept)
• Attorney General Bill Barr has known about a disparate set of investigations involving Hunter Biden’s business and financial dealings since at least this spring, but he worked to avoid their public disclosure during the campaign, his allies told the Wall Street Journal.
• Barr has told others that he plans on staying in his job through Jan. 20, the Times reports. Trump was irritated with Barr’s contemplation of an early departure.

“The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that three Muslim men may seek monetary damages from the government agents they say placed them on a no-fly list because they refused to become FBI informants,” Robert Barnes reports. “The men filed a lawsuit in 2013 under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which provides relief from government actions that substantially burden a person’s religious beliefs. ‘The question here is whether ‘appropriate relief’ includes claims for money damages against government officials in their individual capacities. We hold that it does,’ Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the 8-0 court. Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed after the case was argued in October and did not take part in the decision. Muhammad Tanvir, Jameel Algibhah and Naveed Shinwari alleged that in separate incidents, they were asked to spy on their friends and fellow congregants at mosques in the New York area. They refused and later discovered that they were placed on the no-fly list … Each of the plaintiffs in the case were uniquely vulnerable to the hindrances of the no-fly list; they all had wives or family abroad, giving them a powerful incentive to comply with the FBI’s demands.”

“Lee blocked consideration for legislation to establish a National Museum of the American Latino and an American Women’s History Museum as part of the Smithsonian Institution, reasoning that the US does not need ‘separate but equal museums.’ The National Museum of the American Latino legislation had passed the House by voice vote in July following decades of efforts to establish the museum,” CNN reports. “‘The last thing we need is to further divide an already divided nation with an array of segregated, separate-but-equal museums for hyphenated identity groups,’ Lee said. … The Smithsonian Institution, Lee maintained, ‘should not have an exclusive museum of American Latino history or a museum of women’s history or museum of American men’s history or Mormon history or Asian-American history or Catholic history. American history is an inclusive story that should unite us.’ There are museums dedicated to African Americans – the National Museum of African American History and Culture – and Native Americans – the National Museum of the American Indian.”

Nearly every president elected since the 1930s has been named Time magazine’s Person of the Year after they won. The trend continues this year with Biden, but he is the first to receive the title alongside his running mate:

This is what was on Trump’s mind this morning: 

The former political director of the Republican National Committee – and the manager of Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign – decried House members who signed onto the amicus brief:

History does not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme. The anti-maskers of 1918 sound similar to the anti-maskers of 2020:

Seth Meyers said a stimulus bill isn’t about stimulating the economy – it’s about keeping people alive: 

Stephen Colbert slammed the Texas attorney general’s attempts to undo the results of the election in four states: