Here’s one more thing to celebrate from November’s election, something that got kind of lost in the never-ending saga of Trump’s stupid and dangerous challenges. Yes, he lost many many times and that’s fantastic. But so is this: Two more major cities gave the finger to big telecom and embraced community broadband.
Have some fun enjoying the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, using Twitter for the purposes of spreading joy. Because some people are lucky enough to have political leaders who are trying to use social media to make the world a better place. And also, the dancing queen of Pollokshields, Kate Deeming, is the epitome of dancing like no one is watching for a good cause.
My home state of Idaho has been distinguishing itself with awfulness of late, once again making national news for deplorability, well-documented here by fellow Idaho native (and escapee) David Neiwert.
It’s that time. Time to settle down in front of the virtual fire and enjoy the quiet. Here it is, the granddaddy of the televised Yule logs from 1966, on a continuous loop to keep you mesmerized for hours. Well, minutes.
YouTube Video
In case you’re wondering, it was cooked up in 1966 by Fred M. Thrower, president and chief executive officer of WPIX, Inc. who wanted New Yorkers who lived without fireplaces to be able to enjoy the spectacle.
The impeached two-time popular vote loser took enough of a break from plotting his coup to realize that the Congress will send him a stingy coronavirus relief package. He released a video on Twitter calling on Congress to redo the bill and increase the “ridiculously low” $600 stimulus checks to $2,000 per person.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says stimulus checks will go out as soon as next week, faster than the single round that was provided in spring following the CARES Act. “People are going to see this money the beginning of next week,” he said on CNBC Monday. “Much needed relief—and just in time for the holidays.” Except for the part that it’s after Christmas and barely relief.
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to take part in Donald Trump and the Republican Party of the United State’s coup attempt despite a final round of frivolous unicorn poop and pixie dust briefs from, including and I am not making this up, “New California State” and “New Nevada State.” (Alternately, “New Nevada Sate” because spelling is optional in the new civil war.
If Congress doesn’t act to fix it, around 4 million workers in the United States will have a very bad, long-lasting coronavirus effect: Their eventual Social Security payments will be cut by as much as $2,000 a year in retirement, because they were unfortunate enough to turn 60 during the year 2020.
If Congress doesn’t act to fix it, around 4 million workers in the United States will have a very bad, long-lasting coronavirus effect: Their eventual Social Security payments will be cut by as much as $2,000 a year in retirement, because they were unfortunate enough to turn 60 during the year 2020.
Hallelujah, there will be dogs in the White House again. And for the first time, a shelter dog: Major, who was a pretty damned adorable puppy, even soaking wet:
Meet Major Biden, the first shelter dog to make it all the way to the White House 🐕 (In partnership with @Dodo) You can help Delaware Humane Association save more dogs by donating to: https://t.co/P1R9gYZvPs. You can also check them out on Instagram: https://t.co/3mMWcCEhZK pic.twitter.
There has to be a chicken crossing the road joke somewhere in here, but I’m not finding it. Nevertheless, here’s several minutes of wildlife having a much easier journey through Utah because of a brand new wildlife crossing.
“It’s working!” Check out the critters big and small who are using Utah’s first wildlife overpass to cross Interstate 80. The @UtahDWR shared this video on Thursday. pic.twitter.
It’s that season: the season when you’re supposed to be counting your blessings, thinking of the things for which you’re thankful, and generally being full of peace and goodwill to all. Thinking about 2020 makes that a particularly surreal activity. It could make your brain hurt.
Trying to get all serious about this just made me exhausted.
It’s been 192 days since the House passed the $3 trillion HEROES Act, and 56 days since the House passed their compromise $2.2 trillion bill, both of which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has refused to take up. McConnell sent his Republican Senate on Thanksgiving vacation last Thursday, after having spent the post-election week confirming unqualified Trump judges.
It’s been 191 days since the House passed the $3 trillion HEROES Act, and 55 days since the House passed their compromise $2.2 trillion bill, both of which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has refused to take up. And in just 37 days, the fraying remnant of the safety net created by the CARES Act back in March will expire.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, headed out the door with the rest of the Trump administration, decided to try to hamstring President-elect Joe Biden’s coronavirus efforts, and picked a fight with the Federal Reserve while he was at it. The CARES Act passed back in March allotted $454 billion for emergency lending programs run by the Fed and the Treasury in tandem.
