The Country Goes Viral, Con't

As COVID-19 deaths, cases, and hospitalizations continue to hit record highs across the country, the CDC is finally calling for all Americans to wear masks whenever people are outside the home.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging “universal mask use” indoors for the first time as the country shatters records for coronavirus hospitalizations and deaths ahead of the holiday season.

The CDC has for months encouraged mask-wearing in public spaces with people outside the household. The new guidance, published Friday, asks people to put on masks anywhere outside their homes.

In its weekly Morbidity and Mortality report, the CDC warned Friday that the U.S. has entered “a phase of high-level transmission” as colder weather and the ongoing holiday season push Americans indoors, and said that “consistent and correct” use of face masks is critical to taming the virus.

Mask use is most crucial indoors, and in outdoor spaces where social distancing cannot be maintained, the CDC said in the report. The agency recommended mask use at home when a member of the household has been infected or potentially exposed to the virus, including those with high-risk occupations such as meatpacking or agricultural processing.

“Compelling evidence now supports the benefits of cloth face masks for both source control [to protect others],” the report said, “And to a lesser extent, protection of the wearer.”

Mitigation measures are particularly essential in light of recent research that suggests roughly 50 percent of transmission of the coronavirus is from asymptomatic people, the report said. It also recommended that communities make a plan for distributing masks to people who might struggle to access them.

Robert Redfield, head of the CDC, has called masks “the most important, powerful public health tool” in combating the coronavirus. A growing body of research shows widespread mask use can save scores of lives and stave off economic damage. One June analysis from Goldman Sachs estimated that a 15 percent increase in universal masking could prevent lockdowns and reduce associated losses of up to $1 trillion.

On Thursday, President-elect Joe Biden said that, on his first day in office, he'd ask Americans to mask up for 100 days. "Not forever. 100 days," Biden said in an interview with CNN. "And I think we’ll see a significant reduction.”

In addition to stepping up mask use, the CDC also recommended postponing travel plans. For those who do plan to travel, both domestically and internationally, the agency encouraged staying home, getting tested before and after traveling and quarantining for a week upon return, regardless of test results.

“Testing does not eliminate all risk and should be combined with other recommended public health strategies,” including mask-wearing, social distancing and quarantines, the CDC said in the report.

Despite CDC warnings, experts are anticipating a holiday travel rush. The Sunday after Thanksgiving was the busiest day of air travel in 2020, with more than 1.1 million Americans flying, about 40 percent of the traffic on the same day last year, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

 

We're already at the 3,000+ deaths per day stage. This is only going to get worse as the Thanksgiving numbers come in this month because at least half of the "92 percent of Americans who say they regularly wear masks" are outright lying to you.

People aren't wearing masks, they're "tired" of it.

Tired of selfish idiots watching 3,000 Americans die daily, too.

Mask up, folks.

An End-Of-Year Pot Shot From House Dems

House Democrats (and more than a few Republicans) have signed on to a 228-164 lame duck bill that decriminalized marijuana at the federal level, and while the legislation will never get a Senate vote, it does mean that Democrats can go to President-elect Joe Biden's position on recreational pot and tell him that can "evolve", Obama-style.

The Democratic-controlled House on Friday approved a bill to decriminalize and tax marijuana at the federal level. The bill would reverse what supporters called a failed policy of criminalization of pot use and take steps to address racial disparities in enforcement of federal drug laws.

Opponents, mostly Republicans, called the bill a hollow political gesture and mocked Democrats for bringing it up at a time when thousands of Americans are dying from the coronavirus pandemic.

Supporters say it would help reverse adverse effects of the decades-long “war on drugs” by removing marijuana, or cannabis, from the list of federally controlled substances while allowing states to set their own rules on pot. The bill also would use money from an excise tax on marijuana to address the needs of groups and communities harmed by the drug war and provide for the expungement of federal marijuana convictions and arrests.

“For far too long, we have treated marijuana as a criminal justice problem instead of as a matter of personal choice and public health,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a key sponsor of the bill. “Whatever one’s views are on the use of marijuana for recreational or medicinal use, the policy of arrests, prosecution and incarceration at the federal level has proven unwise and unjust.”

The vote comes at a time when most Americans live in states where marijuana is legal in some form, and lawmakers from both parties agreed that national cannabis policy has lagged woefully behind changes at the state level. That divide has created a host of problems — loans and other banking services, for example, are hard to get for many marijuana companies because pot remains illegal at the federal level.

The bill also would open up more opportunities for marijuana businesses, including access to Small Business Administration loans to help ensure that minorities can take part in an industry dominated by white farmers and growers.

 

Now the bill would never pass a Senate GOP filibuster, let alone get a vote in the Senate at all, because McConnell knows there's probably 53-55 votes for it. States keep legalizing recreational pot left, right, and center.  

 

Republicans will never allow a bill like this to pass until they start losing Senate seats over it. They definitely won't allow it to pass unless they can eliminate Black and brown people from being able to legally make money selling pot entirely and turn it into a multi billion dollar legalized drug cartel operation the way pharmaceutical companies, breweries, wineries, and distilleries operate today.

 

This could help in Georgia though if Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are willing to sign off on this, but the state has largely resisted decriminalization efforts, and it could backfire.

The one person that this will put pressure on is Joe Biden, and he's going to get a lot of blowback on this if he does change things at the federal level.

And all these Republicans will suddenly decide that the bill gives the government too much regulatory and taxation power should it come up again next year, which I believe it won't.

Maybe for next Christmas.

Tales Of The Trump Depression, Con't

Turns out sending Americans back to work for six months into a pandemic in order to save the economy not only fails to stop the pandemic, it also fails to save the economy.

