June 16, 2023

Friday, June 16, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

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Joe is always busy.

Green groups give Biden an early endorsement.

League of Conservation Voters and Sierra Club among four environmental groups to back Biden’s reelection effort

"Many of you have been with me throughout my career and I can't tell you how much it means to have your support again," President Joe Biden said, taking the stage after the endorsement was announced.

Four of the nation’s biggest environmental advocacy groups officially endorsed President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign Wednesday night, an early declaration of support that also served as a show of appreciation for having passed the most significant climate legislation in history last year.

Biden trekked across town from the White House to receive the endorsement in person, speaking at the League of Conservation Voters’ annual fundraising dinner in a concert venue along Washington’s southeastern waterfront.

“Many of you have been with me throughout my career and I can’t tell you how much it means to have your support again,” Biden said, taking the stage after the endorsement was announced. “Together we’ve made a lot of progress, but we’ve got to finish the job.”

The backing of the four major green groups — LCV, NextGen PAC, NRDC Action Fund and the Sierra Club — was no surprise, especially after last year’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which included $370 billion in subsidies for clean energy projects.

But it does mark the first time the groups have jointly announced a presidential endorsement. And for Biden, running virtually unopposed for the Democratic nomination despite widespread concerns from within the party about his age, it may be the first of several such announcements to be rolled out early — locking in key advocacy groups and party constituencies at a moment when the nascent campaign is still being developed.

The president is scheduled to travel to Pennsylvania for a political event Saturday with union leaders, an event that will reportedly coincide with another major endorsement from the AFL-CIO, the labor behemoth that has never before backed a presidential candidate this early in the election cycle. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report that the endorsement was in the offing.

At Wednesday’s dinner, environmental advocates lauded Biden for signing several executive orders on climate during his first days in office and bringing environmental justice groups into the policy-making process. They also praised him for successfully shepherding a major climate package through Congress that has reshaped U.S. industrial policy around clean energy, drawing $200 billion in new investments to launch more than 130 projects in more than 30 states. (Politico).

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Air quality on the East Coast expected again to be challenging this weekend.

Smoke From Canada Wildfires Is Returning to New York.

The smoke is expected to be thickest on Friday morning, but forecasters said the region would be spared the orange haze that settled last week.

A week after a thick plume of smoke choked the air in New York City, delaying flights, closing schools and sending people to hospitals with respiratory issues, another round of eastward winds is pushing Canadian wildfire smoke toward the East Coast.

Smoke from the hundreds of wildfires burning across Canada is expected to return to the New York area starting late Thursday, according to the National Weather Service office in Upton, N.Y. On Wednesday, the smoke settled in the Upper Midwest, pushing the Air Quality Index to unhealthy levels in much of Minnesota, including Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The good news is that “the vast majority of the smoke should remain aloft,” the Weather Service said on Thursday.

Bill Goodman, a Weather Service meteorologist in Upton, explained in an interview on Thursday that the smog would not be as dense as it was last week, when New York’s skyline nearly disappeared in a thick, orange haze. This time, he said, the smoke “will be experienced as hazy skies,” and “the smoke at the surface should be negligible.”

“It might be a nice red sunrise in the morning,” he said.

The smoke will arrive late Thursday, Mr. Goodman said, with the highest concentration of smoke would settle in the air above New York City early Friday morning, Mr. Goodman said. He said that the Weather Service relies on a smoke model that runs a 48-hour forecast four times a day to see where the smoke will travel and how it will disperse, in the air and near ground level.

Clouds were also expected to increase late Thursday night, with wind gusts up to 25 miles per hour in the tristate area, according to the Weather Service.

Last week, winds carried smoke to New York and much of the Eastern United States, blanketing the region with a haze that disrupted daily life and made the air dangerous to breathe.

As a consequence, New York City experienced its worst air quality on record; the Air Quality Index quickly rose from “unhealthy” to “very unhealthy” and, finally, to “hazardous.”

At midday on Thursday, the air quality in New York was “good” according to AirNow, a website and app run by the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal and state agencies that gives real-time Air Quality Index readings. The extended Air Quality Index forecast on the website of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation indicated that the A.Q.I. for the New York City area would reach 65 on Friday, putting it in the “moderate” range.