The “Important News Conference today by lawyers” announced on Twitter by loser Donald Trump was supposed to show his “very clear and viable path to victory.” Instead, it was Rudy Giuliani repeating a litany of conspiracy theories and hearsay about fraud that have already failed to convince a single judge. That’s because, Rudy said, the judges are in on it.
The “Important News Conference today by lawyers” announced on Twitter by loser Donald Trump was supposed to show his “very clear and viable path to victory.” Instead, it was Rudy Giuliani repeating a litany of conspiracy theories and hearsay about fraud that have already failed to convince a single judge. That’s because, Rudy said, the judges are in on it.
It’s been 181 days since the House passed the $3 trillion HEROES Act, and 42 days since the House passed a compromise $2.2 trillion bill, both of which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has refused to take up for a vote. The White House has gone AWOL, with the squatter in the Oval Office refusing to do anything beyond tweeting conspiracy theories about a rigged election, while his staff tries to figure out how to cover their asses and find new jobs.
Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican probably voted most punchable by his colleagues in the Senate, had another embarrassing self-own on Twitter this week. “One way of determining fraud in mail-in ballots would be to examine a random sample of a few thousand to find the rate of fraud,” he wrote. “If fraud rate is low, voters may be convinced of the elections legitimacy. If the fraud rate is high, then every mail-in ballot should be examined.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan has ordered the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to conduct sweeps twice a day in all the mail processing facilities for the 23 states that allow for ballots postmarked on or by Election Day to be counted in the following days.
That includes some battleground states that have not yet been called: Pennsylvania, which can still count ballots received until end of business Friday; Nevada, which will accept properly postmarked ballots until Nov.
The Department of Health and Human Services has nearly turned into a ghost town, Politico’s Dan Diamond reports, quoting a number of HHS staff who are discouraged, disheartened, and looking for the exits. It’s not just the incessant infighting between heavyweights Secretary Alex Azar and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services head Seema Verma. It’s not just month eight of a pandemic they’ve completely botched.
How bad is the Republican Senate under Mitch McConnell? It’s so bad it just handed Donald Trump—Donald Trump—one-third of the Supreme Court. Amy “Superspreader” Barrett has been confirmed on a nearly purely party-line vote, 52-47. Sen. Susan Collins, in a completely transparent bid to scrape any Democratic or independent votes that might still be up for grabs in Maine, voted with Democrats against confirmation.
Even while Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell plot to stack the Supreme Court to kill it, the Affordable Care Act and its individual insurance market carry on and even improve, making it a better deal for people with every year. That could be one of the reasons it’s achieved and kept majority support with voters.
Amy Coney Barrett has failed to disclose an awful lot of documents to the Senate in her nomination to the Supreme Court. This is probably one of them: a letter from 88 of her Notre Dame colleagues, dated Oct. 10, asking her to withdraw at least temporarily from consideration for the position.
They congratulate her on the nomination and pretty much inevitable confirmation. That part of it—the inevitability—is why they write this open letter.
Here’s a short reminder that the U.S. Postal Service is being headed up by a corrupt lackey of Donald Trump, a man who has spent lavishly on Republicans in order to buy his post. His previous, probably illegal fundraising has already raised eyebrows, as has his donations to Donald Trump’s campaigns.
Sen. Susan Collins is very peeved. She’s darned mad at the voters of Maine for actually questioning her God-given right to be their senator forever, never mind her promise in her first campaign that she would only serve two terms. But that was four terms ago. Ancient history. Now? Now the seat is hers, dammit. “I grew up in Caribou, I’ve lived in Bangor for 26 years.
It’s been 139 days since the House passed the $3.4 trillion HEROES Act, which Mitch McConnell has refused to take up. To put an exclamation point on that, and on the ongoing critical need for assistance to America, the House passed a slimmed-down version at $2.2 trillion.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been every day this week, sometimes multiple times a day.
While Donald Trump and his Republican minions in the Senate are rushing to pack the Supreme Court with dangerous ideologues, the second-highest court in the land delivered Trump a severe blow on his most cherished symbol: the border wall. A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously backed the House of Representatives and Congress’ power of the purse.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is almost certainly doomed with the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Unless John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch are ready to buck conservatives this time around and find a way to split the baby—strike down the individual mandate but preserve the rest of the law—it’s probably over. Which would mean millions of people would lose their coverage entirely, and millions more could find it priced out of their reach.
Democrats, as usual, want to make sure that every eligible person is registered and able to vote in November’s general election, and they’ve beefed up their online tool, called I Will Vote, to make that simpler and safer for voters around the country. The site is also available in Spanish.