Happy New Year!!! Less than 18 days to go and it’s a New Day!
Posted: January 1, 2021 Filed under: just because | Tags: 2021 New Year News 23 Comments
Well, we made it through 2020 Sky Dancers!
Now. we have a countdown of 18 days to go to get rid of the Russian Potted Plant in the White House He’s still kicking and tweeting whatever possible dignity he ever had right down that gold toilet! His Death Cult is up to no good too. But still, you can’t wake up to the first day of 2021 without being happy that a change is going to come for sure.
Via Politico and John F. Harris: “I’ve got a feeling ’21 is gonna be a good year …“
Can Biden fill the presidency? No, this isn’t about filling West Wing and Cabinet jobs. It’s about Biden filling his own job — projecting the aura of command that Americans associate with the presidency. At 78, he’ll be 78 days older on his first day than Ronald Reagan was on his last. On many days on the campaign trail, his frail bearing and meandering sentences made him seem every day of his age. Since the election, he’s typically been a crisper and more authoritative presence. Yet U.S. history has rarely presented a more vivid contrast between outsize challenges and a pedestrian leadership persona.
Can Trump still be Trump come Jan. 21? The president’s demagoguery with his baseless assertions of a stolen election, and his increasingly erratic behavior since the election, has put an old puzzle in a frightening new light: Does seemingly irrational behavior actually serve a rational purpose? I’m already on record with my hunch — not a prediction! — that Trump will fade faster than most people and probably even he assumes once he no longer occupies the White House. But this is the dominant question hovering over Republican politics. A subordinate question is whether his adult children have any real political sway of their own once dad is ex-president.
Which calls for one of my favorite Nina Simone Songs!!!
And then there’s this little–meager– thing coming into people’s checking accounts. The stimulus program is half what it was in March. There are some important differences too. This is from the IndyStar: “New COVID-19 stimulus bill is half of March’s. How else it differs.”.
With no changes, this round of stimulus will cost about $920 billion, according to Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. That’s much closer to the $1 trillion package Republicans floated this summer — and a third of the bill House Democrats passed for earlier this year.
- Still, this package includes a mix of proposals from both parties:
- A renewal of the Paycheck Protection Program for small business loan forgiveness
- Funds for vaccine development and distribution
- Funds for COVID testing
- Funds to equip schools with protection equipment
- Renewal of unemployment benefits
- Direct stimulus payments
Check out the nifty graphic that outlines some of the major differences you may notice.
There will be some protests on next week when a one US Senator and a few Reps make total asses of themselves while simultaneously staging a coup. Here’s some headlines on the protests but the usual right wing nutters, the Gohmert thing, and the vote to put every one on the record to say Biden was legally elected in our democratic Republic.
Mike Allen / Axios:
McConnell swats back at Trump amid Republican power struggle — It took four years and an election defeat. But someone with real power inside the Republican Party is standing up to — and swatting back — President Trump: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.Jake Tapper / CNN:
At least 140 House Republicans to vote against counting electoral votes, two GOP lawmakers sayAlex Isenstadt / Politico:
Hawley faces heat from Senate Republicans over Electoral College plans — The Missouri senator missed a Thursday call where Mitch McConnell asked him to explain his plans, emailing colleagues later instead. — Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.Dan Berman / CNN:
Pence asks judge to reject Gohmert lawsuit asking the VP to interfere in the Electoral College count
The only thing that concerns me is the protests by the usual nutters who are getting angrier and more aggrieved and finding more ways to convince themselves that every conspiracy theory Trump sends them is reality.
From USA Today: “‘Wild’ protests: Police brace for pro-Trump rallies when Congress meets Jan. 6 to certify Biden’s win.”
A city accustomed to mass protests is gearing up for especially intense ones over what should be the most mundane of political events: the counting of Electoral College votes during a special joint session of Congress.
At the urging of President Donald Trump, however, die-hard supporters are planning to descend on the nation’s capital Jan. 6, to pressure Republican lawmakers into aligning themselves with the doomed effort to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Knife fights, shouting matches, and verbal harassment of Trump opponents accompanied previous demonstrations following Biden’s election win in November. Now federal and local law enforcement are bracing for what may be the most intense Trump protest yet as Congress is poised to formally declare Biden president-elect.
Various Trump groups are promoting the demonstrations online. One called “#StopTheSteal” operates the website “WildProtest.com,” which proclaims that “PRESIDENT TRUMP WANTS YOU IN DC JANUARY 6.”
“Be there, will be wild,” says one flier.
The event has been co-signed by incoming members of Congress Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
And then, climate change the global problem we need to be on top of …
To run his Energy Department, Biden has tapped former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a staunch clean energy advocate who worked closely with the Obama administration to bail out her state’s auto industry during the Great Recession — a program that also directed stimulus funds to build the LG Chem facility there that produces batteries for the Chevy Volt.
