Tillis calls on Cabinet to invoke 25th Amendment after ‘painful’ Biden debate

 Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) called on President Biden’s cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to potentially remove him from office after Thursday’s debate performance that included a number of halting answers and raised concerns on both sides of the aisle just months ahead of Election Day.

Tillis, a member of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) leadership team, wrote in a letter to the Senate GOP conference that Thursday’s meeting between Biden and former President Trump makes the “discussion” about the president’s ability to serve “a necessity.” He added that if Biden does not step aside on his own, the cabinet should take matters into their own hands. 

“If Biden cannot speak coherently, articulate his policies, and is unfit to perform after weeks of preparation, how will he perform when America is truly tested by a national security crisis, the kind of historic, high-stakes test his predecessors have been confronted with?” Tillis wrote in the letter, which was sent to members Friday. 

“I believe Biden is a decent man who cares about the country,” he continued. “However, time catches up with everyone, and it’s clear his decline is more dire than people realized and the White House has not been as truthful nor transparent as it should have been.”

The North Carolina Republican added, “Biden is unfit to continue serving as leader of the free world. While he is already well on track to lose the election in November, a lot can still go wrong between now and January 20, 2025.”

The senator argued that Biden should step aside “for the sake of the country.”

“If he is unaware of his own unfitness to continue serving, the Biden cabinet should consider invoking the 25th Amendment, in which the cabinet can vote to transfer powers and authorities from the President to the Vice President,” he wrote.

Along with being part of the GOP leadership team, Tillis is also widely considered one of the most bipartisan members in the Republican conference and has been involved in a number of key talks throughout Biden’s term in office. 

Tillis is also the first in the upper chamber to issue such a call post-debate. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Friday told reporters that the cabinet should consider the 25th Amendment option but did not go as far as Tillis.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) added that he would file a resolution calling on Vice President Harris and the Cabinet to declare Biden incapable of fulfilling his presidential duties. 

Unsurprisingly, Biden’s campaign showed no signs of slowing down Friday as he appeared at a rally in North Carolina and referenced that he has slowed in recent years. 

“Folks, I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to,” Biden said at a rally in Raleigh. “But I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know what millions of Americans know: When you get knocked down, you get back up.”

Tillis added to The Hill that the rally did nothing to assuage his fears and that the debate was more indicative of who he believes the president is right now, raising fears of how he could deal with an “existential threat in the Situation Room.”

“It was painful, and I truly feel bad for President Biden,” he wrote. “Cognitive and physical decline is a normal part of the aging process for many people.” 

“But displaying that decline in front of hundreds of millions of Americans is most certainly not normal,” the senator added. “Especially when your day job is serving as the nation’s commander-in-chief.”

According to the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, the vice president and a majority of Cabinet members can vote to declare a commander in chief “unable to discharge the powers and the duties of his office” and hand the duties of the president to the vice president.

A dispute by the president about his capacity to fulfill the duties of the office would send the question to Congress. Lawmakers could decide to give the vice president the powers of the presidency via a two-thirds vote of both the Senate and House.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4747562-thom-tillis-joe-biden-presidential-debate-2024-election-25th-amendment/

'CDC Recommends New COVID-19 Vaccines For Nearly All Americans'

 by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on June 27 recommended forthcoming COVID-19 vaccines for virtually all Americans.

“CDC recommends everyone ages 6 months and older receive an updated 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccine to protect against the potentially serious outcomes of COVID-19 this fall and winter whether or not they have ever previously been vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine,” the agency said in a statement.

The COVID-19 vaccines now available, which are also broadly recommended, target the XBB.1.5 strain. But observational data indicate they provide short-lived protection against COVID-19 infection and hospitalization.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials, acting on advice from their advisers, recently directed vaccine manufacturers to produce COVID-19 vaccines with updated formulations.

Updated vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna will target the KP.2 variant, while an updated shot from Novavax will target the JN.1 variant.

The updated formulations are expected to be available in September.

CDC advisers earlier Thursday unanimously advised the CDC to recommend the forthcoming vaccines to virtually all Americans, even though no clinical efficacy or safety data are available for them.

Data from animal testing suggest that the vaccines trigger higher levels of antibodies than the shots currently available, manufacturers said previously.

CDC advisers considered a risk-based recommendation that would only say certain groups receive one of the vaccines but ultimately opted for what is known as a universal recommendation.

Dr. Jamie Loehr, one of the members, said before the vote that the cost-effectiveness of vaccinating young people, who are generally at little risk from COVID-19, had him leaning towards a risk-based approach. He changed his mind, though, after listening to a presentation from a CDC researcher.

