And another day of lies, ‘entitled white people,’ bans, holdovers, cancers, ‘no red flags,’ unintended cuts, restoring the economy, pepper spray, resolutions, and threats to national security comes to a close:
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -- John Kenneth Galbraith
Deaths
US: 454,213 (+1934)
World: 2,247,715 (+9995)
Cases
US: 26,911,375 (+144,146)
World: 103,931,497 (+408,307)
All the Lies They Told Us About the Filibuster. How was it acceptable that a law that had required a 60-vote supermajority to pass the Senate could be wiped out with just 50 votes? Why would liberals or moderates accept the existence of a system that makes complex legislation almost impossible to build, yet easy to destroy? Who would ever design a system like this? The answer is that nobody did. The Senate filibuster was not part of its original design. The Founders, scarred by the paralyzing effect of the two-thirds requirement in the Articles of Confederation, consciously rejected a supermajority threshold in Congress (except for a handful of designated special cases, like amending the Constitution, removing a president, or approving a treaty). The filibuster only appeared in 1837 as the result of a glitch in the rules, after the Founders had left the scene, and it changed form several times...This dark scenario raises two questions. First, does McConnell believe the systems that lack a supermajority requirement — i.e., every other democracy in the world, plus all 50 state governments — suffer from this problem? If they are constantly swinging back and forth between extremes and producing misery, why have none of these states or democracies thought to “solve” their problem by copying our solution of a supermajority requirement? Perhaps the answer is that the knowledge the opposing side will have the chance to actually govern gives parties the opposite incentive: They want to enact popular laws the opposing aside will hesitate to repeal.
The US Capitol riots showed what a 'bunch of entitled white people' can do. "There is a population of this country that has gotten used to always being on top and not having to share power," he said. "And now they have to do that, and they have to compete. And psychologically, it's breaking them."
Republican state senators introduced a package of bills Monday to ban automatic voter registration, ballot drop boxes and no-excuse absentee voting in Georgia. The proposals amount to an overhaul of Georgia’s election laws after record turnout resulted in wins for Democrats, including Joe Biden’s run for president and the bids by Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock for the U.S. Senate. -- Because Republicans can’t win any other way except by suppressing the vote.
GOP group "Stop Stacey" targets Abrams ahead of expected 2022 run. -- She’s obviously doing something right.
Trump May Be Gone, But He Left Plenty of Lackeys Behind. Here Are Some of the Worst. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have used the system for decades, but Trump took the practice to new extremes...But Trump, on his way out of the White House, upended OPM’s leadership and replaced them with loyalists. “There’s been damage done there,” Stier says. “And so it’s not clear whether OPM is a fair referee itself.” Here are a few of the holdovers and their new gigs: — Ugh.
House Democrats file resolution to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene of committee assignments.
In a statement, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said freshman Georgia congresswoman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's embrace of conspiracy theories and "loony lies" is a "cancer for the Republican Party." -- Actually, the Republican Party is a cancer for America.
Dozens of former Bush officials leave Republican Party, calling it a 'Trump cult'.
The 11-page CDC order takes effect just before midnight on Monday night. It makes refusal to wear a mask a violation of federal law. The rule applies to passengers on airplanes, trains, subways, buses, taxis and ride-shares. It says travelers must wear a mask that covers their nose and mouth while riding and while getting on and off rides. The order extends to waiting areas such as airports, train platforms and subway stations.
White House awards $230 Million to help produce over-the-counter, rapid COVID tests.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said Monday that about 10,000 pregnant women in the U.S. have been vaccinated and so far there have been “no red flags.”
Covid patients dying unnecessarily because they refuse to go on ventilators, medics warn.
An estimated 29 million people would lose out on stimulus payments under GOP proposal.
Democrats risk unintended Medicare cuts if they pass partisan Covid relief. Under a 2010 law, bills that add to the debt trigger automatic cuts. And preventing them would require Republican support. But under the Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, known as PAYGO, new laws that raise the national debt automatically trigger offsetting cuts to some safety net programs. Those cuts can only be avoided, budget experts say, with 60 Senate votes — leaving Democrats back where they started since it's unclear if Republicans would vote to prevent the cuts after opposing a partisan relief package.
S&P: Biden coronavirus relief proposal would restore economy by summer. "We find that if the $1.9 trillion package were put into law, the U.S. economy would reach pre-crisis levels in the second quarter of 2021, with a stronger demand-driven path of growth through 2023," the report said. Biden's proposal would also set the economy on course to exceed its pre-pandemic growth path until the end of 2022, when it would start to slow, S&P said.
U.S. Representative Jackie Speier sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to issue an executive order identifying white supremacy and violent extremism as a threat to national security.
Georgia police chief, officer ousted after video of racist remarks on slavery, Stacey Abrams. -- Good. They shouldn’t be hired by another police department, either.
Rochester police officers suspended over pepper spraying of 9-year-old girl. "What happened Friday was simply horrible, and has rightly outraged, all of our community," Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren said in a statement. "Unfortunately, state law and union contract prevents me from taking more immediate and serious action."
We know a lot about family separations. The most troubling thing: How much we still don't know. Here's a recap of how we got here, what we know and what we don't:
Criminal charges in Flint's water fiasco offer a mere trickle of justice. Snyder’s blithe attitude about Flint symbolizes the urgency with which a Biden administration must make it clear to politicians and corporations that it is no longer business-as-usual to dump on poor people and communities made up predominately of people of color. At the federal level, Biden promises a Justice Department that will “hold corporate executives personally accountable — including jail time where merited.” That is a heavy lift in a nation where corporate executives largely continue to live large no matter how many faulty planes drop out of the sky, how many defective cars kill people, how many predatory banking practices cause people to lose their homes and life savings, and how many particles of pollution causes cancer and brain damage. CEOs might get fired, they might get fined, but they rarely face bars.
Stacey Abrams nominated for Nobel Peace Prize after "crucial" work on voting rights.
As Trump raked in cash denying his loss, little went to actual legal fight.
Evan Rachel Wood says Marilyn Manson 'horrifically abused me for years'.
Singer Marilyn Manson dropped by record label after abuse claims.
Biden administration says it's working on getting Puerto Rico hurricane relief withheld under Trump.
Tony Bennett is battling Alzheimer's disease, but singing "is saving him," his wife says.
Nike's new sneaker innovation? No hands required. The new laceless shoe, called the Nike Go FlyEase, doesn't require wearers to use their hands to slip the sneaker on and off. That makes it suitable for people on the go as well as a range of athletes with physical disabilities, according to the company.
He may have died 25 years ago, but one of South Korea's biggest rock legends, Kim Kwang-seok, is performing again… with the help of artificial intelligence. The voice AI system - Singing Voice Synthesis (SVS) - learned 20 songs of Kim based on training tool with over 700 Korean songs to improve accuracy, so that the system can mimic a new song in Kim’s own style, according to the AI company Supertone which recreated the dead singer’s voice.
RIP Dustin Diamond. He was 44.
Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.
Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.
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