Biden announced a sweeping plan that could force millions of unvaccinated Americans to get the COVID-19 shot
“We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin,” Biden said of the roughly 80 million Americans who have yet to get the shot. “While America is in much better shape than it was seven months ago when I took office, I need to tell you a second fact: We’re in a tough stretch and it could last for awhile.”
But Biden stopped short of mandating the vaccine for illegal immigrants attempting to cross America’s border, even though about 30% of immigrants held at federal detention facilities are refusing to be vaccinated — and they have the option to refuse
Meanwhile, more than 18% of migrant families who recently crossed the border tested positive for COVID before being released by Border Patrol. Another 20% of unaccompanied minors tested positive for the virus.
(CNN)President Joe Biden on Thursday imposed stringent new vaccine rules on federal workers, large employers and health care staff in a sweeping attempt to contain the latest surge of Covid-19.
The new requirements could apply to as many as 100 million Americans — close to two-thirds of the American workforce — and amount to Biden’s strongest push yet to require vaccines for much of the country.
“We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us,” Biden said, his tone hardening toward Americans who still refuse to receive a vaccine despite ample evidence of their safety and full approval of one — the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine — from the US Food and Drug Administration.
He said vaccinated America was growing “frustrated” with the 80 million people who have not received shots and are fueling the spread of the virus. And he acknowledged the new steps would not provide a quick fix.
“While America is in much better shape than it was seven months ago when I took office, I need to tell you a second fact: We’re in a tough stretch and it could last for awhile,” Biden said in an early evening speech from the White House.
At the center of Biden’s new plan is directing the Labor Department to require all businesses with 100 or more employees ensure their workers are either vaccinated or tested once a week, an expansive step the President took after consultation with administration health officials and lawyers. Companies could face thousands of dollars in fines per employee if they don’t comply.
Biden also signed an executive order requiring all government employees be vaccinated against Covid-19, with no option of being regularly tested to opt out. The President signed an accompanying order directing the same standard be applied to employees of contractors who do business with the federal government.
He also said 300,000 educators in federal Head Start programs must be vaccinated and called on governors to require vaccinations for schoolteachers and staff.
And Biden announced he would require the 17 million health care workers at facilities receiving funds from Medicare and Medicaid to be fully vaccinated, expanding the mandate to hospitals, home care facilities and dialysis centers around the country.
“We have the tools to combat the virus if we come together to use those tools,” Biden said at the outset of what was billed as a major speech to tackle the latest phase of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The new rules amount to the most dramatic steps to date to get more Americans vaccinated. Once cautious of vaccine mandates, the Biden administration is now wholly embracing them as vaccine hesitancy persists among certain groups.
Administration officials acknowledged the requirement for large employers could be challenged in court. But they said their hope was to provide cover of federal rules to businesses who want to require vaccines for employees.
The new rules come as the Delta variant tears through communities across the country, causing upticks in hospitalizations and deaths particularly in areas where vaccination rates remain low.
President Joe Biden addressed hecklers who shouted at him about his chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, claiming that they don’t actually live in the area he was touring and suggesting that they were upset about his climate change position.
After New York Sen. Chuck Schumer introduced Biden as the man who will “lead us out of darkness in this present moment,” the president began his remarks in New York City by saying he received a warm reception in the area he had been touring.
“None of them were shouting or complaining,” Biden said. “Every one of them were thanking me as if it was something special… that I was here.”
Earlier in the day, Biden was heckled by protesters on the other side of a fence where he toured storm-damaged New Jersey with several people castigating him for his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Reuters has a bombshell report about a July phone call between Joe Biden and then-Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, in which the US president promises military aid in return for lies.
The “perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things aren’t going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban,” says Biden in the July 23 call. “And there’s a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.”
Whether it is true or not.
No, things weren’t going well, three weeks after the US abandoned Bagram Airfield in the dead of night.
