Category: National Issues

Wide partisan divide on whether voting is a fundamental right or a privilege with responsibilities

As political battles continue around the nation over voting access and restrictions, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that a majority of Americans (57%) say voting is “a fundamental right for every adult U.S. citizen and should not be restricted in any way.”

Fewer (42%) express the view that “voting is a privilege that comes with responsibilities and can be limited if adult U.S. citizens don’t meet some requirements.”

Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents overwhelmingly say voting is a fundamental right that should not be restricted in any way – 78% hold this view, while fewer than a quarter (21%) say it is a privilege. Two-thirds of Republicans and Republican leaners say voting is a privilege that can be limited if requirements are not met, compared with about half as many (32%) who say it is a fundamental right. Continue reading.

COVID-19 could cause male infertility and sexual dysfunction – but vaccines do not

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Contrary to myths circulating on social media, COVID-19 vaccines do not cause erectile dysfunction and male infertility.

What is true: SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, poses a risk for both disorders.

Until now, little research has been done on how the virus or the vaccines affect the male reproductive system. But recent investigations by physicians and researchers here at the University of Miami have shed new light on these questions. Continue reading.

Carl Bernstein called Trump ‘our own American war criminal’ over COVID-19 deaths and encouraging the Capitol riot

The Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein has accused former President Donald Trump of being “our own American war criminal” over his actions during the coronavirus pandemic and the January 6 Capitol riot.

Speaking with CNN’s Brian Stelter, Bernstein said: “I think we need to calmly step back and maybe look at Trump in a different context: He is America’s, our own American war criminal. Of a kind we’ve never experienced before.”

Stelter interrupted Bernstein, saying: “You just said war criminal. What do you mean war criminal?” Continue reading.

Michael Flynn Boasts Maybe He’ll ‘Find Somebody In Washington’ With His New AR-15

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Michael Flynn Boasts Maybe He’ll ‘Find Somebody In Washington’ With His New AR-15

Disgraced Trump administration figure Michael Flynn boasted on Sunday that maybe he’ll “find somebody” in Washington with a new assault-style rifle given to him at California church.

Flynn, the former national security adviser pardoned by Donald Trump for lying about his Russia contacts, made the jaw-dropping remark after he was gifted the gun at the “Church of Glad Tidings” in Yuba City, California. Church members roared with laughter and clapped when Flynn suggested hunting humans in the nation’s capital.

“We were trying to come up with a rifle that we thought was appropriate for a general, so we went with an old-school Woodland camouflage … one of our top-quality guns,” said Jason Parker, who works for a gun company. The weapon he presented to Flynn appeared to be a Woodland Camo AR-15. Continue reading.

GOP sees debt ceiling as its leverage against Biden

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Senate Republicans plan to demand big spending reforms in exchange for their support of legislation to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, seeking leverage to rein in President Biden’s plan to pump trillions of dollars into the economy.

GOP senators are reviving demands they made in 2011, the last time there was a political standoff over raising the debt limit, but it’s a risky move.

The 2011 debt limit was solved at the last moment, and a subsequent downgrading of the nation’s creditworthiness by S&P triggered a stock market crash. Continue reading.

Biden, pulling combat forces from Iraq, seeks to end the post-9/11 era

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President Biden on Monday announced that the United States will wrap up its combat mission in Iraq by year’s end, his latest effort to push American diplomacy past a post-9/11 worldview and shift its focus away from terrorism and the Middle East and toward threats like China and cyberwarfare.

Welcoming Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi to the Oval Office, Biden promised ongoing support for democracy in Iraq, including elections this fall, but he said the military mission there will change.

“Our role in Iraq will be . . . just to be available to continue to train, to assist and to help, and to deal with ISIS as it arrives, but we’re not going to be, by the end of the year, in a combat mission,” Biden said, referring to the Islamic State terrorist group. Continue reading.

Marjorie Taylor Greene calls Air Force veteran a ‘traitor’

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) attacked an Air Force Lt. Colonel on Sunday, telling him that he’s a “traitor.”

She made the comment after Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) agreed to join the Jan. 6 special select committee as one of the Republicans willing to examine the attack on the U.S. Capitol in a bipartisan way. Greene didn’t feel that Kinzinger was right for the job because he already voted to impeach Trump for the Jan. 6 attack. 

Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) attempted to put two members on the committee who are the biggest firebrands in the caucus. One of the two may also have been involved in the attack. Continue reading.

Political Spending At Trump Properties Plunges Sharply

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The number of federal political committees that have spent money in the first half of 2021 at Trump Organization properties has dropped dramatically from the same period two years ago, Federal Election Commission filings show. Those continuing to spend: a smaller circle of loyal supporters of former President Donald Trump and candidates jockeying for his favor in contested Republican primaries.

During the first six months of 2021, 27 federal committees have reported spending $348,000 at Trump Organization properties, with the Republican National Committee accounting for more than half the total. That’s a steep decline from the 177 committees that did so during the 2019-2020 election cycle or the 78 committees that spent more than $1.6 million at Mar-a-Lago, the Trump International Hotel in Washington and other company sites in the first half of 2019, filings show.

Of course, that spending came in the run-up to a presidential election in which Trump was the incumbent. The biggest spenders in 2019 were the RNC and Trump’s own political committees raising money to support his campaign. Continue reading,

The Delta Variant Is the Symptom of a Bigger Threat: Vaccine Refusal

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There are almost as many reasons for vaccine hesitancy and refusal as there are unvaccinated Americans. But this problem, not the variant, lies at the root of rising infection rates.

After an all too brief respite, the United States is again at a crossroads in the pandemic. The number of infections has ticked up — slowly at first, then swiftly — to 51,000 cases per day, on average, more than four times the rate a month ago. The country may again see overflowing hospitals, exhausted health care workers and thousands of needless deaths.

The more contagious Delta variant may be getting the blame, but fueling its rise is an older, more familiar foe: vaccine hesitancy and refusal, long pervasive in the United States. Were a wider swath of the population vaccinated, there would be no resurgence — of the Delta variant, or Alpha variant, or any other version of the coronavirus.

While mild breakthrough infections may be more common than once thought, the vaccines effectively prevent severe illness and death. Yet nearly half of the population remains unvaccinated and unprotected. About 30 percent of adults have not received even a single dose, and the percentage is much higher in some parts of the country. Continue reading.

Trump whines for over 100 minutes at Arizona grievance festival — here are the 7 most absurd moments

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Donald Trump spoke for over 100 minutes during a long-winded speech at a “Rally to Protect Our Elections” in Phoenix.

Much of Trump’s speech was focused on repeating his debunked lies that he won the 2020 presidential election, when in reality he was defeated by Joe Biden.

But he also found time to bash much of America while praising the local extremists behind Arizona’s audit of the vote in Maricopa County and listing his many perceived grievances. Continue reading.