With a seven-day average of 2,249 deaths, the country broke the previous mark of 2,232 set on April 17 in the early weeks of the pandemic. Seven-day averages can provide a more accurate picture of the virus’s progression than daily death counts, which can fluctuate and disguise the broader trend line.
The United States is approaching 300,000 total deaths, with nearly 283,000 recorded, according to a New York Times database. The nation is averaging nearly 200,000 cases per day, an increase of 15 percent from the average two weeks earlier, and has recorded over than 15 million total cases.
Much has changed since the previous peak in April. The coronavirus is no longer concentrated in big urban areas like New York City and now envelops much of the country, including rural areas that had avoided it for several months.
Many of the hardest-hit counties on a per person basis are now in the Midwest. North Dakota, where one in every 10 residents has contracted the virus, has the highest total reported cases by population, followed closely by South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Nebraska.
The latest wave to hit the United States has hospitalized record numbers. Each day since Dec. 2, more than 100,000 Covid-19 patients were in hospitals. That far surpasses the number of people hospitalized during the peaks spring and summer, which at their worst had nearly 60,000 Americans in the hospital daily.
The new peak also comes as the nation prepares for holiday celebrations, and as colder temperatures may push people to congregate indoors. Infectious-disease experts have warned that trends in the United States, which reported a record 2,885 deaths on Wednesday, could continue to worsen over the next several weeks.
Before Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine was proved highly successful in clinical trials last month, the company offered the Trump administration the chance to lock in supplies beyond the 100 million doses the pharmaceutical maker agreed to sell the government as part of a $1.95 billion deal months ago.
But the administration, according to people familiar with the talks, never made the deal, a choice that now raises questions about whether the United States allowed other countries to take its place in line.
As the administration scrambles to try to purchase more doses of the vaccine, President Trump plans on Tuesday to issue an executive order that proclaims that other nations will not get the U.S. supplies of its vaccine until Americans have been inoculated.
But the order appears to have no real teeth and does not expand the U.S. supply of doses, according to a description of the order on Monday by senior administration officials.
The chief scientist of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed was unable to explain President Donald Trump’s latest executive order Tuesday, which aims to prioritize shipment of the coronavirus vaccine to Americans over other countries.
“Frankly, I don’t know, and frankly, I’m staying out of this. I can’t comment,” Slaoui said. “I literally don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” asked anchor George Stephanopoulos.
“Yes,” Slaoui said.
“But you’re the chief science adviser for Operation Warp Speed,” Stephanopoulos pressed.
“Our work is, you know, rolling,” Slaoui replied. “We have plans. We feel that we can deliver the vaccines as needed. So I don’t know exactly what this order is about.”
Indeed, it remains unclear how Trump’s executive order would be enforced, as drugmakers are already making agreements to deliver supplies for other countries.
Slaoui was similarly dismissive when asked about the executive order in another interview Tuesday, telling Fox News that “what the White House is doing is what the White House is doing.”
The incompetence would be funny if it weren’t going to kill people.
Pfizer has told the Trump administration it cannot provide substantial additional doses of its coronavirus vaccine until late June or July because other countries have rushed to buy up most of its supply, according to multiple individuals familiar with the situation.
That means the U.S. government may not be able to ramp up as rapidly as it had expected from the 100 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine that it purchased earlier this year, raising questions about whether it can keep to its aggressive schedule to vaccinate most Americans by late spring or early summer.\Trump administration officials denied there would be availability issues in the second quarter, citing other vaccines in the pipeline — most immediately, Moderna’s, also expected to be approved in coming weeks. Both vaccines are two-dose regimens, so the 100 million doses purchased of each would cover 50 million people each.
“I’m not concerned about our ability to buy vaccines to offer to all of the American public,” Gen. Paul Ostrowski, who oversees logistics for Operation Warp Speed, the government’s initiative to expedite vaccine development, said in an interview Monday. “It’s clear that Pfizer made plans with other countries. Many have been announced. We understand those pieces.”
But several officials knowledgeable about the contracts said that supplies from other companies may be insufficient to fill the gap.
Let’s hope the Biden administration will be able to deal with the mess that Trump is leaving them.
Trump’s lawyer needs a doctor. If you saw him gallivanting across the country for the past month trying to overturn the election, it should come as no surprise to you that Rudy Giuliani, once revered as “America’s Mayor,” was hospitalized for COVID-19 this week.
Giuliani, a potential one-man superspreader whose recent visit forced the entire Arizona legislature to close up shop, is being treated at Georgetown University Medical Center. For the rich and powerful, there’s always room at the inn. Or hospital. And while we all hope for his speedy recovery, this is the latest sign that a pattern of privilege has emerged. It goes like this: Having tempted fate by refusing to social distance or wear masks, Trump and his team contract the virus. Next, they receive world-class medical treatment. Last, they quickly recover.
It’s not a victimless advantage. Their miraculous recovery reinforces the resentment of every hoohaw who won’t wear a mask and throws a fit at a bar in Staten Island because last call comes early at 10 p.m. The problem with these quick recoveries is that they demonstrate (to people who are the most susceptible to this message) that COVID-19 isn’t really a big deal.
Trump said yesterday that Giuliani is doing well and doesn’t have a fever. Then why is he in the hospital? I’m 73. Would I be hospitalizes with mild symptoms and no fever?
Meanwhile, there’s still no stimulus coming from Congress; and the one they are working on doesn’t include checks to help us regular folks, but it does include liability protections for corporations that force people to work in unsafe conditions. John Nichols at The Nation:
What the United States desperately needs is a multitrillion-dollar stimulus package to provide the resources to fight the current coronavirus surge, to provide for the unemployed and underemployed, to keep small businesses and small farms afloat, to fund state and local governments and schools, and to organize and implement the distribution of the vaccines that are vital to ending the current crisis.
What the United States does not need is a massive corporate bailout that allows the wealthiest and most powerful businesses in this country to avoid liability for actions they take that sicken and kill Americans.
Unfortunately, that is what Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and his minions have been battling to include in a new Covid-19 “relief” package. And key Democrats could end up going along with the grim reaper’s ghoulish scheme as he again uses federal legislation to insulate irresponsible CEOs from accountability—and, conveniently, to reward the business interests that fund Republican campaigns.
Exploiting the sense of urgency over the peaking pandemic and the prospect of what President-elect Joe Biden refers to as a “long dark winter” for working families, McConnell and his colleagues have for months held relief proposals hostage over the issue of a so-called “liability shield.” Such a shield—even if it is limited, even if it is only temporary—would give corporations immunity from lawsuits related to Covid-19.
