“Newly unsealed court documents and other records show that Merck & Co and U.S. regulators knew about reports of suicidal behavior in men taking the company’s anti-baldness treatment Propecia when they decided not to warn consumers of those potential risks in a 2011 update of the popular drug’s label. Internal records from Merck were made public in late January, when a federal magistrate in Brooklyn, New York, granted a 2019 Reuters motion to unseal 11 documents filed in years of litigation alleging Propecia caused persistent sexual dysfunction and other harmful side effects. Since the 2011 decision on the warning, the FDA has received more than 700 reports of suicide and suicidal thoughts among people taking Propecia or generic versions of the drug. Those included at least 100 deaths” Reuters reports.

“Why I’d never take the hair loss drug President Trump uses” from Stat News in 2017.

The National Suicide Prevention Hotline in the U.S. is available 24 hours a day at 1-800-273-8255. Call them if you need to talk to someone.

Nancy takes Kevin down one notch, alphabetically. From Business Insider’s Grace Panetta.

“McDonald’s on Wednesday said that it has entered its final phase of testing a U.S. loyalty program before it launches nationwide later this year. The fast-food giant has successful rewards programs in other countries, like France, but this is the closest it’s come to bringing one to its home market. In November, the company began testing in Arizona and Nevada. It added restaurants in New England to the test several weeks ago. As of Wednesday, roughly 900 locations out of McDonald’s 14,000 U.S. restaurants are part of the test” CNBC reports.

“MyMcDonald’s Rewards members earn 100 points for every dollar that they spend and have the opportunity to earn even more points with targeted promotions, like double points for visiting on a Monday. The program is split into four tiers – 1,500, 3,000, 4,500 and 6,000 points – for different redemption opportunities across 16 menu items.”

Monmouth: “More Americans express concern about the impact of Covid-19 now than at any time during the pandemic according to the Monmouth University Poll. President Joe Biden gets positive marks for his first steps in dealing with the crisis, although most continue to say the American public is not doing its part. A bare majority of the public is ready to get the coronavirus vaccine as soon as it is available to them, while others take a wait-and-see attitude and a sizable 1 in 4 say they will avoid getting the vaccine at all if they can help it.”

“Half (50%) of the public plans to get the Covid vaccine as soon as they are allowed. Those willing to be at the front of the line represent a majority of American adults when combined with the 6% who report already receiving the vaccine. Another 19% say they would prefer to let other people get it first to see how it goes. However, 24% say it is likely they will never get the vaccine if they can avoid it. Democrats are most eager to get the vaccine as soon as possible (72% when combined with those who already got the vaccine) – much more so than independents (51%) and Republicans (39%). More than 4 in 10 Republicans (42%) say they will avoid ever getting the vaccine if they can, which is significantly higher than the number of independents (25%) and Democrats (10%) who feel the same.”

#AlexandriaOcasioSmollett

— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) February 3, 2021

Denver Post: “U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert paid herself more than $22,000 in mileage reimbursements from her campaign account last year. Boebert’s campaign defends the reimbursements but three ethics experts who reviewed the money transfers for The Denver Post say they raise questions. Candidates for federal office can legally reimburse themselves for miles driven in personal vehicles using the Internal Revenue Service’s mileage rate, which was 57.5 cents per mile for 2020. The Republican congresswoman from western Colorado wrote two checks totaling $22,259 from her campaign coffers for mileage between January and mid-November.”

“To justify those reimbursements, Boebert would have had to drive 38,712 miles while campaigning, despite having no publicly advertised campaign events in March, April or July, and only one in May. Furthermore, because the reimbursements came in two payments – a modest $1,060 at the end of March and $21,200 on Nov. 11 – Boebert would have had to drive 36,870 miles in just over seven months between April 1 and Nov. 11 to justify the second payment. ‘This highly unusual amount of mileage expenses raises red flags and the campaign should feel obligated to provide answers,’ said Kedric Payne, a former investigator for the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent body in Congress that examines misconduct allegations.”

“Let’s be clear: this is a desperate smear rooted in racism, misogyny, and Islamophobia. Marjorie Taylor Greene has incited violence against her fellow Members of Congress, repeatedly singling out prominent women of color. She actively encouraged the insurrection on the Capitol that threatened my life and the life of every Member of Congress, and resulted in multiple deaths. She ran a campaign ad holding an assault rifle next to my face. She came to the Capitol demanding that me and Rep. Tlaib swear in on the Christian bible instead of the Quran.”

“The House Republican Caucus, instead of holding her accountable, is now fanning the flames. Republicans will do anything to distract from the fact that they have not only allowed but elevated members of their own caucus who encourage violence. It’s time to stop whitewashing the actions of the violent conspiracy theorists, who pose a direct and immediate threat to their fellow Members of Congress and our most fundamental democratic processes” – Press release via Rep Ilhan Omar’s House.gov website.