“Granholm was really good on this stuff when she was governor. She’s been even more engaged on the climate fights since she left,” said John Podesta, the former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton who later led Obama administration climate efforts. “She still has very strong connections to unions, to the auto companies.”
Granholm is already leaning into her argument that a clean energy transition can help the U.S. economy — and blue collar workers — weather the economic turmoil from the pandemic.
“We’re going to be working at the Department of Energy with the … states and the cities, to help give them incentives, little carrots, little sticks,” Granholm told ABC’s “This Week,” on Dec. 20, adding that “combating climate change is such an economic opportunity for this country.”
Hang in there! Help is on the way! We’ll be here together to virtually hold hands and hug as we undo the terrible Trumpist Regime’s rule of terror and ineptitude.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Monday Reads: Twenty Three days to a Return to Sanity
Posted: December 28, 2020 Filed under: 2020 Elections, Afternoon Reads 9 Comments
Children playing in snow, 1903
Good Day Sky Dancers!
The nightmarish 4 plus years of watching a Malignant Narcissist torment the world are just about over. In peak form, we got a self-serving presidential memo that doesn’t recognize the havoc he created by letting a bill that maintains the current unemployment insurance sit unattended while he golfed at his club with all the tabs being picked up by the tax payer. People will have to do job searches and states will have to recertify their status because he waited. All this while the pandemic gains steam across the nation.
How are we going to make it through these final days? Jill Lawrence–writing for USA Today— has some suggestions. “Waiting for Joe Biden: How to make it through the final, awful days of Donald Trump. Marie Antoinette had nothing on Trump, who flew to Florida and hit the links after pardoning cronies and upending a desperately needed COVID relief deal”
It should never be shrugged off when a commander in chief offers pardons and clemency to convicted war criminals and white-collar criminals, cronies and allies and crooks with friends in high places. Especially when so many people are in prison due to old laws and requirements that have been overtaken by advances in brain science or new thinking on drug offenses, and that in some cases have been changed by states but not made retroactive. Especially when so many of those in prison are people of color.
It should never be shrugged off when a president flies to his luxury Florida golf club to hit the links after single-handedly upending months of painful negotiations for COVID-19 relief. Marie Antoinette had nothing on Trump. Don’t be fooled by his post-game insistence on $2,000 checks in every pot. He had months to make that demand and convince Republicans it was nonnegotiable. Instead, he made his move in a video three days before Christmas and two days after Congress finally agreed on a deal. This holiday season is now a time of fear and desperation for millions who are facing hunger, eviction and the end of unemployment benefits.
It should never be shrugged off when the leader of a great nation abandons his people in a pandemic, leaving them to disease and death and turning his brilliant, wealthy country into a global role model for failure. From testing, contact tracing and identifying mutations of the coronavirus, to shortages of personal protective equipment and inadequate, belated and sometimes nonexistent economic aid, the U.S. response has been a rolling tragedy of mistakes, inaction, confusion, false starts, false information, propaganda, lies and disrespect for science.
It should never be shrugged off when an entire political party betrays an entire country. Republicans elected and then kept in office a president they knew from the start was incapable of handling an emergency, protecting the general welfare of his fellow citizens, using his vast powers judiciously and nobly, or simply meeting a bare minimum standard of ethical behavior.
Trump caved –according to Mike Allen at Axios–because of congressional pressure.
How it happened: Over many days, Mnuchin and McCarthy — aided by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who golfed with Trump in West Palm Beach on Friday — indulged the president’s rants, told him there was great stuff in the bill, and gave him “wins” he could announce, even though they didn’t change the bill.
- Playing to his vanity, they invoked his legacy,and reminded him he didn’t want to hurt people.
- They convinced the author of “The Art of the Deal” that he had shown himself to be a fighter, and that he had gotten all there was to get.
Trump’s sweeteners, from his 8:15 p.m. statement: “[T]he House and Senate have agreed to focus strongly on the very substantial voter fraud which took place in the November 3 Presidential election.”
- “The Senate will start the process for a vote that increases checks to $2,000, repeals Section 230, and starts an investigation into voter fraud. Big Tech must not get protections of Section 230! Voter Fraud must be fixed! Much more money is coming. I will never give up my fight for the American people!”
Reality check … Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who worked hard to understand Trump, told me: “It may be too late. Too late for him, too late for the economy, too late for Covid, and too late for the Georgia senators.”
This analysis is from Aaron Blake writing for WAPO.
With less than a month to go in his presidency, Trump put a significant ding in whatever exists of that portion of his legacy.
Trump decided over the Christmas holiday to threaten not to sign a combination coronavirus relief package and spending bill. Trump’s chief complaints: The deal delivered only $600 payments to the American people, rather than his desired $2,000, and he didn’t like the so-called pork — and especially foreign funding — in the legislation.