Considering the stark evidence of irresponsibility on the part of US corporations since the pandemic hit, the proposal is absurd. Yet the “COVID Emergency Relief Framework” scheme that was initially proposed by corporate-aligned centrists in Congress but has now attracted backing from leading congressional Republicans and Democrats proposes just such a liability shield. The one-page outline of the plan released last week includes among its proposals: “Provide short term federal protection from coronavirus-related lawsuits with the purpose of giving states time to develop their own response.”
Tuesday marks the “safe harbor” deadline — the date when states must certify results if they want protection under federal election law against Congress stepping in to decide which candidate gets their electoral votes. The fact that lawsuits are pending won’t prevent states from getting the benefits of certifying results by that date, according to election law experts. Judges are already wary of injecting legal uncertainty into the election and causing chaos and will be even more reluctant to do so after the deadline passes.
“The doors close significantly after the safe harbor deadline passes,” said Rebecca Green, codirector of the Election Law Program at William & Mary Law School. “It’s going to be a heavy lift to convince a judge to defy federal deadlines. I think it would only happen or be successful if some kind of wild evidence of just unbelievable scale were unearthed that was credible.”
Trump’s campaign has conceded that the Dec. 8 deadline is key to the fate of its legal challenges. It has pushed courts to rush to consider cases by then. In the campaign’s failed constitutional challenge to Biden’s win in Pennsylvania, Trump’s lawyers argued on Nov. 22 that it was “critically important” for a federal appeals court to hear the case before the deadline, which at that point was 16 days away. The court agreed to expedite the case and ruled against Trump in a 3–0 decision just five days later.
Read more at Buzzfeed.
Coming soon: the Trump pardon spree. Once again, this would be hilarious if it weren’t so dangerous. Axios: Trump plots mass pardons, even to people not asking.
President Trump isn’t just accepting pardon requests but blindly discussing them “like Christmas gifts” to people who haven’t even asked, sources with direct knowledge of the conversations told Axios.
Behind the scenes: Trump recently told one adviser he was going to pardon “every person who ever talked to me,” suggesting an even larger pardon blitz to come. As with most Trump conversations, the adviser wasn’t sure how seriously to take the president — although Trump gave no indication he was joking.
The big picture: The president relishes his unilateral authority to issue get-out-of-jail-free cards. Lately, though, he’s been soliciting recipients, asking friends and advisers who they think he should pardon.
Trump has also interrupted conversations to spontaneously suggest that he add the person he’s speaking with to his pardon list, these sources said.
The pardon clause’s language is broad indeed, unambiguously allowing the president to pardon seemingly any other person convicted for any federal criminal offense. But its language does not unambiguously include the president himself. Had the Framers intended to give the president such broad power, we would expect them to have clearly said so. After all, the new nation was in the process of rejecting a monarchical government in favor of a democratic republic.
Instead, the words they chose to confer the pardon power on the president contemplate his granting of reprieves and pardons only to persons other than himself. The word “grant” connotes a gift, bestowal, conferral or transfer by one person to another — not to himself. That would have been the understanding of this word at the time of the Constitution’s drafting, and it is how the term “grant” was understood and is used elsewhere in the Constitution.
At the same time, the “take care” argument against the power to self-pardon merely assumes the very conclusion it reaches: that the pardon clause does not empower the president to pardon himself, and therefore that his self-pardon would be irreconcilable with his responsibility to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. This begs the question just as much as the textual argument made for self-pardons. If the Constitution allows a president to pardon himself, there could be no argument that in pardoning himself the president was not faithfully executing the laws.
Read the full argument at the WaPo.
Hang in there Sky Dancers! We just have to survive 43 more days of this insanity until the Inauguration.
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I’ve been considering searching for old episodes of Mr. Rogers that the girls and I used to watch back in the appropriate age range day just because I always remembered feeling so good just knowing some one like him was around. I used to even sneak watches at him when I was a teenager during the Nixon Years. He was fairly new to PBS but wow, it was so nice to see a kind and gentle man. Anyway, we now have TikTok and Nick Cho who is @yourKoreanDad. I’m going to start out with this before we have to take another trip on the Trump Crazy Train because every one needs a good daily dose of a kind and gentle man,
Also, please enjoy these selections of Korean art!
And, have a lot of love and fun with your Korean dad! We all need something after over four years of Trumpist Terrorism!
Meet Nick Cho, the Korean dad behind the most wholesome TikTok account there is pic.twitter.com/XXDaXDWGUH
Heading into this season, Tom Brady signed a two-year, $50 million contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It was a deal that was signed about a week after the coronavirus pandemic forced sports to essentially shut down in the country.
And those ensuing months would prove to be a challenging time for the U.S. as nearly 300,000 people have died along with millions of COVID-19 cases and jobs lost. To help counteract the economic impact, congress passed the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to assist businesses during the crisis.
Well, Brady’s own company, TB12, was among the businesses to receive a PPP loan — a loan of $960,000 — but you probably won’t be surprised to see that the Bucs quarterback hasn’t exactly struggled financially.
According to a report from TMZ, Brady recently purchased a multi-million-dollar, custom boat that was delivered to him in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Thursday. The 40-foot boat was named “Viva a Vida” after Gisele’s environmental initiative.
Ship-jangsaeng the Twelve “Ten Symbols of Longevity”
I’m not sure why he felt the need for the government to subsidize his business while he’s getting paid like that but you know, that’s just what deplorables do these days.
Then, there are these deplorables who showed up Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s house late Saturday while she and her son were finishing up their Holiday Decorations. What was the purpose of this neighborhood visit? Well, in typical deplorable style it included death threats and the usual horrible taunts plus guns. Lots of gun toting and lots of rage by the usual set of deplorable white men.
Jocelyn Benson just released a statement: “As my four year old son and I were finishing up decorating the house for Christmas on Saturday night … dozens of armed individuals stood outside my home shouting obscenities and chanting into bullhorns in the dark of night.” pic.twitter.com/LqwHNBa72U
About 20-30 protesters, some open-carrying guns, gathered outside Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s home Saturday night to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s win in Michigan, police said.
Officers responded to a public disturbance around 9:50 p.m., Dec. 5 outside of Benson’s Detroit residence, said the Michigan State Police. Some of the protesters carried weapons, police said, and the crowd dispersed once officers arrived. No protesters were arrested, police said. Detroit police were called to the scene, as well.
Protesters posted two livestream videos of the rally, which showed people chanting for election audits and to “Stop the steal.” At least one individual shouted “you’re murderers” in the videos, according to a joint statement by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy.
