THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION — "Biden's NSC to focus on global health, climate, cyber and human rights, as well as China and Russia," WaPo: "The incoming Biden administration plans to restructure and expand the operations of the White House National Security Council, establishing new senior positions on global health, democracy and human rights, and cyber and emerging technology, signaling a sweeping shift in priorities, according to a senior adviser to the Biden transition. "Russia, which the Trump administration had subsumed into the NSC directorate for European affairs, will again be given its own NSC senior director, the adviser said, speaking on the condition of anonymity before the plans and positions were announced Friday." WHAT DEMS CAN DO WITH UNIFIED GOVERNMENT … — "Georgia just delivered Democrats their most powerful weapon," by Caitlin Emma: "Get ready to hear these two words incessantly over the next two years: budget reconciliation. … Some restrictions exist on how reconciliation can be used; it's not all-powerful. But by allowing the Senate to pass legislation with a simple majority, it will prove critical to advancing President-elect Joe Biden's agenda. … "And Democrats will actually have as many as … three opportunities during the 117th Congress to use reconciliation. … Technically, Democrats could break each reconciliation attempt into three pieces of legislation — dealing with spending, revenues and the debt limit — making for a total of nine bills over two years. But it's far from clear whether they would choose that route." — "Democratic control of Washington electrifies blue states that are in the red," by Katy Murphy and Mackenzie Mays with a Sacramento dateline: "The bailout that Republicans squelched last year now appears within reach." LOCAL MAN BECOMES SENATE LEADER … "What Schumer's Rise to Senate Majority Leader Means for New York," NYT WHO'S STEERING THE GOP SHIP — "GOP Leader McDaniel Re-Elected to Lead Republican National Committee," WSJ: "While [Chair Ronna] McDaniel is running unopposed, the race for co-chair post, the party's No. 2 position, has become a proxy fight over how closely the national party wants to remain attached to Mr. Trump after he leaves the White House this month. "Texan Tommy Hicks Jr., a longtime Trump family friend who became RNC co-chair in 2019, is facing a challenge. RNC members Bruce Hough of Utah and Jay Shepard of Vermont and RNC general counsel Doyle Webb of Arkansas are also seeking the job. Ms. McDaniel has indicated that she doesn't plan to run for another term in 2023, potentially putting the co-chair in a strong position to take over the party's leadership ahead of the next presidential election." TROUBLE AT THE VA — "Covid-19 Bottleneck Delays Benefits for Older Veterans," WSJ: "A bottleneck at the National Archives is delaying benefits claims for 32,000 military veterans, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Covid-19 pandemic shut the National Personnel Records Center, a unit of the Archives, for months last year except for emergency requests. After briefly operating at low capacity, it once again closed in the fall for all but emergency requests. "A veteran's record may need certification by the Archives as one of the first steps in the benefits process. Veterans who left the service after 2000 likely have digitized records that can be more easily accessed for certification purposes, but many older veterans' records are kept in old-fashioned paper archives. When one of those veterans makes a claim, the center's archivists have to retrieve those records by hand from among the 60 million maintained at the facility in St. Louis." REAL-WORLD EFFECTS — "U.S. trade policies have disproportionately harmed Black and Latino workers, not just the White working class Trump courted, researchers find," WaPo: "Black and Latino workers were more likely than Whites to lose manufacturing jobs as a result of U.S. trade policies over the past 25 years, according to new research. … Not only were Black and Latino factory workers more likely to lose their jobs, they were also less likely to find new employment, said the report by Public Citizen, a nonprofit corporate and government watchdog. "When they did manage to secure work, they faced larger pay cuts than White workers with similar educational backgrounds. … Since 1993, the government provided 3.2 million workers with extended unemployment and retraining benefits under its Trade Adjustment Assistance program after certifying their jobs were lost to trade. But government data show millions more manufacturing jobs have been lost: More than 60,000 U.S. factories have closed during this time, and net manufacturing employment has dropped by 4.5 million — accounting for nearly 1 out of every 4 manufacturing jobs." AFTERNOON READ — NYT: "What We Found in Robert Caro's Yellowed Files: The author of 'The Power Broker' and a multivolume biography of L.B.J. is giving awed archivists — and New York — access to more than 50 years of research." STAFFING UP — VP-elect KAMALA HARRIS' office announced several new staffers: Michael Fuchs as deputy COS, Herbie Ziskend as deputy comms director, Sabrina Singh as deputy press secretary, Deanne Millison as deputy policy director, Mike Pyle as chief economic adviser, Ike Irby as policy adviser, Vincent Evans as deputy director of the Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, Kate Childs Graham as director of speechwriting, Yael Belkind as assistant to the COS, Rachel Palermo as assistant press secretary and Peter Velz as director of press operations. MEDIAWATCH — NBC's Kristen Welker and Peter Alexander have been named chief White House correspondents, NBC News President Noah Oppenheim announced today in a memo with a slate of other shifts at the organization. The full memo | 
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