The exercise was bizarre from the jump for a number of reasons. First was that this was a deal forged by his own administration, with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin serving as lead negotiator and hailing it shortly before Trump decided to call it “a disgrace.” Second was that Trump raised virtually none of these concerns beforethe bill’s passage, instead waiting until after the hard work had (apparently) been done to hijack the process. And third was that the pork that Trump and his media allies criticized not only wasn’t in the coronavirus relief bill but was rather in an accompanying omnibus spending bill — actually by and large money that Trump himself had requested in his own proposed budget.
GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio) summed it up best last week:
The whole gambit has now fallen apart in a spectacular but utterly predictable way, with Trump relenting and signing the bill Sunday night. Trump dubiously claimed nonspecific concessions from Congress in voter fraud. He also said he will send lawmakers a “redlined” version of the bill “insisting that those funds be removed” from it. But Trump can insist all he wants; Congress has no duty to actually follow through on his demand to that.
This basically means that the screeching in the presidential memo that linked to up top but refuse to print here is just that. A huge long wail for attention and an attempt to get us to think he cares about us. Breaking News: We don’t care about him. I don’t want to see him or hear him or even hear any one talk about him for any reason other than a court appearance or a jail sentence. I want him ignored like any rando internet troll.
Eric Levitz of New York Magazine argues that Trump may have accidently been a transitional president. Just that statement alone made me go read the article. The I was kinda sorry I did because all of this stimulus that is mostly due to pressure from the Democratic Congress did not add up to the level of stimulus necessary to get us through this economy or pandemic. The only thing I see between the Obama stimulus package and this one is that Republicans never want any economic policy but tax cuts to the wealthy and to huge corporations and they just basically try to get rid of spending on everything else. But, oh, well … I went there so now I have to quote it.
Of course, there are several other, massive distinctions between this year’s recession and 2009’s. Three thousand Americans weren’t dying each day from a pandemic disease 11 years ago. The world-historic scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the way it sidelined entire economic sectors, make it a categorically different emergency from the Great Financial Crisis. This reality — combined with the fact that the COVID crisis happened to arrive in a year when a Republican president was up for reelection — might seem sufficient to explain why a GOP Congress was willing to condone the CARES Act’s generous fiscal provisions.
But I think there’s more to it than that. For one thing, by injecting another $900 billion into the economy now— at a time when average disposable income in the U.S. is exceptionally high — Senate Republicans effectively set Joe Biden up to preside over a robust recovery when (and if) the U.S. achieves herd immunity through vaccination.
The fact that the typical American worker — who did not lose her job during the pandemic but did receive an unexpected $1,200 from the government — is actually in solid financial shape should not blind anyone to the utter financial devastation that is being needlessly visited upon tens of millions of less fortunate Americans. Nor should it obscure the holes that the pandemic has left in many state and city budgets and the implications that will have for social services and public transit absent further federal aid. The $900 billion stimulus is criminally insufficient to the scale of our nation’s mass suffering and fiscal woes. But in strictly macroeconomic terms — which is to say, in terms of whether there will be enough demand in the economy to fuel strong (if grossly inequitable) growth next year — the stimulus may be larger than necessary: The GOP donor class did not need U.S. households to get another $600 from the government in order to see their portfolios appreciate in 2021.
The fact that congressional Republicans supported stimulus anyway likely reflects the financial desperation of small-business owners, a powerful constituency within their coalition, as well as a calculation that failure to pass stimulus will undermine their incumbent senators in the Georgia runoff elections. But I believe that it is also indicative of deficit hawks’ declining ideological power — which the first three years of the Trump presidency did much to erode.
I really do not understand how you can argue declining power of deficit hawks in this scenario. It seems bizarre. There are never any Republican deficit hawks when we blow through a budget and a create huge deficits due to tax cuts. That argument only comes up when taxpayer money returns to the middle class which it really didn’t in this latest package. Anyway, go read this astoundingly crazy analysis and shake your head along with me if you dare.
So, here are some other articles I highly suggest you read.
And that’s enough from me today! We sure wont’ be out of this mess any time soon but at least we won’t have to deal with that horrid man any more.
What’s on your reading and blogging list ?
Christmas Friday Reads
Posted: December 25, 2020 Filed under: New Orleans | Tags: Holiday Season 2020, Trump Corrupt Pardons 7 Comments
Christmas at the Roosevelt hotel where my parents spent their honeymoon after having a yuletide wedding in Kansas City.
Good Day Sky Dancers and Happy Christmas to those who celebrate!
Usually, I have these wonderful pictures of the Lutcher Bonfires that are lit to greet Père Noël! They were cancelled this year due to the Covid-19 outbreak. This has been a holiday season unlike any other in my life time. There were some normal things up and running even after the Katrina Xmas. We still have very French traditions down here despite Napoleon selling us out to Thomas Jefferson. Reveillon–the Christmas Eve Feast– is one of my favorites because, yes, FOOD!
