Friday, December 31, 2021

And another day of saying farewell to a stupid year, Abbott asking for federal assistance, FL breaking records, hundreds losing homes in CO fire, Manchin being wrong, the world’s population reaching 7.8 billion, and 2021 ends with the loss of Betty White comes to a close:

“After a 2nd year of nightmare, morons and dipshits continuing to not mask or vaccinate, Colorado burning IN WINTER, Russia Saber rattling while a new variant rages, filling hospitals and shredding our healthcare workers, ‘Happy’ is a heavy lift for the New Year.  Be safe or die.” — Titus

Deaths

US: 846,905 (+1168)

World: 5,452,900 (+5941)

Cases

US: 55,696,500 (+449,719)

World: 288,513,266 (+1,656,749)

2021: Farewell to a Stupid Year. Let’s be blunt: They made stupid choices, forcing the rest of us to come to terms with the sad and troubling fact that we share this land with fellow citizens who don’t adhere to the basic rules that safeguard the country…Of course, being guided by fervor untethered to facts is nothing new for human beings. But the past year has shown how powerful, damaging, and deadly such irrationality can be—and not only on the specific matters at hand. How can we effectively discuss and debate the nation’s needs and problems, such as climate change, income inequality, health care, and education, if a large slice of the population cannot recognize reality? At issue here is not a difference over tax policy or abortion, but whether one plus one is two…The cultists have become more extreme than their leader.

Governor Abbott, TDEM, DSHS Request Federally-Supported COVID-19 Testing Sites, Medical Personnel, Increased Monoclonal Antibody Allocations. -- This is such bullshit. Greg Abbott has done nothing but try to make this situation worse for Texas, and now that it is, he’s asking the Biden Administration for assistance. What a fucking asshole. He’s evil to his core, then expects those of us who are not evil to bail his fucking ass out. “Save me Brandon!”

Florida breaks single-day COVID case record. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday reported more than 75,900 new cases of COVID-19 in Florida. That tally raises the 7-day average daily to 42,600, which is twice as high as it was at the peak of this summer’s surge when the delta variant fueled a surge of infections in the state.

With little time to get out, hundreds of Colorado residents lose their homes in a ferocious wildfire. A vicious wildfire that began Thursday morning in Boulder County, Colorado, swallowed about 1,600 acres in a matter of hours, burning the homes of hundreds of residents who had little warning and little time to get out.

Manchin Worries West Virginia Parents Are Wasting the Child Tax Credit on Drugs. Here’s How They’re Actually Spending It. Above all else, though, West Virginians who receive the child credit have reported using the money to put food on the table for their families...One of the reasons that the tax credit may have had such success at reducing childhood hunger in West Virginia is because, unlike state programs — and to Manchin’s dismay — families were eligible to receive the benefit regardless of decisions they may have made in the past. -- Manchin’s an evil prick.

The world’s population is projected to be 7.8 billion people on New Year’s Day 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That represents an increase of 74 million people, or a 0.9% growth rate from New Year’s Day 2021. Starting in the new year, 4.3 births and two deaths are expected worldwide every second, the Census Bureau estimated.

RIP Betty White. She was 99. 

“One more middle finger from 2021 on the way out...Rest in peace, Betty White.” — John Pavlovitz 

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.

Thursday, December 30, 2021

And another day of record numbers, not being eager to give back power, New Year’s celebration in Times Square, book bans make reading cool again, CO wildfires, rethinking gender-based dress codes, and fish falling from the sky comes to a close:

“When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail.” -- Pearl S. Buck

“It’s a crime to exploit patriotism in the service of hatred.” -- Emile Zola

Deaths

US: 845,737 (+1010)

World: 5,445,959 (+7343)

Cases

US: 55,246,781 (+589,915)

World: 286,856,517 (+1,951,441)

US unemployment claims drop to 198,000, lowest level since 1969. The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell below 200,000, more evidence that the job market remains strong in the aftermath of last year's coronavirus recession.

