60% of Republicans strongly or somewhat support President Biden's COVID relief package, according to a Morning Consult/Politico poll.

On Wednesday, Greene, perhaps best known for her embrace of QAnon conspiracy theories in the years leading up to her winning an unopposed congressional race last November, tweeted a video of herself posting a transphobic sign outside the office of Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL), whose daughter is transgender.
 
“Our neighbor, @RepMarieNewman, wants to pass the so-called ‘Equality’ Act to destroy women’s rights and religious freedoms. Thought we’d put up ours so she can look at it every time she opens her door,” says a tweet from Greene’s congressional account, above a video of her affixing a sign to a door outside Newman’s office that reads, “There are TWO genders: Male & Female. Trust The Science!”

On the House floor, Marjorie Taylor Greene claims she was a "victim" of the January 6 insurrection she encouraged, then adds, "the Equality Act is not about stopping discrimination. It's about causing discrimination against women and religious freedoms."

When the Democratic presidential debates were held in Miami back in June 2019, several candidates visited the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children, an unlicensed and for-profit detention center that held thousands of migrant children who came to the U.S. without their parents throughout the administrations of presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. The shelter became the subject of national scorn because of reports of sexual abuse, negligent hiring practices, overcrowding, and human-rights violations. Some children described crying themselves to sleep at night, worrying they would never be released.

The Democratic candidates and campaign representatives who visited Homestead that summer — Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro, Kirsten Gillibrand, Marianne Williamson, Elizabeth Warren, John Hickenlooper, Bill de Blasio, and Tulsi Gabbard, plus Bernie Sanders' wife and adviser Jane — made some speeches, stood on ladders to get a look at the shelter behind a tall fence, and summoned the attention of national media outlets.

Conspicuously absent was Joe Biden, who announced his candidacy for president in April 2019 and served as vice president when the Obama administration opened the shelter in 2016.

Just a few months after the Democratic debates, the shelter was shuttered in October 2019. But this morning, the Miami Herald reported that the Biden administration plans to reopen the Homestead center, which is now called the Biscayne Influx Care Facility.

Immigrant-rights and social-justice groups who previously ran a grassroots campaign to shut down the facility are already decrying the decision to reopen the shelter.

Lis-Marie Alvarado, director of the American Friends Service Committee in Florida, one of the organizations that advocated for the center to be shuttered, tells New Times the Biden administration has no business reopening the facility.

"This is not a place for children," Alvarado says. "This is a place that is going to be impossible to maintain COVID safety regulations. We're already putting these children in danger. This detention center doesn't have safety measures for hurricanes. The operators hire random people who don't have experience or knowledge on how to work with children, especially children facing trauma from leaving their home countries. They're at risk of getting sexually assaulted, and many of them did. They have zero access to education. They just draw on little papers the whole day and play soccer. There is zero investment in them."

Alvarado says she's disappointed that her organizations and others will have to fight the same fight, but she says they'll do everything in their power to block the detention center from reopening.

"I condemn the actions of the Biden administration for being a hypocrite and calling for family reunification while at the same time opening these influx centers," Alvarado says. "His rhetoric may not be anti-immigrant, but his actions are. This is shameful, disgusting, and indefensible."

Ryan Lizza @RyanLizza
 
Mitch McConnell just said on Fox News that if Donald Trump is the GOP presidential nominee in 2024 then he will support him.

Cheney's take on Trump highlights GOP split about future
 
Rep. Liz Cheney is staking her claim as a new thought leader for the GOP, seizing on her role as the Republicans' Trump critic-in-chief while the party navigates its post-MAGA future.
 
(...)
 
There are three clear camps emerging now that Trump has left office.
 
The anti-Trump Republicans, including Cheney, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and, newly, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The middle: Lawmakers like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who have a foot in both camps.
The pro-Trump camp: The senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruzes of the world.

Cheney (R-Wyo.) is arguably in a more interesting position than many others because she is one of the few women leading the charge and because of her age.
 
