Today's Final Thoughts
Top story - Sometime tonight the House will pass the covid relief plan and send it over to the Senate, where lawmakers will alter it. The House will then need to approve the amended bill before sending it to President Biden’s desk. Democrats are racing to finish the package before March 14, when certain types of federal unemployment assistance are set to expire. The relief plan, which is loaded with progressive pork would enhance and extend federal unemployment benefits, provide $350 billion to state and local governments, send a $1,400 check to many Americans and fund vaccine distribution, among other measures.
US air strikes hit an Iranian supply network on the Syrian border. The strike, which used 2 Air Force jets to demolish about 9 buildings, probably empty of Iranian personnel was in retaliation for an Iranian strike on a US base in Iraq. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the U.S. had warned the Russian military four or five minutes ahead of the airstrike, through a hotline set up between the two sides. Somehow that was a Joe Biden show of force.
Arrests on the southern border surge. The number of unaccompanied immigrant children arrested for crossing the U.S. southern border illegally is on pace to rise more than 50% in February compared with the previous month, people familiar with the matter said, raising the prospect of a humanitarian crisis there. About 2,200 children have been illegally crossing the border weekly in February, and the pace is picking up speed as the month progresses, some of the people said. The government is projecting that about 9,000 children will be taken into custody by the end of February. Joe Biden gave them the signal and they are coming.
Vaccination effort reaches 14% of US population. About 47.2 million people having received one or more doses, or 14.2% of the population, according to the CDC. Did anyone think at the height of the pandemic back in the spring last year that so many would be vaccinated? I received my first vaccination yesterday. Thank you Donald Trump.
Btw, today was the opening of CPAC and Ted Cruz got things rolling!
"The Republican Party is not the party just of the country clubs. The Republican Party is the party of steelworkers and construction workers and pipeline workers and taxi cab drivers and cops and firefighters, and waiters and waitresses and the men and women with callouses on their hands who are working for this country. That is our party and these deplorables are here to stay," Cruz said to loud cheers.