Wednesday, January 5, 2022

And another day of vows, divisions, purging critics, a different kind of Covid, denials, cancellations, lock outs, Ted Cruz, secret maps, ‘sex for lies,’ female patients of male doctors, and the Pope has something to say about choosing pets over babies comes to a close: 

"Garland is a totally unfit AG for this dangerous moment in time. He refuses to indict Trump and his backers for any of the crimes documented in the Mueller Report and instead is content to let Trump plot another overthrow of democracy." — Andrea Chalupa

“This mafia state culture – of blackmail, bribes, threats of violence, and acts of violence – is the one guiding American politics today. It is the one that Donald Trump was trained in by mafia political liaisons like Roy Cohn.” — Sarah Kendzior 

"I think the tragedy is that we have a Congress with a Senate that has a minority of misguided senators who will use the filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963)

Deaths

US: 853,612 (+2173)

World: 5,481,908 (+8298)

Cases

US: 58,805,186 (+764,466)

World: 298,257,053 (+2,696,229)

Garland vows accountability for anyone responsible for 1/6. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday vowed to hold accountable anyone who was responsible for last year’s insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, whether they were physically there or not. In a speech to Justice Department employees, Garland said prosecutors remained “committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law.” -- I’ll believe it when I see it.

A year after Jan. 6, Congress more deeply divided than ever. A deeply divided Congress is about to show the world a very unsettled view from the U.S. Capitol: Rather than a national crisis that pulls the country together, the deadly riot on Jan. 6, 2021, only seems to have pushed lawmakers further apart. -- Because many of them are fucking crazy fascists.

Republicans Promised to Banish Jan. 6 Insurrectionists. A Year Later, They’ve Purged Jan. 6 Critics. Choosing fealty to Donald Trump over respect for democracy, Republicans have walked back their pledge to hold insurrectionists accountable.

Still a Jan. 6 mystery: Who placed the pipe bombs the night before the Capitol attack? About 7:30 p.m., the figure placed one outside the Democratic National Committee, grainy surveillance video released by the FBI shows. The suspect then walks through the residential streets behind the Capitol and places another pipe bomb outside the Republican National Committee.

"Autocratic consolidation is a matter of power, not protocol, and if you cannot tell the difference between the two, you have no business leading an investigation. You cannot go by the book while the book is burning." — Sarah Kendzior 

US hospitals seeing different kind of COVID surge this time. This time, they are dealing with serious staff shortages because so many health care workers are getting sick with the fast-spreading variant. People are showing up at emergency rooms in large numbers in hopes of getting tested for COVID-19, putting more strain on the system. And a surprising share of patients — two-thirds in some places — are testing positive while in the hospital for other reasons.

CDC panel recommends Pfizer Covid vaccine boosters for adolescents. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel on Wednesday voted to recommend Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 booster shot for kids ages 12 to 15, a critical step in distributing additional shots to adolescents this week.

Novak Djokovic denied entry to Australia, has visa canceled. The Australian Border Force issued a statement early Thursday local time saying Djokovic failed to provide appropriate evidence to meet entry requirements and “has visa has been subsequently canceled.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sues President Biden and other members of the administration over the requirement that members of the National Guard be vaccinated against Covid-19.

Chicago cancels classes as union refuses in-person teaching. Chicago has largely rejected a districtwide return to remote instruction, saying it was disastrous for children’s learning and mental health. But the union argued that district safety protocols don’t go far enough and voted late Tuesday in favor of returning to remote teaching, instructing members not to show up to schools.

Chicago teachers locked out of remote platforms, union says, after vote to go virtual due to Covid concerns. The Chicago Teachers Union tweeted Wednesday they are “being inundated with calls and emails this morning from educators who attempted to log into their platforms to connect with their students” but “are being locked out by Mayor [Lori] Lightfoot.”

Sen. Ted Cruz says President Joe Biden could be impeached if Republicans win back the U.S. House in this year's midterm elections. “Yeah, I do think there’s a chance of that, whether it’s justified or not,” he said on the latest episode of his podcast “Verdict with Ted Cruz.” “​​Democrats weaponized impeachment,” he said, referring to House Democrats twice voting to impeach former President Donald Trump. “They used it for partisan purposes to go after Trump because they disagreed with him. And one of the real disadvantages of doing that … is the more you weaponize it and turn it into a partisan cudgel, you know, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

Top GOP lawmaker relied on secret maps, later destroyed, NC gerrymandering trial reveals. A political trial that has mostly been dominated by math and academic research erupted in drama late Wednesday, when a top Republican redistricting leader said on the witness stand that he had used secret maps, drawn by someone else, to guide his work. That statement, made under oath, appears to directly contradict what he told Democratic lawmakers at the legislature in November, shortly before the Republican-led legislature passed those maps into law over Democrats’ objections.

Man free after 37 years due to ‘sex for lies’ false witness. A Philadelphia man was freed from prison Tuesday after 37 years in a case marred by detectives who allegedly offered a witness sex and drugs at police headquarters in 1983 in exchange for false testimony. The trial witness was charged with perjury just days after Willie Stokes was convicted of murder in 1984. But Stokes didn’t learn about that perjury plea until 2015, decades into a life sentence.

A Return to Robo-Signing: JPMorgan Chase Has Unleashed a Lawsuit Blitz on Credit Card Customers. After a nearly decade-long pause, Chase has resumed suing indebted customers. The bank is back to its old ways, say consumer lawyers.

Jon Stewart Calls Out J.K. Rowling for Anti-Semitic Goblins in ‘Harry Potter’ Franchise.

Female patients more likely to die if surgeon is male. A Canadian study has concluded that women are more than 30% more likely to die after being operated on by a male surgeon, rather than by a female surgeon. According to the study women are also more likely to have complications and be readmitted to hospital when their surgeon is male than when a woman performs the procedure…"Male patients had equivalent outcomes irrespective of whether their surgeon was male or female. But women operated on by men had a higher risk of adverse outcomes after surgery."

Choosing pets over babies is ‘selfish and diminishes us’, says pope. Pet keeping was “a denial of fatherhood and motherhood and diminishes us, takes away our humanity”, he said. The consequence was that “civilisation grows old without humanity because we lose the richness of fatherhood and motherhood, and it is the country that suffers”. — I’m thinking it’s future children who will be suffering. 

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

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