The rally was a threat against not only Benson and her family, but also Michigan voters, Benson said in a statement.
“The demands made outside my home were unambiguous, loud and threatening,” she said in the release. “They targeted me in my role as Michigan’s Chief Election Officer. But the threats of those gathered weren’t actually aimed at me – or any other elected officials in this state. They were aimed at the voters.”
She noted in the release that she and her 4-year-old son were decorating the house for Christmas when the protesters arrived.
The big picture: The Trump talk could create a split-screen moment: the outgoing president addressing a roaring crowd in an airport hangar while the incoming leader is sworn in before a socially distanced audience outside the Capitol, as NBC News first reported.
Immediately announcing he is running for re-election in 2024 would set up four years of Trump playing Biden’s critic-in-chief.
The visual also would embody the vast difference in the two leaders’ approaches to the pandemic.
And flying off from the South Lawn before landing in Florida would let Trump escape protests, the normal pleasantries of welcoming the incoming president to the White House — and sitting there while Biden takes the oath of office.
Well, look who is hospitalized with the Corona Virus?
The 76-year-old former New York mayor was admitted to Georgetown University Hospital on Sunday. Giuliani, who has frequently appeared without a mask in recent weeks, may have spread the virus among public officials. https://t.co/uQfRck4Egp
Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney and the face of his longshot legal challenges to overturn the presidential election results, has been hospitalized after testing positive for Covid-19.
The 76-year-old former New York mayor was admitted to Georgetown University Hospital on Sunday, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to CNN. Giuliani appeared to confirm his positive diagnosis, hours after it was announced on Twitter by Trump, by tweeting that he’s “getting great care and feeling good.”
There have been no additional details provided about his condition, and it is unclear when Giuliani received a positive test for Covid-19. He and his spokeswoman have not responded to CNN’s requests for comment.
This story comes from Stephanie Ruhle whose entire family has tested positive.
Stephanie Ruhle: My family's Covid diagnosis shows how our broken, confusing system exploits privilege https://t.co/jHWrEffXB7
One of the people who did take my call seriously, the woman who cuts my hair, canceled her Thanksgiving, took her kids out of school, stopped going to work and made no money for nearly two weeks. Her test, which she spent three hours waiting to get, came back eight days later. It was negative. But how many people can put their lives, livelihoods and jobs on hold just to do the right thing?
Hourly wage workers are going to work sick because they can’t afford not to work. Many of their employers are ignoring the symptoms, because they are trying to keep business alive.
Testing remains a challenge — and there are no consequences for people who don’t self-isolate while they wait several days just to get results, especially if they have no or minimal symptoms.
And then there are people who may know they are spreading the coronavirus and simply don’t care. Any of these scenarios is possible, because there is no comprehensive national containment plan.
I think it’s pretty obvious to most of us by now that Trump and his Trumpists don’t give a damn about any one but themselves.
Oh, and there’s rumors that Bill Barr is bailing early. Good Riddance to the lot of them! I would like to live in a world where never have to hear a word about any of them again unless it has to do with a pending jail term.
Take care this week! Be safe! We care and love you here our beloved community! We just got to hang in here for a few more months and then ride the change!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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Today’s Caturday illustrations are by Japanese artist Tetsuo Takahara.
We are getting our first Nor’easter of the season today and tomorrow. I don’t know how much snow we will get yet, but it’s already stormy out there.
[*UPDATE*] For those in New England, a Nor'easter will be tracking just off the coast today through early tomorrow bringing heavy rain and snow, as well as gusty winds. pic.twitter.com/H9Kpvs8gEE
BOSTON — A nasty Nor’easter has taken aim at Southern New England Saturday, with snow totals again upped to more than a foot in parts of the state. What started as a rainy day will turn into snow, leading to messy conditions across the state.
The National Weather Service has continued to raise the expected snow totals in the days leading up to the storm, with Saturday morning’s updated forecast showing parts of the state could see as much as 18 inches of accumulation. A winter storm warning is in effect from 1 p.m. Saturday until 7 a.m. Sunday.
Most of the state should see the first flakes fall by early-to-mid afternoon, though the northwest corner of the state could see snow as early as 10 a.m. Worcester is expected to be hit hardest, with a foot to a foot and a half of snow expected.\
The combination of the wet, heavy snow with high winds could lead to downed trees, power lines and widespread power outages. While the Cape and islands aren’t expected to see too much snow accumulation, they’ll be hit the hardest by the winds, which could top out at 65 mph in Provincetown. Keep electronic devices charged in case of a power outage.
A rapidly intensifying nor’easter will bring heavy rain and snow from the Mid-Atlantic through New England this weekend, triggering winter weather alerts in several Northeastern states….
“As the system rapidly intensifies, it will also bring windy conditions, especially along the coast from the mid-Atlantic through Maine,” said CNN meteorologist Taylor Ward. “Expect winds to gust 30 to 40 mph Saturday, with some gusts perhaps even topping 50 mph in areas like Cape Cod.”
Gale warnings are in effect along the coast from the Carolinas to Maine. A reduction in visibility, along with strong winds, are expected to cause hazardous seas, which could capsize or damage vessels.
This storm could intensify fast enough to become a “bomb cyclone,” a phenomenon characterized by a pressure drop of at least 24 millibars within 24 hours and increased precipitation and winds.
The heaviest rain will fall along the Eastern Seaboard, particularly from Richmond, Virginia, to Boston, where rainfall totals of 2 to 4 inches are expected.
The heaviest snow will likely fall between Worcester, Massachusetts and Caribou, Maine, where 8 to 12 inches is forecast. Over one foot of snow is possible for isolated locations, especially in Maine.
So if you’re in the path of the storm, stay inside, get cozy and comfortable with a good book or other favorite indoor activity.
If you’re getting the feeling I’m avoiding the political news, you’re absolutely right. But I’ll force myself. Here are some of today’s top stories.
A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to fully restore an Obama-era program designed to shield young, undocumented immigrants from deportation, dealing what could be a final blow to President Trump’s long-fought effort to end the protections.
The program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, was created by President Barack Obama in 2012. Over the years, it has protected more than 800,000 individuals, known as “dreamers,” who met a series of strict requirements for eligibility.
But those protections have been under legal and political siege from Republicans for years, leaving the immigrants who were enrolled in DACA uncertain whether the threat of deportation from the United States could quickly return with a single court order or presidential memorandum.
Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn directed the administration on Friday to allow newly eligible immigrants to file new applications for protection under the program, reversing a memorandum issued in the summer by Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of Homeland Security, which restricted the program to people who were already enrolled. As many as 300,000 new applicants could now be eligible, according to the lawyers who pushed for the reinstatement.
The memo from the Department of Homeland Security also limited benefits under the program, including permits to work, to one year, but the judge ordered the government to restore them to a full two years. Judge Garaufis, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, also said the government must find a way to contact all immigrants who are eligible for the program to inform them of the change.
The judge said the government must announce the changes to the program on its website by Monday.
President Donald Trump and his legal allies earned a platinum sombrero Friday, striking out five times in a matter of hours in states pivotal to the president’s push to overturn the election results — and losing a sixth in Minnesota for good measure.
It was another harsh milestone in a monthlong run of legal futility, accompanied by sharp rebukes from county, state and federal judges who continue to express shock at the Trump team’s effort to simply scrap the results of an election he lost. Several of the most devastating opinions, both Friday and in recent weeks, have come from conservative judges and, in some federal cases, Trump appointees.
The losses included a rejection in Wisconsin from the state Supreme Court, where the majority was gobsmacked at the effort by a conservative group to invalidate the entire election without any compelling evidence of voter fraud or misconduct.
“The relief being sought by the petitioners is the most dramatic invocation of judicial power I have ever seen,” said Brian Hagedorn, a conservative elected justice, in a concurring opinion. “Judicial acquiescence to such entreaties built on so flimsy a foundation would do indelible damage to every future election. Once the door is opened to judicial invalidation of presidential election results, it will be awfully hard to close that door again. This is a dangerous path we are being asked to tread.”
An Arizona county judge, similarly, tossed a suit brought by state GOP chair Kelli Ward. “The court finds no misconduct, no fraud and no effect on the outcome of the election.” Ward has vowed to appeal that ruling.\A Nevada judge issued a point-by-point rejection of every claim lodged by the Trump team, emphasizing that the facts they presented were sparse and unpersuasive. Carson City District Judge James Russell’s opinion repeatedly emphasized their case would not have succeeded “under any standard of proof.” [….]
In one of the most prominent cases — a suit in Georgia brought by controversial lawyers Sidney Powell and Lin Wood — a federal appeals court dismissed an appeal seeking to expand a restraining order a district court judge issued Sunday barring any alterations to voting machines in three Georgia counties.
A unanimous three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the appeal without even hearing oral arguments from the litigants.
Read more at Politico.
Trump is headed to Georgia today for a rally supposedly to support incumbent Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, but he’s more likely to use the event to whine about h.is election loss. The New York Times: A Gathering Political Storm Hits Georgia, With Trump on the Way.
ATLANTA — Some of the biggest names in national politics jumped into the fiercely contested runoffs for two Georgia Senate seats on Friday, even as a second recount showed that Joseph R. Biden Jr. had maintained his lead in the state and Republicans braced for a visit by President Trump, who has railed against his loss there with baseless claims of fraud.
With Mr. Trump set to campaign for the two Republican incumbents, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, on Saturday, Vice President Mike Pence and former President Barack Obama held dueling events to underscore the vital stakes in the special elections: If both Republicans are defeated, control of the Senate will shift to Democrats just as Mr. Biden moves into the Oval Office.
Mr. Obama appeared virtually at a turn-out-the-vote event for Jon Ossoff, the Democrat facing Mr. Perdue, and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, Ms. Loeffler’s opponent, and spoke of his frustration in seeing his initiatives blocked by the Republican-controlled Senate when he was in office. “If the Senate is controlled by Republicans who are interested in obstruction and gridlock, rather than progress and helping people, they can block just about anything,” Mr. Obama said.
Mr. Pence — with Mr. Perdue and Ms. Loeffler by his side — attended a Covid-19 briefing at the Atlanta headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and said later at a rally for the Republican candidates that “we’re going to save the Senate, and then we’re going to save America.”
Yeah, right.
The Senate races are playing out at a hyperpartisan moment in American politics that has led to a civil war among Georgia Republicans divided over whether to support Mr. Trump as he persists with false assertions that the election was stolen from him. In Georgia and elsewhere, the president’s lawyers remain engaged in a failing, last-minute effort to throw the election to Mr. Trump.
Even as he tweeted this week that he wanted “a big David and Kelly WIN,” Mr. Trump called Brian Kemp, the state’s Republican governor, “hapless” for failing to work to overturn the election results, while also criticizing Georgia’s top election official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. His sustained assault on Georgia’s voting system prompted an extraordinary rebuke this week from another high-ranking elections official, who warned of violent threats against poll workers and publicly pleaded with the president to cool down his conspiratorial rhetoric.
Meanwhile the coronavirus pandemic is surging everywhere. Here in Massachusetts, the numbers of new cases have climbed to 5,000 or more every day. Deaths are fewer than in the spring, but people are still dying on a daily basis.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, public-health experts have warned of one particular nightmare. It is possible, they said, for the number of coronavirus patients to exceed the capacity of hospitals in a state or city to take care of them. Faced with a surge of severely ill people, doctors and nurses will have to put beds in hallways, spend less time with patients, and become more strict about whom they admit into the hospital at all. The quality of care will fall; Americans who need hospital beds for any other reason—a heart attack, a broken leg—will struggle to find space. Many people will unnecessarily suffer and die….
Yet that worst-case scenario never came to pass at a national level. At the springtime peak, even as northeastern hospitals faced a deluge, 60,000 people were hospitalized nationwide. When the Sun Belt frothed with cases this summer, hospitalizations again reached the 60,000 mark before they started to fall.
A month ago, in early November, hospitalizations passed 60,000—and kept climbing, quickly. On Wednesday, the country tore past a nauseating virus record. For the first time since the pandemic began, more than 100,000 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the United States, nearly double the record highs seen during the spring and summer surges.
The pandemic nightmare scenario—the buckling of hospital and health-care systems nationwide—has arrived. Several lines of evidence are now sending us the same message: Hospitals are becoming overwhelmed, causing them to restrict whom they admit and leading more Americans to needlessly die.
The current rise in hospitalizations began in late September, and for weeks now hospitals have faced unprecedented demand for medical care. The number of hospitalized patients has increased nearly every day: Since November 1, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has doubled; since October 1, it has tripled.
HOUSTON — The United States is winding up a particularly devastating week, one of the very worst since the coronavirus pandemic began nine months ago.
