Tag: Joe Biden

Biden lauds Minnesota for ‘meeting the moment’ on vaccinations

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He praised the state’s 64% rate of adult vaccinations. 

Hours after talking with President Joe Biden and select governors about ways to show the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination, Gov. Tim Walz stood on the sunbathed terrace at CHS Field in St. Paul and marveled at a prime example.

“Why would you not be out here on a night like this watching baseball?” said Walz, in a Minnesota Twins jersey mismatched with a St. Paul Saints cap. “We need to continue to try to incentivize them.”

Biden earlier Tuesday invited Walz and five other governors from states with high rates of COVID-19 vaccination to discuss their successes and strategies to overcome recent slowdowns in public interest. Continue reading.

Biden reaches agreements with Uber and Lyft to give free rides to vaccine sites

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The Biden administration has reached agreements with ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft to offer free rides to coronavirus vaccination sites through July 4, the White House announced Tuesday.

Why it matters: The free rides, starting in the next two weeks, are part of the Biden administration’s push to administer at least one vaccine dose to 70% of U.S. adults by Independence Day. 

How it works: A new feature will allow app users to “simply select a vaccination site near them, follow simple directions to redeem their ride, and then get a ride to take them to and from a nearby vaccination site free of charge,” according to the White House. Continue reading.

Biden sees Trump rematch as real possibility

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Joe Biden is increasingly thinking of his possible reelection and a rematch against former President Trump. 

“He knows it’s a very real possibility,” said one longtime adviser to Biden. 

In an interview with Axios that aired Sunday evening, White House chief of staff Ron Klain said Biden is anticipating the possibility of running against Trump again.  Continue reading.

Biden rides high in polls as Americans back his handling of COVID pandemic

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President Biden is riding a wave of approval as Americans overwhelmingly back his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, a new AP-NORC poll revealed Monday.

As he nears four months in the White House, Biden is enjoying an enviable 63% overall approval rating.

Even more Americans approve of his handling of the pandemic, with 71% giving him high marks, including a remarkable 47% of Republicans. Continue reading.

Young, diverse voters fueled Biden victory over Trump

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A diverse coalition of young and new voters propelled President Biden to victory in November, according to a major new study of the 2020 electorate, while former President Trump made inroads among Hispanic voters in key states.

The report, from the Democratic data analytics firm Catalist, found the most diverse electorate in American history showed up to vote in last year’s elections. Twenty-eight percent of voters last year were nonwhite, up 2 percentage points from the 2016 presidential election.

More than 159 million Americans voted in 2020, the largest turnout in history. The number of nonwhite participants skyrocketed, including by 31 percent among Latino voters and 39 percent among Asian American and Pacific Islander voters. For the first time, Latino voters made up 10 percent of the electorate. Continue reading.

Biden administration reverses limits on transgender health protections

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The Biden administration announced on Monday that it will reverse Trump-era limits on health care protections against discrimination for gay and transgender people.  

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said that its Office for Civil Rights will enforce bans on sex discrimination applying to sexual orientation and gender identity in a shift from the former administration’s policies. 

The move comes after former President Trump’s administration ruled to remove ObamaCare’s nondiscrimination protections that prevented health care workers from denying care to patients based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. Continue reading.

Biden defends rescue package after disappointing jobs report

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President Biden on Friday defended his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan after a disappointing jobs report, arguing that the new data prove the necessity of the legislation and that it would take more time for the economy to recover. 

“When we came into office, we knew we were facing a once-in-a-century pandemic and a once-in-a-generation economic crisis. And we knew this wouldn’t be a sprint, it would be a marathon,” Biden said in remarks from the East Room of the White House. 

“It was designed to help us over the course of a year. Not 60 days, a year,” he said of the coronavirus relief passed earlier this year. “We never thought after the first 60 days that everything would be fine.”  Continue reading.

Republicans promote pandemic relief they voted against

NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said it pained her to vote against the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.

But in the weeks that followed, the first-term Republican issued a news release celebrating more than $3.7 million from the package that went to community health centers in her district as one of her “achievements.” She said she prided herself on “bringing federal funding to the district and back into the pockets of taxpayers.”

Malliotakis is far from alone.

Every Republican in Congress voted against the sweeping pandemic relief bill that President Joe Biden signed into lawthree months ago. But since the early spring votes, Republicans from New York and Indiana to Texas and Washington state have promoted elements of the legislation they fought to defeat. Continue reading.

Biden sparked outrage calling Jan. 6 ‘the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War’ — he was right

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In his first address to a joint session of Congress, President Joe Biden called the January 6 insurrection “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” This is an apt comparison. The insurrection was the worst attack on our democracy since the shelling of Fort Sumter, because the president of the United States schemed to overturn a free and fair election and remain in power against the will of the people, a high crime for which he was impeached. It was pure luck that the insurgents didn’t assassinate the vice president for refusing the president’s order to steal the election.

Revisionists are already trying to memory-hole the full significance of the attack and cast it as a mere riot rather than as a coordinated assault on American democracy orchestrated by a sitting president. While the out-and-out hacks allege January 6 was a false-flag operation masterminded by BLM, the more intellectually respectable apologists are trying to muddy the waters with spurious historical objections. 

Bloomberg Opinion columnist Eli Lake tweeted: “The Capitol Hill riot was terrible. All of this is true. At the same time, what happened on January 6 is not the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War. Some perspective would be nice here.” Continue reading.

Biden sets goal of at least one shot to 70 percent of adults by July 4

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President Biden announced Tuesday a goal to administer at least one shot of the coronavirus vaccine to 70 percent of U.S. adults by July 4, as the country moves to vaccinate harder-to-reach Americans.

Biden, in a speech Tuesday afternoon at the White House, also set a goal to have 160 million U.S. adults fully vaccinated by Independence Day.

Together, those goals will mean about 100 million more shots, both first and second doses, across the next 60 days, a senior administration official said. Continue reading.