StupidiNews!

• Parts of the Northeast are digging out from a nor'easter that dropped more snow this week than the entire snowfall total of last winter.
• Senior Biden transition team advisor Cedric Richmond has tested positive for COVID-19, the Biden team is taking precautions and so far no additional positive tests have been found.
• Nigerian national security forces have rescued 350 school-age boys from Boko Haram militants, the children were being forced into service as child soldiers.
• The corporate and government victims of the recently discovered SolarWinds Orion hack continues to widen, including the Department of Energy's nuclear arsenal, and software giant Microsoft.
• Sony has pulled both the PS4 and PS5 versions of Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Network entirely and is offering refunds on the digital version, no word if Microsoft will follow suit.

Last Call For A Hostile Environment

Another Biden pick is in real trouble from the left again, this time it's the Biden administration's selection for Environmental Protection Agency head, Mary Nichols, and environmental and social justice groups are nearly unanimously furious as Biden is now reportedly looking for a replacement.

 

When Joseph R. Biden, Jr. won the presidential election, his top candidate to lead the nation’s most powerful environmental agency appeared clear: Mary D. Nichols, California’s clean air regulator and arguably the country’s most experienced climate change official, was seen as a lock to run the Environmental Protection Agency.

Now Mr. Biden’s team is scrambling to find someone else, according to several people who have spoken with the presidential transition team. The chief reason: This month, a group of more than 70 environmental justice groups wrote to the Biden transition charging that Ms. Nichols has a “bleak track record in addressing environmental racism.”

Possible last-minute candidates, those people said, include Michael S. Regan, a senior North Carolina environmental official, Richard L. Revesz, a New York University law professor, and Basil Seggos, head of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, none of whom had been in serious contention for the job until late last week. The Biden team is also considering asking Gina McCarthy, who ran the agency in the Obama administration, to return.

The environmental justice groups cited Ms. Nichols’s role in pushing California’s cap-and-trade program, which is designed to broadly reduce pollution of planet-warming greenhouse gases — but disproportionately does so at the expense, the groups said, of communities of color by exposing them to more pollutants like smog and soot. The groups charged that Ms. Nichols had repeatedly disregarded or dismissed the concerns of those communities about the effects of the climate policies she enacted.

The letter appears to have resonated: One of Mr. Biden’s key campaign pledges was a promise to address environmental justice, highlighting the need to protect poor and minority communities that are exposed to more pollution than rich communities.

While Mr. Biden had expected that Ms. Nichols would be criticized by Republicans for her history of pushing tough regulations on industries, he was caught off guard by the intense objections to Ms. Nichols from liberals.

The influence of those groups, and Mr. Biden’s reactions to their push, appears to be another signal of the increasing tensions between the left and moderate factions of the Democratic Party. Mr. Biden has already been subject to criticism from the left for some of his cabinet picks, even as he explicitly attempts to build a cabinet of racial and gender diversity.

A spokesman for the Biden transition team declined to comment.

From the perspective of environmental progressives, the push to oust Ms. Nichols in the name of environmental justice is of a piece with “the battle for the soul of the party,” said Rich Gold, an energy and environment lobbyist and former senior E.P.A. adviser in the Clinton administration.

California environmental groups have long had a legitimate beef with Nichols, and it looks like she's being sunk for good reason.

 

During the campaign, the Biden-Harris campaign made environmental justice a core part of their climate plan, recognizing that “environmental policy decisions of the past have failed communities of color.” With Ms. Nichols identified as a candidate for EPA Administrator, California environmental justice communities are now holding the President and Vice-President to their word, asserting that Nichols is incompatible with their campaign promise to ensure that communities burdened by pollution would benefit from a transition to clean energy.

During her tenure as CARB Chair, Nichols has been known for pushing market-based approaches to the climate crisis at the expense of the health and well-being of California’s communities of color, who suffer from some of the deadliest air in the country. The California groups’ letter outlines examples of how Nichols has disregarded environmental justice during her tenure.

“As CARB Chair for well over ten years, Mary Nichols had a unique opportunity and responsibility to address generations of environmental injustice in California, as she was urged by community members time and time again. Regrettably, over the years she instead dismissed petitions of frontline communities aimed at both improving their environmental health and preventing further harms from pollution and the climate crisis,” said Gladys Limón, Executive Director of the California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA). “As demands for racial justice heighten, COVID-19 races through historically redlined neighborhoods, and big polluters continue to fuel the climate crisis, we need an EPA leader who will partner with frontline communities to advance truly equitable solutions that center the well-being of people, not industries.”

Nichols’ signature cap-and-trade program created a market for big polluters to buy and sell pollution allowances at just $15 per ton. The program is failing to meet its own emissions reduction targets and has increased pollution from the oil and gas industry.

“Mary Nichols’ cap-and-trade program turned working class communities of color into environmental sacrifice zones,” said Miya Yoshitani, Executive Director of Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN). “Nichols’ approach left gaping loopholes for industrial polluters to continue to pollute for profit, and increased pollution burdens on the communities living alongside refineries, oil and gas wells, and dirty power plants. President Biden must learn from California’s failures and appoint an EPA leader who will work with us to lead a just transition away from an economy based on profit and pollution and toward an economy where all of us can thrive.”

