DML Morning Briefing ~ Fri. Sept. 16

Today is September 16. Below are some of the stories grabbing headlines this morning. I hope you share this briefing as doing so will make you the smartest person in the room.

1. President Joe Biden receives another boost in his approval rating
FOX News— An AP-NORC poll suggests that President Joe Biden has a 45% approval rating, up nearly ten percentage points from a July poll that found he had a 36% approval among Americans. Despite the boost, Biden received a 53% disapproval rating.

Biden’s approval has been on the rise since signing several new bills into law, including the Manchin-Schumer climate bill, labeled the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

The poll was conducted from September 9-12, 2022 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

MY TAKE: Unreal. Here’s what one of the participants, Christine Yannuzzi from Binghamton, New York, said: “I don’t think he’s mentally, completely aware of everything that’s happening all the time. The economy’s doing super poorly and I have a hard time believing that the joblessness rate is as low as they say it is.” So how are his approval numbers getting better? SMH.

2. Texas board denies posthumous pardon for George Floyd

ABC News— HOUSTON — A Texas board on Thursday declined a request that George Floyd be granted a posthumous pardon for a 2004 drug arrest made by a now-indicted ex-Houston police officer whose case history is under scrutiny following a deadly drug raid.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles in October 2021 had initially decided to unanimously recommend that Floyd become just the second person in Texas since 2010 to receive a posthumous pardon from the governor.

But before Texas Gov. Greg Abbott could make a final decision in the case, the board in December reversed its decision, saying that “procedural errors” were found in its initial recommendation in Floyd’s case and it needed to reconsider more than a third of a group of 67 clemency applications it had sent to Abbott.

“After a full and careful review of the application and other information filed with the application, a majority of the Board decided not to recommend a Full Pardon and/or Pardon for Innocence,” the board wrote in a letter it sent Thursday to Floyd’s attorney, Allison Mathis, with the Harris County Public Defender’s Office in Houston.

Washington Examiner— Authorities arrested 141 people across Southern California with alleged ties to online child sex abuse following a weeklong sting operation that spanned five counties, officials said Wednesday.

The operation, dubbed “Protect the Innocent,” was spearheaded by the Los Angeles Regional Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force of the Los Angeles Police Department and took place on Sept. 6-12, according to a news release from the LAPD. The operation included arrests in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Ventura, and Santa Barbara counties.

The arrests followed an increase in online child sexual abuse reports, which coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“When we first started in 2004, we started LAPD’s ICAC because we received 458 tips that year,” Capt. Jeff Bratcher told the Los Angeles Times. “In 2019 that number rose to 8,500. In 2020, 2021, both years, were over 24,000. This year so far, we’re over 25,000, so we should end the year with over 36,000 cybertips. And each one of these tips was one more potential child victim.”

MY TAKE: A drop in the bucket. Evil abounds. But good work and praise God that some progress was made.

4. Royal insiders say ‘common sense has prevailed’ as Palace give green light for Prince Harry to wear uniform in special vigil at Westminster Hall on Saturday – with Prince Andrew also allowed to don colours alongside siblings on Friday

Daily Mail— A decision to allow Prince Harry to wear his military uniform during a special vigil in honour of the Queen was last night branded a victory for ‘common sense’.

It comes after reports claimed that Princes William and Harry are set to take part in a special vigil in honour of the Queen on Saturday.

The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Sussex will reportedly join the Queen’s six other grandchildren in a special 15 minute vigil at Westminster Hall.

It is believed the eight grandchildren will pay respects to the Queen by standing in silence beside Her Majesty’s coffin – in a scene which will mirror the Vigil of the Princes.

MY TAKE: I think this is the right call, too. He is a veteran and whatever his mistakes, his service should be honored.

5. WHO ‘strongly advises against’ use of two COVID treatments

Reuters— Two COVID-19 antibody therapies are no longer recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), on the basis that Omicron and the variant’s latest offshoots have likely rendered them obsolete.

The two therapies – which are designed to work by binding to the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 to neutralise the virus’ ability to infect cells – were some of the first medicines developed early in the pandemic.

The virus has since evolved, and mounting evidence from lab tests suggests the two therapies – sotrovimab as well as casirivimab-imdevimab – have limited clinical activity against the latest iterations of the virus. As a result, they have also fallen out of favour with the U.S. health regulator.

On Thursday, WHO experts said they strongly advised against the use of the two therapies in patients with COVID-19, reversing previous conditional recommendations endorsing them, as part of a suite of recommendations published in the British Medical Journal.

MY TAKE: I, for one, do not rely on WHO for advice on my health and well being. Call me silly. I do rely on supplements like DML CBD. That said, here’s an offer from DML.