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President Biden Orders US Intelligence to Investigate Origins of Coronavirus

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President Joe Biden on Wednesday issued an order to the U.S, Intelligence Community to investigate the origins of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

“Back in early 2020, when COVID-19 emerged, I called for the CDC to get access to China to learn about the virus so we could fight it more effectively. The failure to get our inspectors on the ground in those early months will always hamper any investigation into the origin of COVID-19,” President Biden said in a statement.

“I have now asked the Intelligence Community to redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion, and to report back to me in 90 days,” he added. “As part of that report, I have asked for areas of further inquiry that may be required, including specific questions for China. I have also asked that this effort include work by our National Labs and other agencies of our government to augment the Intelligence Community’s efforts. And I have asked the Intelligence Community to keep Congress fully apprised of its work.”

President Biden added that “shortly after I became President, in March, I had my National Security Advisor task the Intelligence Community to prepare a report on their most up-to-date analysis of the origins of COVID-19, including whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident. I received that report earlier this month, and asked for additional follow-up. As of today, the U.S. Intelligence Community has ‘coalesced around two likely scenarios’ but has not reached a definitive conclusion on this question. Here is their current position: ‘while two elements in the IC leans toward the former scenario and one leans more toward the latter – each with low or moderate confidence – the majority of elements do not believe there is sufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other.'”

To date, nearly 34 million Americans have been infected, and over 600,000 Americans have died. Medical experts including those at CDC have said those numbers are far likely much higher.

 

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‘Mockery of the Law’: Supreme Court Weakens Voting Rights Act in ‘Earthquake’ Ruling

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The majority-conservative Roberts Supreme Court on Wednesday further eroded the Voting Rights Act, tossing out Louisiana’s congressional district map after a group of non-African American voters sued, arguing the map constituted an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Legal experts are warning the decision “will threaten Black and brown political representation for generations in Southern states.”

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the 6-3 ruling in the case, Louisiana v. Callais, with all six Republican-appointed justices in the majority and all three Democratic appointees dissenting. Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the dissenters, warned that the consequences would be “far-reaching and grave” and that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was now “all but a dead letter.”

USA Today reported that the “decision could ultimately reduce the number of Black and Hispanic members of Congress and boost Republicans’ chances of winning more seats in the U.S. House, where they have a thin majority.”

“It will now be easier for Republicans to draw maps that favor their party,” the paper observed, “particularly in the South where a voter’s race closely aligns with party preference.”

Critics and legal experts blasted the Court’s decision.

“Today’s VRA decision is intellectually dishonest and wrong,” wrote noted Democratic attorney Marc Elias. “The conservatives basically said: Black people can vote for their preferred candidates, as long as they prefer the right candidates — which will be Republicans. An [absolute] mockery of the law and stain on the court.”

READ MORE: King Charles Discreetly Rebukes Trump in Historic Address to Congress: Report

Elias also wrote that in its decision, the Supreme Court “kneecapped the Voting Rights Act (VRA), the landmark civil rights law that restricted racial gerrymandering and racial discrimination in voting for more than fifty years.”

The Democracy Docket social media account added: “Today’s decision will threaten Black and brown political representation for generations in Southern states.”

Democracy Docket, which was founded by Elias, also warned that today’s Supreme Court decision could usher in an additional 27 Republican-held seats in Congress and secure “GOP House control for at least a generation.”

Election law expert Rick Hasen slammed the Alito decision.

“It is hard to overstate what an earthquake this will be for American politics,” he wrote at his Election Law Blog. “Justice Alito knows exactly what he’s doing: make it seem like he’s not gutting the Voting Rights Act through technical language, turning both the statute and the Constitution on its head. It’s the product of his long mission: to favor the white Republicans he seems to think he represents on the Supreme Court, rather than all Americans.”

NAACP President Derrick Johnson wrote that the decision “is a devastating blow to what remains of the Voting Rights Act, and a license for corrupt politicians who want to rig the system by silencing entire communities.”

