++Some Republicans say they’d still like to see lawmakers work with President Joe Biden. +
++Last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made clear what he hopes to do this term: obstruct President Joe Biden’s administration in the same way he obstructed then-President Barack Obama’s. +
++“One hundred percent of my focus is on stopping this new administration,” McConnell said at a press conference. “What we have in the United States Senate is total unity from Susan Collins to Ted Cruz in opposition to what the new Biden administration is trying to do to this country.” McConnell later caveated his comments slightly, noting: “I’m anxious on stopping the Biden agenda — depending on what it is.” +
++According to a survey fielded by Vox and Data for Progress prior to McConnell’s comments, some Republican voters don’t necessarily want lawmakers to do that. Instead, they maintain a focus on bipartisanship that’s consistent with past surveys — and one that looks increasingly untenable in the current Congress. +
++Per that poll, 68 percent of all people, including 43 percent of Republicans, said they think it’s more important for GOP members of Congress to find ways to work with Biden rather than refusing to compromise. Meanwhile, 50 percent of Republicans said they were in favor of Republicans refusing to compromise, while 7 percent weren’t sure. That breakdown speaks to a general preference for bipartisanship that voters have expressed in polls in the past as well: In a Monmouth survey this past January, 71 percent of all voters also emphasized that they wanted Republicans to work with Biden, including 41 percent of Republicans. +
++McConnell’s comments, though, speak to how unlikely bipartisanship on key policies really is moving forward, and why Democrats have already used budget reconciliation as a way to pass coronavirus aid unilaterally. Because of Republican opposition, Democrats might have to use the same methods once again for other priorities like infrastructure and child care. +
++Already, Republicans put forth an infrastructure offer that’s much narrower than what the White House has proposed: As the Biden administration moves to advance a sweeping $2 trillion infrastructure bill that includes expansive funding for roads, bridges, and broadband, which would be paid for by tax increases on wealthy individuals and corporations, Senate Republicans have balked at the pay-fors and countered with a roughly $570 billion proposal. +
++It’s worth noting that there is some appetite for a bipartisan compromise, though the two parties have yet to reconcile key differences. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) recently told Politico Republicans are willing to go higher than their initial offer, and McConnell suggested that his cap is $800 billion. At the same time, Democrats are trying to figure out if they have the votes for their own proposal, given concerns raised by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) about the tax provisions, complicating matters further. +
++Still, on the whole, the prospects for bipartisanship are dim — particularly on other issues including voting rights legislation, immigration reform, and gun control, on which Republicans have long signaled pushback, too. The current state of Congress, ultimately, suggests that lawmakers may not be able to work in the bipartisan fashion that many likely voters desire given Republicans’ stated plans for obstruction, and Democrats’ hopes of passing more ambitious policies. +
++The Vox/DFP poll was conducted from April 30 to May 2 with 1,402 likely voters, and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points. +
++Biden’s highest marks are on the pandemic +
++This survey also revealed that President Biden’s highest marks — across party lines — come on his handling of the pandemic, which 61 percent of people overall approve of. +
++In the poll, Biden has about 50 percent approval on most issues, including when it comes to his efforts on jobs and the economy (50 percent), his work on race and race relations (47 percent), policies on the environment (51 percent), and work unifying the country (48 percent). His lowest approval numbers were related to his approach to taxation (42 percent). +
++Biden’s disapproval ratings across these subjects, meanwhile, hover between 30 and 45 percent, with the highest disapprovals on his approach to taxation (44 percent) and unifying the country (41 percent.) Across the other issues, 39 percent of people disapprove of his work on jobs and the economy, 32 percent disapprove of his efforts on the pandemic, 39 percent disapprove of his handling on race and race relations, and 35 percent disapprove of his handling of the environment. +