In France, a country where at least 60 percent of the population identifies as Catholic according to Europe Now, even the majority who may be a little irregular in their attendance at Sunday services will often come out for midnight mass. And, as 100 percent of the country’s population are serious foodies, naturally la messe de minuit is followed by a sumptuous meal called le Réveillon, which translates to “the awakening.” Which kind of implies that you’ve fallen asleep during mass – tsk tsk – but still, a luxurious meal of escargots, oysters, roast pheasant, and foie gras followed by bûche de Noël and washed down with Champagne is a pretty nice way to wake up from a long winter’s nap.
In fact, Complete France says that a single Réveillon is not sufficient to make la saison des fêtes sufficiently joyeuse – instead, they celebrate le Réveillon de Noël on Christmas Eve (or rather, early Christmas morning) and on New Year’s Eve they partake in le Réveillon de la Saint Sylvestre. Can’t make it to France this year? That’s ok. Nineteenth-century French immigrants brought this tradition to that French-est of U.S. cities, New Orleans. Visit New Orleans notes that the early, midnight mass-based tradition seemed to have died out by the WWII era, it was revived in the 1990s in a more secular version.
Revillion at Galatoire’s on Bourbon Street.
You may see what Christmas Eve dinner looks like around the world too at that link! Believe me, it’s top quality Food Porn!
There was an intentional bombing this morning in Nashville.
A large explosion was reported in downtown Nashville early Christmas morning.
The explosion happened in the area of Second Avenue and Broadway near Commerce Street occurred around 6:30 am Friday. Heavy black smoke could be seen rising above the affected area.
MNPD, FBI, and ATF are investigating the explosion of an RV outside 166 2nd Avenue North downtown.
Officers responded to a call of shots fired call on 2nd Avenue at approximately 5:30 a.m. The department’s Hazardous Devices Unit was called to check the RV. As those officers were en route, the vehicle exploded outside an AT&T transmission building. Multiple buildings on 2nd Avenue were damaged, some extensively.
They’ve not released any more information than that as of this writing. However, this is some interesting commentary.
This looks exactly like the kind’ve Revillion Menu served up by Paul Prudhomme’s stellar students my friends Chefs Mary and Greg Sonnier.Their restaurant is named after their daughter Gabrielle They do have a great take out menu these days though!!
Here’s a few links to show you how litigious, unsuccessful, and crazy Trumpist law suits can be. Trump and his cronies seem to be better at getting put in jail with criminal lawsuits than successful getting what they consider justice mostly because of hurt widdle feefees.
Gabriel T. Rubin / Wall Street Journal:
Trump Lawyers Get Little Backup From Their Firms or Universities — Chapman University becomes the latest organization to formally distance itself from the president’s legal efforts to challenge the election results
Joe Walsh / Forbes:
Judge Tosses Out Rep. Nunes’ Lawsuit Against Washington Post — A federal judge dismissed a defamation lawsuit against the Washington Post from Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) on Thursday, the latest development in a string of legal battles waged by Nunes against mainstream media outlets …Jon Swaine / Washington Post:
Sidney Powell’s secret intelligence contractor witness is a pro-Trump podcaster — As she asked the U.S. Supreme Court this month to overturn President Trump’s election loss, the attorney Sidney Powell cited testimony from a secret witness presented as a former intelligence contractor …
The Trump lists of pardons are the most horrifying collection of war criminals and thieves and traitors that I’ve ever seen. Here’s some links to read on those actions.Ashton Pittman / Mississippi Free Press:
Republican Mississippi Senator: Trump’s Pardons ‘Smack of Cronyism and Political Favors’
Sen. Brice Wiggins, a prominent Republican member of the Mississippi Senate from Pascagoula, broke ranks with most members of his party in the state last night as he criticized President Donald Trump’s ongoing pardon spree.
Wiggins, who served as an assistant district attorney for seven years and as a youth court prosecutor for one year before joining the Mississippi Senate in 2012, said in a tweet thread yesterday evening that Trump’s pardons “aren’t good.”
“They smack of cronyism and political favors. As such, they erode our faith in the rule of law,” Wiggins, who chairs the powerful Senate Judiciary Division B Committee, wrote in a tweet thread Friday night.
Samya Kullab / Associated Press:
Relative of Blackwater victim in Iraq says pardons ‘unfair’
Faris Fadel had just one word to describe the recent pardoning by the Trump administration of four private security contractors convicted of killing Iraqi civilians — including his brother — in a public square 13 years ago: Unfair.
Fadel’s brother, Osama Abbas, had been on his way to work that fateful day. He had just crossed a street into Baghdad’s Nisoor Square to do a money transfer — a last minute change in plans that would cost the 41-year old electrical engineer his life.
At the time, the Blackwater firm had been contracted to provide security for U.S. diplomats in Iraq. It was four years after the 2003 invasion of Iraq that ultimately toppled Saddam Hussein. The four men, military veterans working as contractors for the State Department, opened fire in the crowded traffic circle killing 14 Iraqis, including a child, and wounding over a dozen more.