Unlike McConnell and Romney, who are closer to the end than the beginning of their political careers, Cheney still has much of her future to chart.
 
(...)
 
Driving the news: Cheney laid down her marker Tuesday when she delivered her first big speech following the referendum about whether she should remain in House leadership after voting to impeach Trump.
 
"It's very important for us to ignore the temptation to look away," Cheney said during remarks at a Reagan Institute event. "And it's very important, especially for us as Republicans, to make clear that we aren't the party of white supremacy."
 
(...)
 
A person close to Cheney told Axios she's not embracing this role for political reasons, and her comments are motivated by her obligation to the Constitution and "principled beliefs."

On Wednesday, Cheney publicly broke with McCarthy just moments after he told reporters he thinks that Trump deserves his planned speaking slot at this weekend's Conservative Political Action Conference.
 
When a reporter asked Cheney the same question, she replied: "I don't believe that he should be playing a role in the future of the party or the country."
 
(...)
 
Cheney's anti-Trumpism is risky.
 
More than half of Republicans would still support Trump in a GOP primary if he were to run for president again, according to a Morning Consult/Politico poll released in February — more than a month after the Jan. 6 Capitol assault.
 
(...)

U.S. strikes Iran-backed militia structures in Syria
 
The United States on Thursday carried out an airstrike against facilities in Syria linked to an Iran-backed militia group, the Pentagon announced.
 
The state of play: The strike, approved by President Biden, comes "in response to recent attacks against American and Coalition personnel in Iraq, and to ongoing threats to those personnel," Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in a statement.
 
What they're saying: "The proportionate military response was conducted together with diplomatic measures, including consultation with Coalition partners," Kirby said.
 
(...)

BREAKING: Senate parliamentarian rules that an increase to the federal minimum wage cannot be included in the Covid-19 relief bill.
 
It does not surpass the “merely incidental” impacts on the budget, she rules, according to one Democratic source familiar with the ruling.
 
Senate parliamentarian rules that a provision to increase the federal minimum wage as part of the Covid-19 relief package violates the rules and cannot be included.
 
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/co [...] e-n1258913

Bernie announces his next move: An amendment to take tax deductions away from large corporations that don't pay above $15-an-hour wages. Wants it IN the reconciliation bill

Les Etats-Unis mènent des frappes en Syrie, première opération militaire sous l’ère Biden

Americans of all ages, education levels, genders, races and political parties say they're more likely than not to get the coronavirus vaccine — except Republicans.
 
Why it matters: Vaccine hesitancy is higher among white Republicans than any other demographic group, and it hasn't been improving much as the vaccination effort continues, according to Civiqs polling.
 
By the numbers: 41% of Republicans say they don't plan to get a vaccine if it's available to them. Only 33% say they do plan to get vaccinated.
 

• 70% of Democrats and a plurality of independents (47%) say they plan to get vaccinated.
• White Americans are now less likely than Black and Latino Americans to say they plan to get the vaccine.

Between the lines: States' levels of vaccine hesitancy correlate strongly with their politics, according to CoVaxxy, a project by Indiana University's Observatory on Social Media.
 

• Blue states have lower rates of vaccine refusal than red states, and battleground states are generally somewhere in the middle.
• Wyoming, North Dakota and Mississippi have some of the highest rates of vaccine refusal, while Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut have some of the lowest.

The bottom line: The virus doesn't care about politics, and it certainly won't confine itself to states with the largest unvaccinated populations.
 

• High rates of vaccine hesitancy among any group threatens our collective progress against the pandemic, meaning that it's just as important to reach white Republicans as it is to reach other hesitant groups.
  

Le promeneur de chiens de Lady Gaga a été agressé le mercredi 24 février à Rome dans la soirée par des hommes armés. Touché à la poitrine, il a été transporté à l'hôpital dans un état grave

Un homme employé par Lady Gaga pour promener ses chiens - trois bouledogues français répondant aux noms de Gustave, Koji et Asia - a été blessé par balles le mercredi 24 février aux alentours de 22 heures près de son domicile à Hollywood,