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Tell us again how advanced Canada is

For years, we have heard that Canada has a great health care system. When Hillary Clinton was first lady, she proposed we change our health care system to be similar to Canada. Fast forward to today. Our pharmaceutical industry has created and produced millions of doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. Yet Canada is still in the testing phase, and its pharmaceutical industry is not sure it has the capacity to produce enough vaccines for their population.

According to the latest reports, Canada was to start getting its first Pfizer vaccine doses from the U.S. in early May.

Tell me again how we should change to a national health care system. I am just thankful that Hillary and the Democrats have not nationalized our system although they continue to push the idea.

Kris Riefler

Postal service woes are piling up

Last Tuesday at 7 p.m., after eating at a local restaurant, I went to drop a couple pieces of mail in the outside mailbox at the post office. The box was totally full. I tried to push the letters down, but it was stuffed. What is going on? The mail is supposed to be taken in at the end of the day. I can't believe if it was emptied at 4:30 it could be that full, especially with two other boxes sitting next to it.

No wonder we receive late notices on bills that we have paid and put in the mail. People depend on this service. Not everyone has a computer to pay bills, nor do we all want to. Some people get their medicines through the mail.

You can't depend on this critical service anymore. The election cannot be blamed now. Something needs to be done.

Karen Dale

Hixson

Old Trump tweet epitome of irony

It's a sound slap across the face when an old tweet resurfaces to haunt the writer, especially when it's one you wrote after you became president.

The message Trump published shortly after he was elected president in 2016 ratified a comment made by Vladimir Putin about Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.

It reads: "Vladimir Putin said today about Hillary and Dems: 'In my opinion, it is humiliating. One must be able to lose with dignity.' So true!"

Nationwide, Biden led Trump by 7 million votes out of a record 158 million cast.

Wielding a wrecking ball to American democracy, Trump trudged away leaving bounteous disgrace in his wake.

Rod Killian

Press needs to put numbers in context

Day after day, news reporters have been citing India's rising and "staggering" 300,000 deaths from COVID-19 as the third highest in the world. In comparison, deaths are 589,893 in the U.S. and 449,068 in Brazil. But what do these numbers mean? There's no context for them.

For context, consider per-capita death rates per 100,000 people. It's 212 in Brazil, 179 in the U.S. and only 22 in India. Thus, if the U.S. had as low a death rate as India, it would have only 77,000 COVID-19 deaths instead of 500,000. Or, if India's per-capita death were as high as that of the U.S., India would be facing a truly staggering 2,360,000 deaths, not 300,000. In light of the math, it is misleading to say that COVID-19 deaths in India are third highest in the world.

Facts have meaning only in context. Unfortunately, far too much reporting ignores context and inconvenient facts in order to create false impressions of conditions and events. If that's how freedom of the free press works, who needs it?

Bob Miller

Signal Mountain

Why would Georgians host Greene, Gaetz?

I saw that Matt Gaetz and and Marjorie Taylor Greene were in Dalton. One of these (Greene) is a person Georgia chose to represent it. So this is who Georgians are? Aren't they embarrassed and want to kick this person out of office?

I have been in the state of Georgia one time since I moved to Cleveland 15 years ago. I am not going to give that state any of my money. Why do normal Americans always have to fight against power-hungry, corrupt and mentally ill people who make laws in this country? It is very clear that both of these people have mental issues.

If Georgians are no better than [hosting] these two people, we have our own enemies in our backyards. Maybe we will have to have that second Civil War if there are people in Georgia supporting these sickos.

Penny Furman

Cleveland, Tennessee

Consistency needed on transgender issue

A much needed spotlight of rationality on the growing tragedy of the politically correct issue of child abuse as it relates to so-called transgender children: Gender dysphoria is a recognized psychological disorder and as such should be treated with psychotherapy, antidepressants and antipsychotics as are other types of mental illness. Why then are physician-ordered puberty blockers, lifelong hormonal therapy, irreversible bodily mutilation, and further, requiring society to participate in this delusional charade, the only acceptable ways of handling of this solution?

Conversely, [columnist Leonard] Pitts has, in the past, written quite eloquently concerning the harm that health care professional-provided conversation therapy does to children confused about their sexuality. A little consistency on these issues by Mr. Pitts would be appreciated.

Gene Stevens

Tunnel Hill, Georgia

Time to rethink public ed spending

Alabama's governor makes decisions about 3rd grade reading requirements. Really? Tennessee's governor signs a well-intentioned bill seeking to govern what is actually taught in public school classrooms about the history of present-day race relations in America.