 

To his credit, Biden is listening here. This is an example where a serious, critical problem has been raised, and presented to the Biden team, and the Biden team is responding after considering the new information. That's how things are supposed to work, and note that in the letter, the environmental groups aren't attacking Biden, but stating their case.

It looks like they were successful, and we're better for it with the pick that is emerging, North Carolina's top environmental official, Michael Regan.

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will nominate Michael S. Regan, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, according to three people on the Biden transition team.

Mr. Regan became Mr. Biden’s top choice only in recent days, two people familiar with the selection process said. The front-runner had for several weeks been Mary D. Nichols, California’s air quality regulator, but she faced significant criticism from liberal groups who accused her of not doing enough to address issues of environmental racism in her state.

Mr. Biden also has been under pressure to make his cabinet choices more racially diverse. If confirmed, Mr. Regan is expected to bring a strong focus on racial equity to the agency.

“It signals that the Biden administration is serious about getting the E.P.A. back to its core mission to protect the environment and public health as well as ensure strong, meaningful steps are taken to advance environmental justice issues,” said Brian Buzby, the executive director of the North Carolina Conservation Network, a coalition of environmental groups.

 

The process worked.

Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

As with Ferguson, Missouri, Black Lives Matter community leaders in Louisville are turning up dead in the wake of revelations that state AG Daniel Cameron never even considered murder or even manslaughter charges against Louisville Metro Police in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Hours after protest leader Travis Nagdy was shot and killed in late November, Kris Smith remembered the young man fondly.

“He’s gonna be missed over here, because he was really one of the good ones,” Smith told The Courier Journal at the time.

Today, those who knew Smith have found themselves saying similar things about the 42-year-old business owner who was a regular at protests over the death of Breonna Taylor.

On Friday, Smith was shot and killed in the 200 block of North 26th Street, according to a chaplain who helped identify his body.

His death is one of more than 150 homicides in Louisville this year, a number that has blown past the city's previous record of 117 homicides in 2016.

Neither Louisville police nor the coroner's office have confirmed Smith as the victim. But Stachelle Bussey, a local pastor and friend of Smith's, said she was with Smith's wife when she identified his body at University of Louisville Hospital.

"Just like everybody else, he was finding his niche, finding his voice" at the protests, Bussey said. "We're mourning one, then we lose another. ... With Travis, I lost a brother. Today we lost another one."

 

Here's the best part.

 

Police say there is no evidence to indicate that Nagdy and Smith's deaths are related, and there are "no motives at this point." 

Of course not. Perish the thought. And I'm sure LMPD will have these murders solved any day now.

Any day now.

Black lives still matter.

America Almost Went Super Viral, Con't

Keep in mind that every time Trump regime Republicans say "herd immunity" what they mean is "we will survive, and those people won't, and we'll all be better off." This is of course the same country that decided smallpox blankets to gift the Natives was fair game.

A top Trump appointee repeatedly urged top health officials to adopt a "herd immunity" approach to Covid-19 and allow millions of Americans to be infected by the virus, according to internal emails obtained by a House watchdog and shared with POLITICO.

“There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD," then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote on July 4 to his boss, Health and Human Services assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, and six other senior officials.

"Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…" Alexander added.

"[I]t may be that it will be best if we open up and flood the zone and let the kids and young folk get infected" in order to get "natural immunity…natural exposure," Alexander wrote on July 24 to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, Caputo and eight other senior officials. Caputo subsequently asked Alexander to research the idea, according to emails obtained by the House Oversight Committee's select subcommittee on coronavirus.

Alexander also argued that colleges should stay open to allow Covid-19 infections to spread, lamenting in a July 27 email to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield that “we essentially took off the battlefield the most potent weapon we had...younger healthy people, children, teens, young people who we needed to fastly [sic] infect themselves, spread it around, develop immunity, and help stop the spread.”

Alexander was a top deputy of Caputo, who was personally installed by President Donald Trump in April to lead the health department's communications efforts. Officials told POLITICO that they believed that when Alexander made recommendations, he had the backing of the White House.

“It was understood that he spoke for Michael Caputo, who spoke for the White House,” said Kyle McGowan, a Trump appointee who was CDC chief of staff before leaving this summer. “That’s how they wanted it to be perceived.”

Senior Trump officials have repeatedly denied that herd immunity — a concept advocated by some conservatives as a tactic to control Covid-19 by deliberately exposing less vulnerable populations in hopes of re-opening the economy — was under consideration or shaped the White House's approach to the pandemic. “Herd immunity is not the strategy of the U.S. government with regard to coronavirus," HHS Secretary Alex Azar testified in a hearing before the House coronavirus subcommittee on Oct. 2.

In his emails, Alexander also spent months attacking government scientists and pushing to shape official statements to be more favorable to President Donald Trump.

For instance, Alexander acknowledges in a May 30 email that a draft statement from the CDC about how Covid-19 was disproportionately affecting minority populations was "very accurate," but he warned HHS and CDC communications officials that "in this election cycle that is the kind of statement coming from CDC that the media and Democrat [sic] antagonists will use against the president." The problems were "due to decades of democrat neglect," Alexander alleged.

So yeah, culling the herd.

Those least likely to have the medical resources to survive would die, or become chronically ill with "long COVID" and would eventually die much sooner. Black folk, undocumented folk, poor folk, Latino folk, all the high risk groups would be surrounded by asymptomatic carriers and would of course get sick anyway.  They just wanted a way to justify it to the press and the American people.

