…monday gonna monday, I guess
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/12/19/covid-eviction-unemployment
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/12/20/stimulus-fed-politics-lending-programs
…what can you do?
Ad Spending Soars in Georgia Races With Stakes Far Beyond Georgia
…& if the general was anything to go by team D needs to get on top of this shit with a vengance
…& let’s face it
…when crazy comes with the kind of payout they gave this fuking nutjob bigot you gotta think maybe there are other people of prejudice who could use that kind of money
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/texas-anti-voter-fraud-operation/2020/12/20/story.html
…because prejudice is a major component in this run-off
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/20/joe-biden-voting-rights
…& certain people just can’t give it a rest
President Trump said Sunday that he has spoken with Sen.-elect Tommy Tuberville, the Alabama Republican who suggested last week that he supports a potential challenge to the electoral vote count when the House and Senate convene next month to formally affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/tuberville-electoral-challenge-trump-conversation/2020/12/20/story.html
…no matter how much we might wish they fucking would
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/20/trump-saved-the-worst-for-last
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/trump-covid-pandemic-dark-winter
…hell, even his own people are eyeing those exits
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-aides-new-jobs/2020/12/18/story.html
…while he keeps it in the shitter
Throughout his presidency, President Donald Trump seemed to consider himself better suited for a throne than the Oval Office. But judging by his all-hours tweeting, it’s possible the only throne he could find was made of porcelain. So perhaps it’s no surprise that after spending four years denying climate change and rolling back environmental protections, one of his last moves as his administration circles the drain is to mandate that showers and dishwashers be allowed to use excessive amounts of water.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-toilet-obsession-metaphor-years-flushing-climate-progress-down-the-drain
…& then there’s the rush to ultimate judgement…from a man with a lifetime’s evidence of shitty judgement…& sometimes even the horrific isn’t a matter of black & white
On Jan. 12, Lisa Montgomery is set to become the first woman executed on federal death row in nearly 70 years. The last executions, both in 1953, were of Bonnie Heady, killed in a gas chamber in Missouri, and Ethel Rosenberg. Ms. Montgomery would be only the fifth woman put to death in a federal civilian execution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
On Dec. 16, 2004, Ms. Montgomery drove to Skidmore, Mo., where she strangled a pregnant woman named Bobbie Jo Stinnett, then sliced open her belly and took the baby to the home she shared with her husband, Kevin, in Kansas. The baby survived.
These basic facts, however, are nearly all that is not under dispute in the case. Her post-conviction lawyers, Kelley Henry, Amy Harwell and Lisa Nouri, have sent a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights claiming that Ms. Montgomery’s trial “fell far short of minimum standards of fairness” and thus violated international law, and that the United States government itself bears some culpability for her crime given its abject failure, throughout her life, to protect her from severe child abuse and sexual violence.
https://nyti.ms/3p8glCD
[…]
But none of this has any real bearing on whether Ms. Montgomery’s execution will go forward. Her only chance at clemency rests entirely with President Trump — whose administration has ordered an astonishing six people be executed during his final days in office.
…not to mention death row is petty much the whole joint these days…which makes you wonder why they’re even bothering
…& that goddamned virus just won’t quit
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/what-we-know-about-new-coronavirus-variant-scientists-say-spreads
…where’s that andromeda strain ending when you need it, huh?
The Coronavirus Is Mutating. What Does That Mean for Us?
…still
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/help-way-how-u-s-will-turn-tide-pandemic-in-2021
…at least they seem to getting around to a few priority efforts
Frontline Workers and People Over 74 Should Get Shots Next, CDC Panel Says
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/12/20/covid-vaccine-front-line-workers
…assuming the lobbyists don’t fuck that up, anyway
On Sunday, an advisory panel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made new recommendations for who should come next in line: roughly 30 million “frontline essential workers” like emergency responders, teachers and grocery store employees, and people 75 and older.
The next priority group would include other essential workers, such as those with jobs in restaurants, construction and law. The recommendations could be approved by the C.D.C. as soon as Monday and then would be sent to the states.
But even then, the states would still have the power to make final decisions on vaccine distribution — leaving room for interested parties to lobby state officials.
‘Big Fight’ Breaks Out Over Which Interest Groups Get Vaccine First
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/12/20/companies-unions-early-access-covid-vaccine
…I mean, I’m pretty sure there’s a quarantinne gag to be made here but the shit ain’t funny & frankly people put game theory to a lot worse uses so I figure I’ll skip that
‘The Pandemic Is a Prisoner’s Dilemma Game’
…& an argument could be made that we’re all prisoners of circumstance right now
After any major national disaster or failure of government, it’s essential to study what happened and why, if for no other reason than to enact laws and policies aimed at preventing the same thing from happening again. From the Warren Report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to the Church Committee in the wake of the Watergate scandal, from the commission on the Sept. 11 attacks to the commission on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a thorough official reckoning makes for good government.
Accountability After Trump
[…]
In short, how does America prevent the next Trump administration if it can’t properly hold the current one to account?