++Biden’s response to the pandemic — which has included passage of a massive coronavirus relief package and the goal of distributing at least one vaccine dose to 70 percent of adults by July 4 — had the highest approval rating from members of all parties, including Republicans, of the issues tested. His pandemic policies received 85 percent of Democrats’ approval, 55 percent of Independents’, and 37 percent of Republicans’. Conversely, on issues like jobs and the economy and work on unifying the country, Biden received just 19 percent and 18 percent of Republicans’ support. +
++These findings are consistent with a recent AP-NORC poll in which Biden had a 63 percent overall approval rating, with 71 percent of people supporting his work on the pandemic. +
++Overall, the DFP poll also finds that 49 percent of people think Biden has been governing for both Democrats and Republicans, while 42 percent think he has been pushing a partisan agenda, since coronavirus relief passed without GOP support. +
++Voters prioritize the economy and reducing health care costs +
++Looking ahead, likely voters are most interested in strengthening the nation’s economy (81 percent), making sure the Social Security system is financially sound (76 percent), combating the pandemic (75 percent), reducing the costs of health care and prescription drugs (74 percent), and reducing crime (73 percent). +
++These five issues were most likely to be classified as a top priority among a list of 20 issue areas that were surveyed. But many other issues were also rated a top priority by a majority of people, including making sure voting rights are protected (72 percent), dealing with the issue of immigration (71 percent), reducing gun violence (63 percent), and improving the educational system (63 percent). +
++These ratings differed some across party line as well: For Republicans, the top priorities were strengthening the nation’s economy (85 percent), dealing with the issue of immigration (81 percent), and reducing crime (80 percent). For independents, they were taking steps to make the Social Security system financially sound (75 percent), strengthening the nation’s economy (75 percent), and reducing health care and prescription drug costs (74 percent). And for Democrats, they were dealing with the coronavirus outbreak (85 percent), strengthening the nation’s economy (81 percent), and reducing gun violence (80 percent). +
++Likely voters overall were more likely to believe that their own party was more capable of addressing the priorities they cared about. Seventy-six percent of Democrats were more likely to trust their own party to effectively strengthen the economy, for instance, while 84 percent of Republicans said the same of the GOP. +
++On issues including raising the minimum wage, increasing access to paid leave and child care, and dealing with climate change, though, a fifth or more of Republicans were more likely to trust Democrats on the matter, a higher proportion compared to other issue areas. About a quarter of Democrats also said they trust Republicans more when it comes to strengthening the military. +
++Congress and the White House have a hefty agenda to address moving forward including the American Jobs Plan, focusing on infrastructure and climate change; the American Families Plan, focusing on child care, universal pre-K, and paid leave; police reform; voting rights; gun control; and immigration reform. +
++Given ongoing Republican efforts to pare down or stymie several of these measures — and dissent within the Democratic caucus on some of these issues — it’s unclear just how much will advance this term. +
++
++
++Flowers have always held meaning. Then the pandemic came. +
++fnNew York went into lockdown just as the city was blooming. Many of us are now familiar with the way one week smears into the next when you rarely leave your home, but I still find it alarming how muddy my memories of those early days in quarantine are. What I do remember, vividly, is taking anxious early-morning walks around my neighborhood in Brooklyn and feeling utterly disoriented by the magnolia trees that had blossomed along the sidewalk. +
++Magnolias are a parody of a flowering tree. They’re gorgeous and excessive, dripping large pink petals everywhere. They make me think of the girl who upstages everyone at a house party by bringing a homemade cake for the host even though it’s no one’s birthday. (You resent her for it, then you realize this means there’s cake.) Last spring, I was grateful for the blush-hued flowers on my block, but they seemed surreal against the backdrop of fear and loss gripping the city. Spring is a feeling as much as anything, and I couldn’t find it anywhere in my body. +
++A year later, things are different here. More and more people are getting vaccinated (though not enough, and not in all parts of the world) and socializing with friends and family is starting to be less fraught. When in March I came across a patch of snowdrops in Prospect Park — some of the first flowers of the year, fresh and green among the dead leaves and bare trees — it felt like we were moving in the same direction. +
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Frank Bienewald/LightRocket/Getty Images