Hunter Walker / Yahoo News:
Jared Kushner played a key role in White House pardon ‘free for all’
“Everyone’s sending emails to Jared,” a source familiar with the process said. “If you want to make something happen, go to Jared.”
The source, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the ongoing process, spoke with Yahoo News on Monday, before Trump issued the spate of pardons and commutations. They predicted the coming onslaught of pardons.
“It’s going to be a free-for-all,” the source said.
They went on to claim that Kushner was “keeping score” and tracking the people asking for clemency. “He’ll let you know where you stand,” the source said. “The ones who are going to get pardoned and get to the top of the list are the ones who have representatives, staff or counsel that were loyal to the president.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment. A second source familiar with the pardons said they “believe technically that pardons and clemency were under Jared Kushner in the White House.”
One pardon recipient was Kushner’s own father, Charles, a real estate developer who was convicted in 2005 on charges related to illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering that stemmed from an extortion plot in which he hired a woman to seduce and blackmail his brother-in-law. Pardons also went to former members of Trump’s presidential campaign who were ensnared in the investigations into his presidential bid, including Paul Manafort, Trump’s erstwhile campaign chairman, and longtime adviser Roger Stone.
Anyway, hope you pass some good times, mes cher amies! We’ll get through this together! January 20, 2021 is coming and Kamala’s going to get the work done and Joe’s gonna calm things down for sure!
What’s on your on reading and blogging list today? And, are you binging anything juicy?
Solstice Monday Reads: It is the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius
Posted: December 21, 2020 Filed under: just because | Tags: Winter Solstice, winter star 29 Comments
The heavens will be putting on quite a show on Monday.Credit…VW Pics/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images
Happy Solstice Sky Dancers!
Looking up at the stars in amazement is perhaps one of the most basic things we do as a species. It’s been a very human obsession throughout our history.
Entire religions were built to explain the goings on above our planet. It is why I am so excited about this Winter solstice and the Great alignment that forms the first winter star in 800 years. It was the alignment celebrated in the 1968 musical hair. Many folks see it as a Christmas Star. I see it as Galileo’s gift to Western Civilization. He first saw and named Saturn’s moons and Jupiter’s rings. He saw the sky for what it is.
There are all kinds of ways to observe this tonight and the best time is right around dusk and shortly thereafter in the Northern hemisphere. There will also be webcasts from all kinds of observatories of ‘the Great Conjunction.’ Many Observatories will be live casting the appearance of the Winter Star.
There will be quite a show in tonight’s sky. From The NYT: “A Winter Solstice, a Meteor Shower, Jupiter and Saturn Walk Into Your Night Sky” This is a wonderful night for all kinds of astronomers from kids to the folks at National Observatories every where.
So now, with only 10 short days to go before the year comes to a conclusion that many people will relish, we will be treated to no fewer than three astronomical occurrences on the same day: a great alignment of our solar system’s largest planets, the winter solstice and a meteor shower at its peak.
Again, this will be the first visible double planet in 800 years.
Jupiter currently appears brighter than any star in the sky. Saturn is slightly dimmer, but still just as bright as the brightest stars, with a recognizable golden glow.
Saturn will appear slightly above and to the left of Jupiter, and will even look as close to the planet as some of its own moons, visible with binoculars or a telescope. Unlike stars, which twinkle, both planets will hold consistent brightness, easy to find on clear nights.
“You can imagine the solar system to be a racetrack, with each of the planets as a runner in their own lane and the Earth toward the center of the stadium,” said Henry Throop, an astronomer in the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters. “From our vantage point, we’ll be able to be to see Jupiter on the inside lane, approaching Saturn all month and finally overtaking it on December 21.”
And while peace, harmony, and understanding would be a nice thing for the New Year, I happen to agree with author Tom Nichols on this. Nichols says this at The Atlantic: “Engaging With Trump’s Die-Hard Supporters Isn’t Productive. The loyalists who still cling to conspiracy theories should be deprived of the attention they seek.”
President-elect Joe Biden made national unity a centerpiece of his campaign, and no patriotic American who wants to repair the damage of the Donald Trump years can argue with such a noble call. The election is over, and we can now undertake the tasks Trump neglected, including fighting the coronavirus pandemic and restoring our alliances. But millions of Americans are not ready to declare that bygones are bygones and engage the loyal Trump supporters they might still find among their neighbors, friends, or families.
They are not wrong to feel this way.
That may sound like a profoundly un-civic, even un-American, stance. After all, Democrats, independents, and what’s left of the last few sensible Republicans should not stop trying to solve problems together. To cease all political communication would not only be foolish, but our system of government does not allow it. Even in the minority, a party can help or hinder the process of governing.