Biden’s solution was to create the “perception” that all was fine. He wanted to keep the illusion going long enough to cover his Aug. 31 self-imposed deadline to withdraw US troops and have a victory lap on September 11th, when he would preen as the first president to end the forever war.
So he asked Ghani to trick up an event to make it look as if he had a plan to push back on the Taliban to reassure America’s allies who were beginning to question Biden’s timetable.
“I don’t know whether you’re aware,” said Biden, “just how much the perception around the world is that this is looking like a losing proposition . . . so the conclusion I’m asking you to consider is to bring together everyone from [ex-Afghan Vice President Abdul Rashid] Dostum, to [ex-President Hamid] Karzai and in between. If they stand there and say they back the strategy you put together, and put a warrior in charge, you know a military man . . . in charge of executing that strategy, and that will change perception.”
Ghani tried to explain that the situation was dire: “Mr. President, we are facing a full-scale invasion, composed of Taliban, full Pakistani planning and logistical support, and at least 10-15,000 international terrorists.”
He begged for US air support. “What is crucial is, close air support . . . a very heavy reliance on air power.”
The Afghan army was based on the US model, which relies on air support for enemy strikes, ferrying the wounded, and so on. But the contractors who serviced Afghan aircraft had left, leaving the Afghan army exposed.
Biden offered conditional air support, in return for Ghani going along with his ruse, but only until his Aug. 31 deadline. After that, “who knows?”
(CNN)Hurricane Ida is beginning to move ashore and is set to make landfall early this afternoon likely tied as Louisiana’s most powerful storm ever.
The current forecast calls for sustained winds of 150 mph when Ida hits on the 16th anniversary of the historically devastating Hurricane Katrina.
That’s just 7 mph below the Category 5 ranking, and if Ida arrives at that level, it would be just the fifth to do so on the US mainland.
Last year’s Hurricane Laura and the Last Island Hurricane of 1856 share the current record at 150 mph.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Sunday he expects Ida to be “a big challenge for us.”
Edwards told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” that his state “is as ready as we can be,” but he expects Ida to be “a very serious test of our levy systems, especially in our coastal Louisiana.”
The state invested significantly in shoring up the levy system after the catastrophic fail after Katrina. Edwards said Ida “will be the most severe test,” but he expects the levees to hold. “The next 24, 36 hours are just going to be very, very critical for us here in Louisiana.”
Ida became a Category 4 storm early Sunday morning, rapidly intensifying to sustained winds of 150 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.
It was 50 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River, NHC forecasters said in a 10 a.m. ET update, as the storm continued its march toward Louisiana and the Gulf Coast at 15 mph.
Outer bands from the storm are already making their way onshore across the Gulf Coast, impacting southeastern Louisiana, including New Orleans. An elevated weather station at Pilot’s Station East near Southwest Pass, Louisiana, recently reported a wind gust up to 107 mph, the NHC said.
Hundreds of people took part in opposing rallies in Portland on Sunday to mark the one-year anniversary of major clashes in the city, leading to new violence and a nearby shooting that may be tied to the unrest.
A right-wing rally called “Summer of Love: Patriots Spreading Love not Hate” took place in a parking lot of a former Kmart and drew about 100 people. Tension increased when a van attempted to drive in, but crashed, KOIN-TV reported. There were “splinter groups” from left-wing counter-protests who confronted the right-wing group and the situation deteriorated at about 4 p.m., OregonLive.com reported. The report said both sides were armed with “bats, paintball guns and wooden spears.”
In Biden’s latest bizarre gaffe, the president was filmed returning to the White House after spending time in Wilmington, Delaware
Secret Service agent points for him to follow the sidewalk path into White House
Instead, Biden is seen following the agent up the lawn and through the gardening into the presidential estate
The video has left shocked critics of the president once again surmising whether Biden is suffering the effects of cognitive decline
President Joe Biden was filmed seemingly ignoring the direction of a Secret Service agent tried to direct him to a path leading to the White House.