 

Hiring around the U.S. slowed last sharply month as the coronavirus battered the economy, the Labor Department said Friday. Employers added 245,000 jobs in November — the slowest pace of monthly job growth since April, and about half what economists had expected.

Payroll gains last month amount a sharp drop from the 610,000 jobs added in October and 710,000 in September. The nation's unemployment rate, which has steadily declined since peaking at nearly 15% in April, ticked down to 6.7%. But it fell for a bad reason — 400,000 people stopped looking for work, meaning they were no longer counted as unemployed.

Normally, adding nearly a quarter million jobs in a single month would signify healthy growth, but the economy faces a massive jobs deficit, with about 10 million fewer jobs since April. Since then, 4 million people have dropped out of the workforce altogether, meaning they are not working or looking for work.

"With the amount of pressure that the escalating pandemic is putting on the labor market right now, it's pretty clear that a double-dip recession is a very real possibility," Steve Rick, chief economist at CUNA Mutual Group, said in a note. "For those who have been out of a job since March or early Spring, this extended period of unemployment will make it even more difficult to find new, stable work."

"[T]he bottom line is that job growth has slowed markedly, and this report demonstrates yet again that it's not possible to separate the economy from the virus," Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said in a note to investors.

Manufacturing and construction each added 27,000 jobs last month. The retail sector lost 34,000 jobs, offset by a gain of 145,000 jobs in transportation and warehousing, driven by a shift to ecommerce.

 

The right-hand side of the "V" in that "V-shaped rocket recovery" the Trumpies blather on about has broken off halfway up and is now dangling like a busted antenna on a 50-year old pair of TV rabbit ears. It's going to fall off next month. After that, if Mitch McConnell is still Senate leader, we're in for a catastrophic 2021.

Until Republicans stop sabotaging our COVID-19 efforts, the economy will never improve, and now that Biden's going to be President, they have no reason to stop doing either.

 

Remember that in the months ahead.

Last Call For The Coup-Coup Birds Take Flight, Con't

At this point we now have Trump regime Pentagon officials openly calling for Trump to implement martial law in order to steal the election, folks. The alarm bells don't get much louder than this.

President Donald Trump's nominee to become a senior Pentagon official spread debunked conspiracies on Twitter that called Trump's election loss to Joe Biden a "coup" attempt and shared tweets that suggest Trump should declare martial law. 

Scott O'Grady, a former fighter pilot and Trump loyalist, repeatedly retweeted tweets that falsely stated Trump won the election in "landslide fashion" and that millions of votes were stolen from the President. 

On November 25, O'Grady retweeted a tweet that said, "Trump won & Biden & his Comrades will now attempt a coup," next to a photoshopped image of Biden beside Xi Jinping, the President of China. 

On December 2, he retweeted an account that shared an article that said former national security adviser Michael Flynn had shared a petition that called for martial law. He then retweeted the same account which suggested that Trump should declare martial law. 

"I don't know who needs to hear this," the account said, "But calling for martial law is not a bad idea when there is an attempted coup against the president and this country happening right now." 

The tweet references a petition Flynn shared on Twitter calling for Trump to declare martial law and order a new presidential election. The petition falsely called November's presidential election "fraudulent" and called on Trump to have the military oversee a new election. Attorney General William Barr said in an interview published Tuesday that there is no evidence that widespread fraud occurred during the election. 

In the aftermath of the election, Trump himself has spread numerous conspiracies and falsehoods alleging that Democrats and other outside forces have stolen the election from him. He has also upended management in the Defense Department by making wholesale changes in the Pentagon's civilian leadership since firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper by tweet November 9, ousting at least three other officials and replacing them with perceived loyalists. 

CNN's KFile reviewed O'Grady's tweets and media appearances and found that O'Grady shared other debunked election conspiracies and that he also degraded top military and intelligence officials. In a radio interview, he called former President Barack Obama and military generals "sworn socialists," and advocated that the military justice system should bring back treason charges. He retweeted a tweet that called former Defense Secretary James Mattis a "traitor." 

He tweeted that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a star witness during the Trump impeachment hearings, should be charged "for insurrection because he is a biased liberal political operative" and said on a radio show that it was "disgusting" for Vindman to testify against Trump. He also spread a baseless claim that the whistleblower in the impeachment saga dated the daughter of House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff. 

O'Grady was nominated by the White House to become an assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs at the Pentagon, a key position within the Department of Defense's policy shop overseeing operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The position is a political appointment, and if O'Grady is confirmed, he would only fill the role until the start of the Biden administration. 

His nomination, which was sent to the Senate on Monday, comes as the Pentagon's top civilian officials have been hastily replaced with perceived Trump loyalists and conspiracy theorists despite some lacking credentials -- and in some cases, lacking Senate confirmation -- for the positions. 

 

Folks, I know it's fashionable to ignore this as more Trump nonsense and bullshit, that this is all bluster, and that the odds of Trump actually putting together a coup given his demonstrated choices of incompetent toadies and lickspittles at every turn is near zero, have a good darkly comic laugh at the whole, thing, and to go about our business. Never forget that Donald Trump is a profoundly ignorant and cowardly bully who is nothing without his enablers, and his enablers no longer have any reason to get themselves destroyed while Trump self-immolates. They are already heading for the lifeboats.

Having said all that, yes, we should be kind of moderately concerned with Trump replacing Pentagon staff with people who are proclaiming he should implement martial law to take a second term by force. We've spent the last five years saying "Trump wouldn't dare do that, he'd be finished" and yet 95% of the time he's done it anyway and gotten away with it, up to and including skating on impeachment.