This was the plan so that the rest of them could eat out at their favorite restaurant. 

 

Of course the "low-risk groups" like kids did get sick, and it killed them too.

It wasn't just neglect, it was genocide.

74 million voted for it.

Last Call For Mitch In The Ditch

Senate GOP majority leader Mitch McConnell is trying to evacuate himself and as many of his Senate GOP enablers as he can from the sinking Trump regime, but all the lifeboats are being set on fire by the Trump cultists, and I can't say that I'm sorry to hope they all drown like the rats they are.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Republican senators Tuesday during a private caucus call not to object to the election results on Jan. 6, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

McConnell told his caucus that challenging the results would force Republicans to take a “terrible vote” because they would need to vote it down and appear against President Donald Trump. Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) also echoed McConnell’s remarks.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said that no one objected on the call to McConnell encouraging members to accept the election results.

"There wasn’t any pushback to it," she said. "There’s wasn’t anyone saying: oh wait a minute. That didn’t occur."

McConnell’s advice comes one day after the Electoral College officially voted for Joe Biden as the president-elect. The Kentucky Republican acknowledged for the first time that Biden will be the next president in his floor remarks Tuesday.

Several House Republicans, led by hard-line conservative Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), are still planning to challenge the election results on Jan. 6, the date Congress will officially certify them. If a Republican senator joins the long-shot effort, however, it will force both chambers to take a vote on the election. But they have yet to get official buy-in from any GOP senators, though Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) hasn't ruled it out.

Brooks, in response to McConnell cautioning the GOP against objecting to the election results, tweeted that he hopes it’s “fake news.”

“I find it unfathomable that anyone would acquiesce to election theft and voter fraud because they lack the courage to take a difficult vote on the House or Senate floor,” Brooks said in a phone interview. “Last time I checked, that’s why we were elected to Congress.”

Brooks met briefly last week with several GOP senators to discuss his effort, but declined to say whether anyone is seriously considering the idea. Conservatives, however, have been eyeing Sen.-elect Tommy Tuberville — another Alabama Republican and Trump supporter — as someone who may get on board. And Senate Republicans are unsure where he stands; Tuberville was not a part of Tuesday’s conference call.

McConnell’s warning underscores how the last-ditch bid to overturn the election is putting the GOP in a bind. On the one hand, Republicans are facing pressure from Trump and his allies to support his attempt to remain in power. And party leaders want to keep the base energized ahead of a pair of critical Georgia runoff races on Jan. 5. that will determine control of the Senate.

But at the same time, McConnell — who is defending a tough Senate map in 2022 — needs to protect his members from taking a tough vote. If the Senate is forced to deliberate the election results, most GOP senators would be going on the record against a president who values fealty above all else. And it would be none other than Vice President Mike Pence presiding over the floor debate — a potentially awkward scenario as his boss continues to deny the reality of the election he lost.

 

Mitch now faces a trap of his own design. He either has to risk losing his power now and anger Trump's cultists enough that they sabotage the George runoffs, or risk losing power in 2022 when attacks ads will show Republican after Republican who voted to overturn the election (or they are primaried out by Republicans who didn't and are replaced with even worse ones).

I hope it's the former.

Retribution Execution, Con't

Understand that Bill Barr was fired by Trump for several reasons, and not appointing a special prosecutor to go after Joe Biden's son is one of the main ones. Incoming replacement Jeff Rosen is now going to be under tremendous pressure to make this happen.

President Donald Trump is considering pushing to have a special counsel appointed to advance a federal tax investigation into the son of President-elect Joe Biden, setting up a potential showdown with incoming acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen.

Trump — angry that out-going Attorney General William Barr didn’t publicly announce the ongoing, two-year investigation into Hunter Biden — has consulted on the matter with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, White House counsel Pat Cipollone and outside allies.

That’s according to several Trump administration officials and Republicans close to the White House who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss private matters.

Beyond appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the younger Biden, the sources said Trump is interested in having another special counsel appointed to look into his own baseless claims of election fraud. But if he’s expecting his newly named acting attorney general to go further than Barr on either matter, he could end up quickly disappointed.

Barr on Monday evening announced he will resign effective next week, revealing his plans about a week after Hunter Biden publicly disclosed that he was under investigation related to his finances. It is generally Justice Department policy not to disclose investigations that are in progress, though the subjects of those investigations can.

Rosen, the deputy attorney general, will step into the Justice Department’s top job in an acting role. A longtime litigator, he has served as Barr’s top deputy since May 2019 but largely shies away from the spotlight. He said in a statement Tuesday he was “honored” to serve and “will continue to focus on the implementation of the Department’s key priorities.”

Trump is still weighing his options, considering whether to pressure Rosen to make the special counsel appointment or, if needed, to replace the acting attorney general with someone more likely to carry out his wishes. He has even asked his team of lawyers, including personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, to look into whether the president has the power to appoint a special counsel himself.

A key question will be whether Rosen can stand up to presidential pressure — and potentially withering attacks — in the waning weeks of the Trump administration. If not, Rosen could be cast aside in favor of others more willing to do Trump’s bidding.