In the Midwest on Thursday morning, the Air Quality Index in Chicago was 137, or unhealthy for some. An air-quality alert was in place through Friday in Minnesota because the unhealthy air was expected to span from Minneapolis and St. Paul in the east to the state’s western border. (New York Times).

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The Dobbs verdict which overturned Roe v. Wade is about to turn one year old. Roe is not forgotten.

Nearly a year later, most Americans oppose Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe.

Protesters filled the street in front of the Supreme Court after the court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. Nearly a year later, 61% of respondents to a new Gallup poll said overturning Roe was a "bad thing."

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A growing majority of Americans support legal abortion in at least the early months of pregnancy, but the public has become more politically divided on the issue, according to a new Gallup poll.

The data, released days before the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision that overturned decades of precedent, suggests continued growth in public support for abortion rights. It comes at a time when many states are implementing new restrictions, which often include only limited exceptions for medical emergencies.

50 years after Roe v. Wade, many abortion providers are changing how they do business.

50 years after Roe v. Wade, many abortion providers are changing how they do business

A year after Dobbs, 61% of respondents said overturning Roe was a "bad thing," while 38% said it was a "good thing."

Lydia Saad, Gallup's director of U.S. social research, says overall, the data suggests that Dobbs "galvanized people who were already supportive of abortion rights. ...We've seen an increase in Democrats identifying as pro-choice, supporting abortion rights at every stage. It's really a very defensive posture, protecting abortion rights in the face of what they view as this assault."

Long-term data from Gallup indicates growing support for abortion rights: 13% of survey respondents said abortion should be illegal in "all circumstances," down from 22% when the question was first asked in 1975. In this year's survey, 34% said abortion should be legal "under any circumstances," up from 21% that first year.

For decades, a slight majority of the American public – 51% this year and 54% in 1975 – has made up a middle group which says that abortion should be legal "only under certain circumstances."

Support for legal abortion wanes as a pregnancy progresses, but the survey found record-high support for abortion access in the first trimester, at 69%.

Saad said she believes that reflects growing dissatisfaction with laws in some states that restrict abortions around six weeks of pregnancy or earlier.

"We've crossed a line where having abortion not legal, even up to the point of viability ... is just a step too far for most Americans," Saad said.

The poll also found a deepening partisan divide on the issue of abortion; 60% of Democrats said it should be "legal under any circumstances," up dramatically from 39% as recently as 2019. Just 8% of Republicans, meanwhile, say the procedure should be legal in all circumstances, a number that has been on a long-term downward trajectory.

Gallup also is releasing data that suggests strong and growing support for legal access to the abortion pill mifepristone, which is at the center of a federal court case filed by anti-abortion-rights groups seeking to overturn the Food and Drug Administration approval of the pill.

The survey found that 63% of Americans believe the pill should be available with a prescription. According to Gallup, after the FDA approved a two-drug protocol involving mifepristone in 2000, 50% of Americans said they supported that decision.

The survey was conducted from May 1-24 among 1,011 adults as part of Gallup's Values and Beliefs poll. (NPR).

To read the Gallup Poll detailing the current positions American take on abortion, click here.

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Worrying about Judge Cannon? Does this help?

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In case you missed Biden’s root canal. In case you missed Katie Porter whomping Fox.

Rep. Katie Porter Shuts Down Fox News Reporter’s Attack On Biden Without Breaking Stride.


Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) had a short, sharp response to a Fox News reporter who approached with a question about the unexpected root canal procedure that President Joe Biden underwent earlier this week.

Hillary Vaughn noted to Porter how Biden “had to take off work” for the treatment, then appeared to push the right-wing talk point that Biden isn’t fit for office when she asked: “Do you think he has the stamina for a second term?”

Porter, without breaking stride, replied: “Have you ever had a root canal?”

The moment went viral on Twitter, garnering millions of views.

Porter, who is running for a seat in the Senate next year, later shared a video of the exchange.

She wished Biden a “speedy recovery.”