Does anyone actually believe that state governments can control what happens behind closed classroom doors? Only those who have never managed a classroom of real, live human beings could believe such nonsense. All of which points to the often-obscured reality that parents are most responsible for their children's education, and should they object to mismanagement or indoctrination in the public schools, they should not be required to subject their children to an educational system which violates their values. They should be able to take to a school of their choosing those thousands of local, state and federal dollars allocated to their child's education.

How are these decisions not a matter of justice in education? And what evidence is there that current attempts to manage from state capitals and Washington, D.C., what happens in the dynamic relationship between teachers and students are actually effective?

It's long past time to re-evaluate how we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the schooling of our children.

Gary Lindley

Lookout Mountain, Georgia

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Tell us again how advanced Canada is and more letters to the editors - Chattanooga Times Free Press

In the conservative book world, nothing is supposed to set off a gold rush like a new Democratic president. Ever since Bill Clinton inspired a wave of right-wing best sellers in the 90s, publishing houses that cater to Republican readers have learned to make the most of a new villain in the Oval Office, churning out polemics and exposs that aim to capitalize on fear of the new president.

Unless, that is, the new president is Joe Biden.

His presidency may be young, but industry insiders have told me in recent weeks that the market for anti-Biden books is ice cold. Authors have little interest in writing them, editors have little interest in publishing them, andthough the hypothesis has yet to be testedits widely assumed that readers would have little interest in buying them. In many ways, the dynamic represents a microcosm of the current political moment: Facing a new president whose relative dullness is his superpower, the American right has gone hunting for richer targets to elevate.

To some in the publishing industry, the apparent lack of appetite is bewildering. In the past, its been like taking candy from a baby to write a book about the Democratic president, one frustrated conservative editor told me, requesting anonymity to speak candidly about internal business practices. Now? Nobody is trying.

To others, though, the apathy makes sense. Eric Nelson, the executive editor at Broadside Books, the conservative imprint of HarperCollins, told me that the right-wing medias portrayal of Biden as a weak, addled old man is not conducive to book-length takedowns. Nobody who watches Fox thinks that Joe Biden is in charge of the country, Nelson said. The popular narrative on the right is that Biden is a kind of figurehead whose White House is actually being run by radical leftists behind the scenes. If somebody came to me and was like, I have a book on Bidens secret plan to destroy America, I would ask, How many times does the word nap appear in the index? Nelson said.

Ben Shapiro, the popular right-wing podcast host and author, echoed this sentiment. The president has a deeply nonthreatening persona, Shapiro told me. You kind of feel bad attacking him, honestly, because it feels like elder abuse.

Read: The resistances breakup with the media is at hand

Putting aside whether the perception of Biden as a bumbling geriatric bears any resemblance to reality, the fact that its so firmly embedded in the conservative media means that it will be difficult to dislodge. To gain literary traction on the right, a villain has to generate fear and outrage, not simply ridicule. Consider the past three decades of conservative best sellers. When Bill Clinton was on the cover, the books were laden with prurient (and in many cases dubious) details about his alleged affairs and personal corruption. When it was Barack Obama, the books portrayed himmany in barely veiled racial termsas a dangerous radical trying to transform America. And though she was never actually elected, the ominous prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency generated years worth of right-wing best sellers. (In 2006, when she was still a senator considering her first presidential bid, journalist Ben Smith wrote that Clinton had already been the subject of about 30 books, with a dozen more in the works, and compared the Hillary-book boomlet to the Da Vinci Code phenomenon.)

Jonah Goldberg, a former National Review columnist who has written several popular conservative books, told me it was never hard to make Hillary Clinton seem sinister to readers of a certain stripe. Hillary was a kind of Zelig figure of the post-60s left. Some of the associations were tenuous, but you could play the political equivalent of the Kevin Bacon game with her without needing more than one or two degrees of separation. Black Panthers! Communist law firms! Sidney Blumenthal! Saul Alinsky! Biden, an aging white guy who spent decades in the Senate, is by contrast somewhat boringly conventional.

And theres another problem, Goldberg told me: Most of the good ammo against Bidenwhich Ive deployed in the pastisnt as effective after four years of Trump. He says crazy things! He doesnt know what hes talking about! He has a ridiculous ego and lies about his brilliance and expertise! All of this is true. But all of that has been normalized by Trump. To a conservative movement that has been mainlining crazy for five years, its hard to get excited about measured criticism of Biden and his policies.