 

And O'Grady is the least of the problems in the civilian leadership of the Pentagon under Trump.

The White House removed nine members of the Pentagon's Defense Business Board on Friday and installed people loyal to President Donald Trump in their place, including presidential allies Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie.

The firings marked the latest effort by the Trump administration to clean out the Defense Department in the final weeks of the president's term.

Members of the board received a brief email from Joshua Whitehouse, the White House liaison to the Department of Defense, that simply said, “if you are receiving this e-mail, your membership on the Defense Business Board has expired or is coming to an end.”

"A number of board members have been terminated with a form letter. In my experience, I was very surprised that the White House would, at the eleventh hour, adjust an advisory board that for 19 years has had a record of nonpartisan support with the department," Michael Bayer, who until today was board chair, told POLITICO.

"This kind of a move really will weigh heavily on people in the future and their willingness to serve on these outside advisory boards if they're going to be subjected to political loyalty tests. It's unprecedented. I'm just saddened," he added.

Besides Bayer, the other board members who were let go are Arnold Punaro, Atul Vashistha, John O'Connor, David Venlet, Paul Dolan, Scott Dorn, David Walker and David Van Slyke.

A statement by the Pentagon said the members' terms had expired. Yet three former board members who spoke to POLITICO said their tours were not close to ending.

The firings came as a shock to the board members, who had not received any negative feedback or warning prior to their termination. One former board member lamented the move, noting that the board “has never been political, ever.”

“You are talking about 15, 20 executives, business leaders, government leaders, who are giving their time to serve the nation and not even a thank you note,” said the person, who asked not to be named. “It’s just about simple gratitude and appreciation for people.”

"I had no indication this was coming. It was a form letter going to a large number of people," Bayer said.

Besides Lewandowski and Bossie, the other new members are Henry Dreifus, Robert McMahon, Cory Mills, Bill Bruner, Christopher Shank, Joseph Schmidt, Keary Miller, Allen Weh and Earl Matthews.

Lewandowski was Trump's first campaign manager in 2016 and this year was a senior adviser to the campaign, where he traveled to various states to promote its legal challenges to the election results; he also is president and CEO of Lewandowski Strategic Advisors.

Bossie, a longtime conservative operative, was Trump's deputy campaign manager in 2016 and more recently was tapped to lead the effort to contest the election. Mills is an Army veteran and on Twitter, calls himself a "Newsmax insider," a reference to one of Trump's preferred TV channels.

"These individuals have a proven track record of achievement within their respective fields and have demonstrated leadership that will serve our Department, and our nation well," acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller said in a statement.

So yes, I'm worried about Trump saying "screw it" and declaring martial law in the weeks ahead. The odds of that are extremely low.

But they are not zero.

Pardon My Destruction, Con't

No surprise that the people behind Trump's pay-for-pardon scandal are convicted GOP fundraising fraudster Elliott Broidy, and Jared Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell.

The Justice Department investigated as recently as this past summer the roles of a top fund-raiser for President Trump and a lawyer for his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in a suspected scheme to offer a bribe in exchange for clemency for a tax crimes convict, according to two people familiar with the inquiry.

A federal judge in Washington unsealed heavily redacted court documents on Tuesday that disclosed the existence of the investigation into possible unregistered lobbying and bribery. The people said it concerned efforts by the lawyer for Mr. Kushner, Abbe Lowell, and the fund-raiser, Elliott Broidy, who pleaded guilty in October to a charge related to a different scheme to lobby the Trump administration.

A billionaire San Francisco real estate developer, Sanford Diller, enlisted their help in securing clemency for a Berkeley psychologist, Hugh L. Baras, who had received a 30-month prison sentence on a conviction of tax evasion and improperly claiming Social Security benefits, according to the filing and the people familiar with the case. Under the suspected scheme, Mr. Diller would make “a substantial political contribution” to an unspecified recipient in exchange for the pardon. He died in February 2018, and there is no evidence that the effort continued after his death.

As part of the effort, someone approached the White House Counsel’s Office to “ensure” that the “clemency petition reached the targeted officials,” according to the court documents. They did not say who made the contact or how the White House responded.

Mr. Baras did not receive clemency.

No bribe was paid, said Reid H. Weingarten, a friend of and lawyer for Mr. Lowell who confirmed his client had represented Mr. Baras in his unsuccessful efforts to avoid incarceration. Mr. Baras went to prison in June 2017 and was released in August 2019.

No one has been charged in the inquiry. No government officials are “currently a subject or target of the investigation disclosed in this filing,” a Justice Department official said. This summer, investigators sought communications related to the scheme to “confront” the people they were scrutinizing, the court documents showed.

That of course explains this happening yesterday as well.

The official serving as President Donald Trump’s eyes and ears at the Justice Department has been banned from the building after trying to pressure staffers to give up sensitive information about election fraud and other matters she could relay to the White House, three people familiar with the matter tell The Associated Press.

Heidi Stirrup, an ally of top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, was quietly installed at the Justice Department as a White House liaison a few months ago. She was told within the last two weeks to vacate the building after top Justice officials learned of her efforts to collect insider information about ongoing cases and the department’s work on election fraud, the people said.

Stirrup is accused of approaching staffers in the department demanding they give her information about investigations, including election fraud matters, the people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.

The effort came as Trump continues to level baseless claims that he won the election and alleges without evidence that massive voting fraud was responsible for his defeat to President-elect Joe Biden.

Stirrup had also extended job offers to political allies for positions at some of the highest levels of the Justice Department without consulting any senior department officials or the White House counsel’s office and also attempted to interfere in the hiring process for career staffers, a violation of the government’s human resources policies, one of the people said.

