And another day of lawsuits, trial dates, abortion sanctuaries, ripple effects, vax-skeptical Republicans lacking trust in their doctors, rejecting the term ‘student-athlete,’ and parents of the social media generation are not ok comes to a close:
“Just quietly pointing out that nobody ever asked ‘how will we pay for’ the $768,000,000,000 defense budget.” — Robert Reich
“Democracy requires accountability, not loyalty. Just because the GOP has ignored this doesn't mean the rest of us should do the same.” — Minh Ngo
"'Stop the Steal' was not coined in 2020. It was coined in 2016 by Roger Stone, who also promised a 'bloodbath' if Trump were not installed as president. A violent coup was always the backup plan. And it's still the plan today." — Sarah Kendzior
“You're being asked to make the smallest effort to keep other people from getting sick and dying and you can't manage that because it makes you feel oppressed.That's a pretty terrible way to use your personal freedom.” — John Pavlovitz
Deaths
US: 813,904 (+1699)
World: 5,294,973 (+8445)
Cases
US: 50,422,410 (+152,274)
World: 268,111,261 (+723,097)
Meadows sues as Jan. 6 panel proceeds with contempt case. Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Wednesday sued the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection as the chairman of the panel pledged to move forward with contempt charges now that Meadows is no longer complying with a subpoena. The dueling actions laid bare simmering tensions between the committee and Meadows, seen by Democratic lawmakers as a pivotal player in their investigation, and reflected a remarkable turnabout from last week, when Meadows had declared his intention of cooperating with the committee on certain areas of their inquiry. -- I’m betting somebody connected to Trump got to Meadows.
Judge sets July trial date in Bannon case. Former White House strategist Steve Bannon's criminal trial on contempt of Congress charges for defying a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol will begin on July 18, a federal judge ordered on Tuesday. — July? Our system needs a major overhaul.
“Let me get this straight. I once spent a night in jail for parking tickets at my college, but you can just say no to a Congressional subpoena?” — Brent Spiner
“Laws are only for poor people.” — Michael Sampson
Roger Stone becomes the latest to say he'd plead the Fifth to January 6 committee. Roger Stone, an ally of former President Donald Trump, has become the latest individual subpoenaed by the House select committee investigating January 6 to indicate he would plead the Fifth Amendment as a way to try and get out of cooperating with the panel. -- Remember, Bannon’s and Trump’s goal was to burn the whole thing down. They seem to be succeeding.
Trump-backed Perdue says he wouldn’t have certified Georgia 2020 results. There has been no evidence widespread fraud took place in Georgia's elections last year and the November results were counted three times, once by hand.
California plans to be abortion sanctuary if Roe overturned. With more than two dozen states poised to ban abortion if the U.S. Supreme Court gives them the OK next year, California clinics and their allies in the state Legislature on Wednesday revealed a plan to make the state a “sanctuary” for those seeking reproductive care, including possibly paying for travel, lodging and procedures for people from other states. The California Future of Abortion Council, made up of more than 40 abortion providers and advocacy groups, released a list of 45 recommendations for the state to consider if the high court overturns Roe v. Wade — the 48-year-old decision that forbids states from outlawing abortion.
If Roe falls, some fear ripple effect on civil rights cases. If the Supreme Court decides to overturn or gut the decision that legalized abortion, some fear that it could undermine other precedent-setting cases, including civil rights and LGBTQ protections. “If a case like Roe, which has this double precedent value, is overturned simply because there’s a change in the composition of the court, there’s really no way that we can have confidence in any of those precedents going forward,” said Samuel Spital, director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund...“We have never had significant overturning of precedent for the purpose of withdrawing rights. It’s always worked the other way, to expand rights. Not to withdraw them.”
COVID cases spike even as US hits 200M vaccine milestone. New cases in the U.S. climbed from an average of nearly 95,000 a day on Nov. 22 to almost 119,000 a day this week, and hospitalizations are up 25% from a month ago. The increases are due almost entirely to the delta variant, though the omicron mutation has been detected in about 20 states and is sure to spread even more. Deaths are running close to 1,600 a day on average, back up to where they were in October. And the overall U.S. death toll less than two years into the crisis could hit another heartbreaking milestone, 800,000, in a matter of days.
CDC chief says omicron mostly mild so far. More than 40 people in the U.S. have been found to be infected with the omicron variant so far, and more than three-quarters of them had been vaccinated, the chief of the CDC said Wednesday. But she said nearly all of them were only mildly ill.