On Friday, a national single-day record was set, with more than 226,000 new cases. It was one of many data points that illustrated the depth and spread of a virus that has killed more than 278,000 people in this country, more than the entire population of Lubbock, Texas, or Modesto, Calif., or Jersey City, N.J.
“It’s just an astonishing number,” said Caitlin Rivers, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “We’re in the middle of this really severe wave and I think as we go through the day to day of this pandemic, it can be easy to lose sight of how massive and deep the tragedy is.”
In California, where daily case reports have tripled in the last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a new round of regional stay-at-home orders to address a mounting crisis over intensive-care beds. Some counties in the Bay Area said they were enacting tough new restrictions this weekend, before the state rules come into effect. And in South Florida, which is in the early stages of a new surge, physicians and politicians alike worried that there might not be enough resources to treat the sick.
Head over to the NYT for the rest. It’s worth a read.
That’s it for me today. I’m going to hunker down with a good book while I ride out the storm. Take care, Sky Dancers! I hope you’ll stop by today if you have the time and inclination. I’ll be checking in.
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We have 46 more days of the Trumpist Regime. Get ready for the Bronco Chases.
I’ve been on pardon watch especially since we’ve learned there’s been a bribery for pardons investigation. Watching Trump’s first batch of corrupt crony pardon recipients while they suggesting we become a dictatorship with specific suggestions has been pretty appalling too! It’s going to be fun watching Club Pardoneer grow its membership! I’m personally watching my Pardoneer Bingo card for anything with the last name of Trump.
Trump campaign attorney Joe DiGenova said that Chris Krebs, the election security official whom Trump fired by tweet last month after he defended the integrity of the election, should be “drawn and quartered” and “taken out at dawn and shot.” Stalin couldn’t have said it better himself when talking about his perceived enemies in the Soviet bureaucracy.
Former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell—who was dismissed last month after pushing conspiracy theories (including that the long-deceased Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez intervened to help Joe Biden) that were recognized as deranged even by the conspiracy-mongerers surrounding Trump—retweeted a call to invoke the Insurrection Act, suspend the meeting of the Electoral College, and set up military tribunals to deal with Trump’s enemies.
The following day, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, coming off a recent presidential pardon from Trump, urged his erstwhile boss to declare martial law, suspend the Constitution, and order new presidential elections under the supervision of the military.
And Trump himself—America’s isolated, mad, lonely king—seems increasingly besotted by a version of his story in which he rides in as the knight in shining armor to save America from a “rigged” electoral disaster. On Wednesday, Trump posted on Facebook a bizarre 46-minute video in which he regurgitated a myriad of conspiracy theories. He said it may be the “most important” speech he has ever given. Critics were less impressed. The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker interpreted the rambling speech as a call to arms and wrote that it called into question the peaceful transfer of power.
Roughly 20 top aides and associates are on tap for a potential pardon, though the list is evolving, according to one of the people. The list includes Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, who run the family’s namesake business, and Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, a husband-and-wife duo who are both senior aides at the White House. All four were involved in Trump’s reelection campaign.
Trump has even mused on Twitter that he has “the absolute right to PARDON” myself — a legally contested (but untested) claim.
Still, Trump is hesitant to pardon any of them, particularly Giuliani, because it may appear that members of his inner circle are criminals, said one of the three people, who spoke to Trump this week. The Giuliani pardon has been discussed more seriously, the person added.
A Republican who speaks to Trump and supports his potential 2024 bid predicted the pardons would not hurt the president. “It’s a big deal to Beltway types but not regular Americans,” the person said.
The pardons would be designed to prevent Trump’s allies from being ensnared in any more federal investigations.
Trump Jr. had been investigated for contacts that he had during the 2016 with Russians offering damaging information on his father’s 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton. Later, congressional investigators told the Justice Department that Trump Jr. may have lied to them during their examination of Russia’s 2016 election interference.
Kushner similarly received scrutiny for providing inaccurate information to federal authorities about his contacts with foreigners when he applied for his security clearance.
Neither was charged.
But the clemency would not extend to any state charges, congressional investigations or lawsuits — of which there are plenty.
The New York attorney general and the Manhattan district attorney, for example, have been investigating the Trump Organization for possible financial fraud. D.C. authorities also sued the Trump Organization and Trump’s inaugural committee, alleging the committee misused funds and funneled money back to Trump’s company. Ivanka Trump gave a deposition in that suit earlier this week.
Remember in February when Attorney General Bill Barr trashed his department’s reputation to override the recommended prison term for Roger Stone and push for a much shorter sentence? Because, apparently, Stone has forgotten—and has gone on the attack against the AG. Trumpworld has reacted with fury to Barr’s statement Tuesday that there’s no evidence of voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election, and Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden. Stone, one of Trump’s longest standing allies, is particularly angry, even though Barr did him a huge favor earlier this year. In a video posted to Parler, Stone said he’s not surprised that Barr has “suddenly determined” there is no voter fraud, adding: “Bill Barr’s job is to block for the ‘deep state.’” Stone, who had his prison sentence commuted by Trump in July, also complained of a “two-tiered justice system.”
Former Trump adviser Roger Stone claimed without evidence on Wednesday that North Korea had interfered in the U.S. presidential election. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump continued to assert that fraudulent activity was prevalent during the November election.
Stone, who has previously spoken of his respect for some members of the QAnon conspiracy theory movement, was sentenced to 40 months in prison for lying to investigators in connection with the Mueller probe into Russian election meddling during Trump’s 2016 campaign. Trump commuted Stone’s sentence in July.
Stone never fails to disappoint those riding the Trump Crazy Train.
Talk Of 'Preemptive' Pardons By Trump Raises Questions: What Can He Do? https://t.co/w505scDrP0
A presidential preemptive pardon sounds unusual, but it has been done before, most famously when President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, who resigned because of the Watergate scandal in 1973 but had not been charged with any crimes.
“A preemptive pardon is a presidential pardon granted before any formal legal process has begun,” American University professor Jeffrey Crouch tells NPR.
In an email, Crouch, author of The Presidential Pardon Power, says that “someone must have committed a federal offense, but as soon as that happens, the president can grant them clemency. He does not need to wait until the alleged offender is charged, stands trial, and so on.”
Crouch continues: “These pardons are not common, but they do happen occasionally.”
Accordingly, Trump could “pardon his children, his aides, his supporters, and so on for federal offenses and be on firm legal ground,” Crouch says. “The really unclear scenario would be if he attempted to pardon himself.”
Trump has asserted he has the power to pardon himself but has said he didn’t need to use it because he hasn’t done anything wrong. Not only might his denial about any lawbreaking be complicated by events following his departure from office, the merits of a self-pardon are controversial and have never been tested in court.
