With promises broken home and abroad, the climate gets ever worse while Gov. Abbott makes a fool out of himself for the second time this year.

This episode features the song “Aside” by Normcore, available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Links to this weeks stories :

00:10 Senate democrats retreat on promise to raise minimum wage

• Facing pressure from moderate democrats in WV and Montana, democrats re-arrange spending 
• No more federal minimum wage raise
• 400 dollar unemployment bonus being cut to 300
• Failure to secure votes with no republicans crossing, and moderates wishing for less personal support to families 

08:05 Syria Bombs

• Biden admin approves air-strikes on northern Syria 
• Pentagon claimed 1 dead and 2 wounded, while international groups report 22 dead 
• With Shia militants as the targets, it threatened relations with Iran as the US and Iran aimed to meet at the UN later this week
• Post attack, the talks broke down even as Biden promised concessions to return to the 2015 JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) or the “Iran Deal” 

13:24 Texas Reopening 

• 100% capacity for all businesses
• Removal of the mask mandate 
• Prominent Texas democrats claim this is a strategy to shield from criticism over the handling of the power grid shutoff 
• Gov. Abbott faced same-party criticism following his mandate 8 months ago
• Leading scientists call the move “premature”, and could likely lead to spikes in deaths that have been decreasing over the past months 
• 13% of the population has gotten at least one vaccine shot