In Biden’s latest bizarre gaffe, the president was filmed returning to the White House after spending time in Wilmington, Delaware when the agent points for him to follow the sidewalk path into the White House.
Instead, Biden is seen following the agent up the lawn and through the garden into the presidential estate.
Decades after the popular president was gunned down in broad daylight, many people are still asking ‘who really killed Kennedy’ — and, why won’t the government release all the assassination records?
Many unanswered questions remain about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22nd, 1963. In the decades since, conspiracy theories and speculation of all kinds have surfaced, adding to the swell of allure surrounding the single event that changed – and continues to mystify – the country.
Now, nearly 60 years later, Fox Nation is revisiting that tragic day in Dallas, as calls grow for the government to release all of their secret files.
Fox News legal analyst and host of ‘JFK: The Conspiracy Continues’ Gregg Jarrett joined ‘Fox & Friends’ Monday, telling co-host Will Cain that the government is to blame for the skepticism — asserting that most Americans don’t believe the beloved 35th U.S. president was shot and killed by a lone gunman.
“The government, to this day, continues to hide thousands of assassination records,” said Jarrett, who noted that, by law, President Biden has until October 26th of this year to release those documents.
Cain asked the legal analyst why the FBI and the CIA have been actively working to keep these files secret, to which Jarrett replied by taking jabs at both organizations:
“The fact that they have worked sedulously and secretly behind the scenes to stop these documents from being released to the American public invites the question, what are they hiding?”
“Americans are entitled to the truth of this,” asserted Jarrett.
The truth, though, has perplexed Americans from the very beginning.
After intense pressure from progressives, the CDC has announced a more limited eviction moratorium days after an earlier freeze on evictions expired.
Days after a national eviction moratorium expired, the Biden administration on Tuesday issued a new, more limited freeze that remains in effect through Oct. 3.
Like the previous order, the two-month moratorium issued Tuesday comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The new ban on evictions covers parts of the United States that are experiencing what the CDC calls “substantial” and “high” spread of the coronavirus.
The order, which cites the rise of the delta variant, says: “Without this Order, evictions in these [higher transmission] areas would likely exacerbate the increase in cases.”
“Where we are right now with such high disease rates, we felt a new, tailored order [was needed] to make sure that … working Americans who were at risk of eviction could be stably housed during this really tenuous, challenging period of time,” the CDC’s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, told NPR’s All Things Considered.
In the July 13 edition of the Stanwood Camano News, a letter to the editor called for the removal from office those who aid and abet sedition and insurrection activities. The writer lists a number of Republicans who he believes are complicit. He’s right that that should not be tolerated, and elected officials should be held accountable.
But wait. How many of the rioters in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol have been charged with sedition or insurrection? The answer is zero.
More than 500 people have been arrested in this riot, and rightly so. However one would think that if the Justice Department, especially after such an aggressive effort to track down and arrest the rioters, had a good case to charge them with sedition or insurrection, they would surely do so. But they haven’t. Why? Perhaps they don’t believe that that was really the crime.
Yet the letter writer wants the Republicans held accountable for a crime that in the eyes of the Justice Department they can’t prove. Maybe the writer wants the Republicans held accountable for Democrats’ talking points. On the contrary, I wonder if the writer is equally concerned with the assaults on one of our other equal and cherished institutions — the judiciary.
Antifa rioters have assaulted federal courthouses numerous times, doing severe damage and attempting to burn them. Yet despite Democratic lawmakers’ claims that Antifa doesn’t exist, the writer doesn’t call for their accountability. Can we look forward to a letter from him on their accountability?
A Facebook post claimed that an officer involved in the killing of a woman during the Jan. 6 capitol riots was “a bodyguard to a high-ranking Democrat in Congress.” That’s false.
Here’s why: There are plenty of questions still unanswered about the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. For some Republicans, that includes identifying who shot one person who stormed the Capitol that day. In a recent email to supporters, former President Donald Trump asked, “Who shot Ashli Babbitt?”
