Post by mhbruin on Dec 10, 2021 16:59:31 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 481 1,721,570
Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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A Really Dumb Question
When they play Texas Hold'em in Israel, do they deal the cards on the flop, turn and river from right to left?
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Two Good Doses Deserve Another
Two doses of a Covid vaccine are not enough to stop you catching the Omicron variant, UK scientists have warned.
Early analysis of UK Omicron and Delta cases showed the vaccines were less effective at stopping the new variant.
However, a third booster dose significantly increased protection to around 75%.
The UK Health Security Agency said vaccines were still likely to offer good protection against severe Covid that needed hospital treatment.
The concern since the heavily mutated Omicron variant first emerged was that it would make vaccines less effective.
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This is a Complicated Issue To Me. We Should Have the Right to Protect Secrets, But We Classify WAY TOO MUCH Stuff
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange can be extradited from the UK to the US, the High Court has ruled.
The US won its appeal against a January UK court ruling that he could not be extradited due to concerns over his mental health.
Judges were reassured by US promises to reduce the risk of suicide. His fiancee said they intended to appeal.
Mr Assange is wanted in the US over the publication of thousands of classified documents in 2010 and 2011.
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Is There a More Senseless Crime?
A Delta flight from Washington, DC, to Los Angeles required an emergency landing in Oklahoma City on Thursday night after a passenger allegedly assaulted two people, authorities said.
"The passenger assaulted a flight attendant," Oklahoma City Police Capt. Arthur Gregory told CNN. An air marshal on board Flight 324 also allegedly was assaulted while attempting to subdue the passenger, who was eventually restrained.
The Boeing 757-200 aircraft landed at Will Rogers World Airport at around 7:40 p.m. local time, Gregory said. The suspect, a man in his mid-30s, was removed from the flight and interviewed by the FBI.
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Maybe This Qualifies
A French woman has been fined €1,200 ($1,357; £1,028) for causing a huge crash at the Tour de France by waving a cardboard sign in the riders' path.
The peloton was 45km (28 miles) from the end of the first stage, when her sign clipped German rider Tony Martin.
He fell to the ground and caused dozens of other riders to follow suit, in one of the tournament's worst ever crashes.
The woman, 31, was also ordered to pay a symbolic one euro fine to France's professional cyclist association.
The identity of the woman, who was a spectator at the elite race, was withheld after she was targeted by a torrent of online abuse, the AFP news agency reported.
Several people eventually had to pull out of the race, including Spain's Marc Soler, who broke both arms.
The woman turned herself in to police custody days later.
Prosecutors had earlier requested a four-month suspended prison sentence for the woman, accusing her of endangering lives and causing unintentional injuries.
In court, prosecutor Solenn Briand acknowledged that she'd expressed regret, and recognised "how dangerous" her conduct had been, according to AFP.
I Would Like To See a Few Days in Jail. But Then, She Is White
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It's About Time
Have you ever seen a medical illustration featuring a Black body? Social media users admitted they hadn’t when an image of a Black fetus in a Black woman’s womb went viral this month.
Chidiebere Ibe, 25, is behind the image. The Nigerian medical student, who will enter Kyiv Medical University in Ukraine next month, describes himself as a self-taught medical illustrator. He said he’s spent at least a year learning to draw anatomy, focusing on Black skin every step of the way.
“I wasn’t expecting it to go viral,” Ibe, an aspiring pediatric neurosurgeon, said of the image in an interview. “I was just sticking up for what I believe in, advocating for equality in health through medical illustrations. I made a deliberate action to constantly advocate that there be inclusion of Black people in medical literature.”
He began publishing the images on social media, showing conditions like empyema thoracis and seborrheic eczema on Black skin. Many of the images show skin conditions prevalent with Black people, combating a misrepresentation that often leads to misdiagnosis. The fetus illustration went viral after a Twitter user shared the photo, writing, “I’ve literally never seen a black foetus illustrated, ever.” The post was retweeted more than 50,000 times, and the illustration garnered more than 88,000 “likes” on Instagram and even made its way to TikTok. Ibe drew praise from medical professionals far and wide.
