The FDA “is poised to authorize a pair of pills from Pfizer and Merck to treat Covid-19 as soon as this week — a milestone in the fight against the pandemic that will soon expand therapies for the ill,” Bloomberg reports.
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Biden’s Economic Approval Is Worse Than Carter’s
President Biden “now sports the lowest net economic rating of any president at this point through their first term since at least Jimmy Carter in 1977,” CNN reports.
“Carter’s economic net approval rating of -8 points in an early January 1978 CBS News/New York Times poll was the lowest around this point in a presidency before Biden’s -13 points.”
U.S. Population Grew at Slowest Rate Ever
The U.S. population grew at a slower rate in 2021 than in any other year since the founding of the nation, according to new Census data.
QAnon Members Drinking Toxic Chemical Cocktails
The family of a QAnon member “who left her husband and children behind in Delaware to follow a fringe QAnon cult leader to Dallas last month, has been drinking a chemical cocktail containing chlorine dioxide, an industrial disinfectant, among other substances,” the Dallas Observer reports.
“It’s unclear why the group is drinking the chemical potion, as many believe the coronavirus, which has killed over 800,000 people in the U.S. and millions worldwide so far, is a government fabrication.”
Quote of the Day
“I don’t think I can rebrand. I think this will follow me forever. I believe that I was part of something unusually evil, and I hope that it was a one-time lesson for our country and that I can be a part of making sure that at least that evil doesn’t come back now.”
— Former Trump aide Stephanie Grisham, in an interview with New York Magazine.
Most Say Country on the Wrong Track
A new Morning Consult poll finds just 38% of Americans think the country is on the right track, while 62% think it’s on the wrong track.
22 Climate Actions We Need to See In 2022
Sara Goddard put together a great list.
Georgia County Wants Just One Polling Location
Lincoln County, Georgia is trying to close all but one polling place for next year’s elections even though some people live as far as 23 miles away, the Augusta Chronicle reports.
Democrats Can Do a Lot with Manchin’s $1.75 Trillion
Matthew Yglesias: “Progressives can be mad about this, but the fact is that $1.75 trillion in spending without phase-out gimmicks is better on the merits than what House leadership put together. Manchin is not ruining anything by pointing this out. He is making life harder for his colleagues in the sense that they will have to pick winners and losers.”
“But it’s much better to do six good programs than to half-ass a dozen of them. And the reality is that $1.75 trillion is a lot of money; you can do a lot of good stuff for $1.75 trillion.”
Trump Aide Set Up Meeting to Pressure Election Worker
“A member of Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign arranged and participated in a meeting at which a Georgia election worker says she was pressed by a Chicago publicist to falsely admit voting fraud,” Reuters reports.
“The revelation directly ties a senior figure in the former president’s political operation to an extraordinary late-night Jan. 4 meeting in which a $16-an-hour election worker faced pressure to implicate herself in a baseless conspiracy theory, stoked by Trump himself, as he sought to overturn his Georgia election loss.”
GOP Lawmaker Won’t Cooperate with Select Committee
Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) announced that he won’t cooperate with the House Select Committee’s request to seek information from him on the January 6 riots, raising the question of whether the House panel will subpoena a sitting lawmaker if he refuses to comply, CNN reports.
Whatever actions come next will set a precedent for the House.
Fauci Says Fox News Host Should Be Fired
Dr. Anthony Fauci called on Fox News to fire host Jesse Watters for targeting him with violent rhetoric at a conservative conference, Politico reports.
Said Fauci: “I mean, that’s crazy. The guy should be fired on the spot.”
O’Reilly Had to Comfort Trump After Fans Booed Him
Bill O’Reilly told NewsNation that he had to comfort former President Donald Trump after a crowd booed him for getting a vaccine booster shot.
Said O’Reilly: “I told him that today, he called me. I said ‘This is good for you, this is good that people see another side of you, not a political side, you told the truth, you believe in the vax, your administration did it, and you should take credit for it, because it did save, I don’t know, hundreds of thousands of lives.’”
Jason Miller’s ‘Free Speech’ Site Boots White Nationalist
Jason Miller’s right-wing “free speech” social media alternative Gettr “suspended” the account of white nationalist Nicholas Fuentes, the Daily Beast reports.
Right Wing Groups Cashed In on Forgivable PPP Loans
The Intercept: “Last year, right-wing groups that have long opposed the concept of increased government spending on ‘handouts’ were the recipients of more than $1.7 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans while seeing significant increases in contributions or net assets.”
Yes, Joe Manchin Is a Democrat
Jonathan Bernstein: “As for Manchin, there’s a lot of nonsense out there about him not really being a Democrat. I have my criticisms of the FiveThirtyEight data on presidential support, but the basics are clear: Manchin votes with other Democrats, and with Biden’s position, all the time. And there’s a significant gap between the most conservative Democrat and the most liberal Republican.”
“With a Republican in Manchin’s seat, even in the unlikely event that the replacement was a moderate, Democrats would not have passed their major Covid-relief bill earlier in the year, and would have no chance for even a slimmed-down version of Build Back Better. Of course, if Manchin’s seat was held by a Republican, Mitch McConnell would be the Senate majority leader, and Democratic legislation — along with most judicial and executive-branch nominations — wouldn’t get to the floor for a vote anyway.”
Trump Will Hold News Conference on January 6
“Former President Donald Trump said he would hold a news conference on Jan. 6, one year after the deadly riots at the U.S. Capitol which the Republican ex-president has been accused of fomenting,” Reuters reports.
Said Trump, in a statement: “Why isn’t the Unselect Committee of highly partisan political hacks investigating the CAUSE of the Jan 6th protest, which was the rigged Presidential Election?”
McConnell Would Welcome Manchin to the GOP
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that he’d be open to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) joining the Republican Party, Fox News reports.
Said McConnell: “I was shocked at the vitriol. And basically it seemed to me that they were calling Sen. Manchin a liar. I think that was not smart. This is a 50/50 Senate. It’s going to be 50/50 for another year, and believe me, this is not how I would handle a disappointing vote like that.”
He added: “He doesn’t fit well over there, but that is a decision ultimately that he has to make. We certainly welcome him to join us if he was so inclined.”
Jonathan Bernstein: “But Manchin has good reasons to stick with his party, even if his chances for re-election as a Democrat don’t seem high. For one thing, he’d have to radically change his voting pattern to win a Republican primary, and it’s possible he simply doesn’t want to do that. But I suspect a bigger deterrent to switching is the current condition of the Republican Party.”