Believing that a special counsel probe could wound a Biden administration before it even begins, Trump aides have urged the president to push for one, which would make it so the investigation can’t be easily stopped by the incoming president. No firm decision has been made.

 

Trump has 35 days left in office.  He can still cause a tremendous amount of damage in five weeks, and the damage he has already caused will leave scars on America's political system for decades, not to mention the irreversible human carnage wrought by his cancerous party: hundreds of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands more will die, and millions are facing a wintry eviction in a matter of a score of days.

 

As he runs out of options as the days go by -- and as America reaches a point not seen since the 1930s -- the odds of precipitous calamity increase exponentially. We're still at the phase where Trump going after Hunter Biden is an ugly political attack to force Joe Biden to relent before New York serves Trump with subpoenas. Give it a couple of weeks, and we'll be at the point after Christmas where Trump may do something so profoundly illegal, immoral, and indefensibly evil that the entire country could be set aflame.

 

The monster is most dangerous when cornered by the hero as the final battle begins.

The Coup-Coup Birds Take Flight, Con't

At this point, Republicans are openly running their campaign platforms on Donald Trump imposing a second term through a coup and martial law, and Republicans will vote for them, because they are all traitors.

State Sen. Amanda F. Chase, a brash Republican gubernatorial contender who bills herself as "Trump in heels," called on President Trump on Tuesday to declare martial law to prevent his removal from office.

One day after the electoral college formally confirmed former vice president Joe Biden’s victory over Trump, Chase (Chesterfield) doubled down on baseless allegations of election fraud in an early-morning Facebook post.

“Not my President and never will be,” she wrote, referring to Biden. “The American people aren’t fools. We know you cheated to win and we’ll never accept these results. Fair elections we can accept but cheating to win; never. It’s not over yet. So thankful President Trump has a backbone and refuses to concede. President Trump should declare martial law as recommended by General Flynn.”

Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser pardoned by the president, recently shared a Twitter post advocating that the president “temporarily suspend the Constitution” and declare martial law.

In an interview Tuesday, Chase said she was holding out hope that Trump somehow would be declared the winner when the electoral college ballots are formally counted during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 — an all-but-impossible outcome, especially as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday publicly acknowledged Biden’s victory for the first time since the election. Barring that extremely unlikely turn of events, Chase thinks martial law is in order.

Under martial law, she said, troops would “go and seize these [voting] machines and voting equipment to find the voter fraud. There needs to be a national audit.”

Chase’s call for martial law drew rebukes from a few prominent Virginia Republicans, including her lone rival for the GOP nomination, Del. Kirk Cox (Colonial Heights).

“Senator Chase’s suggestion that martial law be imposed is absurd and dangerous,” Cox, a retired teacher, said in a written statement. “I taught government for 30 years and have great respect for our constitutional republic. Per that system and the electoral college vote yesterday, Joe Biden will be the next President.”

Cox, a former House speaker who had said he would not comment on the presidential election until after the electoral college vote, acknowledged Biden’s win for the first time Tuesday.

 

I bet you dollars to doughnuts that this "brash, Trump on heels" wins the Virginia Republican gubernatorial primary by 20 points, and my fear is that running on "not my President and never will be" is all she'll need to say and do at campaign rallies to have a serious chance to beat former Dem Gov. Terry McAuliffe come November 2021.

 

And Chase isn't alone. Far from it, in fact. 

A North Carolina senator suggested Tuesday that the president might suspend basic liberties to overturn an election that he believes, without evidence, was stolen.

Sen. Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan, paraphrased on his Facebook page comments that retired Gen. Thomas McInerney made earlier this month on a conservative talk show. Among other things, McInerney suggested President Donald Trump declare a national emergency, invoke the Insurrection Act and suspend habeas corpus.

Steinburg told WRAL News on Tuesday evening that he wasn't endorsing the idea, just "putting out there options that others say still remain on the table," though he later said he'd be on board with it. In an extended harangue, Steinburg also made it clear he believes the recent presidential election was stolen and that Trump is the victim of a conspiracy to which multiple countries, the media, U.S. government agencies, officials and judges are either a part or turning a blind eye.

“There’s something going on here bigger than what anybody is willing to talk about," he said. "I’m not nuts. … I’m not a conspiracy theory person. I don’t like them. I don’t like conspiracy theories at all. But something is going on here that’s bigger than meets the eye.”

Steinburg then offered, unprompted, to take a psychiatric evaluation. He said the CIA and FBI both know there's a coup d'etat going on in the country but won't do anything about it.

"They think we’re just bunch of boobs out here in the hinterland," he said. "Well, these boobs are waking up.”

People like this aren't just going to vanish into the ether on January 20th.

A former Houston Police Department Captain was arrested and charged for running a man off the road and pointing a gun at his head in an attempt to prove claims of a massive voter fraud scheme in Harris County, according to a news release from the Harris County's DA's office.

Mark Anthony Aguirre, 63, was arrested by Houston police Tuesday and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

"He crossed the line from dirty politics to commission of a violent crime, and we are lucky no one was killed," Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said. "His alleged investigation was backward from the start - first alleging a crime had occurred and then trying to prove it happened."

According to court documents, Aguirre told police that he was part of a group of private citizens called the "Liberty Center," who were conducting a civilian investigation into the alleged ballot scheme.