 

In fact, Trump is considering a score of preemptive pardons to shield his criminal family and closest minions from ever being charged with the crimes they committed  over the last four years.

President Donald Trump is considering preemptively pardoning as many as 20 aides and associates before leaving office, frustrating Republicans who believe offering legal reprieves to his friends and family members could backfire.

Trump’s strategy, like much of his presidency, is nontraditional. He is eschewing the typical protocol of processing cases through the Justice Department. And he may argue that such preemptive pardons for his friends and family members are necessary to spare them from paying millions in legal fees to fight what he describes as witch hunts. Those up for clemency include everyone from Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to several members of his family — all people who haven’t been charged with a crime. Weighing on Trump’s mind is whether these pardons would look like an admission of guilt.

Republicans, as they often have when Trump appears about to bulldoze through another norm, are expressing some initial hesitation — but they’re not telling him to stop.

“That is in a category that I think you’d probably run into a lot of static,” said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.). “That’s charting new territory, I’m guessing. I don’t think that’s ever been attempted before.”

The result is yet another looming showdown between Trump and the broader Republican Party.

And the potential squabble has taken on added significance as Trump prepares to leave the White House next month. The GOP is grappling with how closely it wants to remain aligned with Trump after his presidency. While the president has turned off voters with his controversial actions — including his past use of the pardon power to spare allies — he retains a loyal following and is mulling a 2024 presidential run. More imminently, Republicans need Trump’s base to turn out in the Jan. 5 Georgia Senate runoff elections, which will decide which party controls the Senate.

GOP senators said Trump would be stepping on political landmines if he grants clemency to his family and associates, even as they noted presidents have broad pardon authority. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a Trump ally and a former state attorney general, acknowledged that such a move by the president would be unprecedented.

“I’m not sure what form it would take. It’s kind of an interesting legal question,” he said. “I’m not aware of analog.”

Trump has not made any decisions about pardons as he and his team contemplate both the legal considerations and political consequences, according to three people familiar with the discussions, all of whom speak to the president. Some around Trump are worried the president could tarnish his legacy or harm a future campaign if he’s too expansive with his 11th-hour pardons.

Roughly 20 top aides and associates are on tap for a potential pardon, though the list is evolving, according to one of the people. The list includes Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, who run the family’s namesake business, and Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, a husband-and-wife duo who are both senior aides at the White House. All four were involved in Trump’s reelection campaign.

Trump has even mused on Twitter that he has “the absolute right to PARDON” myself — a legally contested (but untested) claim.

 

No wonder Trump is considering firing Barr in the remaining weeks of his lame duck disaster movie. And remember, there's more damage he can -- and will -- do.

LA Goes Viral, Con't

Los Angeles County will remain in lockdown for the foreseeable future, according to LA Mayor Eric Garcetti.

All residents within the city of Los Angeles should continue to remain in their homes and follow the city’s “safer-at-home” order, which mirrors guidance from L.A. County, according to the mayor’s office.

A public order posted on the mayor’s website Wednesday detailed many of the restrictions, including a ban on some travel with a variety of exemptions.

Email and text alerts from the city’s NotifyLA System also went out Wednesday, although the mayor’s deputy press secretary, Harrison Wollman, said the guidance has been in place for days.

“The city uploaded the most recent version of its safer-at-home order today to match the county’s current order that was enacted earlier this week,” Wollman said. “The two orders are identical, and the process of publishing the official document on our website is a formality that occurs each time the order is revised.”

The order, first issued in March, was revised one other time, in June.

Many residents were notified with an email and text alert from the city’s NotifyLA System Wednesday night, and a tweet went out from the NotifyLA Twitter account for the first time in more than three weeks, using the “new restrictions” language similar to the alerts.

A spokesman for the mayor’s office said although the NotifyLA System alerts were accurate, they did not include any new restrictions.

Non-exempt businesses in the city have been ordered to cease operations that require in-person attendance of staff. There is a broad list of exceptions for various businesses and workers deemed essential or exempt.

People may lawfully leave their residences only to engage in defined essential activities.

Those experiencing homelessness are exempt from the requirement to stay inside.

Mirroring the county’s order, all public and private gatherings with people from more than one household are prohibited, except for outdoor faith-based services and protests.

 

 As I said before, runaway community spread since October was going to necessitate lockdowns, and politically they were impossible until after the election, so like February, we wasted an entire month dicking around before doing the right thing six weeks later.

We'll see if this slows down the avalanche, but unless Biden is able to implement a national emergency with this SCOTUS, and somehow enforce it again with this SCOTUS, something that I think has a very small chance of working, we're just going to have to watch people die because of "freedom".

And that's if we even make it to January 20.

Which a half-million Americans will not.

StupidiNews!

•  In their first joint interview since the election, President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect told CNN's Jake Tapper that Biden will ask Americans to wear masks for his first 100 days in office.
• Trump regime Communications Director Alyssa Farah has left the White House, she was the ninth person to hold the position in four years.
• The US, Canada, and China are in talks to resolve the American criminal warrant and Canadian extradition of Chinese national Meng Wanzhou, former CFO of Huawei, on bank fraud charges.
• British Brexit negotiators are headed back to Brussels once again as a possible weekend breakthrough deal with the EU crashed and burned with the UK and France blaming each other.
• Warner Bros. has announced its entire 2021 movie lineup will release simultaneously on HBO Max and in theaters after the studio announced that Wonder Woman '84's Christmas Day release.
  

