Search Results for: BID

We the People? Why Republicans believe that “the government has no role in protecting the population”

On July 20, the Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends personality Steve Doocy told viewers to get the coronavirus vaccine because it would “save your life” and noted that 99% of the people now dying from COVID-19 are unvaccinated. Brian Kilmeade answered that not getting the vaccine is a personal choice and that the government has no role in protecting the population. “That’s not their job. It’s not their job to protect anybody,” he said. It is, of course, literally the job of the government to protect us. The preamble to the Constitution reads: “We the People of the...

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Low-income countries struggle to obtain COVID-19 vaccine as stockpiles of American doses go unused

A new analysis showed a mere 1% of individuals in low-income countries have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose. It follows a report published on July 20 that revealed U.S. states are sitting on millions of unused doses of the life-saving inoculations that will soon expire as domestic demand declines. According to the report, health departments in several states have repeatedly asked the federal government to redistribute excess vaccine stocks to other countries where they are desperately needed as many nations are suffering a third wave of the pandemic. However, STAT says federal officials have rejected states’ requests...

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A legacy of redlining and racial covenants still keep families of color from owning homes in Wisconsin

To Greg Lewis, the home was beautiful. Cozy and inviting, it was a two-bedroom house in Milwaukee with a finished basement, two and a half car garage, an attached apartment and a yard. He had his eyes set on it for 42 days, only to learn that the appraisal, or valuation of the property, was lower than he expected. Lewis thought it was going to be about $100,000, as another house on the same block sold for $130,000. Yet the appraisal only came in at $90,000 — meaning banks would be limited in how much they could lend him...

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Hostile to our Democracy: Why the authoritarian attacks on Voting Rights are racially motivated

The Republican Party’s assault on constitutional democracy continues unabated. Over 20 restrictive voting laws have already been enacted this year (the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights Roundup is an indispensable resource for monitoring ongoing developments). And in the past two weeks two further Republican body blows were delivered to democratic equality. First, on June 22 Senate Republicans exploited archaic Senate filibuster rules to obstruct the For the People Act from even being discussed on the Senate floor. Then on July 1 the Supreme Court’s six conservative Justices ruled in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee et al to uphold recently-passed Arizona...

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Pandemic of the Unvaccinated: America grapples with skyrocketing deaths after spread of misinformation

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, told reporters on July 16 that the seven-day average of COVID-19 cases has jumped almost 70 percent in the prior week. The United States reported more than 33,000 new cases on July 16. Hospital admissions have jumped about 36% over the same period, to about 2,790 a day. And, after dropping for weeks, the seven-day average of deaths per day has also increased, rising 26% to 211 deaths per day. Walensky called it “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.” Fully vaccinated individuals can still get Covid-19, but...

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What the Future will bring: America faces the most significant test of its democracy since the Civil War

“Are you on the side of truth or lies; fact or fiction; justice or injustice; democracy or autocracy?” – President Joe Biden In a speech at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on July 13, President Joe Biden asked his audience to take a stand as he called defending the right to vote in America, “a test of our time.” Biden explained that the 2020 election has been examined and reexamined and that “no other election has ever been held under such scrutiny and such high standards.” The Big Lie that Trump won is just that, he said: a...

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