In the news today: The Biden administration announced its support for waiving COVID-19 vaccine patents during the pandemic, a move that could potentially boost manufacturing capabilities. Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell once again declared himself to be “100%” committed to opposing Biden’s presidency.
In a lengthy discussion on the brewing internecine war between Republicans, Jake Tapper stood firmly on the side of truth. Appearing on Tuesday’s edition of CNN’s New Day, Tapper noted that Republicans, for the most part, simply aren’t good-faith actors anymore.
Of course, while the truth is fairly easy to suss out these days, grasping even a gossamer strand of it seems like a Sisyphean challenge for Republicans.
The San Diego County Board of Supervisors has approved a one-year, $5 million pilot program that will provide legal assistance to immigrants detained at nearby Otay Mesa Detention Facility, the Associated Press (AP) reports. Unlike in the criminal court system, people facing immigration court aren’t guaranteed legal help, no matter how vulnerable—or young—they might be.
Calling the Fox News channel a propaganda machine for the right wing of the country is a redundant truism. It may be true that the absolute is relative, and the relative is absolute, but relatively speaking: the on-air personalities at Fox News are about as smart as cobwebs in an attic that refuse to read. On Wednesday, Fox & Friends did their normal morning show where one guy smiles while saying stupid things, and two other people say stupid things while never cracking a smile.
“I don’t know what we stand for. We stand for owning the libs,” former congressional candidate Michael Wood told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace.
As it so often does in odd-numbered years, Virginia will host the most important elections of 2021, with voters casting ballots in races for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general, as well as for all 100 seats in the state House. To help better understand these key legislative races, Daily Kos Elections is pleased to release new data breaking down the results of the 2020 presidential election for each House district, including detailed calculations for every seat.
The president expressed bafflement at GOP attacks on Liz Cheney as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell pledged “100%” opposition to the White House.
This morning, the oversight board, a putatively independent body funded by Facebook through a $130 million trust, announced a decision in its tenth case: The removal of Donald Trump from the social platform had been justified, it said, but poorly executed. The meaning of his “indefinite suspension” wasn’t very clear, nor are any of Facebook’s existing policies about world leaders. The company has been given six months to decide what to do and get back to the board.
They sold a picture-perfect image right to the end.
The results from a preliminary study are an early sign that booster shots could play a role in future vaccination efforts.
“Facebook essentially set up this body as a PR device,” one critic said of the company’s quasi-independent advisory board.
The Kentucky Republican side-stepped a question about GOP infighting between Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and former President Donald Trump.
The prospect of abandoning vaccine patents to allow broad global production has pitted public health advocates against industry.
One day after launching his new “communications platform,” Trump assailed his former vice president, along with Mitch McConnell and Liz Cheney.
Back to you, Zuck. Facebook’s oversight board earlier today declined to act as a human shield for the social network. Asked to rule on the suspension of Donald Trump’s account in the wake of the January 6 Capitol riot, it passed the ultimate decision back to Facebook.For now, Trump’s suspension stays in place. But the board has given Facebook six months to “reexamine the arbitrary penalty it imposed on January 7 and decide the appropriate penalty.
When the cicadas of Brood X start to swarm the United States in their billions, try to look beyond their overwhelming numbers. Instead, focus on just one of them. Despite appearances, that individual cicada will be a swarm unto itself—the insect and a community of organisms living inside it. Their lives have been so tightly entwined that they cannot survive alone. Their fates have been so precariously interlinked that their future is uncertain.
This morning an oversight board created by Facebook approved the company’s January decision to indefinitely suspend Donald Trump from its platform, and gave the company six months to clarify the duration of the suspension. The result is a bit of a procedural dodge. There is only one reasonable path available for the company to take: Ban the former president permanently.The reasons for this are straightforward.
The Atlantic’s CEO Nick Thompson announced that Andrea Valdez is joining his senior leadership team as senior vice president of audience strategy later this month. Valdez is the founding editor in chief of the nonprofit, independent news organization The 19th, and was previously an editor at The Texas Observer, Wired, and Texas Monthly.“Andrea is one of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with,” Thompson said.
The bong-ripping frat of the crypto world is having its moment.
China topped the agenda Tuesday when foreign ministers from G7 nations met in London. This comes as both China and the United States are accusing each other of escalating tensions in the South China Sea. Last week, the Chinese government claimed there has been a 40% increase of activity by U.S. planes in Chinese-claimed areas since Biden took office. Critics increasingly argue Biden’s policies on China are risk sparking a new Cold War.
The international disparity in vaccine access between rich and low-income countries highlights “the irrationality of global capitalism,” says acclaimed Filipino scholar and activist Walden Bello, who urges the Biden administration to sign on to an effort at the World Trade Organization to temporarily waive intellectual property rules on vaccine technology. He also discusses the COVID crisis in the Philippines.
Pressure is growing on the Biden administration to support a temporary waiver on intellectual property rights for COVID-related medicines and vaccines at the World Trade Organization. India and South Africa first proposed the waiver in October, but it was blocked by the United States and other wealthy members of the WTO. Big Pharma has also come out against the proposal and has lobbied Washington to preserve its monopoly control.
Parenting advice on gender fluidity, SAHM anxiety, and addiction.
Introducing Pay Dirt, Slate’s new money advice column.
Let’s talk about the period when Roosevelt actually created the modern welfare state.
And what the gig economy really has to fear.
One group has too much power over what gets built—or, more often, what doesn’t.
The American Families Plan is really a plan to give us what other industrialized countries already have.
A sensible, way overdue idea for fixing the welfare state.