According to Aguirre, he had been conducting surveillance for four days on a man who was allegedly the mastermind of a giant voter fraud scheme. Aguirre told authorities the man was hiding 750,000 fraudulent ballots in a truck he was driving.

Instead, the victim turned out to be an innocent air conditioner repairman, court documents said.

Aguirre ran his SUV into the back of the truck to get the technician to stop and get out, according to court documents.

When the technician got out of the truck, Aguirre pointed a handgun at the technician, forced him to the ground and put his knee on the man's back until police came, the court document said.

Aguirre allegedly directed police to a parking lot nearby where another suspect, who has not been identified, took the truck.

According to court documents, there were no ballots in the truck. The truck was filled with air conditioning parts and tools.

"I think it's a political prosecution. I really do," said Terry Yates, Aguirre's attorney. "He was working and investigating voter fraud, and there was an accident. A member of the car got out and rushed at him and that's where the confrontation took place. It's very different from what you're citing in the affidavit."

 

This is just a taste of what's coming in the weeks and months ahead, especially should Donald Trump and his family end up facing the music in New York on state charges. People are going to get hurt, and our long national nightmare is not over, it's just moving on to a different phase.

I hope we can get through it.  I'm not so sure we will.

StupidiNews!

• A New York State judge has ordered the Trump Organization to turn over tax documents to state Attorney General Tish James in the state's ongoing Trump Organization tax fraud investigation.
• The FDA has released new medical data on the second major COVID-19 vaccine from Moderna, paving the way for FDA approval which could come later this month.
• House and Senate leaders from both parties say they are nearing a final agreement on a COVID-19 stimulus bill as the government faces a Friday shutdown deadline.
• The Trump regime is asking the Supreme Court to stop mail delivery of Plan B abortion medication, claiming using the postal service to deliver the pills is a violation of the Hyde Amendment.
• Claiming they haven't been paid in months, workers at an iPhone parts plant in India have damaged the factory as millions of workers across India are going on general strike.

Last Call For Hard Hats, Parklands, and Reactors

Joe Biden is picking former rival Pete Buttigieg for Transportation Secretary, which means maybe we can actually get the damn Brent Spence Bridge replaced.

President-elect Joe Biden will nominate Pete Buttigieg to be his transportation secretary, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN, elevating the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate to a top post in the federal government.
Buttigieg would be the first Senate-confirmed LGBTQ Cabinet secretary should his nomination make it through the chamber. 

The choice -- which represents the first time the President-elect has called on one of his former Democratic presidential opponents to join his administration as a Cabinet secretary -- vaults a candidate Biden spoke glowingly of after the primary into a top job in his incoming administration and could earn Buttigieg what many Democrats believe is needed experience should he run for president again. 

The role of transportation secretary is expected to play a central role in Biden's push for a bipartisan infrastructure package. 

Buttigieg is seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party but someone who lacked an obvious path to higher elected office given the continued rightward shift of his home state of Indiana. 

As a presidential candidate, he rolled out a $1 trillion infrastructure plan that prioritized upgrading the country's crumbling infrastructure and expanding broadband internet access through payment to state and local governments. Buttigieg often spoke about infrastructure on the campaign trail from the perspective of a small mayor, arguing that local governments like the one he once ran needed people in Washington who understood their needs and issues.

Infrastructure reform had been a priority of Trump's earlier in his four years in office, but if routinely took a back seat to other issues. 

Buttigieg often faulted the administration for failing to do anything on infrastructure, writing in his plan on the issue that the Republican President's team was "incapable of keeping its promise to pass major infrastructure legislation, and critical projects around the country are stalled because of it." 

Buttigieg emerged as the leading candidate for the transportation secretary role in recent days. The former mayor was considered for a host of other posts, including US ambassador to the United Nations and commerce secretary. 

Other Democrats were also considered for the post, including former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo.

 

While Pete wouldn't be my first choice for the job, it's not my call to make, and it's not like Elaine Chao cared about anything other than lining her own pockets (and that of her husband, Mitch McConnell). 

 

Besides, the other candidates, Gina Raimondo, Eric Garcetti, and especially Rahm Emanuel, all were train wrecks who would have been far worse. Raimondo has had multiple ethics problems with unions and casinos as Rhode Island's governor, Garcetti, LA's mayor, has a serious issue with the fact his top aide is a serial sexual predator, and Rahm...well..Rahm should never be anywhere near a Biden administration except if he buys a ticket to an event, and even then he should be tossed out on his ass.

Mayor Pete is actually the best pick of a truly meh bunch.

Meanwhile, Biden's doing a much better job with former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm as his choice for Energy Secretary, and Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico as Interior Secretary.

U.S. Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico appears to be President-elect Joe Biden’s top choice to head the Interior Department, three informed sources said, a pick that would make her the first Native American to lead a Cabinet agency.

The position would give her authority over a department that employs more than 70,000 people across the United States and oversees more than 20% of the nation’s surface, including tribal lands and national parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite.

She has told Reuters she would seek to usher in an expansion of renewable energy production on federal land to contribute to the fight against climate change, and undo President Donald Trump’s focus on bolstering fossil fuels output.

Two of the sources familiar with the proceedings said Biden’s team was close to finalizing the decision on Haaland but weighing concerns about the loss of a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Democrats are hanging on to a slim majority. The third source said the decision was made and that an announcement was imminent.