…because let’s face it…this asshole wouldn’t know accountable if the entire intelligence community spelled the shit out for his sagging ass
…or…& this can not be stressed enough…how any of this shit fucking works
The Trump administration has notified members of Congress that it plans to close the last two remaining United States consulates in Russia.
https://nyti.ms/2LRsMEK
[…]
The closure of these consulates would leave the United States with one remaining diplomatic outpost in Russia — the embassy in Moscow — amid heightened tensions between the two countries.
…although some people at least seem to be listening
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/20/russian-hack-suspected-role-biden-mulls-punishment
The Abraham Accords, Mr. Trump’s signature foreign policy achievement, have either newly brokered or restarted economic and political ties for Israel with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan and Morocco. Officials familiar with the administration’s efforts said Oman and Tunisia might be the next states to join, and the warming could be expanded to nations in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa even after Mr. Trump leaves office in January.
Trump Incentives for Signing Peace Accords With Israel Could Be at Risk [NYT]
[…]
“All diplomacy is transactional, but these transactions are mixing things that ought not to have been mixed,” said Robert Malley, the president and chief executive of the International Crisis Group, who is close to Antony Blinken, Mr. Biden’s pick for secretary of state.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/20/trump-hezbollah-fear-us-president-attacks-final-days
…meanwhile
…still…at least we get to watch big tech beat itself up…since, you know…seems like no one else is going to get that job done anytime soon?
…& who knows
Facebook and Google cases are our last chance to save the economy from monopolization [WaPo]
…maybe the new year might bring some actual cheer?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/20/joe-biden-trickle-down-economics-build-up
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/20/congress-covid-relief-bill-set-to-pass
…& speaking of things that might one day pass
The Michael Flynn/martial law story is appalling, especially when (while pardoned, now) he was convicted of improper (treasonous?) contact with foreign nations. Any other President, regardless of political party, would at least be concerned about the optics of having him back in the white house and acting, again, as a presidential advisor. This is why I can’t yet relax, more than the pointless lawsuits…there is still a narcissistic, sociopathic, grifter in office, for 30 more days.
…with the amount of crazy on display from the most petulant man ever to serve as president it’s impossible not to be concerned, I think…we’re all still on edge because you don’t know what else he might try to pull but you know he’s getting desperate as the clock ticks down to a degree of exposure to consequences the office has shielded him from…& past evidence suggests that whatever happens is unlikely to be pretty
…but the business with flynn (& roger stone/manager/&c) is a different kind of concern (to me) since the extent to which they’ve been shielded from the logical consequences of confirmed wrongdoing is a sort of co-dependent criminality that explicitly relies on abuse of power at the highest levels…in a sane world those people would be serving real prison time at this point…by which I mean not the kind of alarmingly lax approach they took to manafort, for example…those kinds of prison conditions are a lot closer to the sort of not-really-prison-time stuff associated with the likes of el chapo in mexico…or to go with a couple of fictional examples noel coward in the italian job or the wiseguys in goodfellas
Well, of course Kelly Loeffler is attacking Black churches. She’s taking selfies with KKK leaders who have swastikas and WHITE POWER tattoos. Racism is about the only card that Republicans have left to play now. Gonna need that Nazi vote to win this runoff election.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/14/loeffler-chester-doles-kkk-photo/
The only reason Mitch let this pass is to prevent them from losing the Georgia runoff & it includes this fucking 3 Martini lunch thing?
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/gop-includes-three-martini-lunch-deduction-aid-package-n1235110
How anyone can not see that republicans don’t care about real people is beyond me.
…it is insane-making to me that the disconnect between the support they rely on & the folks their efforts benefit is somehow invisible to those supporters
…they don’t even bother trying to hide it a lot of the time…& yet it refuses to bite them in the ass…it’s a fucking mystery but it does make me question the concept of “rationally self-interested actors” that I recall being a feature of various lectures I attended way back when I was a student?
At least I have a new favorite Yule Log channel to replace the puppy one this year!
welp…if you happen to be in england now you are well and truly stuck for the time being
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/21/europe/new-variant-coronavirus-intl-hnk/index.html
rapidly turning into quite a mess there
…I’m generally a fan of irony but it’s hard not to feel churlish when I think that stuff like france (&/or the rest of europe) denying passage to the insane number of trucks that typically haul goods back & forth across the channel on the daily is not unlike a preview of the reality of brexit’s attempt to annex the UK from the rest of europe which so many have been busily denying the last few years?
…you’d think a lot of the pro-brexit crowd would be lapping up the whole stay-at-home thing on the basis that “an englishman’s home is his castle”…but they seem to cherry pick their platitudes to maximize their ability to whinge & they aren’t so big on that right now…since it’s their precious brexit (that they still adamantly refuse to countenance a delay/extension-to-the-withdrawl-period to…even with all this going on) that’s dangling over the covid issues like a redundant sword of damocles
…pretty sure just about nobody’s happy about much in merry old england this christmas…except maybe that jacob rees-mogg pillock
…either way it’s fair to say the bits of my family that are based in the UK are not loving the way things are going
yeah…my family over there is not exactly thrilled either
tho at this point i think they just want to be done with it now…for better or worse and then never have to hear a word about brexit or corona again
ever
…amen to that
BREAKING.
‘He’s the deer of the year’: Carrot on way to recovery after arrow pulled from head
Oh dear!