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Dr. Deborah Birx, who served as White House coronavirus response coordinator during the Trump administration, said on Sunday that the fact that early data on the COVID-19 pandemic came from Europe should be an “indictment of our system.”

During an appearance on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” moderator Margaret Brennan noted earlier remarks from Birx that she did not trust the data she received from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during her tenure, specifically pointing to delays in information regarding the race and ethnicity of COVID fatalities. 

“First and foremost, in March of 2020, all of our data that I used to warn Americans of who was at risk for severe disease, hospitalization, and deaths came from our European colleagues,” Birx replied. “That in itself should be an indictment of our system.”

Birx also said that her requests to CDC to improve its system and develop partnerships with clinics, hospitals, and laboratories went unheeded. 

“The private sector is willing to help us, you know, they have people working in these communities. They want everyone to do well to thrive and survive,” Birx said. “And so I think we’re just not tapping into the system that the United States utilizes for health care delivery and because of that, there’s extraordinary delays, and critically, there’s incomplete data.” 

Birx’s remarks come after CDC Director Rochelle Walensky announced last week that the agency plans to overhaul its system, saying that “it didn’t meet expectations” following an internal review of the agency’s shortcomings in its COVID-19 response. 

When asked about on Sunday the latest CDC changes, Birx said that transparency is key for the agency to rebuild its trust with the public. 

“Well, the way you rebuild public trust is be transparent. And I think that’s in the report: better data, better accountability, better transparency. But they also have to believe, and this gets to the culture piece, people can understand complicated issues,” Birx said.  “It’s your job as a public health official.”

Source Article from https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/3609714-birx-says-early-pandemic-warnings-came-from-europe-that-in-itself-should-be-an-indictment-of-our-system/

“We will move forward to wrap this up as expeditiously as possible, and then move on to the budget resolution,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer after the vote. “The two-track process is moving along. It’s been a process that has been a very good process. It’s taken a while, but it’s going to be worth it.”

A total of 18 Senate Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, joined all 50 Senate Democrats to advance the physical infrastructure bill. Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) supported ending debate, after previously voting against moving forward.

Meanwhile, Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), who is up for reelection in 2022, announced he would oppose the bill, citing concerns about the national debt. Young was part of a larger group of 20 senators that supported the bipartisan infrastructure talks.

Prior to the vote Sunday evening, senators spent the weekend trying to negotiate amendments changing the infrastructure bill’s cryptocurrency regulations and allowing coronavirus aid money to be spent on infrastructure. But they did not reach an agreement.

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) said Saturday that he would not allow the infrastructure bill to pass more quickly, dampening the Democratic majority’s enthusiasm for allowing the GOP to have more amendment votes. The Senate has considered more than 20 amendments to the bill thus far, but attempts to vote on two dozen more fell apart on Thursday night after Hagerty refused to expedite the bill as a condition of the deal.

Hagerty on Sunday afternoon attempted to bring up 17 amendments by unanimous consent, but Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) objected, citing his refusal to come to a time agreement and potential objections from other senators.

Other GOP senators also tried unsuccessfully on Sunday to bring up their own amendments.

“We have wasted all day Thursday, Saturday and now through Sunday,” said an exasperated Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). “That’s enough time to vote on a multitude of amendments, and we just sat around those three days, accomplishing nothing.”

Grassley voted against ending debate Sunday, citing his complaints about the amendment process. However, he told reporters after that he’d still support final passage. The infrastructure bill could theoretically be amended after Sunday’s vote. But that would require cooperation from all 100 senators, making the prospects unlikely.

Among the amendments senators were calling for prior to Sunday’s vote was one from Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) that would loosen restrictions on coronavirus aid money so that states and cities can spend it on infrastructure. And Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) was also pushing for a $50 billion defense infrastructure fund.

While Senate passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill is imminent, the legislation still faces an uncertain future in the House. Democratic moderates are already pressuring Speaker Nancy Pelosi to take the legislation up immediately, though Pelosi and many progressives want to wait until a Democratic-only social spending bill also passes the Senate. That bill cannot be filibustered by Senate Republicans in the evenly split chamber.

Pelosi and Schumer have devised a two-track process to enact as much of Biden’s domestic agenda as possible, pledging that the bipartisan infrastructure bill will only advance if it is married to the party-line legislation that will spend as much as $3.5 trillion on climate change action, paid leave policies and health care expansion.

The Senate will immediately proceed to a budget setting up that massive bill on filibuster-proof ground after it completes its work on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Schumer is also considering forcing votes on more elections legislation after Democrats’ sweeping overhaul plan failed in June.

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/08/biden-infrastructure-bill-senate-502785

“Because I’ve had cancer, and right now I have multiple sclerosis,” Mr. Cavuto continued, “I am among the vulnerable 3 percent or so of the population that cannot sustain the full benefits of a vaccine.”

Mr. Cavuto told viewers that Fox had not explained his prolonged absence — according to a Fox spokeswoman, he had not been on the network since Jan. 10 — because the network was “honoring my wishes, out of respect for my privacy.” But, he added, “this did drag on a long time for me, so you do deserve an explanation from me.”

The network has come under criticism after some of its popular hosts, including Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, and their guests have falsely suggested that vaccines could be dangerous. Compared with them, Mr. Cavuto has been an outlier.

After recovering from Covid late last year, Mr. Cavuto appeared on the Fox program “Media Buzz” to discuss his experience. “I’d like to urge people of all sorts: Please get vaccinated,” Mr. Cavuto said at the time.

He received a diagnosis of cancer in the 1980s, a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in 1997, and had heart surgery in 2016, the network reported. Because of his medical history, Mr. Cavuto said, he, like “plenty of people” at Fox and another companies, was susceptible to Covid.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/business/media/neil-cavuto-covid-vaccines.html

Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/08/30/midwest-storms-michigan-indiana-power-outages/7937311001/

Both former President Trump and the Department of Justice proposed four individuals who could serve as the special master in the review of the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago by the FBI in August.

The big picture: With their candidates, Trump and the DOJ have staked out different positions on the scope of the special master’s potential review.

Details: Trump and the DOJ each proposed two candidates for the position after Judge Aileen Cannon‘s ruling earlier this week.

  • Trump’s team wants the special master to consider all the classified documents and keep executive privilege in mind when conducting their review, the Washington Post reports.
  • The DOJ said the special master should not review all the 100-plus classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago, per the Washington Post.
  • The DOJ doesn’t want the special master’s review to consider if documents should be covered by executive privilege because that “cannot be claimed by a former president — or from one part of the executive branch to another,” according to WaPo.
The DOJ’s special master candidates

Barbara S. Jones — a retired judge who was nominated by former President Bill Clinton.

  • Jones previously served in the Southern District of New York, per NPR.
  • She previously worked on similar special master cases for Trump allies Michael Cohen in 2017 and Rudy Giuliani in 2021, according to the New York Times.
  • Jones currently works at Bracewell LLP, where she focuses on investigations and mediations.

Thomas B. Griffith — a retired appeals judge who was nominated by former President George W. Bush.

  • He previously worked in the federal district court in Washington, D.C., according to NPR.
  • Griffith currently works at Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP.
  • He authored opinions on administrative and congressional investigation cases.
Trump’s special master candidates

Raymond J. Dearie — a former federal judge picked by former President Ronald Reagan.

Paul Huck Jr. — former general counsel to then-Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. He served as Florida’s deputy attorney journey.

What’s next: Both sides will respond to either candidate Monday, per NBC News.

Go deeper: DOJ and Trump’s legal team submit special master proposals

Source Article from https://www.axios.com/2022/09/10/doj-trump-mar-a-lago-special-master-candidates