•President Biden is scheduled to lead off the United Nations General Assembly in New York City Tuesday with a speech expected to address climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
•Johnson & Johnson is promoting its COVID-19 vaccine as an efficacious booster, announcing that it prompts a strong response months after patients have received the first dose. “A booster dose of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine further increases antibody responses among study participants who had previously received our vaccine,” said the drugmaker’s research & development global chief, Dr. Mathai Mammen (per the AP).
•Jessica Gottlieb On the Left and Bryan Williams On the Right comment on the lessons for last week’s recall election of California Gov. Gavin Newsom to the Republican Party. Go to https://thehustings.news
House to Vote on Short-Term Funding – Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, has scheduled a House of Representatives vote on short-term federal funding that will extend the debt limit to 2022 to avoid a government shutdown. But the extension faces a wall known as the U.S. Senate, where Republicans are firmly with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, on filibustering the bill, notes Punchbowl News.
“Republicans, from Sen. Mitt Romney” of Utah, “to Shelley Moore Capito” of West Virginia are committed to following McConnell’s lead on opposing raising the debt limit, the online publication says. While Punchbowl News reports that Pelosi hopes a sufficient number of Senate Republicans will change their minds, it reports that Democrats have “No Plan B” so far.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin has warned in a guest editorial in The Wall Street Journal that the government could hit its debt ceiling by next month.
Note: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, was quoted on NPR’s Morning Edition that Democrats voted with Republicans to raise the debt limit for President Trump’s massive tax cuts for the rich and corporations a few years ago, suggesting there is room for Republicans to reciprocate … as if that would trigger any empathy from the minority leader. In addition to being the Republican leader who greeted the Obama administration by promising to essentially block everything he proposed, McConnell now has the potential to exert his partisan power and chip away control of the GOP from Donald Trump, with whom he has fallen out over the January 6 Capitol insurrection. The former president has said he wants to replace McConnell at the top of Senate Republican leadership.
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First Suit Filed in Controversial Texas Abortion Law – A self-described “disbarred and disgraced former Arkansas lawyer” has filed the first suit connected to Texas’ controversial abortion law, which calls on individuals to file suit against virtually anyone connected with delivering or accepting an abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy, The Washington Post reports. Plaintiff Oscar Stilley has sued San Antonio physician Alan Braid, who wrote an op-ed for the WaPo saying he performed an early abortion that nevertheless exceeded the parameters of the law, as his duty as a doctor, and “because she has the fundamental right to receive this care.”
Thus the next showdown for Roe v. Wade is set for the Supreme Court.
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Trudeau Wins Another Minority Government – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau managed to hang on to his minority leadership in Monday’s snap elections, which he called two years early in an attempt to push his Liberal Party to a majority of Parliament’s 339 seats. The Globe and Mail calls the Liberal’s third straight win a “status quo” government, with the party having won or elected 158 seats as of Tuesday morning. Conservatives have 119, Bloc Quebecois 34, NDP 25 and the Green Party, two according to the early returns.
Some of Trudeau’s erstwhile supporters reportedly resented his calling the snap elections during the pandemic. He will have to continue to work with other parties in order to get legislation passed.
Note: Perhaps there’s a lesson here for progressive Democrats in our democratic republic?
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Customs Investigates Border Patrol on Horseback – The U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional Responsibility has begun an investigation regarding footage of Border Patrol agents on horseback “menacingly” using what appears to be whips on migrants at the U.S-Mexican border, Politico reports. The Department of Homeland Security also has dispatched personnel to oversee border patrol operations.
The investigation comes as an estimated 14,000-plus Haitian refugees gather in Del Rio, Texas. The Biden administration is extending use of a Trump-era policy to return refugees to the country from which they came on health concerns because they risk spreading the coronavirus. Many of the Haitian refugees reportedly have immigrated north from countries in South America, where they were most recently living.
Note: Monday’s News & Notes noted that the Senate parliamentarian ruled in favor of the Republican caucus to prevent Democrats’ plan to attach immigration reform to the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill. In other words, it’s the White House’s problem, and there’s little relief in sight from either party in working to alleviate the ongoing border crisis.
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Kim Jong Un Unhappy — AUKUS, the defense pact created by Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. (see where the acronym came from?), has caused consternation in Pyongyang, North Korea, with the Korean Central News Agency (part of the government) quoting a Foreign Ministry official (part of the government) as saying “It is quite natural that neighboring countries including China condemned these actions as irresponsible ones of destroying the peace and stability of the region and the international nuclear nonproliferation system and of catalyzing the arms race,” The Washington Post reported.
Note: On the subject of stability, it is worth noting that North Korea is expanding its Yongbyon nuclear enrichment facility and has recently conducted long-range missile tests. Exactly the sort of thing that a country not at all interested in proliferation and arms races would do.
It also brings to mind Donald Trump’s bromance with Kim Jong Un, which was to lead to something — a treaty? a Trump Hotel in downtown Pyongyang? — that never materialized, just a photo ops between the two leaders with some of the most bizarre tonsorial looks on the planet. (We now learn from Peril that Trump reportedly described the man from whom he received “love letters” as a “f**king lunatic.”)
Which brings to mind that Trump really had a problem with accomplishment. While Biden is being raked over the coals for the seemingly bungled departure from Afghanistan, note how Trump had agreed to a May 1, 2021, withdrawal deadline that was set for after his single term in office – although he obviously figured the deadline would come during his second term in office.
And while we are seeing problems at the southern border of the U.S., not only did Trump not finish the big, beautiful Wall, but Mexico hasn’t ponied up the building costs like he said it would.
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U.S. COVID Deaths Surpass that of 1918-19 Influenza – The number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States has surpassed 675,000, which is roughly the number of deaths from influenza in 1918-19, The Washington Post reports, citing newly released CDC numbers. While it is the case that the number, 675,000, represented a much bigger percentage of the U.S. population a century ago – it reached 106 million in the 1920 Census versus 331 million last year (per Wikipedia) – the U.S. has recorded a much bigger share of global deaths for the coronavirus than for the influenza.
There were about 49 million influenza deaths globally, the CDC says, which means U.S. deaths equaled 1.4%. There have been 4.7 million COVID-19 deaths globally so far, with the U.S. taking about 14.4% of that.
Note: “A lot of people think that it goes away in April, with the heat.” – President Donald J. Trump in February 2020.
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods
No reflection on the abortion side of RichC's comment. As for the COVID-19 treatment side, it must be said that the rejection of hydroxychloroquine does not simply belong to the government. On February 7, 2021, The Lancet published a clinical study of 231 volunteers that concluded; "There was no faster resolution of symptoms among people receiving hydroxychloroquine or hydroxychloroquine/azithromycyn compared to placebo." Per the University of Washington Medicine website. UW Medicine's division of allergy and infectious diseases, Christine Johnson, was lead author on the study.
Texas Abortion Law: I'm curious on the "abortion issue" if anyone has brought up comparisons when doctors claim, “because she has the fundamental right to receive this care” to those doctors treating COVID19 with hydroxychloroquine, etc against a government's position?
BTW, I enjoy the daily "News & Notes." 😉