January 1, House members call for Nancy Pelosi to be removed

Good morning Middle America,

The House Freedom Caucus called on Minority leader Kevin McCarthy oust Rep. Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker, a move indicative of the growing tensions between the two parties. The conservative group sent McCarthy a letter asking him to introduce a motion “to vacate the chair and end Nancy Pelosi’s authoritarian reign as Speaker of the House” by July 31. “Speaker Pelosi’s tenure is destroying the House of Representatives and our ability to faithfully represent the people we are here to serve,” the Freedom Caucus wrote. The calls for removal come after Pelosi’s decision to reject Republican Reps. Jim Banks and Jim Jordan from the January 6 committee.

Over 100 patients in the US have been infected with an untreatable fungus that has claimed three casualties, federal officials say. The ongoing outbreaks of the “superbug” Candida auris at a Washington, DC nursing home and two Texas hospitals were reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “This is the first time we’ve seen clusters of pan-resistant C. auris, which suggests spread within U.S. healthcare facilities,” the CDC’s Dr. Meghan Lyman said. Nearly 600 cases were found throughout the US in 2019. “It looks spooky, and it is,” Sen. Chuck Schumer said in 2019. “It’s a fungus that has no cure, and it’s resistant.”

Political scientists found that polls regarding the 2020 elections overstated Democratic support “across the board” and downplayed support for Republicans and former President Donald Trump. “That the polls overstated Biden’s support more in whiter, more rural, and less densely populated states is suggestive (but not conclusive) that the polling error resulted from too few Trump supporters responding to polls,” the American Association for Public Opinion Research wrote of their findings. “A larger polling error was found in states with more Trump supporters.”

Three Republican House members have lost appeals challenging fines for neglecting to wear face coverings on the House floor earlier this year. The House Ethics Committee said Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and Ralph Norman of South Carolina still had to pay their $500 fines issued in May. The mandate, enacted by Nancy Pelosi, was lifted on June 11 for fully vaccinated members. In his appeal, Norman wrote that he “was following the direction of our nation’s top scientists that fully vaccinated individuals do not need to wear a mask.” Greene and Massie have not received a Covid vaccine.

The restaurant industry is experiencing tumultuous times. Workers say their workplaces are short-staffed and having a hard time maintaining the employees they do have. “People are just walking out in the middle of shifts,” said Joshuah Morton, a server at Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen. “[Hostesses who] seat the tables, the dishwashers, the bussers … they’ll walk out.” Others say that some people get hired and never show up, or they come in and quit after a week. John Miles, who has been the general manager at Provino’s for about 36 years, says that they’ve “never experienced the issues that we have now, like not having enough employees.”

In Alaska, a Coast Guard helicopter crew rescued a man after spotting an SOS sign on top of a shack. The man’s had been mauled by a bear days earlier, leaving him with an injured leg and torso. “The man reported that the bear had returned to his camp and harassed him every night for a week straight,” the Coast Guard said. Friends of the man, whose identity has not been made public, had reported him missing after he didn’t return to his home in Nome, Alaska. The Coast Guard took him to a local emergency room, according to a statement.

Sources

• House Freedom Caucus calls on McCarthy to attempt to remove Pelosi as speaker
• Deadly drug-resistant ‘superbug’ now spreading in 2 cities, CDC says
• Polls overstated Democratic support ‘across the board’ in 2020 elections, study shows
• 3 GOP House members lose appeals over $500 mask fines
• ‘People are just walking out in the middle of shifts’: What it’s like to work in a restaurant right now
• Repeatedly Confronted By A Bear, A Man Is Rescued After He Writes ‘SOS’ On A Shack