++“I’m excited about getting vaccinated and inviting new energy into my life,” my cousin told me over the phone recently. She was out for a walk on the West Coast. “But there’s still a heaviness I’m feeling. This has been a year of death and violence. It feels bittersweet to be like, ‘Things are blooming,’ because there are so many people not with us.” After we hung up, she sent me a photo of a red rose she’d come across, retina-burning in the April sunshine. +
++I feel a little silly writing about flowers like this, as though they don’t always signal a kind of renewal. As though they’re a novelty and not a massive global business — as though human civilizations around the world haven’t attached deep symbolism to them for millennia, using them in rites of passage and linking them to love, death, wealth, piety. At the Cornell Botanic Gardens in Ithaca, New York, there’s a space dedicated to answering the question of why flowers “charm and amaze us.” The garden features flowers like roses, lilies, and tulips, with detailed information on their historical significance across cultures: daisies are depicted in paintings of the Madonna and child as a symbol of the infant Christ’s innocence, whereas in ancient Mesopotamia they stood for protection and good luck. +
++“Flowers are cyclical, so they’re life-affirming in a sense,” says Sarah Fiorello, interpretation coordinator at the Cornell Botanic Gardens. “But they’re also ephemeral, so they reflect the finite nature of all life.” +
++Flowers ask the big questions, which may be why they seem to have meant a little more this year. On a practical level, people tend to interact with flowers in three ways. There are the flowers we buy for ourselves as an act of self-love, just to brighten our own day. There are the flowers we exchange with others to express affection and support — to connect. And there are the living flowers we encounter in nature, parks, and planters, reminding us that we’re part of something bigger. At a time when many of us have struggled with our mental health, when we’ve been denied the nourishment of other people’s company, when our worlds have shrunk so dramatically, it’s no wonder flowers hold a particular appeal. They’re a counterweight to the forces that might otherwise drag us down. Maybe they don’t tip the scales completely — some of them are very small — but they do help. +
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Joan Slatkin/Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
++The writer and cartoonist Jonny Sun is big on houseplants; they’re a major theme in his new book, Goodbye, Again. But it wasn’t until the pandemic that he and his wife started regularly buying cut flowers for their home, ultimately signing up for a monthly bouquet subscription with the LA-based floral design studio Bia Blooms. “Things have felt so purgatorial and endless,” Sun says. “Every day feels the same. I’ve really looked to flowers as a sign that time is indeed passing in some sort of regular way.” The cycle of buying a bouquet, watching the flowers fade, and purchasing another provided a strange sense of stability and comfort. +
++Faced with a world and a mess of feelings that often feel unpredictable and out of control, Sun also appreciates the way flowers establish a kind of emotional schedule for him. He knows that when they die, he’ll feel bummed out. “I’m buying this now, and I’m entering a contract with myself that I’ll feel sad in two weeks,” he says. “Knowing you’ll feel this emotion in a few weeks is kind of nice.” +
++Nana Agyemang started buying herself flowers every week during the pandemic, too, because it lifted her spirits. “I didn’t have the finances to do so before Covid, but because I was saving money on not commuting to work and not going out as often to restaurants to eat, I repurposed that income to treat myself,” she says. Agyemang is the CEO and founder of Every Stylish Girl, an organization promoting the advancement of Black and Brown women in fashion and media. The pandemic forced Agyemang to make a “huge company pivot” away from in-person events, and buying bouquets was an act of appreciation for herself during that stressful transition. +
++“Getting the flowers was like, ‘Hey, Nana, keep doing what you’re doing. You are excelling in every possible way you can, and these flowers are a reminder every day when you get up that you’re doing the damn thing,’” she says. +
++Here’s the thing: When you start buying flowers for yourself, you may very well want to give them to other people, too. Starting last summer, Agyemang partnered with florists to hold several flower arrangement giveaways, her way of expanding the circle of support and affirmation. “When someone does good work, you give them flowers,” she says. “This was a time of the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, and I felt like a lot of Black women and Black-owned businesses weren’t getting the flowers they deserved.” +