The right-wing marketplace has been radicalized, said Goldberg, who has been a vocal critic of the Trump-era GOP. Not just by QAnon-type stuff, but by years of anti-Clinton-and-Obama fare.

For now, the most successful conservative authors are training their fire on more abstract targets, such as wokeness and cancel culture. A quick review of recent best sellers suggests that ignoring Biden can work just fine. According to BookScan, which tracks most hardcover sales, Andy Ngos book on antifa, Unmasked, has sold more than 77,000 copies (an unqualified success in political nonfiction), as has Rod Drehers Live Not By Lies, which bills itself as a manual for Christian dissidents. The talk-radio host Mark Levins forthcoming American Marxismwhich will tackle, among other subjects, the widespread brainwashing of students, the anti-American purposes of Critical Race Theory and the Green New Deal, per its publisheris expected to be a massive hit when its released in July.

Shapiro attributes this trend to a broader shift that hes noticed in his audience. While conservatives may not care about Biden, he told me, they are petrified of the larger progressive forces they see at work in American politics. What people are afraid of right now are not powerful public figures. What people are afraid of are their bosses, their neighbors, that theyre going to get mobbed on Twitter and get socially ostracized. Shapiro is betting thats where the focus will stay: His own book coming out this summer will cover what he describes as the leftist takeover of every major institution.

Read: The conservatives trying to ditch fake news

Of course, conservative publishers are also grappling with an industry-wide problem: the end of the so-called Trump bump. After five years of best-seller lists being dominated by books about Donald Trumpfrom journalistic investigations to MAGA hagiographies to resistance-friendly tell-allsgeneral interest in political nonfiction could be coming back down to earth. And by deliberately positioning himself as an antidote to the drama of the Trump era, Biden may serve only to further cool the market.

Adam Bellow, an executive editor at Bombardier Books who helped popularize the anti-Clinton genre decades ago, predicted that some Biden-centric books will hit the conservative market eventually. But he told me that any attempted exposs may be hobbled by the relative lack of journalistic firepower on the right, which is heavy on pundits and light on reporters. One problem with conservative media is they dont have sources in this administration, he said. Nobody will talk to them.

Meanwhile, some in the conservative publishing world are determined to find a new bogeyman to fill the vacuum left by Biden. One possibility is Anthony Fauci, whose advocacy for COVID-19 restrictions has drawn ire from wide swaths of the right. (Faucian Bargain: The Most Powerful and Dangerous Bureaucrat in American History became a surprise hit when it was released in March, selling more than 68,000 copies.) But as the pandemic winds down in America, Faucis staying power as an antagonist is in doubt. Another option is Bidens son Hunter, whose personal life and controversial business dealings have been widely covered on Fox News. He is the subject of a forthcoming book, Laptop From Hell, slated for this September.

One conservative editor told me that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York might be the most logical choice, given the rights fear of socialism, but cited a unique challenge in making the congresswoman appear sufficiently menacing: Its hard to find a bad picture of her to put on the cover. Instead, the editor said, the smart money is on Vice President Kamala Harris, who could be reinvented in the right writerly hands as a devious puppet master pulling the strings of the affable, witless president. (Sound familiar?)

So far, though, no onein conservative publishing or the Republican Partyhas cracked the missing-villain problem. And it hasnt been for lack of trying. Last month, when the conservative author David Horowitz released his new book, The Enemy Within, the cover featured an array of would-be Democratic bad guys, including Harris, Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi, and so on. It was expected to be a hit; Horowitzs last booka vigorous defense of Trumphad sold more than 168,000 copies in hardcover alone. But apparently his readers werent as taken with his new cast of characters. As of this writing, The Enemy Within has sold 12,898 copies.

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Joe Biden and the Conservative-Book Bust - The Atlantic

Hillary Clinton. Getty

Jason Sullivan, social media adviser to Roger Stone, seemd to imply Hillary Clinton should be hanged.

Sullivan made a gesture appearing to resemble a noose while talking about Clinton at a QAnon conference.

The conference, lasting three days, has attracted crowds of supporters who cheered at Sullivans gesture.

See more stories on Insiders business page.

An aide to Roger Stone, a longtime friend and former adviser to Donald Trump, appeared to indicate at a QAnon conference over the weekend that Hillary Clinton should be hanged.

Referring to Clinton as a godawful woman who shall not be named, Jason Sullivan, Stones social media adviser, made a noose gesture with his hand on a stage. His action was received with loud applause from a crowd of QAnon gatherers.

A former attorney for Sullivan did not immediately return Insiders request for comment.