And although the potential legal problems facing Trump are thought to be well understood, at least in principle, it’s not clear what if any criminal offenses with which Trump’s children might be charged.
Breaking NYT: DOJ investigated as recently as this summer the roles of Elliott Broidy, a top fundraiser for Trump, and Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Jared Kushner, in a suspected scheme to offer a bribe in exchange for clemency for a tax crimes convict.https://t.co/WPnbexW2t7
The Justice Department investigated as recently as this summer the roles of a top fund-raiser for President Trump and a lawyer for his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in a suspected scheme to offer a bribe in exchange for clemency for a tax crimes convict, according to two people familiar with the inquiry.
A federal judge in Washington unsealed heavily redacted court documents on Tuesday that disclosed the existence of the investigation into possible unregistered lobbying and bribery. The people said it concerned efforts by the lawyer for Mr. Kushner, Abbe Lowell, and the fund-raiser, Elliott Broidy, who pleaded guilty in October to a charge related to a different scheme to lobby the Trump administration.
A billionaire real estate developer from the San Francisco area, Sanford Diller, enlisted their help in securing clemency for a Berkeley psychologist, Hugh L. Baras, who had received a 30-month prison sentence on a conviction of tax evasion and improperly claiming Social Security benefits, according to the filing and the people familiar with the case. Under the suspected scheme, Mr. Diller would make “a substantial political contribution” to an unspecified recipient in exchange for the pardon. He died in February 2018, and there is no evidence that the effort continued after his death.
As part of the effort, someone approached the White House Counsel’s Office to “ensure” that the “clemency petition reached the targeted officials,” according to the court documents. They did not say who made the contact or how the White House responded.
There’s a lot of discussion about what exactly we should do when the Trump Family Crime Syndicate and all its high crimes and misdemeanors. Here’s some things to read about prosecuting–or not–Trump and his cronies after they’re gone pecans.
This was always going to be a dilemma for Trump’s successor. After an openly self-dealing president like Trump, the nation needs to see that no American is above the law, and that there will be consequences for anyone—even a former president—who enriches himself at the nation’s expense or abuses his power.
But any prosecution of Trump, no matter how fair, will draw criticism from Trump’s supporters in an already-divided nation. Even non-partisan observers have reason to be concerned by the spectacle of the administration of a new president prosecuting the president who just left office. It’s essential for any stable democracy that elected leaders don’t use their new powers to punish their opponents after they’ve lost. No president has ever done it.
The president faces a slew of legal issues on the federal and state levels once he’s out of office on January 20. New York Attorney General Letitia James is conducting a civil investigation into the Trump Organization’s business practices. And a federal court filing from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance suggested he was conducting an investigation into Trump and the Trump Organization on suspicion of bank and insurance fraud, The New York Times reported.
Trump was also named “Individual-1” in a filing by the Southern District of New York when his former attorney Michael Cohen was charged with making hush-money payments. And a lawsuit from two attorneys general alleged he violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause. His inaugural committee also faces a lawsuit alleging it schemed to funnel nonprofit money into the Trump family business.
The Trump aide serving as the president’s eyes and ears at the Justice Department has been banned from the building after trying to pressure staff members to give up sensitive information about election fraud and other matters that she could relay to the White House, three people familiar with the matter say.
Heidi Stirrup, an ally of top Trump advisor Stephen Miller, was quietly installed at the Justice Department as a White House liaison a few months ago. She was told within the last two weeks to vacate the building after top Justice officials learned of her efforts to collect inside information about ongoing cases and the department’s work on election fraud, the people told the Associated Press.
Stirrup is accused of approaching staffers in the department and demanding that they give her information about investigations, including election fraud matters, the people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.
The effort came as Trump continues to level baseless claims that he won the election and alleges without evidence that massive voting fraud was responsible for his defeat to President-elect Joe Biden.
Biden’s list of contenders for the job — from Sally Yates, former deputy attorney general, to Doug Jones, soon to be former senator from Alabama who was defeated in November — largely centers on former prosecutors whose history at the department could lend credibility with the public and career officials.
Others said to be in contention include Deval Patrick, former Massachusetts governor and former Justice Department civil rights chief; Jeh Johnson, the Homeland Security secretary under Obama; California Attorney General Xavier Becerra; and Lisa Monaco, a former Homeland Security adviser in the Obama White House and who previously worked at the FBI and as top national security prosecutor at Justice.
Biden, along with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, are interviewing contenders and weighing the decision. They are not expected to announce a decision until next week at the earliest, people familiar with the matter told CNN, but with a goal of doing so well before the holidays. The timing is also contingent on the nomination of a Secretary of Defense.
The job, for whomever Biden picks, will be a heavy lift. The pick will be stepping into a Justice Department damaged by the Trump administration and with low morale among career officials, many of whom have been publicly called out by President Donald Trump, Barr and other Republicans.
This is definitely going to be a long ride. I’m wondering if it will involve at least one White Bronco at some point. And, no we’re not there yet …
Have a good weekend! Take care!
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On Tuesday, I asked if we will ever be free of Trump and his demands for narcissistic supply–even after we pry him out of the White House. At The Atlantic, two writers argue that Trump is already losing his battle to remain the center of attention.
To a remarkable degree, people have already stopped paying attention to the 45th president.
The past few weeks have offered a preview of what Donald Trump’s post-presidency might look like: The president fulminates at length, playing pundit, but is a practical nonfactor in policy discussions. He can still command the affection of millions—and raise millions of dollars from them—but the balance of the country has already moved on and tuned out. Trump’s ability to command the news cycle has been eclipsed by the virus he couldn’t be bothered to stop and the rival candidate he couldn’t beat.
Graham notes that we still must be alert to Trump’s efforts to damage our democratic institutions and policies.
His election-related efforts are sputtering: Trump has watched while state after state certifies election wins for Biden. He has watched as dozens of judges have punted long-shot lawsuits out of court. He watched as dye ran down Rudy Giuliani’s face in a news conference that was somehow both jaw-droppingly insane and jaw-clenchingly dull. Having exhausted nearly every option, the Trump legal effort has now resorted to recycling old, failed gambits. With the Electoral College meeting on December 14, the end is in sight.
The relevant description of Trump’s role is “watching.” The president has long been an obsessive TV viewer, but without a campaign to run and with no events on his schedule, there is less to distract him from the tube—and his gripes about Fox News and praise for the network’s smaller rivals, Newsmax and One America News….