Biden is also in the process of finalizing other key energy and environment picks, including Environmental Protection Agency Administrator and Secretary of Energy - all of which will be crucial to his sweeping climate change agenda.

Two sources said Biden currently favors Jennifer Granholm to run the Department of Energy. Granholm, 61, was Michigan’s first female governor and pushed for a transition to green technologies in the longtime car-manufacturing state.

 

Both Haaland and Granholm are excellent choices.

 

And then there's...Pete.  I guess.

The Coup-Coup Birds Take Flight, Con't

The Trump regime continues to openly plot sedition after yesterday's electoral college votes sealed Biden's victory.

President Trump's allies are preparing to send an "alternate" slate of electors to Congress, senior White House adviser Stephen Miller said Monday, signaling Trump will drag out his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election even after the Electoral College certifies Joe Biden as the winner.

Miller, appearing on Fox News as a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, brushed off the idea that the Electoral College vote marked any kind of end to the process.

"The only date in the Constitution is Jan. 20. So we have more than enough time to right the wrong of this fraudulent election result and certify Donald Trump as the winner of the election," Miller said on "Fox & Friends."

"As we speak, today, an alternate slate of electors in the contested states is going to vote and we're going to send those results up to Congress," he continued. "This will ensure that all of our legal remedies remain open. That means that if we win these cases in the courts, that we can direct that the alternate state of electors be certified."

Electors from every state met on Monday to formally elect Biden as the next president. Those results will be certified by the states and submitted to Congress.

Miller indicated that Trump supporters will act as "alternates" in a handful of contested states, including Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, to submit their own, unofficial results. Should the Trump campaign succeed in overturning the outcome in any of those states, Miller said, the alternate electors could then be recognized by Congress.

Nothing in the Constitution or state electoral processes allows for such an "alternate" slate of electors.

Miller also raised the idea of state legislatures stepping in to overturn the results or of Congress interceding.

 

This is no longer cute, or funny, or even a cynical grift to raise funds for Trump's campaign coffers.

 

This is sedition.

 

Actually meeting to elect alternate electors, and then sending those electors' votes to Congress with the express intent of overturning an election, is sedition, period.

These people must go to prison or our democracy will be damaged, perhaps fatally so.

Wilbur Runs The Numbers

With all the drunken first year law student frat boy coup idiocy going on, it's important to note a quick reminder from Forbes Magazine's Dan Alexander that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross may actually be the most corrupt member of Trump's Cabinet, and that's actually a singularly amazing feat in the field of massive grifting in a field of massive grifters.

Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, one of President Trump’s longest-serving cabinet members, has been under investigation for most of his tenure in office, according to a report issued Thursday by the inspector general of the commerce department.

The report both revealed the investigation and published its findings. It concluded that Ross, who has served as commerce secretary since Trump’s first year in office, violated a federal regulation by failing to avoid the appearance of ethical and legal breaches. The report cleared him on other matters, including whether he lied to federal officials and engaged in insider trading.

The probe began in November 2017, after Forbes reported how Ross had been apparently fibbing about his fortune for years. The investigation eventually expanded, following revelations the next year about false ethics filings, conflict-prone meetings and suspiciously timed investments.

Thursday’s report catalogues a litany of inaccurate statements that Ross submitted to federal officials. He did not list all assets on his financial disclosure report. He claimed to have divested things he did not. He described stock distributions that did not happen. He said he sold assets that he actually shorted.

It’s not a crime to unintentionally provide false information to officials—only to intentionally do so. The report does not conclude that Ross knowingly lied.

The inspector general also documented several meetings that don’t look good at first glance. For instance, Ross was supposed to receive advice from ethics lawyers before dealing with issues involving China or energy. But in conversations about gas exports, the commerce secretary ignored that and talked to Chinese officials. Another example: While Ross’ wife owned stock in Boeing, he met with the company’s CEO and asked about subsidies to its rival Airbus. A third one: the commerce secretary met with the CEO of a railcar company even though Ross owned a hidden stake in the business.

The report concludes that the China energy talks violated the regulation meant to curb unethical appearances, while determining that Ross’ actions didn’t have a clear enough effect on his holdings to constitute a violation of the criminal conflicts-of-interest statute. Merely asking the CEO about Airbus, without taking some action related to the conversation, didn’t rise to that level either, according to the report. Nor did the meeting with the railcar CEO, which Ross claimed was “purely social.”

Ignoring the regulatory violations, the commerce secretary struck a triumphant tone. “I am pleased that the inspector general’s report puts to rest any notion that I violated the conflict-of-interest statutes,” Ross said in a statement sent shortly after this story published. “I have always been and will remain committed to adhering to the highest standard of ethics in the discharge of my duties.”

For all the insider trading Sonny Perdue and Kelly Loeffler ae accused of doing, it's Wilbur Ross who got away with enriching himself the most while just barely getting away with it.  I'm sure we're going to find out that between Ross and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that these two got away with billions in fraud while being much smarter than Trump was in the process of making it happen.

Trump will surely pardon the two of them on the way out too, if only to buy their silence.