US children hospitalized with COVID in record numbers. The omicron-fueled surge that is sending COVID-19 cases rocketing in the U.S. is putting children in the hospital in record numbers, and experts lament that most of the youngsters are not vaccinated.

COVID-19 has provided Governor Greg Abbott the chance to wield more power than anyone in Texas history. He’s not eager to give it back. “In politics,” says Bill Miller, a longtime Texas lobbyist, “the old adage is that the only abuse of power is to have it and not use it.” Just this summer, Abbott vetoed funding for the entire legislative branch and vowed not to restore it until the entirety of his political agenda was passed. He has also used his disaster powers to launch a state-run immigration dragnet in defiance of President Joe Biden’s federal immigration policy. Legal experts, political scientists, and Abbott’s Democratic foes have warned that his increasingly brazen power grabs threaten the state constitution’s separation of powers and co-equal branches of government. Yet the GOP-controlled Legislature and Texas Supreme Court have so far only aided and abetted Abbott’s expansion and consolidation of power.

Florida Democrats blast 'MIA' Gov. Ron DeSantis as Covid cases surge. DeSantis, an opponent of masking and vaccine mandates, has not held a Covid briefing since Dec. 17 as cases have reached record highs. The state's agriculture commissioner, Nikki Fried, said Wednesday that she had "no idea" where DeSantis was. Fried, who's running for governor as a Democrat, told MSNBC that DeSantis "canceled our Cabinet meeting in the middle of December" and "I haven't seen him since Dec. 17. I don't know where he is."

CDC warns against cruises, regardless of vaccination status. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned people on Thursday not to go on cruises, regardless of their vaccination status, because of onboard outbreaks fueled by the omicron variant. -- Um, duh.

Times Square show will go on despite virus surge, mayor says. New York City will ring in 2022 in Times Square as planned despite record numbers of COVID-19 infections in the city, the state and around the nation, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday. “We want to show that we’re moving forward, and we want to show the world that New York City is fighting our way through this,” de Blasio, whose last day in office is Friday, said on NBC’s “Today” show.

Travelers infected one another across hallway in Covid-19 quarantine facility, New Zealand research shows. A traveler isolated for Covid-19 at a quarantine facility in New Zealand managed to infect three others across a hallway, researchers reported. Closed-circuit camera footage, genetic testing and careful contact tracing show that the only conceivable way the virus could have passed from one room to another was in air that leaked out when both doors were briefly opened, the researchers said.

Israel approves 4th vaccine dose for most vulnerable. Israel has approved a fourth vaccine dose for people most vulnerable to COVID-19, an official said Thursday, becoming one of the first countries to do so as it braces for a wave of infections fueled by the omicron variant.

Decades of DOD efforts fail to stamp out bias, extremism. But an AP investigation found that despite the new rules, racism and extremism remain an ongoing concern in the military. The investigation shows the new guidelines do not address ongoing disparities in military justice under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the legal code that governs the U.S. armed forces. Numerous studies, including a report last year from the Government Accountability Office, show Black and Hispanic service members were disproportionately investigated and court-martialed. A recent Naval Postgraduate School study found that Black Marines were convicted and punished at courts-martial at a rate five times higher than other races across the Marine Corps. The AP investigation also shows the military’s judicial system has no explicit category for bias-motivated crimes – something the federal government, at least 46 states, and the District of Columbia have on the books – making it difficult to quantify crimes prompted by prejudice. As a result, investigative agencies such as the Naval Criminal Investigative Service or Army Criminal Investigative Division also don’t have a specific hate crime category, which impacts how they investigate cases.

US conservative parents push for book bans – and unintentionally make reading cool again. These books are rarely inflammatory or obscene; instead, they simply contain narratives about race, gender and inequality that chafe against prescribed American ideology. That’s more than enough for an emboldened conservative movement. But there is no evidence that the wave of book bans are actually accomplishing their intended ambition. If anything they’ve achieved the opposite effect.

I’m a climate scientist. Don’t Look Up captures the madness I see every day. A film about a comet hurtling towards Earth and no one is doing anything about it? Sounds exactly like the climate crisis.