Taking the lead in the fight against climate change, Germany has cut its greenhouse gas emissions by more than 40% from 1990 levels, the country’s economic minister announced, according to the Associated Press.

Peter Altmaier, the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, said that German greenhouse gas emission 42% since 1990, a level he claims would have been hit even without the economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic.  The German population has increased 6% in the last 30 years.

German companies can trade emissions credits throughout the entire European Union, and Germany will implement a similar program intranationally.  The EU goal is to have net neutral emissions by 2050, and Germany itself said that it will increase its use of renewable energies and zero-emissions vehicles to 28% of the transportation sector in the next ten years.

“Leader Hoyer just announced: The House will vote tomorrow on whether to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments” reports MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin.

Washington Post: “The Biden administration is looking at whether it could make public White House visitor logs from early last month, a step that could reveal whether people connected with the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol visited 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. ‘I’m not even sure if it is technically possible. That feels like the first question. So let me talk to our technical gurus and see what I can find out,’ said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.”

“We already know that some of the most prominent people spreading the baseless conspiracy theory that Trump was cheated out of reelection darkened the West Wing’s doorstep in his waning days: My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, retired general Michael Flynn, and Sidney Powell. But the logs could flesh out more fully who was bending the president’s ear and shaping his mind in the run-up to the deadly Capitol riot. Still, it’s unclear whether it’s legally possible for the current administration to release visitor logs from the former one. The Secret Service maintains the logs, which are formally known as the White House Worker and Visitor Entry System (WAVES). In May 2020, the Trump administration won a Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that visitors to the White House and to Mar-a-Lago could stay secret. “

The Department of Justice has dropped a lawsuit brought against Yale University claiming that white and Asian-American students were discriminated against in undergraduate admissions because it admits students of other races ahead of them, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The case was brought by the Trump Administration after conservative media repeatedly voiced complaints that white people were being deprived admission to elite “politically liberal” universities because the schools choose to admit applicants who may have weaker academic records to increase diversity in their student bodies.

As private institutions (which even state schools are), universities may determine their own selection criteria, which can include race as a criteria in admission so long as protected classes are not explicitly discriminated against.

While DoJ is dropping this suit, an investigation into whether Yale is complying with federal guidelines for eligibility requirements continues.

“The Canadian government will list the Proud Boys as a terrorist entity, according to a source. Announcement expected at 12:30” reports the Toronto Star’s Alex Boutilier.

Daily Beast: “President Joe Biden has reassured House Democrats that he is committed to his COVID-19 relief package in its current form, and that despite his ‘cordial’ meeting with Senate Republicans on Monday night, ‘the idea that we’re going to go out and compromise and go from a trillion-nine to six hundred billion is just not in the cards.’ Biden’s remarks, made on a call with House Democrats on Wednesday morning, a recording of which was obtained by The Daily Beast, is the surest indication yet that he plans to push for passage of the ‘American Rescue Plan,’ his $1.9 trillion relief package to address the coronavirus pandemic and the damage it has done to the nation’s economy, through the budget reconciliation process. That process, which allows the Senate to pass budget-related legislation through a simple majority, would circumvent attempts by Republicans to filibuster the relief plan.”

“‘We’ve got to be up to the moment,’ Biden said on the call. ‘That’s what the American people, I think, are expecting of us, and frankly, that’s what they have a right to expect. And that’s why I’ve asked for the package proposed.’ Biden took particular exception to the Republican proposal on direct payments to cash-strapped Americans. Under his plan, direct payments would begin at $1,400 per person, as well as for dependents, gradually phasing out for individuals with a gross income of more than $75,000. Under the Republican plan, those payments would be cut to a $1,000 maximum, phasing out for individuals who made more than $40,000 in taxable income, with a $50,000 cap. The president said that proposal would leave out almost the entire middle class, which he called a non-starter. ‘Who are we helping is just as important as who’s being left out,’ Biden said on the call. ‘I don’t think we need to be in the business of helping those folks making three hundred grand a year, but a family making 60, 70 grand, maybe 80, who’s barely hanging on, middle-class folks?'”

CNN’s media reporter Brian Stelter has some interesting takes on CNN and MSNBC beating Fox News in the ratings in January, or putting it another way, Fox News watching its viewership plummet:

• “Think about it this way: January was one of the biggest months of political news in a generation, yet Fox couldn’t capitalize. Instead of competing by promoting correspondents and putting news coverage front and center, the network prioritized ever more outrageous, ever more extreme opinion. ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ essentially expanded to ‘Tucker Carlson Day and Night.'”
  Read More ▶ “CNN’s Stelter on Fox News ratings plummet”

The midterms are going to be a shitshow for the right wing if Trump moves forward with his plan to create a MAGA-Patriot-Nationalist-White-Identity Party, whatever he wants to call it. This is a very rough analysis, but based on a benchmark of 25% to 30% of 2020 Republican voters being open to switching to a Trump-led third party, we can start to picture what 2022 is going to look like:
There are 34 seats up in 2022, 20 Republican and 14 Dem. My estimate – based off the 2010 Midterm turnout wherever possible, 2016 otherwise – is that if a third-party MAGA candidate runs in each, Republicans would lose every seat except Lisa Murkowski’s in Alaska, with 8 flipping to the Dems and 10 going to the MAGA Party. The only true tossup here is Kentucky, as Rand Paul would have still edged out his Dem opponent by about 4,000 votes if a quarter of his vote total in 2010 had gone to a Conservative third party candidate.