Last Call For Good Luck With That, House Dems

New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney will be the Dems' new House campaign chair, in a definite message that Dems are playing pragmatic defense to keep their House majority in 2022.

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney was elected Thursday to lead the House Democrats’ campaign arm, charged with steering the caucus through an exceedingly perilous midterm with their control of the chamber on the line.

Maloney, who represents a New York battleground district, defeated Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.) in a hard-fought — and closely watched — contest to lead the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He will take on the task of shielding a slim majority in the first two years of a new Democratic president and under a new set of district lines drawn in large part by Republicans.

The New York Democrat will succeed Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), who oversaw one of the caucus’s most successful fundraising cycles but fell victim to her own expectation-setting and failed to predict the turnout wave from President Donald Trump that crushed Democrats' hopes of an ambitious electoral map that included Texas and even Alaska.

As incoming DCCC chief, Maloney will have one of the trickiest jobs in Washington after the Democrats’ down-ballot trouncing at the polls last month that left Republicans between five and seven seats away from the majority. He will have to convince dozens of new candidates to run in a potentially unfavorable environment and in districts that have yet to be drawn.

Maloney will be immediately inserted into the center of an ideological debate that has gripped House Democrats since Nov 3., with the caucus’s warring factions pointing fingers at each other over exactly why they’re staring down a shrunken majority come January.

Many moderate Democrats — who largely supported Maloney for his ability to win in a Trump-won district — are demanding a new party message that veers starkly away from the GOP’s attacks on socialism and progressive slogans like “defund the police.”

Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, are dissecting the internal gears at DCCC, arguing that the operation needs to rely on more diverse staff and consultants, devote more resources to get-out-the-vote efforts and completely rethink its digital operations.

Many progressives, particularly lawmakers of color, had flocked behind Cárdenas, who proved to be a prolific fundraiser and organizer as he built the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s campaign arm, BOLD Pac, from the ground up. And he staked his campaign on a vow to Democrats’ increasingly apparent struggles with Latino. The party suffered surprising losses in heavily Latino seats in Florida, Texas and California.

Cárdenas was vocal about reforming some of DCCC’s practices, including ending a contentious policy that banned the organization from hiring any consultant that has helped a primary challenger of a sitting Democrat — a practice that enraged progressives.

Maloney has acknowledged concerns with messaging and said he would reconsider the DCCC blacklist, though he has been mostly restrained — both publicly and privately — in his assessment of DCCC’s miscalculations.

“The smart thing for the DCCC chair to do is to say, I don't know what happened until I’ve really had a chance to dig into the numbers,” Maloney said in a recent interview.

 

I'm not sure if Mahoney is the right choice over Cárdenas but that's not my call to make. It's very clear that Dems are going with the the Guy Who Won Twice In A Trump 2016 District™ and that's a very valid argument to make.

We'll see if it pays off.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

We've finally reached the "Charlie Day from Always Sunny" stage of the Trump regime's collapse.

 

Forget Ross Perot's PowerPoint presentations, Donald Trump has gone absolutely crackers.

Increasingly detached from reality, President Donald Trump stood before a White House lectern and delivered a 46-minute diatribe against the election results that produced a win for Democrat Joe Biden, unspooling one misstatement after another to back his baseless claim that he really won.

Trump called his address, released Wednesday only on social media and delivered in front of no audience, perhaps “the most important speech” of his presidency. But it was largely a recycling of the same litany of misinformation and unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud that he has been making for the past month.

Trump, who spoke from the Diplomatic Room, kept up his futile pushback against the election even as state after state certifies its results and as Biden presses ahead with shaping his Cabinet in advance of his inauguration on Jan. 20.

Biden received a record 81 million votes compared to 74 million for Trump. The Democrat also won 306 electoral votes compared to 232 for Trump. The Electoral College split matches Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton four years ago, which he described then as a “landslide.”

Trump dug further into his contention of a “rigged election” even though members of his own administration, including Attorney General William Barr, say that no proof of widespread voter fraud has been uncovered. Courts in multiple battleground states have thrown out a barrage of lawsuits filed on behalf of the president.

“This is not just about honoring the votes of 74 million Americans who voted for me,” Trump said. “It’s about ensuring that Americans can have faith in this election. And in all future elections.”

In fact, his baseless claims are having the opposite effect — undermining public faith in the integrity of U.S. elections.

About an hour after it was posted, Trump’s video had been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on Facebook and shared by more than 60,000 Facebook users. Both Facebook and Twitter flagged the president’s posting as problematic, with Twitter noting that Trump’s claims about election fraud are disputed.

Many of Trump’s claims have been debunked repeatedly in recent weeks.

His overarching claim: “This election is about great voter fraud, fraud that has never been seen like this before.”

In fact, Christopher Krebs, the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, voiced confidence in the integrity of the election ahead of the November vote. And afterward, he knocked down allegations that the count was tainted by fraud.

Krebs was fired by Trump weeks ago.

 

Kudos to the Associated Press and reporters Aamer Madhani and Kevin Freking for both suffering through Trump's disassociative break and for calling it as such.

And things have now gotten so bad for Trump's mental breakdown that VP Mike Pence is heading for the lifeboats too.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Recently-pardoned traitor and spy Michael Flynn has joined the ranks of those calling for Trump to declare martial law and put Democrats and democracy to death.

Lin Wood, an Atlanta-based lawyer who says President Donald Trump asked him to join the effort to challenge Joe Biden’s election victory, is promoting a right-wing group’s call for Trump to declare martial law and use the military to oversee a new election. Retired Gen. Michael Flynn also promoted the call for martial law just a day after the Justice Department released the language of the extremely broad pardon Flynn received from Trump.