Colorado wildfires burn hundreds of homes, force evacuations. An estimated 580 homes, a hotel and a shopping center have burned and tens of thousands of people were evacuated in wind-fueled wildfires outside Denver, officials said Thursday evening. Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said only one injury has been reported, but didn’t rule out finding out later about more severe injuries or death due to the intensity of fires that quickly swept across the region as winds gusted up to 105 mph (169 kph).

Gov. Jared Polis has commuted the sentence of the truck driver who in 2019 crashed into traffic on Interstate 70, killing four people. Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos will serve 10 years in prison instead of his original sentence of 110.

Second former CNN producer under police investigation. Fairfax County Police said its child exploitation squad is investigating allegations against a former CNN producer involving “juvenile victims."

Texas schools rethink gender-based dress code policies after discrimination claims raise new legal issues. Legal experts say school districts have had wide freedom in crafting dress codes and grooming policies for decades, but they believe those rules — particularly those that directly or indirectly single out specific groups by gender or race — are approaching an inflection point where reassessment is necessary.

Māori journalist becomes first person with facial markings to present primetime news. A Māori journalist has made history in New Zealand by becoming the first person with traditional facial markings to host a primetime news program on national television. Oriini Kaipara made headlines worldwide after hosting her first 6 p.m. bulletin for Newshub on the TV channel Three, with many lauding the milestone as a win for Māori representation.

Colorado governor pardons over 1,000 people for minor marijuana crimes. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) announced on Thursday he has pardoned 1,351 people for minor marijuana possession crimes. Polis signed an executive order granting individuals pardons for their drug charges, also lifting three commutations and fifteen other individual pardons for prisoners, according to a statement.

The residents of Texarkana, Texas, had an interesting day Wednesday when fish fell from the sky. The phenomenon is unusual but not unheard of, but normally happens when fish, frogs and other small animals are picked up either by an updraft or tornadic waterspouts, the National Geographic Society said. But the National Weather Service said there were no weather systems were detected that could explain how it happened, KHOU reported.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

And another day of a ‘slow-motion insurrection,’ Maxwell convicted, record Covid numbers, the CDC on defense, partisan school boards, content moderators, the 737 Max, America running on bad jobs, and something for white people tired of being called racist comes to a close:

“Voter fraud is a story concocted by the GOP over decades to justify passing laws that make it harder for the people they think are against them to vote. In Trump’s hands, it became the big lie. But it’s just that, a lie. The Senate must protect our right to vote.” — Joyce Alene

“Anyone can spot a lie, unless he is in need of that lie.” — Clarence Darrow

Deaths

US: 844,272 (+4843 over two days)

World: 5,438,616 (+16,049 over two days)

Cases

US: 54,656,866 (+919,177 over two days)

World: 284,908,076 (+3,084,933 over two day)

‘Slow-motion insurrection’: How GOP seizes election power. In battleground states and beyond, Republicans are taking hold of the once-overlooked machinery of elections. While the effort is incomplete and uneven, outside experts on democracy and Democrats are sounding alarms, warning that the United States is witnessing a “slow-motion insurrection” with a better chance of success than Trump’s failed power grab last year. They point to a mounting list of evidence: Several candidates who deny Trump’s loss are running for offices that could have a key role in the election of the next president in 2024. In Michigan, the Republican Party is restocking members of obscure local boards that could block approval of an election. In Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the GOP-controlled legislatures are backing open-ended “reviews” of the 2020 election, modeled on a deeply flawed look-back in Arizona. The efforts are poised to fuel disinformation and anger about the 2020 results for years to come...“It’s not clear that the Republican Party is willing to accept defeat anymore,” said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard political scientist and co-author of the book “How Democracies Die.” “The party itself has become an anti-democratic force.”...This time, experts argue, is different: Never in the country’s modern history has a major party sought to turn the administration of elections into an explicitly partisan act. -- We may have witnessed our last fair and free election.

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” -- Abraham Lincoln

Ghislaine Maxwell convicted in Epstein sex abuse case. The British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted Wednesday of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by the American millionaire Jeffrey Epstein...Jurors deliberated for five full days before finding Maxwell guilty of five of six counts.