Dr. Denise Jamieson, another member, said that members should not “get too caught up in cost-effectiveness currently.” She said, “If we compare it to other vaccine-preventable diseases it seems like a really good investment.”

Each dose of a new shot could cost up to $130, according to estimates presented during the meeting.

Pooled effectiveness estimates from studies of the currently available vaccines, which target the XBB strain, and the last slate of shots, which were bivalent, found that effectiveness against hospitalization due to COVID-19 was below 50 percent, the original threshold laid out by regulators.

Researchers with the CDC and other institutions have also found the protection wanes over time, one reason U.S. officials have turned the COVID-19 vaccine model into a once-a-year update similar to the influenza vaccination program.

Many Americans took the original COVID-19 vaccines but most have opted against receiving the newer shots. As of May 11, just 14.4 percent of children and 22.5 percent of adults have received one of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines, according to CDC surveys, which also found that many doctors have stopped recommending the shots because they’re focused on promoting other vaccines and worry recommending COVID-19 vaccination could increase hesitancy among patients to receiving the other vaccines.

Experts said in Thursday’s meeting that the message needs to be that people need another shot.

“We have to keep saying that over and over and over again—you need this year’s vaccine to be protected against this year’s strain of the virus,” Carol Hayes, who represents the American College of Nurse-Midwives as a liaison to the CDC panel, said during the session.

The CDC estimated that up to 116,000 hospitalizations from COVID-19 will be prevented over the next year with universal vaccine recommendations, assuming an initial 75 percent effectiveness against hospitalization.

The effectiveness was projected in certain scenarios to drop to 50 percent after three months, the CDC said.

The KP.2 strain is the dominant strain in the United States as of May 25, according to CDC data. The closely related KP.3 strain, and the JN.1 variant, are also causing a number of cases.

Modeling through June 22 projects the rise of a new strain called LB.1.

A spokesperson for the CDC told The Epoch Times recently that LB.1 “has the potential to infect some people more easily based on a single deletion in a spike protein“ but ”there is currently no evidence that LB.1 causes more severe disease.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/cdc-recommends-new-covid-19-vaccines-nearly-all-americans

Iran Threatens Israel With 'Obliterating War' If It Attacks Lebanon

 Iran's mission to the United Nations has put Israel and the world on notice, saying that if Israel launches an all-out war against Hezbollah in Lebanon the whole region will burn.

A Friday statement from Iran's ambassador warned the UN that any "full-scale military aggression" in Lebanon against Hezbollah will mean that "an obliterating war will ensue."

The Iranian statement continued by emphasizing that "all options, including the full involvement of all resistance fronts, are on the table" in a statement posted to X. 

By "resistance fronts" Tehran means the militias it supports in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen will also ramp up their military activities. On a few occasions, Iraqi Shia militias have launched missiles and drones against southern Israel, as have the Houthis, with limited effect.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has acknowledged this week that a "seven front war" could open up, in reference to all of Iran's proxies across the region. 

For years already, Israeli jets have been regularly attacking 'Iranian assets' inside Damascus, also in a continued effort to weaken Assad, despite the presence of Russia's military primarily in the northwest coastal region.

Israel has meanwhile continued to pound Hezbollah positions in south Lebanon, amid continued fears of a bigger war at any moment. The US has even sent amphibious military ships closer to Israel and Lebanon in the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to evacuate Americans if a bigger conflict ensues.

The Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper wrote Saturday, "In the past few hours, warplanes attacked several Hezbollah targets, including a military site for the organisation in the Zabqin area, two operational infrastructure sites in the Khiam area, and a Hezbollah building in the al-Adissa [Odaisseh] area."

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has told Israel and its allies that a war with no limits will ensue if Israel attempts to invade southern Lebanon. Some Israeli officials fear that the IDF could be stretched too thin if this happens, considering it's still in the thick of anti-Hamas Gaza operations in the south.

Most analysts agree that Hezbollah is far more capable a paramilitary and guerilla force than Hamas, or any other Iran-linked group in the region for that matter. In the 2006 Lebanon war, there were reports that IRGC operatives were on the ground in Lebanon assisting Hezbollah.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/iran-threatens-israel-obliterating-war-if-it-attacks-lebanon

'No Progress in Gaza Ceasefire Talks With Israel, Says Hamas Official'

 A senior official of the militant Islamist group Hamas, Osama Hamdan, said on Saturday there has been no progress in ceasefire talks with Israel over the Gaza war.

The Palestinian group is still ready to "deal positively" with any ceasefire proposal that ends the war, Hamdan told a news conference in Beirut.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2024-06-29/no-progress-in-gaza-ceasefire-talks-with-israel-says-hamas-official

Alternative for Germany Reports Surge in Membership

 Leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany on Saturday reported a surge in membership and vowed to build on its success in the European Parliament election as it targets wins in three state votes in the east this year.