Clinton was Trumps Democratic rival in the 2016 presidential election. Trump frequently berated her using sexist and misogynistic remarks, and has continued to do so years after he won the election.

Even while campaigning for the 2024 election, Trump lambasted Clinton, taking every opportunity in front of a crowd to target her.

We went through the greatest witch hunt in political history, Trump told supporters at his official campaign launch in Orlando, Florida, in June 2019. The only collusion was committed by the Democrats, the fake news media, and their operatives, and the people who funded the phony dossier: Crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC.

In response to Trumps vitriolic behavior and remarks, lock her up chants often broke out among his supporters.

The QAnon conference is a three-day event that took place over the weekend in Dallas, Texas. Its main attraction was Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser under the Trump administration.

While up on stage, Flynn suggested to a crowd that there should be a coup in the United States that mirrors the one taking place in Myanmar.

Story continues

Hundreds have died since the military overthrew the democratically elected government.

Flynn in 2017 pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election. He received a pardon from Trump last year.

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An adviser to Trump ally Roger Stone appeared to gesture for Hillary Clinton to be hanged at a conference with QAnon attendees - Sports Grind...

Editor's Note: This is a roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out.

THE CLAIM: Airlines recently met to discuss the risks and liability of carrying passengers vaccinated against covid-19 since they could develop blood clots.

THE FACTS: There's no evidence major airlines had a recent meeting to discuss the risks of transporting vaccinated passengers or that flying will trigger extremely rare blood clots associated with some covid-19 vaccines, such as those manufactured by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca.

But a popular Instagram post spread misinformation on that topic.

"Airlines are meeting today to discuss the risks of carrying vaxed passengers due to the risk of clots and the liabilities involved," the false post states. "Oh the irony only the non vaxed can fly."

In response to the post, International Air Transport Association spokesperson Anthony Concil told The Associated Press: "I can confirm that this is nonsense. We do have a medical advisory group that looks at health and air travel issues. This is not an issue on their agenda."

Concil added: "As far as we are aware there are no meetings taking place among airlines on this topic." He also noted the IATA, a trade association for global airlines, is "not aware of any suggestion in medical literature" that the kind of rare blood clots linked to certain covid-19 vaccines has any impact on air travel. In fact, the types of blood clots that people can develop on airplanes, such as deep vein thrombosis, are "totally different" from the rare blood clots a small number of people developed after receiving certain covid-19 vaccines, according to Dr. Elliott R. Haut, associate professor of surgery and a deep vein thrombosis expert at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Haut said the rare blood clots associated with some covid-19 vaccines occur in unusual sites, forming in the veins of the brain or blood vessels in the abdomen.

Scientists noted some people might be experiencing an uncommon immune response, forming antibodies that attack their own platelets. Clots that develop on flights, such as deep vein thrombosis, typically form in the leg and are often the result of people being cramped, not moving around, or pressurization.

"Those are kind of the normal ones," Haut said, noting deep vein thrombosis is relatively common in the U.S. "Travel is one of the associated factors." Airlines for America, an industry trade organization, said in a statement to the AP that vaccines will help boost international travel.

"U.S. airlines have been encouraged by the success of our nation's vaccination program and, as noted in a recent coalition letter, have routinely expressed our belief that widespread vaccination can serve as the foundation for re-opening critical international markets," the statement read.

-- Arijeta Lajka

...

THE CLAIM: Women who have gotten a covid-19 vaccine are receiving letters instructing them to get screened for cervical cancer because the vaccine caused some 1,500 women to develop cervical cancer.

THE FACTS: A viral video making this false claim appears to show a routine letter that reminds eligible women to get regular cervical cancer screenings and is unrelated to covid-19 vaccines.

The video, originally posted to TikTok, features a woman claiming after she received both shots of the Moderna covid-19 vaccine, "a couple months ago," she received a personal letter in the mail warning her to get screened for cervical cancer.

"They said that there's 1,500 women that have cases of cervical cancer now, so they have invited me in to get the screening done again to make sure that I don't have cervical cancer now due to the covid vaccine," the woman says while flashing the letter in front of the camera.

An AP analysis of the text in the letter revealed it matched the text of a form letter sent by Cancer Care Ontario, a division of Ontario Health in Canada. The letter goes out to women across the province to remind them to get regular Pap tests.

"Several months ago we sent you a letter to invite you to get screened for cervical cancer with a Pap test," the letter reads. "Women should have Pap tests once every three years until age 70. This year, cervical cancer will be found in about 1,500 women in Canada and at least one woman will die every day from this disease. The good news is you can take steps to protect yourself from cervical cancer by having regular Pap tests."

