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President Biden’s sweeping new vaccine mandates are terrific news from a public health perspective, and you can tell because the folks committed to prolonging the pandemic have absolutely lost their shit.
- Several Republican governors have threatened to sue the Biden administration over its latest effort to keep their constituents alive, on no particular legal basis—a century of Supreme Court precedent makes it clear that OSHA can indeed require vaccinations to keep workers safe. GOP Chair
‘Rona Ronna McDaniel has also pledged to sue “to protect Americans and their liberties,” and the Fox News personalities who are subject to their own workplace mandates are pretending to be shocked and horrified to their vaccinated cores.
- It’s worth noting the levels of dishonesty here: The vast majority of workers affected by the new mandates will still have a choice, as far as the federal government is concerned. The Labor Department’s rule says that businesses with more than 100 employees must require that workers get vaccinated or get tested weekly. The rule will also require businesses to provide paid time off for employees to get vaccinated, eliminating a key barrier to access. The Biden administration has made it easier to get the shot and more of a burden not to, and that’s about it.
- Asked about Republicans’ threats to challenge the mandates in court on Friday, Biden invited them to knock themselves out: “Have at it.” Biden refused to play into the conservative effort to frame his COVID plan as a partisan declaration of civil war—an effort helped along by some all-time garbaggio headlines—instead pointing out the deadliness of the larger polarizing narrative: “I am so disappointed that particularly some Republican governors have been so cavalier with the health of these kids, so cavalier with the health of their communities. This isn’t a game.”
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You might not need any more evidence that those GOP governors have blood on their hands, but we got you some anyhow.
- Unvaccinated people are 11 times more likely to die from coronavirus than vaccinated people, according to a new study released by the CDC on Friday. And while Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) trollishly squawks about “protecting Texans’ right to choose” days after his extreme abortion ban went into effect, health officials are sounding the alarm about a rise in stillbirths among unvaccinated pregnant women. The numbers are low, but troubling: Mississippi’s health department has identified 72 stillbirths among infected women since the start of the pandemic, more than double what the state would normally expect in the same span of time. Eight pregnant women have died in Mississippi in the last four weeks.
- The big thing to know about the right-wing leaders throwing tantrums about the Biden administration’s new approach is that they represent an obnoxiously loud minority. Over 73 percent of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine dose. Half of working Americans said they favored workplace vaccine mandates in a recent AP-NORC poll, and that number went up when respondents were asked about specific sectors like health-care workers, teachers, and employees who interact with the public. In August surveys of five swing states, vaccine mandates were as popular as any idea in a swing state can get.
The Biden administration’s turn to vaccine mandates was a necessary, inevitable response to thousands of Americans dying unnecessarily every week, and the people now trying to frame it as a political decision are the same ones who created the conditions for those deaths in the first place. If Republicans want to hurt themselves politically by loudly opposing a popular, life-saving strategy, well, “have at it.”
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Rudy Giuliani associate Igor Fruman has pleaded guilty to soliciting campaign contributions from a foreign national, in a fun throwback to the colorful cast of 2019. A quick refresher: Fruman and another of Giuliani’s associates, Lev “Fraud Guarantee” Parnas, had helped Rudy out when he was looking for fake dirt on Hunter Biden to hurt Joe Biden in the 2020 election. The two of them were indicted in October 2019 and charged with funneling foreign money into U.S. elections; both pleaded not guilty. Fruman, who was charged with 10 crimes, has now changed his plea on a single count: He has admitted to (buckle up) soliciting donations from a Russian national to politicians in states that were legalizing marijuana, as part of an effort to get cannabis licenses in those states. The same prosecutors are investigating whether Giuliani conducted illegal lobbying for Ukrainian officials, but Fruman’s plea deal doesn’t require him to cooperate with prosecutors in any ongoing investigation.
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- Senate Democrats are reportedly nearing a compromise on a voting rights bill that pleases His Majesty Joe Manchin (D-WV), who reportedly still believes he can rustle up 10 Reasonable Republicans to help Democrats pass it.
- Today in Florida: Good News Edition: A federal judge ruled that Florida can’t enforce its new anti-protest law, finding it unconstitutional.
- Today in Florida: Normal “What The Fuck” Edition: A Florida appellate court ruled that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) can enforce his ban on school mask mandates while an appeal is pending, reversing a decision by Second Circuit Judge John Cooper.
- The U.S. military’s August 29 drone strike in Kabul appears to have targeted a car that contained no explosives, driven by a worker for a U.S. aid group who had no connection to ISIS, according to a wrenching New York Times analysis.
- Two more 9/11 victims have been identified through DNA testing, 20 years later. There’s no shortage of 20th anniversary reading out there, but if you missed this Atlantic story last month, it’s worth your time.
- A federal judge has ordered Apple to change its App Store policy that blocks developers from steering customers away to other payment options, but said that “the court cannot ultimately conclude that Apple is a monopolist under either federal or state antitrust laws.”
- Andrew Yang reportedly plans to launch a third party next month, in conjunction with his book release. Everyone should go back to promoting books the old-fashioned way: Publicly hemming and hawing about when to retire from the Supreme Court.
- The Rutherford County School Board in Tennessee has approved a mask mandate, after adults at a Tuesday night school board meeting heckled a teenager whose grandmother had died from COVID.
- Minnesota’s premier butter sculptor has retired from sculpting butter. All the better for up-and-coming butter sculptors.
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AT&T is one of the top donors to the sponsors of Texas’s abortion ban and voter-suppression law, but it’s spending a whole bunch of money to make sure you don’t hear about that. The company contributed $575,000 to the sponsors of Texas’s anti-voting law, even as it publicly embraces voting rights. Last week, Greenpeace purchased a digital billboard above Washington, DC’s flagship AT&T store reading, "DON'T LET AT&T WRECK OUR DEMOCRACY. TELL AT&T TO STOP FUNDING RACIST VOTER SUPPRESSION.” It was supposed to run for 10 days, but AT&T complained to the billboard operator and had it replaced with an ad of its own after just two days. Similarly, AT&T has responded to reports that it’s one of the top funders of Texas’s new abortion law by paying to promote tweets making it out to be A Corporate Champion of Women & Girlbosses Everywhere. Incredibly gross! Anyway, here are the other companies that have made major contributions to sponsors of the Texas abortion ban while performing #feminism on social media.
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Pfizer and BioNTech are nearly ready to apply for clearance for the use of their vaccine in kids ages five and older.
The California Legislature has approved a bill to return Bruce’s Beach to the Black family it belonged to a century ago, before the local government seized it.
Louisiana artists have mobilized a grassroots relief response to help people affected by Hurricane Ida.
A new poll from UC Berkeley suggests Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) is likely to comfortably defeat the recall effort. That doesn’t mean we can get comfortable! Help get out the vote in the final weekend → votesaveamerica.com/california.
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