Paris in the Rain, by Dan McCole
He is now back to feeding his followers a steady diet of false and misleading claims about the election results, though it is difficult to tell whether he really believes his claims, is just processing his grief, is simply taking advantage of a lucrative fundraising opportunity, or some combination thereof.
This punditry will likely be the central element of Trump’s post-presidency. Armed with his Twitter following and perhaps a cable-news show or even channel, Trump will be able to spout off to his heart’s content….
Trump’s diminishing relevance over the past 10 days is a good preview of what to expect come late January. Trump won’t go away entirely, and he certainly won’t get quiet, but fewer Americans will listen to or care about what he has to say. They’ve voted with their ballots, and now they’ll vote with their attention.
Yascha Mounk: Why Trump Might Just Fade Away. Americans will soon grow tired of the president, despite his efforts to stay in the limelight.
Trump’s veneer of invincibility is fading. He lost his bid for reelection, and staged the most incompetent coup attempt since Woody Allen’s Bananas. He can rant and rave about what happened in November, but he can’t keep his followers from seeing Joe Biden inaugurated in January. Fear of what he might attempt next is giving way to laughter. He looks weaker and more scared by the day.
When Oprah Winfrey left her show to start her own network, she was the biggest star on television. Many analysts predicted that her new venture would be a huge success. At the time, some press reports even suggested that bosses at the main broadcast networks were seriously worried about the competition.
Contrary to these expectations, the Oprah Winfrey Network struggled to find an audience. In the first years of its existence, it bled tens of millions of dollars. Today, OWN has established a stable niche for itself, and even makes a little profit. But with an average viewership of fewer than 500,000 people in 2018, it plays in a completely different league from the four major networks and the most commercially successful cable channels.
This should serve as a warning to anybody who is now fielding pitches to invest in the Trump News Network. If Trump follows the lead of other authoritarian populists like Hugo Chávez and hosts a regular television program, he can undoubtedly induce his most devoted fans to tune in. But to be commercially viable, his channel would have to expand that core audience, recruit other hosts who are capable of sustaining the public’s attention, hire journalists who can actually cover what is going on in the world, and attract advertising from run-of-the-mill corporations.
Mounk argues that Republicans are unlikely to supports Trump’s plans for another presidential run in 2024, even if he is capable of carrying if off four years from now and it’s likely that most Americans will be sick of his antics by then, if they aren’t already.
Times Square Station, by Louis Ebarb
Another Atlantic writer, Timothy Noah suggests that we may learn much more about Trump’s time as “president” after he leaves office: The Trump You’ve Yet to Meet. Just because we know bad things about the 45th president, don’t assume that there’s nothing bad left to find out.
How well do we know Donald Trump? Pretty well, it would seem. Nobody has ever accused the outgoing president of possessing a complex personality. His behavior in office confirmed the common view, barely disputed even by his allies, that he is a shallow narcissist, blind or indifferent to common decencies, with poor impulse control and a vindictive streak. His futile attempt to litigate away electoral defeat may appall you, but it probably doesn’t surprise you.
Still, just because we know bad things about the 45th president, don’t assume that there’s nothing bad left to find out. Journalists like to pretend that we know everything about a president in real time, but our information is never close to complete. There’s always more to learn, and it’s seldom reassuring.
Americans had no idea until after he left office how completely Woodrow Wilson depended on his wife, Edith, after he suffered a stroke in September 1919; she waited two decades to admit in her memoirs that, on instructions from Wilson’s doctors, she’d winnowed his written communications with Cabinet members and senators, digesting and reframing “in tabloid form those things that … had to go to the president.”
Nor did Americans learn until a decade after his death that John F. Kennedy, a much less devoted family man than Life magazine let on, shared a mistress (sequentially if not concurrently) with the Chicago Mob boss Sam Giancana, whom the CIA recruited in one of several harebrained plots to assassinate Fidel Castro.
Then there’s Richard Nixon. Americans knew many shameful things about Nixon thanks to the Watergate investigation that prompted his resignation. But only after he left office did we learn, for instance, that Nixon ordered an aide to compile a list of Jews who worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics so he could demote some of them.
Noah lists many possibilities for how we will learn more about Trump and his time in the White House. I hope you’ll read the whole thing. Some possible sources of information and questions to be answered:
Trump, for all his talk about loyalty, has never commanded much from the people who work for him. No visible bonds of affection or respect bind Trump to his employees, leaving fear the sole motivation for keeping the troops in line. (See Cohen, Michael.) Most of that fear will evaporate by January 20, by which time trade publishers may be turning away proposals for tell-all books lest they create a market glut. Unlike the previous two administrations, which were somewhat difficult for reporters to penetrate, the Trump White House leaked like a sieve. Après lui, le déluge….
Digital art by Charles W. Bailey, Jr.
How close did we come to war with North Korea when Trump threatened to rain “fire and fury” on Kim Jong Un? After Trump decided instead to become the first president to meet with Kim, how close did Trump come to agreeing to remove U.S. troops from the Korean peninsula?
Exactly how much revenue did Trump properties collect from the federal government during his presidency? How much from people seeking to influence Trump’s presidency?
Who has received promises from Trump that they’ll be pardoned? Did Trump promise in advance to commute Roger Stone’s sentence?
What were the domestic arrangements in the Trump White House? Can Melania and Barron really be said to have lived there, or did they spend more time in their New York apartment, or at her parents’ house in Maryland, where Barron went to school?
Did White House aides observe signs of mental decline in Trump related to aging?
Some stories from today’s news that suggest Trump’s power to control the narrative and intimidate fellow Republicans is fading:
But that changed late last month. Since Nov. 25, not a single fundraising email from the Trump campaign or its Republican National Committee fundraising account has featured Pence’s name in the “from” field. And this week, that Republican National Committee joint fundraising committee, the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, made another subtle change: a handful of its emails swapped out the official Trump-Pence campaign logo for one featuring just the president’s name….
Newspaper Kiosk in Bologna, Italy, photo by Fillippo Carlot
Several high-level sources say that the graphics change, along with Pence’s disappearance from the headers of President Donald Trump’s increasingly frantic and conspiratorial pleas, are not actually coincidental. According to four people with knowledge of the matter, they reflect an effort by the vice president and his team to distance Pence from some of the president’s more outlandish claims about a conspiracy to undermine the election and illegally deny him a second term in office.
“It is an open secret [in Trumpworld] that Vice President Pence absolutely does not feel the same way about the legal effort as President Trump does,” said a senior administration official. “The vice president doesn’t want to go down with this ship…and believes much of the legal work has been unhelpful.”