Last Call For Russian To Judgement, Con't

So very odd how that weeks after Trump fires the nation's top cybersecurity expert because he won't sign off on Trump's "election fraud" lunacy and leaves the country rudderless on the defending the internet, the US Treasury immediately gets hit by a massive cyberattack that compromised our entire internet infrastructure.  I'll give you three guesses as to who's behind this, and the first seven don't count. 

The Russian government hackers who breached a top cybersecurity firm are behind a global espionage campaign that also compromised the Treasury and Commerce departments and other government agencies, according to people familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The FBI is investigating the campaign by a hacking group working for the Russian foreign intelligence service, SVR. The group, known among private-sector security firms as APT29 or Cozy Bear, also hacked the State Department and the White House during the Obama administration.

It is not clear what information was accessed.

Reuters first reported the hacks of the Treasury and Commerce agencies Sunday, saying they were carried out by a foreign government-backed group. The SVR link to the broader campaign is previously unreported.

The matter was so serious it prompted an emergency National Security Council meeting on Saturday, Reuters reported.

“The United States government is aware of these reports and we are taking all necessary steps to identify and remedy any possible issues related to this situation,” said NSC spokesman John Ullyot. He would not comment on the country or group responsible.

APT29 has been linked to several has attempted to steal coronavirus vaccine research.

The Washington Post reported last week that the Russian hacking group, APT29, breached the cybersecurity firm, FireEye, according to sources familiar with the report.

At Commerce, the Russians targeted the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, an agency that handles internet and telecommunications policy, Reuters reported.

The campaign is said to be quite broad, encompassing an array of targets, including government agencies in the United States and other countries. It has been running for months, one person said.

So to recap, the Russians most likely have the entire set of keys to the US internet infrastructure, and now have the ability to manipulate it as they see fit. Even Trump is scared enough to have an emergency national security meeting over this.

Just in time for basically all the previously secure internet communications in the US to now be open to Moscow and Putin to do whatever he wants to the Biden administration.

BREAKING: He's Done, Barr None

Bill Barr is stepping down as Attorney General and will be replaced by Deputy AG Jeff Rosen.

 

Attorney General William Barr resigned on Monday, ending a tenure in which the President Donald Trump loyalist carried the administration's "law and order" message but ultimately dealt the most credible blow to Trump's unfounded claims that the 2020 election was littered with fraud. 

"Just had a very nice meeting with Attorney General Bill Barr at the White House. Our relationship has been a very good one, he has done an outstanding job! As per letter, Bill will be leaving just before Christmas to spend the holidays with his family," Trump tweeted, announcing the news. 

"Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen, an outstanding person, will become Acting Attorney General. Highly respected Richard Donoghue will be taking over the duties of Deputy Attorney General. Thank you to all!" 

Barr repeatedly and unapologetically prioritized Trump's political goals while furthering his own vision of expansive presidential power. In his most notorious move, Barr delivered a misleading summary of special counsel Robert Mueller's report, essentially clearing Trump in the Russia probe, which drew a sharp rebuke from Mueller himself. 

He remained steadfast in his support of the President heading into Election Day, including by launching various operations across the country to combat violence and drug trafficking and reiterating Trump's message not to participate in mail-in voting prior to the presidential election. He also appointed a special counsel to continue investigating one of Trump's longtime infatuations, that intelligence and law enforcement violated the law in investigating the 2016 Trump campaign. 

But the decision from the former attorney general to rebuke the President's false claims of widespread fraud in his loss to Democrat Joe Biden represented a final failure of Trump's often successful attempt to weaponize the Justice Department as a personal and potent political weapon.

 

Whatever villainy Trump is planning next, Bill Barr doesn't want any part of it. And Trump fired Barr specifically today in order to kill the news that Joe Biden got the required 270 electoral college votes today and will be sworn in on January 20.

Fighting Back Against The Viral

Around the US and here in Kentucky, the first doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine are arriving in hospitals and in senior care facilities to help those on the front lines and those most vulnerable to the virus.

The first vaccines against COVID-19 arrived Sunday in Kentucky, and Gov. Andy Beshear said that some Kentuckians may be vaccinated as early as Monday morning.

A “significant” shipment of the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine landed at the UPS Worldport in Louisville on Sunday. The vaccine was the first to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is believed to be 95 percent effective.

“Kentucky is going to play a major role in getting this vaccine to people all over the eastern United States through UPS’ Worldport,” Beshear said in his announcement Sunday. “We in the commonwealth are excited to be a big part of defeating this virus all over this country. We now believe that the first individuals will be vaccinated here in the commonwealth tomorrow morning. We are less than 24 hours away from the beginning of the end of this virus.”

The fight against COVID-19 will continue for months, but in his release Beshear said this development was a historic milestone to be celebrated.

Shipments made to Kentucky are expected to include 12,675 vials of the vaccine that will be sent to 11 hospitals in Lexington, Louisville, Pikeville, Corbin, Bowling Green, Paducah and Edgewood, according to the announcement Sunday by Beshear’s office. An additional 25,350 vials will be sent to CVS and Walgreens, and those vaccines will go to long-term care facilities in the state.

With the expected approval of another effective vaccine from Moderna, Beshear’s office expects Kentucky could get as many as 150,000 doses of vaccine in December.

The initial rounds of vaccinations will include hospitals and long-term care facilities, and the specifics will be announced based on guidelines from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, according to Beshear’s office. Health care staff are being prioritized.