“Ghislaine Maxwell is sentenced (as she should be), but Alan Dershowitz (in his soiled undies), Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and countless other powerful men are free to reminisce about the times they pawed one of Ghislaine's prey. That is not justice for those trafficked girls.” -- Mrs. Betty Bowers

'We must adapt': CDC defends new isolation guidance amid omicron surge. The new guidance, which shortens the recommended isolation time from 10 days to 5 days for people without symptoms, has come under criticism from some health experts. But the new CDC guidance, which shortens the recommended isolation time from 10 days to five days for people without symptoms, has come under harsh criticism from some health experts who say it was not based on "science" and could cause still infectious asymptomatic people to transmit the virus to others. "I don't think there's any big change in science that justifies a change in guidance," said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. The guidance "has much more to do with societal function than to do with science." He and other health experts have argued that people without symptoms should also be required to get a confirmed negative test to leave isolation. The current guidance only asks asymptomatic people to wear a mask for an additional five days after isolation, leaving it up to the public to assess their own Covid risk. -- The new guidance is what they thought Americans would tolerate. How pathetic.

The US hit a seven-day average of 254,496 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins University data -- blowing past the country's previous record of about 251,989 daily cases, reported on January 11.

New COVID-19 cases in US soar to highest levels on record. More than a year after the vaccine was rolled out, new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. have soared to their highest level on record at over 265,000 per day on average, a surge driven largely by the highly contagious omicron variant. -- And the unvaccinated. Let’s not leave them out.

France recorded more than 208,000 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, setting a new daily case record, Health Minister Olivier Véran says. By that tally, "every second, two French people" have tested positive, Véran says.

Immunocompromised at higher risk of COVID breakthrough infection: Study. A new study suggests immunocompromised people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 are more likely to have breakthrough infections than people without weakened immune systems. The highest breakthrough case rate was seen among organ transplant patients.

Oregon State University will require COVID-19 booster shots. Oregon State University will require COVID-19 booster shots for students and staff when they become eligible during the upcoming winter term.

Universities overhaul spring semester plans as omicron surges. Some universities have announced a delayed start for the spring semesters, while others are opting to start the semester with remote learning.

NFL, players union agrees to cut COVID-19 isolation time to 5 days. The new rule will apply to both vaccinated and unvaccinated players, but vaccinated players can "test out" of quarantine before the five days pass.

For White People Tired of Being Called “Racist”. You may be tired of being called racist, white friends. The rest of us are tired of you partnering with racists and expecting us to be OK with it and to be silent about it. I’m not OK with it and I’m not going to be silent about it.

Republicans eye new front in education wars: Making school board races partisan. Republicans across America are pressing local jurisdictions and state lawmakers to make typically sleepy school board races into politicized, partisan elections in an attempt to gain more statewide control and swing them to victory in the 2022 midterms. Tennessee lawmakers in October approved a measure that allows school board candidates to list their party affiliation on the ballot. Arizona and Missouri legislators are weighing similar proposals. And GOP lawmakers in Florida will push a measure in an upcoming legislative session that would pave the way for partisan school board races statewide, potentially creating new primary elections that could further inflame the debate about how to teach kids. The issue is about to spread to other states.

The nearly 17 feet of snow in California's Sierra Nevada is crushing records. It's still not enough.

Indonesia is lifting a ban on Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft three years after one crashed shortly after taking off from a Jakarta airport, killing all 189 people on board. Governments grounded the planes after a total of 346 people died in two crashes.

TikTok content moderator alleges in lawsuit that job gave her PTSD. Candie Frazier said she developed post-traumatic stress disorder “as a result of constant and unmitigated exposure to highly toxic and extremely disturbing images at the workplace.” The suit said she is exposed to posts that include “child sexual abuse, rape, torture, bestiality, beheadings, suicide, and murder.” She is also subjected to conspiracy theories, distortions of historical facts and political disinformation, the suit said.