There are a lot of other factors to consider here – the candidates themselves, if the seat is open, which GOP incumbents would switch to the MAGA party and bet that their past voters would still stick with them, just to name a few – but hopefully this is a good starting point for looking at the impact of a right wing schism in the Senate. The bottom line is it’s really not good news for the GOP. I’ll leave it to someone smarter to look at how things would turn out in the House, because even though the easy answer of a similar outcome is probably the correct one too, it’s a lot more complicated due to the unknowns of redistricting.

The coronavirus vaccine produced by AstraZeneca has shown to provide p to 76% protection against the virus for up to three months after a single dose is administered, boosting the ability of health care providers to inoculate more people and possible expand the time needed before a second booster dose must be administered, the Washington Post reports.

In other findings, the AstraZeneca vaccine helped stop those who received the vaccine from transmitting the virus, an important discovery that may help the country slow the spread of the virus.

Initial studies also show that the vaccine has also provided some protection against the British variant of the coronavirus, dubbed “Eeek” by researchers because of its rapid spread in the population.  The Eeek variation alters parts of the virus targeted by most vaccines, making it harder to combat through existing vaccines.

Having won 50 seats in the Senate thanks to pulling out two long-shot elections in Georgia, Democrats will finally take control of the chamber, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday morning, Politico reports.

Nearly a month after the Georgia runoff elections were decided, Schumer and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell came into agreement on an organizing resolution for the Senate that will allow Democrats to take over Senate committee chairmanships and run operations in the Senate.

While the seats are split, the Democrats control the Senate thanks to Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who holds the job of President of the Senate, casting the deciding vote with Democrats.  The organizing agreement would largely avoid the need for the VP to have to physically be in the Senate to cast a vote for administrative votes.

In a 346-page report released last week, General Accountability Office auditors stated they were “deeply troubled” by the lack of attention the Trump Administration was giving to ways to improve the response to the coronavirus pandemic, the Washington Post reports.

That statement alone stands in stark contrast to normally dispassionate, objective analysis of government programs by the GAO, which is characteristically analytical and dull in its in-depth reviews.

The GAO report found that nearly 90% of the recommendations it made in its last three quarterly reviews for tasks like increasing the availability of PPE and testing had remained unimplemented by January 15, 2021, less than one week before Donald Trump left office.

Jonathan Bernstein, Bloomberg: “The trial brief submitted by Donald Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday leans heavily on the claim that a former president, having been impeached, is no longer subject to a Senate trial. That’s not a particularly strong argument, but it is a legitimate one with some scholarly support, and in practical terms it’s clearly the best they have – given that 45 Republican senators have already indicated that they’re inclined to buy it and clearly would rather talk about such constitutional provisions than about what Trump did in the final 10 weeks of his presidency. What I found more interesting in the brief was an argument that, if we attribute it to Trump (and not just to lawyers throwing anything they have at the wall and hoping it sticks), helps underline exactly why he was such a bad president. What’s fascinating here is a ‘free speech’ claim: that Trump’s various attempts to subvert the election were protected by his First Amendment rights, and therefore not subject to legitimate impeachment.”

“Trump treated the presidency as a prize he had won, but in fact it was a job he was hired to do. Yes, the Constitution gives great latitude to the occupants of the office as to exactly how they perform their duties. And yet at the end of the day, the president is only an employee – and he or she is only one of many people hired to collectively govern the nation. Trump never seemed to understand that. Perhaps that’s why he accomplished so little over his four years in office, with most of his achievements already melting away.”

“During a two-hour meeting Tuesday night with Greene, McCarthy explained to the QAnon supporter that her controversial past statements were coming to a head. The problem, McCarthy told her: Democrats are threatening to force a vote to remove her from her committees – and that puts the entire GOP Conference in a bad spot. McCarthy tried to give Greene options, according to a person familiar with their talk: She could denounce QAnon and apologize publicly for espousing hurtful conspiracy theories and endorsing violence on Democrats. She could remove herself from the panel to spare her colleagues a vote on the matter. Or, she could face removal from her own GOP peers.”

“It must not have gone as well as McCarthy hoped, because he then called a late-night meeting with the panel that designates committee assignments to discuss removing Greene. According to our sources, the room agreed that a House vote on this issue would be catastrophic politically for their members who are already angry at being associated with Greene’s crazy statements. That must be avoided, they concurred” – Politico.