We the People Convention, an Ohio group with Tea Party roots, made the call for martial law in a full-page ad in the right-wing Washington Times and a press release distributed Tuesday. As of Tuesday afternoon, the press release had been shared more than 70,000 times online. Wood tweeted a link to the press release, adding his own message:

 

Good morning. 

Our country is headed to civil war. A war created by 3rd party bad actors for their benefit - not for We The People. 

Communist China is leading the nefarious efforts to take away our freedom.  

@realDonaldTrump should declare martial law.

Wood, who is apparently working on his own rather than as an official part of Trump’s legal team, sued unsuccessfully to block certification of Biden’s victory in Georgia. He recently suggested that Georgia voters should hold off voting for Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in their runoff election until the senators did more to support Trump’s election challenges. Wood, whose Twitter bio includes the QAnon movement hashtag #WWG1WGA, is scheduled to hold a press conference in Georgia with former Team Trump attorney Sidney Powell Wednesday afternoon.

Wood also represents Kyle Rittenhouse, who has become a right-wing folk hero after being charged with killing anti-racism protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin. A recent profile of Wood in the Trump-supporting Pentecostal-oriented media outlet Charisma said that he is “walking in the power of the Holy Sprit as a humble man of faith” and described him this way:

Prayer is the ammunition of Wood’s slingshot, figuratively speaking. He comes to do legal battle for “We The People” in the name of the Lord whose hand is still on America, he said, and he will not allow the enemies of God’s people to take over this nation and transform it into the twisted image of the godless, manipulative, intellectual elite who disdain true Christians.

The ad calling for martial law cites constitutionally suspect actions that Abraham Lincoln took during the Civil War as precedent for Trump to act. “Today, the current threat to our United States by the international and domestic socialist/communist left is much more serious than anything Lincoln or our nation has faced in its history – including the civil war,” the ad reads.

The ad claims that leftist activists, colluding with Big Tech and a corrupt media, are out to destroy the United States, and that their “attempted stealing of these elections” is an act of “rebellion.”

Here are the concluding paragraphs:

We the People must not and WILL NOT cede our exclusive Constitutional right to elect our Representatives to judges, lawyers, courts, Governors, Secretary’s of State, Congress, corrupt election officials and local politicians, the corrupt media – or Leftist threats of violence! It is OUR EXCLUSIVE RIGHT to decide our Representatives not theirs! Therefore, We the People MUST demand a NEW and fair national vote, a vote that all Americans can trust and live by regardless of the winner! Without a fair vote, we fear, with good reason, the threat of a shooting civil war is imminent. Gun sales are at an all time high and 40% are first time gun owners looking to defend themselves, their property, and their rights. Therefore, Mr. President you must act now before there is no peaceful way left to preserve our Union.

When the legislators, courts and/or Congress fail to do their duty under the 12th Amendment, you must be ready Mr. President to immediately declare a limited form of Martial Law, and temporarily suspend the Constitution and civilian control of these federal elections, for the sole purpose of having the military oversee a national re-vote. A vote that assures a fair election in every jurisdiction and reflects the true will of the people. Federal candidates only. Paper ballots. No computers. Hand-counted with both parties watching every vote. Only registered voters. Photo ID to prove residence. Conducted safely with everyone wearing masks and six feet apart, just like we did in Ohio. Only then can the winning candidate be accepted as legitimate by a true majority of We the People who must give our consent to be justly governed! Unfortunately we are at a point where we can only trust our military to do this because our corrupt political class and courts have proven their inability to act fairly and within the law.

You must also act, like Lincoln did, to silence the destructive media’s one-sided propaganda designed and proven to influence the election outcome, and end the unlawful censorship of Big Tech, to restore the confidence of the American People in our electoral process or we cannot continue as a nation. Failure to do so could result in massive violence and destruction on a level not seen since the Civil War. Limited Martial Law is clearly a better option than Civil War!

Many will object to these actions, as they did in Lincoln’s day, but we assure you that We the People understand that no less action will suffice to prevent the loss of our Constitutional right to vote and preserve our Republic. It is time to honor your oath, Mr. President. It is time for you to boldly act to save our nation as Lincoln did. We the People will support a national re-vote. We will also have no other choice but to take matters into our own hands, and defend our rights on our own, if you do not act within your powers to defend us.

 

These folks are quite frankly, openly seditious terrorists.  They are baying for blood. It's easy to dismiss them as blustering cranks and useless idiots who would probably shoot themselves loading an AR-15 more than anyone else.

 

But then again, it only takes a few of these assholes to shoot up a state legislature or three, doesn't it? 

And note: a grand total of zero Republicans in Congress are condemning Flynn for this.

They really do want a Second Civil War at this point, guys.

It won't take much, either.

StupidiNews!

• The US has passed 100,000 total hospitalizations for COVID-19, as well as setting a new record for daily deaths from the disease, topping 2,700.
• Former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing has died at age 94, the "modernist" politician elected in 1974 helped to found the idea of the European Union.
• The CDC is hoping that British emergency approval of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine will be followed by similar swift action by the Trump regime. 
• President-elect Joe Biden is expected to name more of his domestic policy Cabinet next week, including picks for US Surgeon General, HHS Secretary, and Interior Secretary.
• The FAA is expected to give approval this weekend to SpaceX in order for the commercial spaceflight company to test its Starship prototype at an altitude of 15km.
  

Last Call For The Galleria Of Crime, Con't

The Trump Crime Family continues to openly discuss blanket pardons for Donald and his rotten kids, but the person who really needs a pardon or they're headed for a lifetime in prison is Jared Kushner.