Nonetheless, ordinary people worn out by the dramas and lies of the past four years have a right to refuse to take Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters seriously. To reject further debate with people whose views are completely incoherent is not only understandable, but sensible.
Galileo’s telescopes
Two of Galileo’s first telescopes; in the Museo Galileo, Florence.
So, we get another $600 which doesn’t even cover my meager house payment for a month. Trump is claiming credit for it! Let him. He has no clue what a pittance that is to really sick and hurting Americans. Republicans in the Congress argue that all we do with that is just use it as an excuse to not get out there and work!
But what Trump actually sought and got was this:
Jeff Stein / Washington Post:
White House secures ‘three martini lunch’ tax deduction in draft of coronavirus relief package — President Trump has long seized on the tax break as a way to revive the restaurant industry. But economists have panned it as ineffective and largely benefitting the wealthy.
Trump Is Already Wondering What Airport Will Bear His Name — The president has been asking aides and advisers what the process is for getting an airport named after him—another sign his mind is drifting to a post-presidency. — In the dying days of his presidency, Donald Trump has taken
While still trying to stage last minute coup attempts.
Trump wants Supreme Court to overturn Pa. election results — WASHINGTON (AP) — Undeterred by dismissals and admonitions from judges, President Donald Trump’s campaign continued with its unprecedented efforts to overturn the results of the Nov 3. election Sunday, saying it had filed a new petition with the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, I’m kinding hoping that the stars lining up means we will get the epic change we need which is traditionally the way astrology views these kinds of things.
However, given this is my astrological forecast for the month, who cares?
scorpio: Scorpio is a natural homebody, but nine months in isolation is a lot, even for you. Since you’ve been moving around so much less lately, you may have put on a few pounds around your midsection, or all over your body. Don’t fret, dear Scorpio. Now that Venus has entered your Fifth House of It Doesn’t Even Matter Anymore, no one is likely to notice.
Yes, that was some levity. No matter how many times I hear the Great Conjunction projected as a Christmas star which drives me nuts I still am excited about the science. I mean can they stop ruining everything for us just once? We already have another plague! Let’s try not to repeat the entire dark ages again, mmmkay?
So, I broke down and cried yesterday after I spoke with my bestie from jr high and high school. I spent a long time at her house teaching her how to play guitar so we could be perform as a duet of folksingers. She definitely had the Garfunkel voice. I hadn’t heard her talk about her mom and dad for awhile but she finally confided that they both were in a care center in Omaha which is in one of the states shorted on vaccines by the Trumpist Regime. They’re both around 90. She’s in memory care. He’s still okay but has been getting pneumonia a lot the last few years. He’s a Korean War Veteran and he used to work for the Phone Company. They moved to Omaha from North Dakota where their families still farm.
They are one floor away from each other. Separated. He’s afraid he’s going to die soon. She’s in a timeless space like my mother was at one point. They can’t even see each other.
Meanwhile, I saw that Senator Rubio get his vaccine yesterday. At least he wasn’t piously spouting Bible verses that he ignores living by daily on that tweet. Why can’t our nurses and doctors and caregivers and the elderly receive whatever share is going to the Congressman from Yahoo, No Where Land? Aren’t politicians supposed to be easily replaced in our democracy?
I was crying and cussing at the same time. You can ask BB because I called her right after I held it together for my friend. I haven’t heard if Doctor Daughter got hers. It’s supposed to happen this week. She’s in charge of seeing the masks and protective gear get to the highest need nurses. They’re rationed. Still and yet again. I still haven’t heard from my daughter of heart who is the bestie of my youngest daughter and is once again swamped in the ICU for Covid 19 patients in Denver as an ICU nurse. But hey, at least I can live hopeful knowing three martini lunches are subsidized again and Rubio got his vaccine so he’ll be safely stealing from the poor again shortly. Right?
Maybe we can hope for the Age of Aquarius but I doubt it’s coming any time soon. Just be there for each other when you can and how you can! Let this be a season of light and love!
May happiness and peace and understanding surround us all! Look up to the sky and let it speak to you and don’t let any one else define the experience for you. Make it your star!
What’s on your blogging and reading list today?
Friday Reads: Enough of this Already!
Posted: December 18, 2020 Filed under: just because | Tags: Covid-19, pardons, Russian Hack, winter star 11 Comments
Good Day Sky Dancers!
Three headlines have grabbed my attention today. First, is the cyber attack because what person my age doesn’t get the chills from the thought we still have a very hot cold war going on with the Russians. All of this combined with the breaking news that the Pentagon is shutting out the Biden transition briefings is just frightening. Second, it looks like Santa Trump has a shit sack full of pardons coming up. More on these further on down the thread
The last and third one is the utter screw up in the distribution of shelved Pfizer vaccines where they await shipment instructions for the Federal Government. Meanwhile, hospital capacity is being challenged and our health care workers and most vulnerable citizens are waiting. But, the Moderna Vaccine is likely on its way to anxious people in many places. Today, Vice President Mike Pence and Mother and Speaker Nancy Pelosi got the vaccine. I’m just putting these up as links because it’s all over the TV today.