The letter does not draw a connection between cervical cancer diagnosis and covid-19 vaccines. Ontario Health told the AP it sends letters to women ages 21 to 70 to remind them to book Pap tests, inform them of Pap test results and remind them when it is time to return for screening. "We can confirm that Ontario Health (Cancer Care Ontario) has not issued any communications to the public relating covid-19 vaccines to cervical cancer diagnoses, or a need to be screened for cervical cancer after receiving a covid-19 vaccine," the agency said.

"We are not aware of any evidence linking covid-19 vaccines to a risk of cervical cancer." Experts confirm there is no known link between the cobid-19 vaccine and cervical cancer, which is typically caused by persistent infection with HPV, a common virus spread through sexual contact.

"There is no reason to alter screening recommendations because of the covid-19 vaccine," said Dr. Sangini Sheth, associate chief of gynecological specialties at Yale Medicine. Sheth said regular cancer screenings and HPV vaccines are important tools to prevent cervical cancer, and some people have delayed these preventive health care visits during the pandemic.

-- Ali Swenson

...

THE CLAIM: The United States military has arrested Dr. Deborah Birx for conspiring with Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to push face masks on Americans during the covid-19 pandemic.

THE FACTS: Birx, former coordinator of the White House coronavirus response, has not been arrested. This false claim spread as real after appearing on a website known for its satire and parody content.

"U.S. Military Arrests Dr. Deborah Birx," reads the headline of the story, which was published Saturday on the website Real Raw News. The story claims Birx was taken into custody because she had conspired with the CDC and top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci "to deceive the American public into believing that face masks were an effective method to mitigate the spread of covid-19."

The bogus story spread to YouTube, Instagram and conspiracy theory message boards, and was shared by internet users including a former Georgia congressional candidate.

Birx has not been arrested, according to Jo Trizila, founder of TrizCom Public Relations, which represents ActivePure Technologies, where Birx currently serves as chief medical and scientific adviser.

In an internet search, no credible news reports suggest there is any truth to the claim. RealRawNews, the website that published the story on Birx, has previously published a slew of debunked claims, including Navy SEALs arrested former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The website includes a disclaimer that its content "contains humor, parody, and satire." Research suggests statewide mask mandates have been effective in slowing the spread of the coronavirus.

-- Ali Swenson

...

THE CLAIM: Election technology firm Dominion Voting Systems lost its lawsuits against attorney Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, former President Donald Trump's personal lawyer.

THE FACTS: Dominion's defamation lawsuits against Powell and Giuliani are ongoing, according to legal records.

In January, Dominion Voting Systems filed defamation lawsuits against Giuliani and Powell, claiming the lawyers falsely accused the company of rigging the 2020 presidential election in favor of Joe Biden.

The suits sought more than $1.3 billion in damages from each party.

Five months later, both cases remain open, according to websites that track legal cases. Still, social media users this week were sharing false claims Dominion's legal efforts had failed.

"ABSENT FROM THE NEWS," read a Monday Facebook post with over 1,000 shares. "Dominion LOST their law suits against Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell."

Lawyers for Giuliani and Powell have both requested through attorneys that the suits be dismissed.

Dominion has opposed those motions. Neither case had a verdict as of Friday. There is no evidence of the widespread fraud that Trump and his allies claimed occurred in the 2020 election. Republican and Democratic election officials certified the election as valid, and a clear majority of Congress confirmed that President Joe Biden won.

-- Ali Swenson

FILE - In this Nov. 19, 2020, file photo, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx speaks during a news conference with the coronavirus task force at the White House in Washington. On Friday, June 4, 2021, The Associated Press reported on stories circulating online incorrectly asserting the U.S. military has arrested Birx for conspiring to push face masks on Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Birx, former coordinator of the White House coronavirus response, has not been arrested. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

FILE - In this Nov. 19, 2020 file photo, Sidney Powell, right, speaks next to former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, as members of President Donald Trump's legal team, during a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington. On Friday, June 4, 2021, The Associated Press reported on stories circulating online incorrectly asserting election technology firm Dominion Voting Systems lost its lawsuits against Powell and Giuliani. Dominions defamation lawsuits against the pair are ongoing, according to legal records. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

Editors Note: This is a roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out.