Sweeping data released by the Small Business Administration on who benefited from pandemic relief programs raises questions about the equitability and distribution of loans intended for small businesses, an initial analysis by NBC News shows.

The analysis found that properties owned by the Trump Organization as well as the Kushner Companies, owned by the family of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, profited from the program.

After months of litigation, the SBA released the dataset Tuesday night on every small business that received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) or Economic Injury Disaster (EIDL) loan.

The data reveals the most complete accounting to date of the more than $700 billion in forgivable loans Congress and the Trump administration introduced in the spring for allowable expenses, including payroll, rent, utilities and mortgage interest payments.

The analysis by NBC News, one of 11 newsrooms that sued for the release of data, also shows: 

• Over 25 PPP loans worth more than $3.65 million were given to businesses with addresses at Trump and Kushner real estate properties, paying rent to those owners. Fifteen of the properties self-reported that they only kept one job, zero jobs or did not report a number at all.
• The loans to Trump and Kushner properties included a $2,164,543 loan to the Triomphe Restaurant Corp., at the Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York City. The company reported the money didn’t go to keeping any jobs. It later closed.
• A company called LB City Inc, which is at Kushner’s Bungalow Hotel in Long Branch, New Jersey, received a loan for $505,552.50 that it used to keep 155 jobs.
• Two tenants at 725 5th Avenue, Trump Tower, received more than $100,000 and kept only three jobs.
• Four tenants at the Kushner-owned 666 5th Avenue combined received more than $204,000, and retained only six jobs.

There were also some troubling signs of mismanagement revealed in the data. Over 100 loans were made to companies where no business name was listed, were listed as “no name available” or showed potential data entry errors, such as names that appeared to be dates or phone numbers. More than 300 companies appear to have each gotten more than $10 million in loans through their subsidiaries. Businesses were not supposed to receive more than $10 million per entity, except for those in the food, hospitality or hotels industries. 

 

Of course Trump and Kushner used the PPP as their own personal piggy bank, and ripped off American businesses to the tune of millions. They got millions in loans they didn't need, meanwhile, thousands of small businesses across America have now been permanently shuttered.

That's how it worked, and Republicans in Congress made sure of it.

Pardon My Destruction

Pardon me, everyone says to Donald Trump.

 

President Trump has discussed with advisers whether to grant pre-emptive pardons to his children, to his son-in-law and to his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, and talked with Mr. Giuliani about pardoning him as recently as last week, according to two people briefed on the matter.

Mr. Trump has told others that he is concerned that a Biden Justice Department might seek retribution against the president by targeting the oldest three of his five children — Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump — as well as Ms. Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner, a White House senior adviser.

Donald Trump Jr. had been under investigation by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, for contacts that the younger Mr. Trump had had with Russians offering damaging information on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign, but he was never charged. Mr. Kushner provided false information to federal authorities about his contacts with foreigners for his security clearance, but was given one anyway by the president.

The nature of Mr. Trump’s concern about any potential criminal exposure of Eric Trump or Ivanka Trump is unclear, although an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney into the Trump Organization has expanded to include tax write-offs on millions of dollars in consulting fees by the company, some of which appear to have gone to Ms. Trump.

Presidential pardons, however, do not provide protection against state or local crimes.

Mr. Giuliani’s potential criminal exposure is also unclear, although he was under investigation as recently as this summer by federal prosecutors in Manhattan for his business dealings in Ukraine and his role in ousting the American ambassador there. The plot was at the heart of the impeachment of Mr. Trump.

The speculation about pardon activity at the White House is churning furiously, underscoring how much the Trump administration has been dominated by investigations and criminal prosecutions of people in the president’s orbit. Mr. Trump himself was singled out by federal prosecutors as “Individual 1” in a court filing in the case that sent Michael D. Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer, to prison. 

 

Oh, but it gets much, much worse for the Trump regime. 

The Justice Department is investigating a potential crime related to funneling money to the White House or related political committee in exchange for a presidential pardon, according to court records unsealed Tuesday in federal court. 

The case is the latest legal twist in the waning days of President Donald Trump's administration after several of his top advisers have been convicted of federal criminal charges and as the possibility rises of Trump giving pardons to those who've been loyal to him. 

The disclosure is in 20 pages of partially redacted documents made public by the DC District Court on Tuesday afternoon. The records show Chief Judge Beryl Howell's review in August of a request from prosecutors to access documents obtained in a search as part of a bribery-for-pardon investigation. 

The filings don't reveal a timeline of the alleged scheme, or any names of people potentially involved, except that communications between people including at least one lawyer were seized from an office that was raided sometime before the end of this summer.
No one appears to have been publicly charged with a related crime to date. 

The White House declined to comment on the court filing. CNN has previously reported that associates of the President are making appeals to him in the hopes of obtaining pardons before he leaves office. There is no indication that any of those associates are being investigated by DOJ in relation to Tuesday's filing.

 

So somebody is being investigated for paying Trump for a pardon. And that's the kind of thing that Trump can't pardon himself for.  And also remember that the August timeline means Bill Barr sat on this for the full 90 days Judge Howell gave him to protect Trump during the election.

 

Of course, Trump is pissed that this is all coming out, and he's threatening to fire Barr again.

President Trump and his allies are piling extreme pressure on Attorney General Bill Barr to release a report that Trump believes could hurt perceived Obama-era enemies — and view Barr's designation of John Durham as special counsel as a stall tactic, sources familiar with the conversations tell Axios.

Why it matters: Speculation over Barr's fate grew on Tuesday, with just 49 days remaining in Trump's presidency, after Barr gave an interview to the Associated Press in which he said the Justice Department has not uncovered evidence of widespread fraud that could change the election's outcome. 