Here’s the scoop from Axios: “Scoop: Pentagon halts Biden transition briefings”.
Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller ordered a Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation with the transition of President-elect Biden, shocking officials across the Defense Department, senior administration officials tell Axios.
Behind the scenes: A top Biden official was unaware of the directive. Administration officials left open the possibility cooperation would resume after a holiday pause. The officials were unsure what prompted Miller’s action, or whether President Trump approved.
Why it matters: Miller’s move, which stunned officials throughout the Pentagon, was the biggest eruption yet of animus and mistrust toward the Biden team from the top level of the Trump administration.
- Fury at the Biden team among senior Pentagon officials escalated after the Washington Post published a story on Wednesday night revealing how much money would be saved if Biden halted construction of Trump’s border wall.
- Trump officials blame the leak on the Biden transition team (Though, it should be noted, they have no evidence of this, and both reporters on the byline cover the Trump administration and have historically been prolific beneficiaries of leaks.)
What happened: Meetings between President Trump’s team and the Biden team are going on throughout the government, after a delayed start as the administration dragged its feet on officially recognizing Biden as president-elect.
- Then on Thursday night, Miller — who was appointed Nov. 9, when Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper right after the election — ordered officials throughout the building to cancel scheduled transition meetings.
No wonder Santa Trump is pulling Pardons out of his big old sack of shit. This is from Business Insider: This is an exclusive from Business Insider by journalists Tom LoBianco and Dave Levinthal . “EXCLUSIVE: Jared Kushner helped create a Trump campaign shell company that secretly paid the president’s family members and spent $617 million in reelection cash, a source tells Insider”.
President Donald Trump’s most powerful advisor, Jared Kushner, approved the creation of a campaign shell company that secretly paid the president’s family members and spent almost half of the campaign’s $1.26 billion war chest, a person familiar with the operation told Insider.
The operation acted almost like a campaign within a campaign. It paid some of Trump’s top advisors and family members while shielding financial and operational details from public scrutiny.
When Kushner and others created the company in April 2018, they picked Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, to become its president, Vice President Mike Pence’s nephew John Pence as its vice president, and Trump campaign CFO Sean Dollman as its treasurer and secretary, the person who spoke on the condition of anonymity said.
Insider independently verified details of this person’s account with other sources close to the Trump campaign.
The shell company — incorporated as American Made Media Consultants Corporation and American Made Media Consultants LLC — allowed Trump’s campaign to skirt federally mandated disclosures. The tactic could attract scrutiny from federal election regulators.
Campaign finance records show Trump’s reelection effort and its affiliated committee with the Republican National Committee spent more than $600 million through American Made Consultants since its formation.
For months, some of Trump’s own top advisors and campaign staff have told Insider they had no idea how the shell company functioned, casting an air of mystery about the operation.
Trump’s campaign leaders even launched an internal audit of the shell company and operations under former campaign manager Brad Parscale but never reported the results of that review.
Some of those same advisors said they didn’t learn about John Pence and Lara Trump’s involvement until Insider contacted them for this story.
But throughout, the mystery hid in plain sight: Kushner, Lara Trump, John Pence, and Dollman, were often just feet away in the Trump campaign’s headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, a Washington suburb.
“They like to say they don’t know, but that’s not true,” the person familiar with AMMC said. “What they wanted was excuses so they could blame other people. If they thought that, why did they keep using it?”
From January 2019 through the middle of November 2020, the Trump campaign and an affiliated political committee together spent $617 million through American Made Media Consultants.
It was almost half of everything they spent in the failed effort to reelect Trump, according to an Insider review of Federal Election Commission records and analysis provided by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
Some Trump advisors have long accused Parscale of trying to hide money from the now-outgoing president, occasionally citing AMMC as an example of his obfuscation.
But the campaign actually spent the bulk of the money at AMMC — $415 million — after Trump fired Parscale as campaign manager on July 15.
Trump’s future may actually have some more possibilities for fleecing as long as he can continue to get suckers to contribute to his ‘campaign’ efforts. This is per the NYT: “Trump’s Future: Tons of Cash and Plenty of Options for Spending It. When President Trump departs the White House, he will have a huge pile of cash to fuel his future ambitions. He can hold rallies, hire staff and even lay groundwork for a potential 2024 run.” We will ever be truly rid of him?
Deflated by a loss he has yet to acknowledge, Mr. Trump has cushioned the blow by coaxing huge sums of money from his loyal supporters — often under dubious pretenses — raising roughly $250 million since Election Day along with the national party.