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Helene Wiesenhaan/BSR Agency/Getty Images
++For many people, flowers became a poignant way of connecting with loved ones they couldn’t otherwise see. Before the pandemic, Chicago-based artist Hyun Jung Jun enjoyed making cakes for her friends, creating unequivocally charming landscapes out of flowers and other vegetal materials: lavender placed like birthday candles, fennel fronds used to evoke towering trees. When 2020 rolled around, though, the cakes became an excuse to pick up homegrown flowers from one friend and then treat them — or someone else — to the finished product. “They’d come pick up the cake, so at least I got to see them a little bit,” Jun says. +
++Sam Herzog, director of sales and marketing at the accessories brand Kara, was already in the habit of giving people flowers before the pandemic, but she’s ramped way up, sending them to her parents in California and to friends as housewarming gifts and breakup support. When she meets up with friends in the park, she likes to bring them a bouquet. +
++“I think it’s this really beautiful thing because it’s just a gesture of care,” Herzog says. “Flowers don’t have any functional purpose. They’re purchased purely for making someone feel appreciated or cared for. It’s like a hug.” +
++My friend James started sending flowers to his male friends a few months ago, in an effort to normalize it as an acceptable way of showing platonic affection for and among men. “I think I wanted someone to give me flowers,” he says. Unemployed for much of the pandemic, James had cut back on his habit of buying sunflowers for his own apartment, but on his 30th birthday, he gave himself permission to buy an arrangement. His parents wound up sending him a bunch too, transforming his apartment into a vibrant floral landscape for a few weeks. +
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Joan Slatkin/Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
++When millennials talk about buying flowers for their loved ones, particularly their peers, a word that comes up a lot is “old-fashioned.” Handing someone a bouquet rings of courtship from a bygone era. Sending an arrangement has a certain formality and seriousness, not to mention an often significant price tag. But if you can’t show your appreciation for a friend by buying them a drink at the bar, flowers start to seem like a reasonable substitute, for any occasion or no occasion at all. They’re heartfelt and earnest. They speak to the romance of platonic friendships. And as my cousin Katie Lovins, a floral designer in Portland, Maine, pointed out to me, there’s a sense of theater when a bunch of flowers arrive on someone’s doorstep. +
++In some cases, flowers were a romantic gesture, full stop. My other cousin, the one who sent me the photo of that perfect rose, realized she was going to fall in love with someone when they sent her pressed flowers from their garden last summer. They had matched on Tinder before the pandemic, but only started seeing each other afterward — from opposite sides of the country, communicating incessantly via phone calls, FaceTimes, and selfies. “I think flowers are this universally romantic gesture, especially when you’ve grown them and picked them. It felt like, here is this small thing that’s beautiful, because you deserve it,” she says. “It was a level of connection and thoughtfulness that I was craving.” +
++The relationship didn’t work out, and in retrospect, my cousin wonders if she imbued those pressed flowers with a little too much meaning. (For whatever it’s worth, the Victorians were all about it.) Romantic that she is, she brought yellow mums to a subsequent first date, though she claims she merely pulled a few stems from a bouquet she’d already bought. +
++LaParis Phillips, the owner of Brooklyn Blooms, saw a marked uptick in people sending “just because” flowers to their loved ones throughout 2020. “People were really valuing their time and valuing being in the moment. Like, ‘I don’t care what day it is, it’s a special day. I’m living and I’m healthy, so it’s special,’” she said. “If I can sum up those flower orders that made us busy, gratitude is the word.” +
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George Rose/Getty Images
++Despite some people’s newfound enthusiasm for flowers, this was a difficult year for the floral industry as a whole. Canceled weddings, closed office buildings, and shuttered restaurants hit local retailers hard and disrupted the global supply chain, with some growers shredding or composting their unsold stems. Phillips says she was able to stay afloat because her business was already oriented toward daily orders from individuals, rather than corporate clients or events; Brooklyn Blooms also was included on a number of lists promoting Black-owned businesses during the protests following George Floyd’s death, and for several months, Phillips was working overtime filling orders. +