Preliminary lab studies show two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine may not provide sufficient protection against the Omicron coronavirus variant, but three doses are able to neutralize it, the companies said in a news release. — Get your third shot, people.
Senate votes to overturn Biden vaccine mandate for businesses. While it likely won't become law since its chances of getting a vote in the House are uncertain and Biden is certain to veto it, the effort demonstrates the bipartisan opposition in Congress to the federal government's vaccine mandate for large employers…The final vote was 52-48. Two Democrats, Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, joined their 50 GOP colleagues in voting to repeal the requirement.
Vaccine-skeptical Republicans are less likely to trust their own doctor, a new poll suggests. In 2002 and 2010, at least 7 in 10 Republicans trusted the accuracy of important medical advice from their doctor - higher even than among Democrats at the time. It registered at 73 percent among Republicans in 2010. Today, though, that number has fallen to 60%. And it's not the only evidence that Republicans increasingly mistrust the advice of health experts.
The governors of Maine and New York have deployed the National Guard in response to dangerously low capacity at statewide medical facilities due to the pandemic.
With vaccine resistance high, Poland faces surge of deaths. Intensive care units are full, and doctors report that more and more children require hospitalization, including some who went through COVID-19 without symptoms but then suffered strokes.
Court suggests religious schools OK to get Maine tuition aid. The Supreme Court appeared ready Wednesday to rule that religious schools can’t be excluded from a Maine program that offers tuition aid for private education, a decision that could ease religious organizations’ access to taxpayer money.
US supreme court to hear case that could have dire consequences for death row inmates. Arizona will ask highest court to bar two death row inmates from presenting evidence that could prove their innocence. State officials in Arizona are asking the nation’s highest court to bar the two condemned prisoners – one with a strong claim of innocence, the other with a history of intellectual disability and family abuse – from presenting evidence in federal court that could save their lives.
More than 400 Hill staffers demand House leaders act after Boebert's anti-Muslim remarks.
‘This is a job’: Why college players reject the insidious term ‘student athlete’. “Nothing about college athletics suggests that being a student comes first. So, that language needs to be changed,” says Stewart, a former Clemson football player. “The ‘student-athlete’ is always being limited to being a student rather than a worker.”…The NCAA subsequently used the term for decades in court to counter workers’ compensation claims related to athletes who died or suffered grievous injury while providing athletic services to universities. Byers himself would later call the NCAA system “a nationwide money-laundering scheme,” and proclaimed that “the management of intercollegiate athletics stays in place committed to an outmoded code of amateurism … and I attribute that to, quite frankly, to the neo-plantation mentality that exists on the campuses of our country and in the conference offices of the NCAA.”…Given that in the power five conferences, as of the 2019-2020 season, Black students comprised only 5.7% of the student population, it is notable that they made up 55.9% of men’s basketball players, 55.7% of men’s football, and 48.1% of women’s basketball players. For Stewart, these figures have everything to do with the persistent use of the term ‘student-athlete’. “When people talk about student athletes they’re not talking about white men, they’re talking about Black men,” he says. “If it was centered on white men, they wouldn’t mind paying them. But because it’s wrapped up in race dynamics, people will always reject it because they don’t want Black athletes to have control and power, because they don’t think they deserve it.”
Parents of the social media generation are not OK. After taking her to a crisis center, which banned phone use for anyone checking in, Polak learned from her daughter that the pressures of social media were driving her increased anxiety. The main source of stress: waiting for her friends to open and respond to messages and photos on Snapchat...Polak is among a generation of parents who did not spend their childhoods with social media apps and are now struggling to understand and navigate the potential harms that social media can have on their kids' mental health as they grow up. In interviews over the last month, nearly a dozen parents spoke with CNN Business about grappling with how to deal with teens who experience online harms such as bullying, body image issues and pressures to always be Liked. Most of the parents said these issues either began or were exacerbated by the pandemic, a time when their children were isolated from friends, social media became a lifeline and the amount of screen time increased...On this issue, however, there are no easy answers. Social media and smartphones are here to stay -- and taking them away could risk undermining a child's social relationships and sense of independence. According to Alexandra Hamlet, a clinical psychologist in New York City, it's important for parents to help teenagers navigate both the online and physical world, by being understanding and nonjudgmental. "If we can teach and support our children to use the same skillsets to navigate each world, we increase our chances of attaining mental health," she said.
Massive planet 10 times bigger than Jupiter discovered orbiting pair of giant stars. Scientists have discovered a giant planet orbiting a massive pair of extremely hot stars, an environment previously thought too inhospitable for a planet to form...“Until now, no planets had been spotted around a star more than three times as massive as the Sun.”
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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