Happy Fourth of July
Biden-Harris Administration
COVID-19
To mask or not to mask. The World Health Organization (WHO) versus the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Due to the rise in the highly transmissible COVID-19 Delta variant across the globe, the WHO is recommending that masks continue to be worn, even for vaccinated individuals. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the WHO, said this week that it is now “even more urgent that we use all the tools at our disposal” to fight the virus, including wearing a mask indoors, social distancing, and washing hands. The CDC on the other hand stands by its revised mask guidance that vaccinated people need not wear a mask. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said on “Good Morning America” on Wednesday that masking policies need to be made at the local level. She asserted that wearing a mask is intended to protect the unvaccinated, and that vaccinated people “still are safe.”
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is urging residents to wear masks inside public areas even if vaccinated - “Because of increased circulation of the highly transmissible Delta variant across the country, Public Health strongly recommends everyone, as a precautionary measure, wear masks indoors in settings such as grocery or retail stores, theaters and family entertainment centers, and workplaces when you don’t know everyone’s vaccination status.” Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is also encouraging residents, vaccinated or not, to wear a mask inside public venues.
Concerned about the Delta variant, which has been detected in all 50 states, the Biden-Harris Administration is deploying surge response teams across the United States in an effort to try to combat the variant. It is expected that the Delta variant will become the dominant COVID-19 strain in the United States in the coming weeks. If you need another reason to get vaccinated and protect yourself from the Delta variant, check out these numbers. The effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine two weeks after receiving the second dose in preventing infection from the Delta variant is 79%; it is 88% effective in preventing symptomatic disease and 96% effective in preventing hospitalization. Bottom line, get vaccinated. It’s safe, free, effective, and may save your life.
POTUS Meetings with Foreign Leaders
President Biden met this week with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin to honor his service as his term ends in early July. Biden reiterated his “unwavering support for Israel’s security” and said that during his presidency “Iran will never get a nuclear weapon.”
President Biden spoke with Colombian President Ivan Duque to convey support after the Colombian presidential helicopter was attacked last week. Biden also told Duque that the United States would donate 2.5 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine to Colombia.
Executive Actions
President Biden named a fifth round of judicial nominees: Toby Heytens, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Jennifer Sung, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Jane Beckering, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, Patricia Giles, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Shalina Kumar, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Michael Nachmanoff, U.S. District Court for the Eastern district of Virginia, Armando Bonilla and Carolyn Lerner, U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and Sean Staples, Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
U.S. Congress
Senate
The Senate will reconvene on July 12.
House of Representatives
January 6 Select Committee
The House of Representatives passed Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s, D-Calif., resolution to establish a 13-member select committee to investigate and report on the causes relating to the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol by a vote of 222-190. Only two Republicans - Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) - voted for the resolution. Calling January 6th “one of the darkest days of our history” and an attack on our democracy, Speaker Pelosi, in remarks on the House floor prior to the vote, said that Congress had a duty to the American people to find the truth about January 6th and to ensure such an assault on democracy would never happen again.
At her weekly press conference, the speaker announced her eight appointees to the select committee and designated Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., as its chair. Along with Thompson, Speaker Pelosi appointed Democratic Representatives Zoe Lofgren (Calif.), Adam Schiff (Calif.), Pete Aguilar (Calif.), Jamie Raskin (Md.), Stephanie Murphy (Fla.), and Elaine Luria (Va.), as well as Republican Liz Cheney (Wyo.). Cheney issued a statement saying that she was “honored” to serve on the committee and that “Congress is obligated to conduct a full investigation of the most serious attack on our Capitol since 1814.” When asked about Cheney’s assignment to the select committee, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said that he was “not making any threats about committee assignments,” but he was “shocked” that she accepted the appointment. McCarthy declined to say if and when he would appoint five Republicans to the committee stating - “When I have news on that, I’ll give it to you.” If there is a long delay in McCarthy making the committee assignments, the select committee could convene with just the eight members appointed by Pelosi since that would constitute a quorum.
Quick Facts
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling in Brnovich, Attorney General of Arizona, et al v. Democratic National Committee, held that the Arizona ban on out-of-precinct voting and Arizona House Bill 2023 regarding early ballot voting do not violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965. President Biden issued a statement expressing disappointment in the Court’s decision and advocated again for passage of federal voting rights legislation. The Court also denied a request from an association of realtors to block enforcement of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s federal eviction moratorium that is set to expire on July 31, 2021. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh joined Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan in the 5-4 vote on the order.
The Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States held its first public meeting on Wednesday. President Biden established the commission in April to produce a report on the role and operation of the Supreme Court and arguments for and against Court reform proposals, including the size of the Court.
President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden visited Surfside, Florida yesterday and met with first responders and also the families of the victims of the tragic collapse of the condominium building. Eighteen people are confirmed dead, and there are 145 people still missing. In remarks after meeting with the families, Biden said, “We’re committed not only to recover, but to restore the safety across the board…We’re here for you as one nation.”
A global minimum tax of at least 15% on multinational corporations has been agreed to by 130 countries. This effort was championed by the United States and led by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
The White House released facts sheets for all 50 states highlighting the need for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework that was agreed to last week by President Biden and a bipartisan group of senators.
If you are interested in who visited the White House in March for official business, appointments, and tours, check out the visitor logs. And, if you would like to know how much White House staffers make, take a look at this report.
The House of Representatives passed H.R. 3684, as amended, the “INVEST in America Act,” by a vote of 221-201. Only two Republicans voted for the bill. H.R. 3684 is a $715 surface transportation and water infrastructure bill. House Democrats hope to negotiate some of the provisions in the INVEST in America Act into the broader Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework.
HR 3005, to replace the bust of former Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney who issued the Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sandford that declared that African Americans were not citizens of the United States, with a bust of Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court justice, passed in the House of Representatives by a bipartisan vote of 285-120. The bill also would remove from display in the U.S. Capitol all statues of individuals who voluntarily served the Confederate States of America.
C-SPAN released its Presidential Historians Survey 2021. This is C-SPAN’s fourth survey in which presidential historians ranked U.S. presidents based on 10 characteristics of leadership. The presidents who ranked in the top five in the 2021 survey are: Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Other highlights: Barack Obama came in at number 10, Bill Clinton at 19, George W. Bush at 29, Donald Trump at 41, and James Buchanan in last place at 44.
Global cases: 182,589,296
Global deaths: 3,954,763
United States cases: 33,678,270
United States deaths: 605,012