Maternal Mortality Rates Aren’t That Bad If You Don’t Count Black People, Cassidy Argues

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Problem Solved

Sure, Louisiana has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the country, BUT “about a third of our population is African American; African Americans have a higher incidence of maternal mortality,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) told Politico. “So, if you correct our population for race, we’re not as much of an outlier as it’d otherwise appear.”

• Cassidy, for one, is puzzled as to why that racial disparity exists “for whatever reason.” (It’s been well-established that it’s because of income inequality, systemic racism in the American health care and various social barriers that put Black women at higher risk for pregnancy-related deaths.)
• Four Black mothers die for every white mother in Louisiana, as Politico notes.
• The figures are almost as grim nationally: Three Black mothers die from pregnancy-related causes for every one white mother.

Trump Shares Post On A Civil War

The ex-president went on a rampage on his fake Twitter platform, TRUTH Social, this weekend, and part of that rampage included reposting (“reTruthing”) a user’s apparent suggestion of “civil war” in response to a tweet posted by El Salvador President Nayib Bukele in March.

Biden Warns Of U.S. Military Involvement In Taiwan If China Invades

The President took a startling hard line against China right on its doorstep on Monday as he was holding a press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, saying “yes” when asked if he’d be willing to have U.S. troops get involved to defend Taiwan if China invaded it.

• Biden directly cited Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying that China using force against Taiwan would be “be another action similar to what happened in” the eastern European country.

• The White House tried to walked back Biden’s comment (or at least the forcefulness of it) later, saying that the President’s policy on China and Taiwan “has not changed.”

Giuliani Finally Talks To Jan. 6 Panel

Looks like former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani gave up his last-minute demands and agreed to speak to the House Jan. 6 Committee on Friday after all, following months of negotiations, per CNN and the New York Times. He reportedly decided to talk after the committee threatened certain “enforcement options” if he tried to duck out again.

• Giuliani had canceled his scheduled hearing at the 11th hour earlier this month, demanding that he be allowed to record the interview because he supposedly didn’t trust the committee members not to selectively edit their records of the hearing.
• Giuliani reportedly spoke to the committee for more than seven hours on Friday. At one point he reportedly took a break to host his radio show.

Dem Sen. Van Hollen Back Home After Stroke

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) announced on Sunday that he had been released from George Washington University Hospital, where he had spent several days after suffering a minor stroke.

John Fetterman Released From Hospital

Democratic Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman was discharged from the hospital on Sunday after recovering from a stroke. He spent nine days in the hospital and checked in only four days before winning the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania Senate.

Monkeypox Outbreak Not As Worrying As COVID, Biden Says

During his trip to Tokyo, the President said that the new outbreak of monkeypox doesn’t rise to the same “level of the kind of concern” as with the COVID-19 pandemic, given that there are vaccines for monkeypox.

Must Read

“Lara Logan, Once a Star at CBS News, Is Now One for the Far Right” – The New York Times

Teslas Are Catching On Fire And Elon Musk Fans Are Being Very Normal About It

A Vancouver man’s Tesla Model Y burst into flame as he was driving it on Friday, and the car’s electric power shut down, locking him in the vehicle as it burned. Thankfully, he was able to break the window and get out without serious injury.

But tsk tsk, acolytes of Tesla CEO Elon Musk say, didn’t it occur to the driver to read the manual and/or watch a YouTube tutorial on how to escape the burning death trap? Also, are we sure the fire was caused by the Tesla?

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