Good morning, it’s Monday, May 3, 2021. Over the weekend, Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos became the latest swing district Democrat to announce her impending retirement. Then, Texas Democrats in a district southwest of Fort Worth splintered their vote, thereby botching any chance they had of picking up a House seat in a special election.
In non-political news, a horse named Medina Spirit won the Kentucky Derby, a record seventh time trainer Bob Baffert has won the “Run for the Roses.” Baffert’s horse won in 2020, too, and with the same rider John Velazquez who was in the winner’s circle on Saturday. This was the fourth Derby win for Johnny V.
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President Donald Trump says he is going to veto the National Defense Authorization Act and is spending his final days in the White House interested in a campaign to pressure members of Congress to join a futile effort to overturn the 2020 election. | Patrick Semansky/AP Photo
Good morning, it s Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020. Six years ago today, members of the 113
th Congress awoke to the news that their year-end job approval rating in a new Gallup poll was a paltry 15%. This was not quite as embarrassing as the 14% figure an all-time annual low racked up the year before. That year, 2013, had featured a 17-day government shutdown, which resulted in the single lowest job approval figure in congressional history: a November rating of 9%.
But in the spirit of the season, let’s focus on a happier event that took place on this date.
On Dec. 16, 1901, Edward and Emily Mead of Philadelphia welcomed a baby girl into their lives. From an early age, their daughter was smart and spunky. Her father, who taught economics at Penn, wasn t quite sure what to make of a girl so intellectually precocious. “It’s a pity you aren’t a boy,” he once told her. “You’d have gone far.”