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No, This is Not Allowing Undocumented Aliens to Vote (Except for Dreamers)
Noncitizens in New York City would gain the right to vote in municipal elections under a measure approved Thursday by the City Council that would give access to the ballot box to 800,000 green card holders and so-called Dreamers.
Only a potential veto from Mayor Bill de Blasio stood in the way of the measure becoming law, but the Democrat has said he would not veto it. It’s unclear whether the bill might face legal challenges.
The Council’s vote was a historic moment for an effort that had long languished.
Councilman Francisco Moya, whose family hails from Ecuador, choked up as he spoke in support of the bill.
“This is for my beautiful mother who will be able to vote for her son,” said Moya, while joining the session by video with his immigrant mother at his side.
More than a dozen communities across the United States already allow noncitizens to cast ballots in local elections, including 11 towns in Maryland and two in Vermont. But New York City is the largest place by far to give voting rights to noncitizens.
Noncitizens still wouldn’t be able to vote for president or members of Congress in federal races, or in the state elections that pick the governor, judges and legislators.
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If A Tree Burns and Fox New Doesn't Talk About It, Does It Make a Sound?
The hosts and pundits of Fox News have been through suffering and adversity beyond what mere mortals can adequately convey this week … but they sure are working overtime to tell us about it.
The network’s large fake Christmas tree was set on fire early Wednesday morning in an apparent act of arson. A suspect faces multiple charges. But the personalities of Fox News have made the tree-burning, and their feelings about it, the subject of at least 36 hours of wall-to-wall news coverage. And holy crap, it is beyond parody. I mean, really, really, a classic “if this were intended as comedy, your editor would tell you to tone it way down” situation.
As of Thursday afternoon, Eric Boehlert counted nearly 100 mentions of the tree in Fox News coverage, adding, “and yes, that’s more coverage than Fox News gave to the deadly Michigan shooting last week.” Four people died in that shooting, but to hear Fox News’ people tell it, the hopes and dreams of America went up in flames along with the tree.
“Somebody asked me, ‘Why are you here?’ I’m here because these colors don’t run,” DeGraff said in comments televised live on “The Five.”
“Eighty years ago this week, they tried to extinguish the darkness in a place called Pearl Harbor,” DeGraff continued. “We didn’t fold then and we won’t fold now because we’ve come this far by faith. In our tradition, we say ’this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. And the red, the white, the blue and the light of America, we’re going to let it shine.”
Pearl Harbor. A Burnt Tree. Sound Equal?
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It's Not In Big D, Little A, Double L, Ab-Butt
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Is The University of Florida An Academic Powerhouse?
UF researchers felt pressure to destroy COVID-19 data, faculty report says
Faculty Senate panel alleges more violations of academic freedom. Says staff was told not to contradict state on pandemic issues.
Fear of upsetting state officials is pervasive among faculty at the University of Florida, to the point that race-related references have been edited out of course materials and researchers felt pressure to destroy COVID-19 data, according to a report released Monday by a Faculty Senate committee.
The six-person panel was convened three weeks ago to investigate academic freedom issues after the university decided to bar three political science professors from testifying in a lawsuit against the state. But its findings go well beyond that episode and were so disturbing — especially regarding COVID-19 research — that the group decided to speed up its work, said Danaya Wright, a constitutional law professor and former Faculty Senate chairperson who served on the committee.
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Is Missouri the "Show Me Dead People" State?
The Missouri attorney general has ordered county health departments statewide to “stop enforcing and publicizing” all quarantine orders.
Only 35 percent of the 35,000 people living Laclede County, Missouri, are vaccinated, but the county health department announced Thursday that it will stop all its COVID-19 mitigation efforts.
“Laclede County Health Department has been forced to cease all COVID-19 related work at the current time,” the southern Missouri agency said on Facebook. Roughly half of all Missouri residents are vaccinated.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, currently campaigning for a seat in the U.S. Senate on a platform of overturning coronavirus restrictions, told local health departments across the state on Dec. 7:
“Public health authorities and school districts have gone unchecked, issuing illegal and unconstitutional orders in their quest to aggregate, maintain, and exert their new-found power... You should stop enforcing and publicizing any such orders immediately,” referring to quarantine orders, mask mandates, and other COVID-19 mandates.
He threatened to take legal action against counties that don’t abide by his demands.