More than $60 million of that sum has gone to a new political action committee, according to people familiar with the matter, which Mr. Trump will control after he leaves office. Those funds, which far exceed what previous outgoing presidents had at their disposal, provide him with tremendous flexibility for his post-presidential ambitions: He could use the money to quell rebel factions within the party, reward loyalists, fund his travels and rallies, hire staff, pay legal bills and even lay the groundwork for a far-from-certain 2024 run.
The post-election blitz of fund-raising has cemented Mr. Trump’s position as an unrivaled force and the pre-eminent fund-raiser of the Republican Party even in defeat. His largest single day for online donations actually came after Election Day — raising almost $750,000 per hour on Nov. 6. So did his second biggest day. And his third.
This Russian Hack of all kinds of US entities is far worse than imaged. Here’s some key points from CNBC.
The scale of a sophisticated cyberattack on the U.S. government that was unearthed this week is much bigger than first anticipated.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a summary Thursday that the threat “poses a grave risk to the federal government.”
It added that “state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations” are also at risk.
CISA believes the attack began at least as early as March. Since then, multiple government agencies have reportedly been targeted by the hackers, with confirmation from the Energy and Commerce departments so far.
“This threat actor has demonstrated sophistication and complex tradecraft in these intrusions,” CISA said. “Removing the threat actor from compromised environments will be highly complex and challenging.”
CISA has not said who it thinks is the “advanced persistent threat actor” behind the “significant and ongoing” campaign, but many experts are pointing to Russia.
“The magnitude of this ongoing attack is hard to overstate,” former Trump Homeland Security Advisor Thomas Bossert said in a piece for The New York Times on Thursday. “The Russians have had access to a considerable number of important and sensitive networks for six to nine months.”
CISA was the agency that Chris Krebs ran before Trump fired him for ensuring the election was secure. Trump also got rid of the person responsible for cross government and provider coordination of cyber security in the White House in 2018. This was essentially a “cyber czar”.
It is also said that Trump’s planning pardons today will be those involved in Russian interference in the 2016 election resulting in the Mueller investigation. It is also likely that the Hunter Biden probe is payback for Trump’s ongoing obsession with the role of that probe as an obstacle to his regime.
It seems he can still wear us out even though he’s basically staying hunkered down on the White House Toilet with his cell phone and big macs. He may be tweeting his election conspiracy theories and egging on the Senate to reject the results. However, he’s radio silence on Russia.
This hack is on such a scale that many are suggesting it’s an act of war. Is it a Cold War? Or will it turn into a Cyber War? And did Trump look the other way the 9 plus months this all occurred?
Lawmakers are raising questions about whether the attack on the federal government widely attributed to Russia constitutes an act of war.
The hacking may represent the biggest cyberattack in U.S history, and officials are scrambling to respond.
The response is further complicated by the presidential transition — President Trump has yet to comment publicly on the attack — and the fact that the U.S. has no clear cyber warfare strategy.
“We can’t be buddies with Vladimir Putin and have him at the same time making this kind of cyberattack on America,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said of the attack during an interview Wednesday on CNN. “This is virtually a declaration of war by Russia on the United States and we should take that seriously.”
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Thursday compared the incident to Russian bombers “flying undetected over the entire country,” and harshly criticized Trump for not doing enough to counter the attack.
“Our national security is extraordinarily vulnerable,” Romney said on SiriusXM’s “The Big Picture with Olivier Knox.” “In this setting, not to have the White House aggressively speaking out and protesting and taking punitive action is really, really quite extraordinary.”
Hackers believed to be part of a nation state have had access to federal networks since March after exploiting a vulnerability in updates to IT group SolarWinds’s Orion software. The hack has compromised the Treasury, State and Homeland Security departments and branches of the Pentagon, though it is expected to get worse. SolarWinds counts many more federal agencies as customers, along with the majority of U.S. Fortune 500 companies.
On Thursday, Politico reported that the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, was also compromised, further raising the stakes.
I have one more bit of winter beauty besides all these animals in snow pictures I love so much! “Jupiter and Saturn Will Form A Rare “Winter Star” On December 21, 2020″
The dark mornings and low temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere may lead one to think that winter is well on its way. However, the astronomical start of the chilly season will not be until December 21, 2020. Called the winter solstice, it is the point in time when the Northern Hemisphere is farthest away from the sun, resulting in less sunlight to the region this year. 2020’s longest night will coincide with two exciting celestial events — the peak of the Ursids meteor shower and a “great conjunction” of the solar system’s two largest planets, Jupiter and Saturn.
A conjunction occurs when two planets appear close to each other in the sky because they line up with Earth in their respective orbits around the Sun. While observing the celestial bodies alongside each other is always exciting, Jupiter and Saturn’s alignment is even more so since it occurs once about every 20 years.
Cold Nights! Cold Snow! Cold War! What will 2021 bring? Whatever it is, our community will be here keeping each other informed and surrounded by loving, caring like-minds! Stay warm!!!!
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peej
Carissa
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Mama Lopez
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quixote
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Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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