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A look at what didn't happen this week - Arkansas Online

By Jeff Zeleny, Kevin Liptak and Kaitlan Collins, CNN

(CNN) -- President Joe Biden has made final decisions on several high-profile ambassador posts around the world and is poised to announce the first slate of nominees in the coming days as he prepares to set off on his first overseas trip since taking office.

The White House has started notifying countries of the President's choices, officials said, which is one of the final steps before the ambassador nominations are formally made. Extensive vetting, along with a desire to find a diverse roster of candidates, has caused repeated delays but officials said an announcement of the top diplomats could come next week.

"We hope to have more soon," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday, adding that the notification process of officials in host countries was already underway.

A White House official said Friday that it was the administration's goal to make the announcements before the President leaves next week for his first trip abroad. Yet the timeline has been repeatedly moved back, so the official declined to guarantee the goal would be reached.

Top diplomats to China, Japan, Israel, India and several European countries are expected to be among those included in the first wave of ambassador nominees. The list includes several top donors, former senators and their spouses, people familiar with the selection tell CNN.

One of the biggest questions still hanging over the search for US ambassadors is for the Court of St. James, which is the prestigious post in the United Kingdom. It has been the subject of considerable discussion on both sides of the Atlantic, but several officials told CNN they weren't certain whom Biden had settled on or whether a final choice would even be made before Biden is set to visit next week on the first stop of his weeklong tour. Several candidates have turned the post down, which extended the selection process, a person familiar with the matter said.

Nicholas Burns, a career diplomat who has served presidents of both political parties, is expected to be nominated as ambassador to China.

Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor, Illinois congressman and the first White House chief of staff in the Obama administration, is poised to be nominated as ambassador to Japan.

Tom Nides, a former deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration and a longtime executive at Morgan Stanley, is expected to be tapped as ambassador to Israel. This post has taken on even greater significance in the wake of the ceasefire reached late last month between Israel and Gaza and the expected fall of longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The nominees are subject to confirmation hearings in the closely divided Senate, which means none of the ambassadors are likely to be in their posts before late summer or early fall.

The timing has put the Biden administration behind the pace set by his most recent predecessors and has led to frustration among some State Department officials and top donors, who have been in something of a holding pattern for months. Foreign diplomats in Washington have also privately raised questions about the delays.

Vickie Kennedy, the wife of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, is also a leading contender to serve as ambassador to Germany, people familiar with the process told CNN.

People tracking the process closely, including former ambassadors, donors and State Department officials also say Cindy McCain, wife of the late Sen. John McCain, is expected to be nominated as the US envoy to the United Nations Food Program in Rome.

Denise Bauer, an ambassador to Belgium in the Obama administration and leader of Women for Biden, is poised to be tapped as ambassador to France. And Michael Adler, a Miami real estate developer who has a long friendship with Biden, is expected to be nominated for the post in Belgium.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who served on Biden's vice presidential selection committee, is expected to be selected as ambassador to India.

The President is also considering former Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar for ambassador to Mexico. Former Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill and former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake are also being considered for other posts, people familiar with the matter say, as is Claire Lucas, a top Biden fundraiser and chair of the LGBTQ Victory Institute Board of Directors.

At least two high-level contenders were taken out of consideration in recent weeks, a personal familiar with the matter said, after the vetting of finances and statements on social media emerged as a potential challenge during the confirmation process.

Above all, a senior administration official said, one of the biggest reasons for the delay is that the selection has become something of a game of musical chairs. Several donors or friends of Biden expressed interest in one position, but were offered second choices, given the overall list of nominees.

"Diversity among ambassadors is just as important to the President as diversity in his Cabinet," a White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk about the closed-door process. "And that is a process."

Even since Biden has taken office, the political circumstances in several key countries has changed. Israel is the greatest example, with a deadly conflict last month giving way to a ceasefire and likely a new prime minister.

The Biden administration's policy on the Middle East will be scrutinized during confirmation hearings, which are expected to be held later this summer.

From Capitol Hill to the Middle East, the selection of Nides has been the subject of considerable discussion for weeks among close watchers of Israel.

A longtime top Democratic donor, Nides served as chief operating officer at Morgan Stanley before stepping down in 2010 to work under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He returned to Morgan Stanley in 2013 as vice chairman. Nides is married to CNN executive Virginia Moseley, who is senior vice president of domestic newsgathering.

A White House official declined to say whether a formal offer had been extended to Nides or nominees to other countries but told CNN: "We are not commenting on anyone and no one is final until they're announced."

The-CNN-Wire & 2018 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.

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Biden poised to announce first slate of ambassador nominees as he eyes first trip abroad - WDJT