America runs on bad jobs. Nearly two years into the outbreak in the United States, the conversation has shifted to a labor shortage -- businesses just can't find enough workers. Meanwhile, lawmakers and economists are trying to figure out what's still keeping people on the sidelines. It's a complicated puzzle that includes pieces like child care and early retirement, but one lesson from the pandemic is that workers have had it with bad jobs.

Family Surveillance by Algorithm: The Rapidly Spreading Tools Few Have Heard Of. Child welfare agencies across the country are turning to predictive analytics, but few families know they are subject to them.

“We are not shown healthy examples of men. Can you think of any? Especially in the context of romance movies and books.”

RIP Harry Reid. He was 82. 

RIP John Madden. He was 85.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.

Monday, December 27, 2021

And another day of shorter isolations, staff shortages, over a hundred cases in the NFL, the defense spending bill becomes law, sunk climate promises, cancer-causing pollution, reconsidering the 110 year sentencing, and the gospel of Trump Jr. comes to a close:

“Democrats keep thinking they can win over voters who hate them with better policies. We're dreaming. Democrats are always asking, 'Why do Republicans vote against their economic interests?' Because they hate you." — Bill Maher

“The problem isn't one rude comment or display, which hardly matters. The problem is the ongoing corrosion of our culture into one where boors and bullies are celebrated as heroes. It's cumulative, like water on stone, and the damage is real.” — Patrick Chovanec

Deaths

US: 839,429 (+1575)

World: 5,422,567 (+6152)

Cases

US: 53,737,689 (+515,265)

World: 281,823,143 (+1,488,787)

US officials recommend shorter COVID isolation, quarantine. U.S. health officials on Monday cut isolation restrictions for Americans who catch the coronavirus from 10 to five days, and similarly shortened the time that close contacts need to quarantine.

Pfizer antiviral pills may be risky with other medications, experts caution. One of the two drugs in the antiviral cocktail could cause serious interactions with widely used prescriptions, including statins, blood thinners and some antidepressants.

Staff shortages could force schools in England to send some pupils home. Despite a pledge by Boris Johnson to avoid a repeat of January 2021, when the government insisted schools would remain open only for them to be closed after an abrupt U-turn, school leaders are warning that the rapid spread of the Omicron variant could lead to mass absences for teachers and other members of staff when schools reopen for the new year.

Nearly 100 NFL players test positive for Covid-19 on Monday. -- Stop watching the NFL.

NFL will require media to receive COVID-19 booster shot. The National Football League (NFL) on Monday said it will require members of the media to receive a COVID-19 booster shot in an effort to stem the spread of the virus within the league. The requirement will take effect on Jan. 12 and will apply to media working at team training facilities, covering the playoffs and the Feb. 13 Super Bowl in Los Angeles.

Biden signs $768.2 billion defense spending bill into law. The NDAA authorizes a 5% increase in military spending, and is the product of intense negotiations between Democrats and Republicans over issues ranging from reforms of the military justice system to COVID-19 vaccine requirements for soldiers. -- That’s $768.2 billion for one year. So for 10 years, like the BBB was presented, it equals $7.682 trillion (of course it’ll be far more than that when those 10 years are over). But we can’t fund BBB (nearly $2 trillion). That’s nuts.

'We really don't have a plan': Biden's climate promises are sunk without Build Back Better, experts say. Multiple independent analyses have found President Joe Biden simply can't hit his goal of cutting greenhouse gases by 50% by the end of the decade without the clean energy provisions in Build Back Better, the President's signature economic and climate legislation. After West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin torpedoed the bill, experts say these goals are ever more out of reach -- with devastating consequences.

