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Republicans are seizing on backlash to new mask and vaccine mandates
CNN
Republicans have found a new boogeyman in the battle for the House: the nation's top public health agency.
As Republicans head back to their districts for the August recess, they are hammering the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and seizing on the backlash to new mask and vaccine mandates -- part of a GOP-wide effort to use the fears and frustrations of Americans worried about another round of school closures and lockdowns as cudgels against their Democratic opponents. Those were the dominant themes of a House GOP news conference right before the summer break, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, continued to beat that drum on Tuesday, firing off a new letter to the Capitol physician and saying in a separate statement that President Joe Biden has "threatened a return to lockdowns and government-mandated restrictions for American citizens."
The retired Air Force general announced as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by President Donald Trump after the abrupt Friday night firing of his predecessor is a respected career F-16 pilot who is described by current and former officials who served with him as a professional with a “strong moral center.”
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Over the past 10 days, Vice President JD Vance put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on notice, rattled the confidence of century-old allies in Western Europe during his first foreign trip, decamped to Capitol Hill to help in delicate budget talks and delivered a spirited defense of the Trump administration’s first month to a gathering of conservatives outside the nation’s capital.