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There s a lot to keep track of. Here’s today’s list of news updates and stories you may have missed.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory committee voted on Friday to recommend lifting the pause on Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine. The committee also advised adding a warning of increased chances of getting rare blood clots for some recipients. On Friday evening, the Food and Drug Administration and CDC announced they lifted the pause, which was a few days shy of two weeks.
Letter to President Biden on Classification Reform
April 21, 2021
The White House
Dear President Biden,
As organizations interested in government transparency, accountability, and human rights, we support the administration’s goal to work toward “rebuilding trust with the American people” and we strongly endorse your commitment to “the highest standards of transparency.” Rebuilding trust requires openness and honesty, and also requires taking a serious look at the problem of excessive national security secrecy, which has expanded unabated over many decades and enabled abuses of power and violations of human rights and civil liberties. Particularly as the nation approaches the 20th anniversary of the September 11th terror attacks later this year, now is the time to begin to peel back the layers of unwarranted and harmful secrecy that have built up over those twenty years and more.
22 Apr 2021
The House voted to transform Washington, DC into a state Thursday on the pure party-line vote of 216-208.
Before the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) argued in favor of the bill, describing Washington, DC residents as being “denied their right to fully participate in their democracy.”
Pelosi also said Washington, DC “pays more federal taxes per capita than any other state. Its budget is larger than 12 states. Its population is larger than two states… Its people have been fighting for voting rights for 220 years, with a full 86 percent recently voting for statehood.”
The Speaker saluted Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) for her “leadership in bringing this historic legislation to the floor”; Norton then said of the legislation, “Congress has a moral obligation and constitutional authority to pass HR 51.”
Report: Sen. Mark Kelly Undecided on D.C. Statehood Legislation
20 Apr 2021
Moderate Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) said Tuesday he is undecided on joining 44 senators in cosponsoring D.C. statehood legislation.
“I think all Americans have a right to equal representation … but I haven’t made a decision on it,” Kelly said, according to a report.
The Arizona senator said he would make a decision “based on what’s in the best interest of our country,” holding his cards close to the chest on whether he would even vote for the legislation.
Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), and Angus King (I-ME) have said they are a doubtful “no” vote.
https://www.afinalwarning.com/511553.html (Natural News) After Joe Biden became the Democratic nominee for president last year, he was asked often whether he favored “packing” the U.S. Supreme Court with left-wing judges, making the nation’s highest court nothing more than a fourth branch of government that served to rubber-stamp a far-left Marxist agenda.
Though Biden once called such court-packing a “boneheaded” idea, he refused to say whether he would agree to packing the court if he won.
In fact, he even told one reporter in mid-October that Americans didn’t “have a right” to know how he felt about the issue under the guise of ‘allowing’ his GOP opponent to know his position (which was a tell in and of itself because if Biden had said simply “no,” he’s not in favor of it, that wouldn’t have given President Donald Trump any political ammo in the first place).