The Gospel of Donald Trump Jr. Throughout his speech, Don Jr. painted a scenario in which Trump supporters—Americans living in red America—are under relentless attack from a wicked and brutal enemy. He portrayed it as an existential battle between good and evil. One side must prevail; the other must be crushed. This in turn justifies any necessary means to win. And the former president’s son has a message for the tens of millions of evangelicals who form the energized base of the GOP: the scriptures are essentially a manual for suckers. The teachings of Jesus have “gotten us nothing.” It’s worse than that, really; the ethic of Jesus has gotten in the way of successfully prosecuting the culture wars against the left. If the ethic of Jesus encourages sensibilities that might cause people in politics to act a little less brutally, a bit more civilly, with a touch more grace? Then it needs to go. Decency is for suckers...He believes, as his father does, that politics should be practiced ruthlessly, mercilessly, and vengefully. The ends justify the means. Norms and guardrails need to be smashed. Morality and lawfulness must always be subordinated to the pursuit of power and self-interest. That is the Trumpian ethic. The problem is that the Trumpian ethic hasn’t been confined to the Trump family. We saw that not just in the enthusiastic and at times impassioned response of the Turning Point USA crowd to Don Jr.’s speech but nearly every day in the words and actions of Republicans in positions of power. Donald Trump and his oldest son have become evangelists of a different kind. -- This is no joking matter. This shit should be taken seriously. The Trump family and their supporters are the greatest danger to American democracy.

A Laredo plant that sterilizes medical equipment spews cancer-causing pollution on schoolchildren. Nobody told Yaneli Ortiz’s family that the factory they lived near emitted ethylene oxide. Not when the EPA found it causes cancer. Not when she was diagnosed with leukemia. And not when Texas moved to allow polluters to emit more of the chemical…Communities such as Laredo, where the vast majority of the residents are Latino and more than a quarter live in poverty, have been left in the dark for years by regulators who had evidence of the dangers posed by ethylene oxide but never told the public about them. Out of all the pollutants that the EPA regulates, ethylene oxide is the most toxic, contributing to the majority of the excess cancer risk created by industrial air pollutants in the United States, according to an unprecedented analysis of the agency’s most recent modeling data by ProPublica, in collaboration with The Texas Tribune. That risk is in addition to those Americans already face from other factors like genetics or lifestyle.

Judge schedules January 13 hearing to consider resentencing trucker who was given 110 years in fatal crash. First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King said her office will probably recommend a sentence of 20-30 years. -- That’s still too long.

"Modern-day Darwin" Edward O. Wilson dies at 92.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.

Sunday, December 26, 2021

And another day of clear and present danger, record virus infections, winter storms in the West, a heatwave in the Southern Plains, hazardous waste dumping, simple legal gender transitions, UFO sightings, and the loss of smell can impact your sex life comes to a close:

“If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn’t worship that God.” — Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Deaths

US: 837,854 (+3399 over three days)

World: 5,416,415 (+15,806 over three days)

Cases

US: 53,222,424 (+433,973 over three days)

World: 280,334,356 (+1,809,999 over three days)

The clear and present danger of Trump's enduring 'Big Lie'. By inverting the narrative, attempting to slough off the "big lie" and pin it instead on his opponents, Trump exploited an age-old tactic, says Yale University history professor Timothy Snyder. "Part of the character of the 'big lie' is that it turns the powerful person into the victim," he says. "And then that allows the powerful person to actually exact revenge, like it's a promise for the future." Snyder, author of the books The Road to Unfreedom and On Tyranny, has spent years studying the ways tyrants skewer truth. Snyder points to Hitler's original definition of the "big lie" in his manifesto, Mein Kampf and the ways he used it to blame Jews for all of Germany's woes. "The lie is so big that it reorders the world," Snyder says. "And so part of telling the big lie is that you immediately say it's the other side that tells the big lie. Sadly, but it's just a matter of record, all of that is in Mein Kampf."…What's more, says Timothy Snyder, "the 'big lie' is not just in people's minds. It's also now in the law books."…All of it, Snyder says, is a direct outcome of Trump's "big lie" and is deeply troubling for the future. "All of those things set us up for a scenario where the candidate who loses by every measure, not just by the popular vote, but by the Electoral College, the candidate who loses by every measure will nevertheless be installed as president of the United States," Snyder says. "I think that is probably the most likely scenario in 2024 as things stand now." That scenario needs to be confronted immediately, Snyder says: "It's right in front of our eyes. The most interesting and the most distressing thing about American news coverage right now is that we don't treat the end of democracy in America as the story. That is the story." We delude ourselves, Snyder says, if we think we're immune from an anti-democratic turn. "We imagine that there's somehow this immovable American democratic background, which doesn't really exist," he says. "We can lose democracy just like anybody else can, just like most people have in the history of democracy. We can lose it, and we're losing it right now."…"It wasn't enough, but next time, it could well be enough. And the fact that it's been rehearsed makes me worry," he says. "This is what historians and political scientists who study coups d'etat say. They say a failed coup is practice for a successful one." What we're potentially looking at, Snyder warns, is nothing less than the end of the democratic United States as we've come to know it. "That's just the reality," he says.

Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich sues Jan. 6 committee to block access to his financial records. The move comes after the committee last month subpoenaed Budowich and other Trump allies involved in planning "Stop the Steal" rallies, including at the Ellipse in Washington, DC, before the US Capitol attack. "Budowich complied with the subpoena, producing more than 1,700 pages of documents and providing roughly four hours of sworn testimony," the lawsuit said.

France sees over 100,000 daily virus infections for 1st time. France has recorded more than 100,000 virus infections in a single day for the first time in the pandemic and COVID-19 hospitalizations have doubled over the past month, as the fast-spreading omicron variant complicates the French government’s efforts to stave off a new lockdown.

Snow expected to continue as winter storm warnings extend from Seattle to San Diego. A heat wave continued to bake the Southern Plains, with temperatures in the 80s in Texas and Oklahoma.

Vladimir Putin uses annual four-hour speech to attack trans people for no reason other than hate. Russian president Vladimir Putin devoted part of his end-of-year news conference to comparing trans people to the coronavirus pandemic…Vladimir Putin has long targeted LGBT+ people with his bitter rhetoric and actions, his hate amplified by the Kremlin, the media, the Orthodox Church and even schools. Lawmakers, meanwhile, decry LGBT+ people as “extremists” to be weeded out.

California sues Walmart over alleged hazardous waste dumping. Retail giant Walmart illegally dumps more than 1 million batteries, aerosol cans of insect killer and other products, toxic cleaning supplies, electronic waste, latex paints and other hazardous waste into California landfills each year, state prosecutors alleged Monday in a lawsuit that the company labeled “unjustified.”

Swiss to allow simple legal gender transition from Jan. 1. Switzerland joins Ireland, Belgium, Portugal and Norway as one of the few countries on the continent that allow a person to legally change gender without hormone therapy, medical diagnosis or further evaluation or bureaucratic steps.

Home For The Holidays? Get Off The Couch! Young bodies may more easily rebound from long bouts of sitting, with just an hour at the gym. But research suggests physical recovery from binge TV-watching gets harder in our 50s and as we get older.

Lost your sense of smell? It may impact your sex life. For some, losing their sense of smell has meant sex feels like putting their arms "around a cardboard box."

Popular Home Bed Rails Recalled After Three Deaths. Carex brand bed rails, which are designed to keep people from rolling out of bed and assist them in getting up, have been recalled after three elderly people became trapped between the product and their mattress and subsequently died.

Giant marine reptile skull discovery reveals new evolutionary theories. The discovery of a giant marine reptile skull in the United States has revealed new theories about the speed of evolution and how quickly the process can produce diversity.

Desmond Tutu, South Africa’s moral conscience, dies at 90. Desmond Tutu, South Africa’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning icon, an uncompromising foe of apartheid and a modern-day activist for racial justice and LGBT rights, died Sunday at 90. South Africans, world leaders and people around the globe mourned the death of the man viewed as the country’s moral conscience.

‘Aliens in bedroom’: UFO sightings on the rise in Northern Ireland. From mysterious discs over Slemish Mountain in Co Antrim to strange images spotted on CCTV, unexplained sightings increased in Northern Ireland again last year…“Sadly, the numbers are still fairly low, and I suspect there’s chronic underreporting, perhaps because of the perceived stigma.”

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.