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We lost Cynthia Weil. Carole King honored her.

Carole King Remembers ‘Fierce’ Competition With Friend and Fellow Songwriting Great Cynthia Weil: ‘Oh My God, We Have to Do Better!’

Cynthia Weil on the left. Carole King on the right. Gerry Goffin at the piano.

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Grammy-winning Songwriters Hall of Fame member Cynthia Weil — who co-wrote “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” “On Broadway,” “Make Your Own Kind of Music,” “Walking in the Rain,” “You’re My Soul and Inspiration,” “Uptown,” “He’s So Shy,” “Kicks,” “Here You Come Again,” “Through the Fire,” “Somewhere Out There” and many other hits, mostly with her husband and Brill Building colleague Barry Mann — died earlier this month at the age of 82.

She was one of the top “Brill Building” songwriters that came out of the Midtown Manhattan building of the same name (although much of the work actually was done a couple of blocks uptown at 1650 Broadway) and spawned literally hundreds of hits throughout the 1960s for the Righteous Brothers, the Ronettes, the Drifters, the Monkees, the Animals, multiple Phil Spector productions and many others. Along with Mann — to whom Weil was married for some 62 years — the coterie included another young married couple, Carole King and the late Gerry Goffin.

Following in full are the remarks King (pictured above, right, in 1959 with Mann and Weil) gave at the celebration of Weil’s life, held on June 11 in Los Angeles, in which she remembers their decades-long friendship, their early years and the friendly yet fierce sense of competition they felt in those days.

Gerry Goffin and I had already signed with Aldon Music when we first met Barry and Cynthia In New York in the early 60s. They were giddy in love, and we quickly realized that Cynthia’s gift with words was the perfect match for Barry’s soaring melodies.

The four of us became close friends — we went to dinner, movies, theater, or we just hung out. We’d laugh about the silliest things, and we’d call each other by our first syllable. I was Ca, my husband was Ger, and they were Cyn and Ba.

Concurrently, we were fierce competitors to be the team that got the follow-up for an artist with a No. 1 hit.

Here’s how it worked. Donnie Kirshner had these cubicles, each with a piano and a bench, a chair for the lyricist, a few pens, a legal pad, and an ashtray. So, when Mann and Weil and Goffin and King were writing in adjacent cubicles, when I stopped playing, Gerry and I could hear what they were writing. And we’d look at each other and say, “Oh my God, we have to do better.”

Later, we learned that Barry and Cynthia did the same. And here’s how the competition went.

Gerry and I had our first hit with “Will You Love Me Tomorrow.” [the Shirelles, Billboard Hot 100 No. 1, 1961 — this and the following songs have been covered thousands of times, and many charted multiple times as well]

Barry and Cynthia wrote “Uptown.” [the Crystals, No. 13, 1962]

We said, “Okay. ‘Up on the Roof.’” [the Drifters, No. 5, 1962]

They said, “Oh, yeah? ‘On Broadway.’” [the Drifters, No. 9, 1963]

We came back with “Oh No, Not My Baby.” [Maxine Brown, No. 24, 1964]

And they said, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling.” [the Righteous Brothers, No. 1, 1964 — and later ranked as the most-played song on American radio and TV in the 20th century]

Game over!

As you know, all four of us went on to write many more hit songs. In fact, one of the phrases each of us often heard was, “I didn’t know you wrote that!”

Can I tell you a little secret? I had one of those moments last week, when I read an article listing ten songs with lyrics by Cynthia Weil. One of them was “Through the Fire,” which she wrote with David Foster and Tom Keane. In addition to being blown away by Chaka Khan’s performance, every time I heard the song I’d think, “What a great lyric!” Of course it was.

So, I’ve been talking about Cynthia as a fellow songwriter, but we all knew her as a friend, including her family.

My friend Cynthia loved me so much that she came to visit me in a log cabin in the Idaho backcountry with no running water, no electricity, and no dust ruffle on the bed.

She was chic, strong, and brilliant — and she fought to be recognized not just as a lyricist but as the equal of any man in the music business. And she fought to stay with us right down to the wire.

Rest well, dear warrior. (Variety).