The AfD jumped to second place in nationwide polls last year amid frustration with infighting in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition and worries over sluggish growth in Europe's largest economy and the war in Ukraine.

While a string of scandals and anti-extremism protests has dampened support in recent months, the nationalist, eurosceptic party nonetheless came second with 15.9% in the European vote this month, ahead the three parties in Scholz's coalition.

AfD membership had grown by 60% to 46,881 members since January 2023, co-chief Tino Chrupalla told nearly 600 delegates at the party's convention in the western city of Essen. Some 22,000 people had joined the party while 4,000 had left it.

"Despite all the harassment you have to endure as a member of the AfD, this is an absolutely sensational figure," Chrupalla told the party convention.

The figure is still a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of members that the big tent parties in Germany, Scholz’s Social Democrats and the opposition conservatives, boast.

The congress was held despite resistance from city authorities - marked by the rainbow and EU flags flying on the flagpoles outside the convention centre - and thousands of protesters who sought to prevent AfD delegates from making it there.

It will run until Sunday, the same day neighbouring France holds the first round of a snap parliamentary election that could bring the far right to power.

"We will not be intimidated," said co-chief Alice Weidel. "We are here and we are here to stay."The AfD is on track to come in first place in elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg in September, according to polls, which will likely further complicate governance there as other parties refuse to form a coalition with it.

In discussing the party's policy platform, Weidel said AfD allies should oppose the disbursal of tax payer money to the "debt states" of Europe and the idea that Ukraine belongs to the European Union, after it opened membership talks this week.

The AfD is on course to form a new political group in the European Parliament - a move which would require 23 MEPs from at least seven EU countries - after being expelled from the Identity and Democracy grouping last month, Weidel said.

The ID expelled the AfD after its lead candidate for the European elections said the Nazi's Waffen SS were "not all criminals", a move costing the party both funding and the platform in parliament.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2024-06-29/far-right-alternative-for-germany-reports-surge-in-membership

Chip Roy demands Kamala remove Biden via 25th Amendment

 Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) is pushing to force President Biden out of office via the 25th Amendment.

The U.S. lawmaker from Texas introduced legislation this week that would urge Vice President Kamala Harris to bring together executives of the executive cabinet and jointly declare Biden unfit to continue as president.

Roy introduced the resolution on Friday "calling on Vice President Kamala D. Harris to convene and mobilize the principal officers of the executive departments of the Cabinet to activate section 4 of the 25th Amendment to declare President Joseph R. Biden incapable of executing the duties of his office and to immediately exercise powers as Acting President."

President Joe Biden stands at his podium during the first presidential debate of the 2024 elections between himself and former president Donald Trump at CNN's studios in Atlanta, Georgia. (Kevin D. Liles for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

The resolution claims that Biden "has repeatedly and publicly demonstrated his inability to discharge the powers and duties of the Presidency, including, among others, the powers and duties of the Commander-in-Chief."

Section 4 of the 25th Amendment authorizes the vice president and a majority of the executive cabinet to make the decision whether the president is fit to continue in office or not.

Biden has faced severe backlash following a disastrous debate performance on Thursday in which the president was seen visibly confused, mouth agape, and frequently unable to complete sentences.

President of the United States Joe Biden and Former President Donald Trump participate in the first Presidential Debate at CNN Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Biden appeared tired and unfocused at times during his 90-minute face-off with Trump. At one point, Trump fired back, "I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either."

Some Democrats have floated the idea of pulling Biden out of the Democratic primary at the last second, despite the fact he's been the overwhelming winner of every state.

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks at a post-debate campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina.  (Allison Joyce/Getty Images)

Such a radical move would certainly lead to legal battles, voter confusion, and a last-minute scramble for a new candidate to connect with the American people.

Republicans have seized the moment as vindication after years of questioning the president's mental acuity but being denied by the mainstream media and political insiders.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/chip-roy-demands-kamala-remove-biden-via-25th-amendment

Boeing in Talks with DOJ to Resolve Charges Over Safety Lapses

 

• Boeing failed to comply with prosecution deal over two crashes
• Victims’ families urged DOJ to charge Boeing with crimes

Boeing Co. is in talks with the US Justice Department to resolve potential charges stemming from two fatal crashes of its 737 Max jetliners, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

The settlement could be announced as soon as next week and is expected to include imposing a corporate monitor on the world’s second-largest planemaker, according to the people, who asked not to be identified disclosing confidential discussions. DOJ prosecutors want to bring charges against Boeing, but it isn’t clear if the company will agree to plead guilty, the people said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-29/boeing-in-doj-talks-to-resolve-charges-over-safety-lapses