Trump brought up the question again on July 11 during a discussion with Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo. But this time, he had a theory.
“I will tell you they know who shot Ashli Babbitt. They’re protecting that person,” Trump said in the phone interview. “I’ve heard, also, that it was the head of security for a certain high official — a Democrat — and we’ll see, because it’s going to come out. It’s going to come out.”
The comments set off a frenzy of social media posts, like this one shared on Facebook, that claim the high-ranking official the officer was assigned to was either Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The photo in the post shows a person in a suit wearing a face mask and holding a handgun in his right hand. By the background seen in the photo, he appears to be pictured in the House of Representatives. “He shot Ashli Babbitt,” the caption reads. “Pelosi’s or Schumer’s personal bodyguard. Prove me wrong!”
The officer involved was placed on leave while Babbitt’s death was being investigated by D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, which shares jurisdiction with the Capitol Police.
The investigation concluded in April, and the Justice Department announced that it would not be pursuing criminal charges against the officer involved.
“Officials examined video footage posted on social media, statements from the officer involved and other officers and witnesses to the events, physical evidence from the scene of the shooting, and the results of an autopsy,” the department said in a statement. “Based on that investigation, officials determined that there is insufficient evidence to support a criminal prosecution.”
A Pelosi spokesperson declined to comment for this story, deferring to the Capitol Police statement. Schumer’s office did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Our ruling
Because official sources have not identified the officer involved in the shooting, we cannot verify or debunk any names being thrown around on the internet. But claims that the officer worked for Schumer or Pelosi are contradicted by the Capitol Police. They say that the person who fired the shot was not assigned to any Congress member’s security detail. We rate this post False.
Sources
Facebook post, July 11, 2021
Fox News, ‘Sunday Morning Futures’ on Trump’s Big Tech lawsuit, US-China relations, July 11, 2021
NBC News, Trump wrong about officer who shot Jan. 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt, law enforcement official says, July 12, 2021
Justice.gov, Department of Justice Closes Investigation into the Death of Ashli Babbitt, April 14, 2021
A federal judge has thrown a monkey wrench into the prosecution of more than 500 Capitol riot defendants by denying the Justice Department’s request to share grand jury materials with a contractor hired to organize the massive amounts of video, social media, email and other evidence in the cases.
The ruling Friday could complicate and drag out the prosecutions by requiring government personnel to be more involved in aspects of the process of sharing evidence with defense attorneys.
The owners of a New Jersey-based company that sells septic tank cleaning products will pay more than $1.6 million to settle charges that the firm and its telemarketer made illegal robocalls to consumers across the country, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
TheFTC’s complaint alleged that Environmental Safety International (ESI) of Ridgefield and Fairview made more than 45 million illegal calls, including 31 million to people who had signed up for the Do Not Call Registry.
At least 71 of the victims have been properly identified with next-of-kin notifications provided to their families, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Sunday morning. Search efforts have accelerated in the last week after officials demolished a still-standing section of the building that prevented teams from accessing a portion of the debris pile.
Former Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann told “Watters’ World” Saturday that the federal government wants Americans to “check our Bill of Rights” at the door when it comes to COVID vaccines.All of America is based upon the fact that we have rights against the government. And they want us, just as a matter of idea, [to] give up all of our first 10 Bill of Rights, our civil liberties, and say, “We’ll take it from here, we’re the federal government.” Because don’t let anybody suffer any delusions about this. There is a database. There will be a database, and everybody will be in that database. And it’s not just vaccine status, it will be your entire medical history. It will be connected to your finances. This is going to get bigger, bigger, bigger, so you stop it now, and you don’t give any information to any government questioner at your door.
The Department of Education canceled an additional $55.6 million in student loan debt for 1,800 student who were victims of a for-profit college fraud, bringing the total amount of canceled student loan debt by the Biden administration to $1.5 billion.
