Mercosur Digital

The TAKE with Rick Klein

President Joe Biden’s promise as a candidate was to bring stability after chaos — and his approval rating through the first six months of his time in office was nothing if not stable.

Then came August, and there that went. A wild month of national, international, meteorological and epidemiological events leaves Biden at the low point of his presidency, after an acutely low stretch for the country.

Biden’s approval rating is down to 44% in the new ABC News/Washington Post poll out Friday morning, with 51% disapproval. His approval rating is down a striking 9-point drop among independents, and 10 points among men.

Afghanistan is the proximate cause — notwithstanding fresh details about former President Donald Trump’s late efforts to remove troops long before Biden did, as reported Friday by ABC’s Jonathan Karl.

China is intensifying its stringent campaign to clean up their airwaves.

Lawmakers in Beijing announced on Thursday that entertainers with “incorrect political positions” shall be prohibited from appearing on broadcasts as part of sweeping new restrictions to make Chinese media a more “patriotic atmosphere” for fans, Reuters has reported.

Their message included criticism that the industry supports an “effeminate” male image, to the detriment of Chinese men, they said.

The National Radio and Television Administration of China also intends to put the squeeze on stars’ outsized salaries while encouraging such entertainment tycoons to volunteer to aid public welfare programs.

Recent Chinese celebrity scandals, from tax evasion to sexual assault, may have prompted leaders to make big moves, the Reuters report suggests, as the Communist Party’s publicity department slammed the industry for “severely polluting the social atmosphere,” they said in a statement.

There is plausibility to this notion. The consensus narrative goes something like this: After Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, it triggered passionate opposition from the pro-life constituency, while pro-choicers grew complacent as the years went by. Abortion foes consistently were more focused on the issue — and the allied issue of Supreme Court appointments. Now, with Roe on life support, the pro-choice majority will take to the polls in greater numbers. In Virginia, ex-Gov. Terry McAuliffe, in a close race to regain his old job, is already making the abortion issue a central argument in his campaign.

But based on the last four decades, this argument may not be all that solid after all.

For one thing, it turns out that abortion was not really an instant trigger for conservative evangelical political engagement. As POLITICO detailed in 2014, the evangelical community was by and large supportive of abortion

Add in the Republican Party’s expanding assault on voting rights and a looming fight over raising government borrowing levels, and Democrats face a struggle to repay the faith of their 2020 voters. And that’s without horrendous tests from a pandemic that is again filling hospitals, targeting unvaccinated Americans — including, increasingly, kids who have been left waiting on regulators — and looking likely to dog the White House deep into midterm election year.

The President has issued stirring and even angry demands for action on voting rights and abortion rights. But a 50-50 Senate and a new conservative Supreme Court majority severely limit his options — unless he is prepared to embrace the political earthquakes of

A national coalition of stateside Puerto Ricans say they “are deeply disappointed” that President Joe Biden’s task force on the island won’t weigh in on the ongoing congressional debate over the island’s political status.

Power 4 Puerto Rico, a group that advocates for federal policies and legislation that address Puerto Rico’s recovery and economic growth, sent a letter to Biden on Wednesday.

According to a copy of the letter obtained by NBC News, the group said that while they are pleased by efforts to bring back a “working group that is meaningfully empowered to coordinate Puerto Rico federal policy” that also addresses reconstruction challenges, “it would be negligent of the task force” to ignore one of “two major underlying structural barriers to Puerto Rico’s prosperity: 123 years of U.S. colonialism.”

A month ago, Biden revived a White House Puerto Rico task force to advance rebuilding efforts in the U.S.

Good Friday morning.

ICYMI — Dr. Scott Rivkees is exiting the Ron DeSantis administration.

Florida’s phantom surgeon general is on his way out the door.

Rivkees will leave his position when his contract is up on Sept. 20

“We thank Dr. Rivkees for his meaningful work during the most challenging pandemic of our lifetime. We appreciate his service to the people of Florida and wish him the best in his future endeavors,” DeSantis press secretary Christina Pushaw said in a statement provided after Florida Politics first reported the news about Rivkees leaving..

A pediatric physician, Rivkees’ selection for Surgeon General in 2019 was panned due to his lack of public health knowledge.

Rivkees was largely absent from public view throughout the pandemic. One of the few appearances he made was noteworthy only because he was yanked from a panel for

Having seized control of Afghanistan, the Taliban told women to stay at home, supposedly for their own safety. America and other countries advised their citizens not to go to Kabul airport because of the imminent threat of a terrorist attack. The Taliban warned that there would be “consequences” if American troops remained beyond the evacuation deadline of August 31st. Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan’s former president, turned up in the United Arab Emirates. A group of fighters in the Panjshir Valley continued to resist the new regime. See here and here.

The World Bank suspended funding to Afghanistan, in part over concerns that the Taliban would interfere with development projects aimed at women. The IMF