In the interview, Barr also revealed he'd appointed Durham, a veteran prosecutor, as special counsel on Oct. 19 to continue investigating the origins of the FBI's 2016 probe into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia no matter who won the presidential election.

Behind the scenes: Within Trump's orbit, sources told Axios, Tuesday's revelation was seen as a smokescreen to forestall the release of the so-called Durham report, which senior administration officials believe is already complete — and which Barr had ruled out issuing before the election. 

Another senior administration official disputed that assessment, saying: “The reason the Attorney General appointed John Durham as Special Counsel is because he’s not finished with his investigation," and that Barr "wanted to ensure that John Durham would be able to continue his work independently and unimpeded.” 

Trump has been ranting about the delay behind the scenes and mused privately about replacing Barr with somebody who will expedite the process. But it’s unclear whether he will follow through with that, per sources familiar with the conversations.

 

They are all corrupt as hell, and as many of them need to go to prison as possible.

The Senate Goes Viral, Con't

As COVID-19 cases now steadily resume their post-Thanksgiving gallows march into December...

 

The United States reported more than 4 million coronavirus cases in November, which is higher than the total number of cases seen all year by any country in the world except India and Brazil. Public health experts are warning that the U.S. will keep seeing record-breaking numbers in the final month of 2020.

Since the pandemic began, the U.S. has seen more than 13.3 million confirmed cases and over 267,000 deaths, by far the highest numbers in the world, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. accounts for nearly 20% of the global death toll.

India has recorded 9.4 million cases and Brazil has 6.3 million, according to Johns Hopkins data. Other nations with the highest case counts — including Russia, France, Spain and the United Kingdom — have between 1.6 million and 2.3 million. There have been a total of 62.8 million confirmed cases and 1.4 million deaths worldwide.

 

Suddenly?

 

Suddenly now that Trump has lost the election and that he's openly sabotaging the Georgia runoffs in his political death throes, Senate Republicans are keenly eager to work on a bipartisan COVID-19 relief package.

A bipartisan group of senators introduced a broad coronavirus aid framework on Tuesday, a significant breakthrough after months of failed negotiation. But it’s just the first step toward Congress finally approving a new round of aid.

The legislation would provide $908 billion in aid and also shield businesses from coronavirus lawsuits for a few months to allow states to develop their own liability reforms. The proposal includes $160 billion in state and local aid, $180 billion in additional unemployment insurance and $288 billion for small businesses. It also has $82 billion for schools as well as $45 billion for transportation, according to a draft reviewed by POLITICO. It also includes money for health care.

It was introduced on Tuesday morning by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Angus King (I-Maine), Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), as well as House members. Separately, some other senators have held bipartisan discussions about a solution.

Still, the newest measure is no lay-up, and several congressional aides said the likeliest route to a new round of aid is through Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Congress has not enacted a new significant round of aid since April.

McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have both called for more coronavirus relief, but GOP senators said if there is an aid package, it’s unlikely to be attached to the spending bill due by Dec. 11. That means it’s still uncertain whether Congress can actually clinch a new law before the end of the lame duck.

 

Suddenly, a bunch of Republican senators realize that they won't be able to blame Trump much longer, and that they will have to face voters after he's gone. Suddenly, having to really negotiate with Democrats becomes something they have to do.

Of course, if McConnell ignores this legislation, and he has every base, crass, and banal political reason to do so by waiting until after January 20, this is all kabuki theater on the part of the GOP and being suckered into helping the GOP again by Senate Dems.

 

And that's exactly what he did. 

Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell said Tuesday he’s largely sticking with a partisan, scaled-back COVID-19 relief bill that has already failed twice this fall, even as Democratic leaders and a bipartisan group of moderates offered concessions in hopes of passing pandemic aid before Congress adjourns for the year.

The Kentucky Republican made the announcement after President-elect Joe Biden called upon lawmakers to pass a downpayment relief bill now with more to come next year. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi resumed talks with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin about a year-end spending package that could include COVID relief provisions. Key Senate moderates rallied behind a scaled-back framework.

It’s not clear whether the flurry of activity will lead to actual progress. Time is running out on Congress’ lame-duck session and Donald Trump’s presidency, many Republicans won’t even acknowledge that Trump has lost the election and good faith between the two parties remains in short supply.

McConnell said his bill, which only modestly tweaks an earlier plan blocked by Democrats, would be signed by Trump and that additional legislation could pass next year. But his initiative fell flat with Democrats and a key GOP moderate.

“If it’s identical to what (McConnell) brought forth this summer then it’s going to be a partisan bill that is not going to become law,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who joined moderates in unveiling a $908 billion bipartisan package only hours earlier. “And I want a bill that will become law.”

And the losers remain the America people.

But what else would 2020 be like, right?

StupidiNews!

• Under months of pressure of COVID-19 task force head VP Mike Pence, the CDC is changing its coronavirus quarantine guidelines from 14 days to 7-10 days with a negative test.
• The Department of Homeland Security says that it is ready to take on COVID-19 vaccine scammers with the "full power" of the federal government.
• The 57-year-old radio telescope dish at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico has partially collapsed, the National Science Foundation determined last month that the dish would have to be demolished.
• Israel may be facing its fourth election in two years as embattled PM Benjamin Netanyahu, facing a bribery trial next spring, is now being abandoned by coalition government partner Benny Gantz.
• Amazon is bringing its warehouse workforce monitoring tools to the manufacturing sector as critics say the technology is easily abused by employers to hurt workers.