“Today’s announcement continues the U.S. Department of Education’s commitment to standing up for students whose colleges took advantage of them,” Miguel Cardona, the secretary of education, said in the department’s statement released Friday.
The latest loan cancellation is for students who attended Westwood College, Marinello Schools of Beauty and the Court Reporting Institute. This is the first time the department approved loan forgiveness to students who attended schools other than Corinthian Colleges, ITT Technical Institute and American Career Institute since 2017.
Manifest is still flying around Netflix even after the cancellation.
Manifest entered its 23rd straight day as the #1 show on Netflix on July 5, according to Forbes, and it’s still holding that spot on July 8 and could become the most popular show on the streamer. The series is officially tied with Tiger King, which was also #1 for 27 days, meaning it just needs to beat out Ginny & Georgia, which Forbes reports was #1 for 29 days. Out of the five most-watched adult-targeted programs on Netflix, Manifest is the only non-Netflix show, which really says a lot. And makes many wonder why Netflix chose to pass on the series.
Shortly after NBC cancelled Manifest, many fans were hopeful that the show would find new life on Netflix, considering how well it was doing. There’s also the fact that Netflix promoted the first two seasons multiple times on their social media pages. However, just a week after NBC cancelled Manifest, news broke that Netflix passed on the series as well, which came to a surprise to many fans since it was, and still is, the #1 show on the platform.
WAKEFIELD, Massachusetts — An hourslong standoff with a group of heavily armed men that partially shut down Interstate 95 ended Saturday with 11 suspects in custody, Massachusetts state police said.
Police initially reported nine suspects were taken into custody, but two more were taken into custody in their vehicle later Saturday morning.
Two suspects were hospitalized, but police said it was for preexisting conditions that had nothing to do with the standoff.
With 159 people unaccounted for following the collapse of a condo in Florida, a Pittsburgh native and her husband are among them.
Nicole Doran-Manashirov, originally from South Park, and her husband Ruslan Manashirov are missing. Some of her lifelong friends in Pittsburgh said the couple lived on the 7th floor, in one of the units that came down when the 12-story building partially collapsed Thursday.
An unruly passenger reportedly tried to open the cockpit door multiple times before opening and leaping out the exit door.
An unruly passenger jumped from the door of a plane taxiing for takeoff at Los Angeles International Airport Friday night after allegedly attempting to breach the cockpit.
The male suspect allegedly jumped onto the plane’s automatically inflated emergency slide and was treated for injuries at a local hospital, according to FOX 11 of Los Angeles.
He reportedly tried to open the cockpit door multiple times before opening and leaping out the exit door.
A new intelligence report sent to Congress on Friday concludes that virtually all of the 144 sightings of unidentified flying objects documented by the military since 2004 are of unknown origin, in an extremely rare public accounting of the U.S. government’s data on UFOs that is likely to fuel further speculation about phenomena the intelligence community has long struggled to understand.
The report — the government’s first unclassified assessment in half a century — does not offer any definitive answers on who or what may be operating a variety of aircraft that, in some cases, appear to defy known characteristics of aerodynamics, and that officials believe pose a threat to national security and flight safety.
Out of 144 encounters with mysterious aircraft, 143 are literally unidentifiable, according to a newly released report to Congress.
June 25 (Reuters) – The death toll from the collapse of a Miami oceanfront apartment block has risen to three, ABC News reported, and nearly 100 people remained unaccounted for as rescue workers continued their search for survivors in the rubble.
U.S. President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration in the state of Florida and ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local response efforts.
“The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts,” the White House said on Friday.
Rescue crews picked through tons of rubble on Thursday looking for survivors. read more
Search teams detected sounds of banging and other noises but no voices coming from the mounds of debris hours after a large section of the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, a barrier island town across Biscayne Bay from the city, crumbled to the ground, authorities said.