With 66 percent of COVID-19 deaths coming from long-term care facilities, vaccines to such facilities are expected to help reduce Kentucky’s COVID-19 death toll significantly, according to Beshear’s office.

The vaccination plan and phases are still being determined, but local health departments have been working with the state to prepare for the distribution of the vaccines, according to Beshear’s office.

“Our community doctors and nurses, as well as long-term care residents and staff, are preparing to do their part first,” Beshear said in Sunday’s release. “We will all get a turn. When it is your turn, I strongly encourage you to get vaccinated so you can do your part to protect yourself, your family and our entire state.”

 

It's been a long time coming, and it's important that the vaccine go to the people who need it the most. I don't foresee problems with that, I foresee problems with 35-40% of Americans still refusing the vaccine at this point. I hope they will change their minds, but frankly I expect the rest of the world is going to move quickly over the months ahead on "get vaccinated or else".

Among all the tools that health agencies have developed over the years to fight epidemics, at least one has remained a constant for more than a century: paper vaccination certificates.

In the 1880s, in response to smallpox outbreaks, some public schools began requiring students and teachers to show vaccination cards. In the 1960s, amid yellow fever epidemics, the World Health Organization introduced an international travel document, known informally as the yellow card. Even now, travelers from certain regions are required to show a version of the card at airports.

But now, just as the United States is preparing to distribute the first vaccines for the virus, the entry ticket to the nation’s reopening is set to come largely in the form of a digital health credential.

In the coming weeks, major airlines including United, JetBlue and Lufthansa plan to introduce a health passport app, called CommonPass, that aims to verify passengers’ virus test results — and soon, vaccinations. The app will then issue confirmation codes enabling passengers to board certain international flights. It is just the start of a push for digital Covid-19 credentials that could soon be embraced by employers, schools, summer camps and entertainment venues.

“This is likely to be a new normal need that we’re going to have to deal with to control and contain this pandemic,” said Dr. Brad Perkins, the chief medical officer at the Commons Project Foundation, a nonprofit in Geneva that developed the CommonPass app.

The advent of electronic vaccination credentials could have a profound effect on efforts to control the coronavirus and restore the economy. They could prompt more employers and college campuses to reopen. They may also give some consumers peace of mind, developers say, by creating an easy way for movie theaters, cruise ships and sports arenas to admit only those with documented coronavirus vaccinations.

But the digital passes also raise the specter of a society split into health pass haves and have-nots, particularly if venues begin requiring the apps as entry tickets. The apps could make it difficult for people with limited access to vaccines or online verification tools to work or visit popular destinations. Civil liberties experts also warn that the technology could create an invasive system of social control, akin to the heightened surveillance that China adopted during the pandemic — only instead of federal or state governments, private actors like employers and restaurants would determine who can and cannot access services.

“Protecting public health has historically been used as a proxy for discrimination,” said Professor Michele Goodwin, a law professor who directs the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy at the University of California, Irvine. “That is the real concern — the potential to use these apps as proxies for keeping certain people away and out."

 

There are legitimate civil liberties and racial justice concerns here, and we're going to need to deal with them now. That's the next big fight in American society, and it will define 2021 as much as the virus defined 2020. 

We have a long road to travel here. As I've said constantly, electing Joe Biden, keeping the House and (hopefully) winning back the Senate are just the start of years of grueling work ahead of us as a country, as a people, and as a planet.

 

Another #MeToo Moment, Con't

And this one is big: NY Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo is publicly being accused of years of sexual harassment by his former economic adviser Lindsey Boylan.

 

Lindsey Boylan, a Democratic candidate for Manhattan Borough president, accused New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, of sexual harassment during the time she worked as an adviser to him.

Boylan served as Deputy Secretary for Economic Development and Special Advisor in the Cuomo administration from March 2015 until October 2018. She then unsuccessfully challenged New York Representative Jerrold Nadler in the 2020 Democratic primary.

Last Saturday, Boylan posted a series of tweets alleging that the work environment in Cuomo's administration was "toxic." Then on Sunday, she alleged that she'd been sexually harassed by the governor.

"Yes, @NYGovCuomo sexually harassed me for years. Many saw it, and watched," the former Cuomo administration official tweeted Sunday. "I could never anticipate what to expect: would I be grilled on my work (which was very good) or harassed about my looks. Or would it be both in the same conversation? This was the way for years."

Boylan alleged that she was not the only woman to experience harassment: "Not knowing what to expect what's the most upsetting part aside from knowing that no one would do a damn thing even when they saw it. No one."

"I'm angry to be put in this situation at all. That because I am a woman, I can work hard my whole life to better myself and help others and yet still fall victim as countless women over generations have. Mostly silently," she wrote. "I hate that some men, like @NYGovCuomo abuse their power."

 

Cuomo's name came up late last week as a possibly candidate for US Attorney General in the Biden administration, something that was floated before the election back in October. Needless to say, Cuomo's name was removed from this list just before these accusations were made on Sunday, as Biden's list by Friday night was down to Doug Jones and Sally Yates, with former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick as the long shot, with Biden no longer considering Cuomo or DC Chief Justice and former Supreme Court pick Merrick Garland.

In other words, Cuomo's goose got cooked right fast, and now we know why. 

Tish James should have a little conversation I think with him.