++It felt good, during a year of such turmoil, to be sending out those flowers and seeing the kind messages that people had for one another, Phillips says. It’s impossible to forget the grief that sparked those well-wishes, though. “I wish it didn’t take a pandemic and somebody dying for nine minutes for this to happen, but that’s what it takes for humans to move,” she says. +
++Finally, the third kind of floral experience — taking in a patch of buttercups growing on the side of the road, or happening upon a vibrant bed of tulips in someone’s yard — flourished this year for the same reason that other nature-related activities, like cultivating houseplants and birdwatching, did. Interacting with non-human living things eased feelings of isolation and provided a grounding alternative to staring at a screen for 18 hours straight. I know someone who took it upon herself to finally learn the names of the many wildflowers that grow near her house in Idaho, perhaps recognizing that, as Fiorello says, “even looking at plants around us gives us a boost of chemicals in our brains.” One unnamed individual started pilfering wild chives from a local park, eventually pulling up a bunch at the root to cultivate in a pot at home. He looks forward to the edible purple chive blossoms that should arrive this summer. +
++Over the last year, I spent a lot of time staring at plants in parks, too. It was easier than spending time with people. On one of the first truly gorgeous days of spring, a month or two ago, I took an afternoon walk through the park. I was feeling itchy and grouchy, overdressed in a heavy jacket and still reflexively shooting dirty looks at anyone not wearing a mask. Heading south, I emerged from a wooded path into an open field, where a lone dude was stretched out in the grass, wearing nothing but a Speedo and framed by a bunch of yellow daffodils. It was like something out of an oil painting. +
++They projected the same vibe, this stranger and the flowers: at ease in the world, simply enjoying the sun and breeze at 1 pm on a weekday. I couldn’t muster that energy for myself, but I liked the idea of it. Recognizing it as an idea at all felt like a kind of thawing. +
++And what it means for gas prices. +
++Hackers have used a ransomware attack to shut a major American oil pipeline down for several days, forcing the Biden administration to declare a regional state of emergency to keep some of the oil supply moving until the pipeline can function again. The cyberattack looks to be the largest ever on an American energy system, and yet another example of cybersecurity vulnerabilities that President Joe Biden has promised to address. +
++The Colonial Pipeline Company reported on May 7 that it was the victim of a “cybersecurity attack” that “involves ransomware,” forcing the company to take some systems offline and disabling the pipeline. The Georgia-based company says it operates the largest petroleum pipeline in the United States, carrying 2.5 million barrels a day of gasoline, diesel, heating oil, and jet fuel on its 5,500-mile route from Texas to New Jersey. +
++The pipeline provides nearly half of the East Coast’s fuel supply, and a prolonged shutdown could cause price increases and shortages to ripple across the industry. Colonial said on Monday that it hoped to “substantially restore” its operations by the end of the week and minimize disruption caused by the shutdown. +
++Even so, by Tuesday, the national average price for regular gasoline was up 2 cents, with bigger jumps in some states the pipeline serves, including Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has temporarily suspended the state’s gas tax to compensate for the increased prices. Another issue has been gas stations running out of fuel, though it’s believed those shortages are from panic buying rather than a lack of supply. +
++“It’s more likely that fuel shortages will be a result of panic buying from consumers watching the headlines unfold, as opposed to shortages directly caused by the attack,” Marty Edwards, former director of industrial control systems for CISA, and vice president of operational technology security for Tenable, told Recode. “This is something we saw with Covid and grocery stores selling out of household items. Regardless, it shows the impact cybersecurity has on our everyday lives.” +
++“It’s much easier to understand the impact of a cyberattack if it directly impacts your day-to-day life,” he added. +
++The FBI has confirmed that the ransomware used is linked to the hacker group called DarkSide, believed to be based in Eastern Europe. DarkSide does not appear to be linked to any nation-states, saying in a statement that “our goal is to make money, [not to create] problems for society” and that it is apolitical. +