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) told President Trump on Wednesday he’ll likely fail to get two big wishes in pending defense spending legislation, bellowing into his cellphone: “This is the only chance to get our bill passed,” a source who overheard part of their conversation tells Axios.
Why it matters: Republicans are ready to test whether Trump’s threats of vetoing the bill, which has passed every year for more than half a century, are empty.
The backstory: Inhofe leveled with Trump — over speakerphone while walking through the Senate’s Russell Building — that the bill won’t meet his demand to repeal liability protections for tech companies, or block efforts to re-title military bases named for Confederate figures.
Joseph diGenova, the Trump campaign lawyer who had been a fixture in Washington legal circles for decades, resigned under pressure Tuesday from the elite Gridiron Club after an uproar over his comments suggesting a former government official should be executed.
DiGenova later said he was joking when he made the comments about Christopher Krebs, the federal cybersecurity official who was fired by President Trump after asserting that the 2020 election was secure and free of widespread voter fraud. “Anybody who thinks the election went well, like that idiot Krebs . . . .” diGenova said on the conservative “Howie Carr Show” on Monday. “He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot.”
Still, the White House denounced the statement, Krebs said he would consider legal action — and the 135-year-old Gridiron Club asked diGenova to step down.
Ivanka Trump, the President’s daughter and adviser, sat for a deposition Tuesday with investigators from the Washington, DC, attorney general’s office as part of its lawsuit alleging the misuse of inaugural funds, according to a court filing.
In January, the DC attorney general’s office sued the Trump Organization and Presidential Inaugural Committee alleging they abused more than $1 million raised by the nonprofit by “grossly overpaying” for use of event space at the Trump hotel in Washington for the 2017 inauguration….
The attorney general’s office has also subpoenaed records from Barrack, Ivanka Trump, first lady Melania Trump, and Rick Gates, the former inaugural committee deputy chairman, the filing said.
Intensifying attacks on the integrity of the vote by President Trump and his allies are fueling deep alarm among state and local officials, who have watched with dread in recent weeks as election workers have been targeted by fast-spreading conspiracy theories.
They echoed calls by Gabriel Sterling, a top Republican election official in Georgia who on Tuesday urged Trump and other GOP politicians to tamp down their baseless claims of widespread fraud. In an impassioned statement, Sterling blamed the president for “inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence.”
He noted that a 20-year-old contractor for Dominion Voting Systems has been besieged with online attacks after QAnon supporters falsely claimed a video showed him manipulating voting data, when he was in fact simply using a computer and thumb drive.
Similar threats have cropped up across the country since Election Day.
Barr spent roughly two and a half hours on White House grounds on Tuesday for what White House and Department of Justice officials previously said was a pre-planned meeting with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
However, sources told ABC News that once Barr was in the building for meetings, Trump wanted to see him.
One source briefed on the meeting described Barr’s interaction with the president as “intense,” but would not elaborate on any additional details about the content of their discussion.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany in a press briefing Wednesday afternoon declined to answer whether the two had spoken since Barr’s interview, and also declined to say directly whether Trump still had confidence in Barr.
So, that’s my summary of the notion that Trump may fade away after he leaves the White House. I don’t know if I buy it or not, but there is some evidence that Republicans are breaking free of the cult. I’d love to get your input on this.
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
As Trump 
We are getting closer to a vaccine, and the FDA has found that the Pfizer vaccine 
“Frankly, I don’t know, and frankly, I’m staying out of this. I can’t comment,” Slaoui said. “I literally don’t know.”
Let’s hope the Biden administration will be able to deal with the mess that Trump is leaving them. 
Unfortunately, that is what Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and his minions have been battling to include in 
“The doors close significantly after the safe harbor deadline passes,” said Rebecca Green, codirector of the Election Law Program at William & Mary Law School. “It’s going to be a heavy lift to convince a judge to defy federal deadlines. I think it would only happen or be successful if some kind of wild evidence of just unbelievable scale were unearthed that was credible.”
The pardon clause’s language is broad indeed, unambiguously allowing the president to pardon seemingly any other person convicted for any federal criminal offense. But its language does not unambiguously include the president himself. Had the Framers intended to give the president such broad power, we would expect them to have clearly said so. After all, the new nation was in the process of rejecting a monarchical government in favor of a democratic republic.
So, if this is true, I’ve got to find a new new for the Deplorable-in Chief. Alyana Treena of Axios reports this: 
Of course, he’s getting great care!
So, I’m still scheduled to teach in a classroom with about 35 people with no windows on Saturday because that’s what some of the most vocal students wanted to do. My grad assistant Rose will be there too. This
Sorry for the local news, but this is quite a shock. It’s very early for us to be getting a winter storm. This storm is actually impacting the entire East coast from the Carolinas to Maine. CNN: 
If you’re getting the feeling I’m avoiding the political news, you’re absolutely right. But I’ll force myself. Here are some of today’s top stories.
And then there were the baseless claims of election fraud. 
In one of the most prominent cases — a suit in Georgia brought by controversial lawyers Sidney Powell and Lin Wood — a federal appeals court dismissed an appeal seeking to expand a restraining order a district court judge issued Sunday barring any alterations to voting machines in three Georgia counties.
The Senate races are playing out at a hyperpartisan moment in American politics that has led to a civil war among Georgia Republicans divided over whether to support Mr. Trump as he persists with false assertions that the election was stolen from him. In Georgia and elsewhere, the president’s lawyers remain engaged in a failing, last-minute effort to throw the election to Mr. Trump.
The pandemic nightmare scenario—the buckling of hospital and health-care systems nationwide—has arrived. Several lines of evidence are now sending us the same message: Hospitals are becoming overwhelmed, causing them to restrict whom they admit and leading more Americans to needlessly die.
Good Day Sky Dancers! 
Politico reports that 20 cronies (aides and associates) are on Trump’s buddy list to become a Merry Pardoneer! But wait! I thought no one did anything wrong!
Roger Stone was not to be outdone by others’ batshittery demonstrating the chutzpah required to be one of the original Pardoneers! “
There’s a lot of discussion about what exactly we should do when the Trump Family Crime Syndicate and all its high crimes and misdemeanors. Here’s some things to read about prosecuting–or not–Trump and his cronies after they’re gone pecans.
It’s possible that New York state may have the first go at him. 
I think this can be termed digging your own grave. Biden has basically said he’d let the Justice Department be the Justice Department and stay out of it. The DOJ appointment–including the AG–position are forthcoming. 
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