“The Supreme Court betrayed Black voters, they betrayed America, and they betrayed our democracy,” he added, calling it “a major setback for our nation” that “threatens to erode the hard-won victories we’ve fought, bled, and died for.”

READ MORE: Trump ‘Frustrated’ by Ballroom Legal Battles — So GOP Wants You to Pay for It: Report

 

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King Charles Discreetly Rebukes Trump in Historic Address to Congress: Report

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Britain’s King Charles III delivered a “carefully targeted rebuff” of President Donald Trump and his MAGA allies during his historic address before Congress, Politico reports, as he lauded NATO and called for “unyielding resolve” to defend Ukraine against Russia.

“British monarchs deliver their political messages in code,” Politico noted, adding that “contrary to the president’s repeated claims over recent weeks, NATO was in fact there to help in America’s hour of need.”

Charles told members of Congress that in “the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time, and the United Nations Security Council was united in the face of terror, we answered the call together, as our people have done so, for more than a century.”

“Shoulder to shoulder,” he declared, “through two world wars, the Cold War, Afghanistan, and moments that have defined our shared security. Today, Mr. Speaker, that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine and her most courageous people.”

His Ukraine entreaty received bipartisan applause and a standing ovation.

READ MORE: Trump ‘Frustrated’ by Ballroom Legal Battles — So GOP Wants You to Pay for It: Report

Charles praised the United States’ armed forces’ “commitment and expertise,” and that of its allies, that “lie at the heart of NATO.”

Calling it “a direct plea to Trump and Hill Republicans to maintain American support against the Russian invasion,” Politico stated that Charles “is striking a very different tone from Trump’s incessant criticisms of Ukraine and its President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.”

READ MORE: FCC Poised to Review Disney Licenses Amid Trump Pressure Over Kimmel Joke: Report

 

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Trump White House Blames Democrats’ ‘Unhinged Rhetoric’ for Inciting WHCD Attack

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The White House is alleging that “unhinged” and “sick rhetoric” from Democrats is to blame for inciting the alleged assassination attempt on President Donald Trump and members of his administration by “another Radical Left lunatic.”

On Saturday, at the hotel hosting the annual White House Correspondents Association Dinner, a heavily armed man broke through a security checkpoint on the floor above the event and was taken down by Secret Service agents. In his manifesto, the suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, allegedly named “Administration officials ” as his primary “targets.”

On Tuesday, in a press release titled “Democrats’ Unhinged Rhetoric Incites Third Assassination Attempt on President Trump,” the Trump White House charged that the “attack was not random; it was the predictable result of years of reckless, inflammatory, and escalating rhetoric from Democrats” who “have created a toxic environment that incites their supporters to violence again and again.”

The White House listed over a dozen prominent Democrats and their remarks.

For example, it cited House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries who said that Democrats “are in an era of maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time” against Republicans. Jeffries’ remarks were initially taken from a direct quote attributed to a “person close to the White House,” as The New York Times reported last year.

READ MORE: Trump ‘Frustrated’ by Ballroom Legal Battles — So GOP Wants You to Pay for It: Report

In August, The Times reported: “One person close to the president, who insisted on anonymity to describe the White House’s political strategy candidly, summed it up succinctly: ‘Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.'”

The White House did not mention the connection.

In its press release, the White House also quoted Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who “called on his supporters to ‘be forcefully rising up against’ President Trump.” Senator Schumer did not say, against President Trump. He said, “against this,” referring to the Trump Justice Department’s prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The White House also cited Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro for saying that “heads do need to roll” inside the Trump Administration, and California Governor Gavin Newsom for urging supporters to “punch these sons of b —— in the mouth.”

In total, the White House cited eighteen Democrats and their statements.

READ MORE: ‘This Will Backfire’: DeSantis’s New Redistricting Map Is Already in Trouble

 

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