++According to cybersecurity company Check Point, however, DarkSide supplies its ransomware services to its partners. “This means we know very little on the real threat actor behind the attack on Colonial, who can be any one of the partners of DarkSide,” Lotem Finkelstein, Check Point’s head of threat intelligence, told Recode. “What we do know is that to take down extensive operations like the Colonial pipeline reveals a sophisticated and well-designed cyber attack.” +
++It’s not known how much money the hackers are demanding, nor how much, if anything, Colonial has paid — assuming it’s willing to pay anything. +
++Ransomware attacks generally use malware to lock companies out of their own systems until a ransom is paid. They’ve surged in the past few years and cost billions of dollars in ransoms paid alone — not counting those that aren’t reported, or any associated costs with having systems offline until the ransom is paid. Ransomware attacks have targeted everything from private businesses to the government to hospitals and health care systems. The latter are especially attractive targets, given how urgent it is to get their systems back up as soon as possible. +
++Energy systems and suppliers have also been a target of ransomware and cyberattacks. The cybersecurity of America’s energy infrastructure has been a particular concern in recent years, with the Trump administration declaring a national emergency in May 2020 meant to secure America’s bulk power system with an executive order that would forbid the acquisition of equipment from countries that pose an “unacceptable risk to national security or the security and safety of American citizens.” +
++Details on how the hackers were able to gain access to Colonial’s systems haven’t been made public yet, but Bloomberg reports that the attack began on May 6, with nearly 100 gigabytes of data stolen before Colonial’s computers were locked up. A ransom was demanded, both to stop the data from being leaked on the internet and to unlock the affected systems. +
++With the pipeline down, the company and its fuel suppliers are hoping that fuel trucks and possibly tankers will make up for some of the shortage. Emergency waivers were given by the Department of Transportation to extend driver hours for trucks and some companies are looking into chartering tankers to deliver the fuel by ship. The latter option would likely mean waiving the Jones Act, a 1920 law that requires domestic shipping to be done on ships that are built, owned, and operated by American citizens or permanent residents. This has been done for other temporary fuel crises; for example, in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Sandy. But these measures won’t be enough to fully replace the oil that the pipeline delivers. +
++Concern over the attack underscores two of the Biden administration’s stated priorities: improving American infrastructure and cybersecurity. The large-scale Russian SolarWinds hack, disclosed in December 2020, was shown to have affected several federal government systems. Biden said then that as president, “my administration will make cybersecurity a top priority at every level of government — and we will make dealing with this breach a top priority from the moment we take office. … I will not stand idly by in the face of cyber assaults on our nation.” +
++Biden has also unveiled a $2 trillion infrastructure plan that includes $100 billion to modernize the electrical grid, which cybersecurity experts hoped would include improved cybersecurity measures. Biden also suspended the Trump bulk power system executive order to roll out his own plan. And he reportedly plans to unveil an executive order soon that will strengthen cybersecurity at federal agencies and for federal contractors. +
++But these measures are more focused on preventing another SolarWinds-like attack. Federal officials told the New York Times that they don’t think the order does enough to prevent a sophisticated attack, nor would it apply to a privately held company like Colonial. The oil pipeline attack might strengthen demands for cybersecurity standards for companies that play an important role in Americans’ lives. As it stands, it’s often left up to them about the security measures they use to protect critical systems. +
++“Ransomware is about extortion and extortion is about pressure,” James Shank, chief architect of community services at cybersecurity company Team Cymru, told Recode. “Impacting fuel distribution gets peoples’ attention right away. … This emphasizes the need for a coordinated effort that bridges public and private sector capabilities to protect our national interests.” +
++Assuming the pipeline is back up by the end of the week, it shouldn’t cause a major or prolonged disruption to the fuel supply chain or hit consumers’ wallets too hard. But the next one — and many cybersecurity experts fear there will be a next one, or several next ones — could be a lot worse if measures aren’t taken at the highest levels to prevent it. +
++“We cannot think of these attacks as impacting private companies only — this is an attack on our country’s infrastructure,” Shank added. +