Footage captured by a security camera nearby showed an entire side of the building crumbling in two sections, one after the other, throwing up clouds of dust at about 1:30 a.m. (0530 GMT) on Thursday.
What caused the 40-year-old high-rise to cave in within seconds was not immediately known, although local officials said the 12-storey tower was undergoing roof construction and other repairs.
WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Florida halted the Biden administration’s new debt-relief program for minority farmers on Wednesday.
Judge Marcia Morales Howard, an appointee of President George W. Bush, temporarily blocked the Agriculture Department from implementing a $4 billion program aimed at helping distressed minority farmers on the basis that it likely violates white farmers’ rights to equal protection under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. That argument was backed by several former aides in the Trump White House.
Howard ordered the Agriculture Department not to issue payments under the program for “socially disadvantaged” farmers until she can rule on the merits of the case. She wrote that the program, which is embedded in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan law, is “significantly likely” to violate the constitutional rights of the plaintiff, a white farmer named Scott Wynn.
Her order creates a nationwide injunction against the debt-relief program.
Earlier this month, in a similar case, a Wisconsin judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of the program, which covers up to 120 percent of the debts of farmers who are members of groups that have historically been discriminated against based on their race or ethnicity. Across the country, several white farmers have filed lawsuits, at least one of which is backed by America First Legal, a group founded by former Trump White House aides.
“The government must not be allowed to use its awesome authorities to punish, harm, exclude, prefer, reward or damage its citizens based upon their race or ethnicity,” Stephen Miller, a former White House aide and the head of America First Legal, said in a statement in conjunction with one of the other cases.
Civil rights advocates have expressed concern that other Agriculture Department programs aimed at redressing past discrimination — as well as federal programs outside the scope of farming — could be at risk if federal courts find that the American Rescue Plan’s program for socially disadvantaged farmers is unconstitutional.
A build of the expected Windows 11 that leaked last week provides a hint of what Microsoft might announce at a Windows event Thursday.
Analysts will be listening for signs of any business model updates.
Refreshing the 35-year-old operating system can result in additional revenue growth for the world’s second-most valuable public company, behind only Apple. Over time, the new Windows will likely be widely adopted as millions of consumers and office workers make the upgrade from Windows 10, the top PC operating system.
Fear has invaded the Mexican border city of Reynosa after gunmen in vehicles killed 14 people, including taxi drivers, workers and a nursing student, and security forces responded with operations that left four suspects dead.
While this city across the border from McAllen, Texas is used to cartel violence as a key trafficking point, the 14 victims in Saturday’s attacks appeared to be what Tamaulipas Gov. Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca called “innocent citizens” rather than members of one gang killed by a rival.
Local businessman Misael Chavarria Garza said many businesses closed early Saturday after the attacks and people were very scared as helicopters flew overhead. On Sunday, he said “the people were quiet as if nothing had happened, but with a feeling of anger because now crime has happened to innocent people.”
“It’s not fair,” said taxi driver Rene Guevara, adding that among the dead were two of his fellow taxi drivers whom he defended and said were not involved in crime.
The attacks took place in several neighborhoods in eastern Reynosa, according to the Tamaulipas state agency that coordinates security forces, and sparked a deployment of the military, National Guard and state police across the city.
A surge in imports is overwhelming transportation networks and testing supply chains, making life hard for small-business owners.
The record volume of cargo has overwhelmed longshoremen, truck drivers, warehouses and railroads. Vessels are waiting up to five days just to get into port, and it can take 10 more days for a container to be loaded on a train.
Massive storms and at least one “confirmed large and extremely dangerous tornado” tore through the Chicago area late Sunday night, according to the National Weather Service, leaving a path of damage and destruction in its wake.
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, warned of growing extreme sentiment on the left, as evidenced by what “Life, Liberty & Levin” host Mark Levin described as the “Marxism” of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and the physical and political “embrace” by President Biden of Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. – the latter a member of the far-left “Squad.”