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Do The Ads Write Themselves?
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Have Yourself a Karen Little Christmas
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The Insurrection Diet
Capitol rioter Jenna Ryan is likening her upcoming incarceration to a health retreat.
The notorious real estate broker and social media “influencer” — who will begin her 60-day prison sentence in three weeks for her role in the Jan. 6 attack — posted a disturbingly sincere TikTok earlier this week in which she detailed how she plans to get to her “ideal weight” while she’s incarcerated.
“The only thing that I can see that’s good about having to go to prison is that I’m going to be able to workout a lot, and do a lot of yoga and detox,” Ryan said while filming herself in a sports bra and leggings.
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The Media is Reporting This as a Loss For Trump
A U.S. appeals court on Thursday rejected a request by former President Donald Trump to withhold records from the House of Representatives probe of the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, saying he had provided "no basis" for his request.
"Former President Trump has provided no basis for this court to override President Biden's judgment," a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit wrote.
President Joe Biden had previously determined that the records, which belong to the executive branch, should not be subject to executive privilege and that turning them over to Congress was in the best interest of the nation.
"Both branches agree that there is a unique legislative need for these documents and that they are directly relevant to the Committee’s inquiry into an attack on the legislative branch and its constitutional role in the peaceful transfer of power," the court said.
The ruling marks yet another blow to the Republican former president, who has waged an ongoing legal battle with the committee over access to documents and witnesses.
Since This is Likely to Be Decided By SCOTUS, He Hasn't Lost Anything, Yet.
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Manatees Get Fed
Florida wildlife officials will undertake a manatee feeding and rescue operation involving hand-feeding the mammals romaine lettuce, amid unprecedented mortality among the gentle aquatic creatures affectionately known as “sea cows”.
Typically, manatees return to warm water winter feeding grounds, where they feast on plentiful seagrass.
But algal blooms from polluted waters have devastated seagrass beds, and thereby wiped out the important food source for the manatees. Algal blooms and manatee deaths have been especially pronounced along Florida’s Atlantic coast, leading to record-breaking mortality.
Afghans Starve
When the U.S. military pulled out of Afghanistan in August, the Taliban immediately seized control and the international community acted quickly – freezing Afghan assets and foreign aid to pressure the Taliban to negotiate. To date, those negotiations haven't happened.
Today, 38 million Afghans find themselves facing one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet with millions unable to pay for food or basic goods, putting half the country at risk of starvation this winter.
"I've been with WFP for a long time, 20-plus years, and I've never seen a crisis unfold and escalate at the pace and scale that we are seeing," Mary Ellen McGroarty told 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi.
Sharks Are Feeding
There are sharks prowling the waters off the Eastern Seaboard. A lot of them.
On any given day this week, the online Ocearch shark tracker, which follows the movements of sharks and other sea creatures that have been tagged for research, recorded more than 80 great white sharks stalking the western Atlantic Ocean. The predators could be seen hugging the East Coast from New York to Florida.
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It Took Them Three Years to Figure This Out. We Could Have Told Them.
Drugmakers have targeted the U.S. market to earn outsized profits from old medicines, according to a report released on Friday by the House Oversight Committee that highlighted Eli Lilly and Co, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi, which control the market for insulin.
The staff report also noted pricing and marketing tactics by Pfizer Inc that helped it earn billions of dollars from its now off-patent pain drug Lyrica.
The report, put out following a nearly three-year probe, took issue with assertions by the pharmaceutical industry that high drug prices were needed to fund innovation and research and development programs.
"The Committee's investigation also found that companies dedicated a significant portion of their R&D expenditures to research that was intended to extend market monopolies, support the companies' marketing strategies, and suppress competition," the report said.
The report, which focused on 12 drugs made by 10 companies, said that Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi own some 90% of the market for life-sustaining insulin, which was invented in the 1920s.
Medicare, the U.S. government health insurance program for those age 65 and older and the disabled, could have saved more than $16.7 billion from 2011 to 2017 on insulin purchases had it been allowed to negotiate discounts with drug companies, the report found.
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Who Would Want to Be An Election Worker?
Death threats from angry Trump supporters forced Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman, a 62-year-old grandmother, to flee her home of 20 years. Some messages called for her hanging; one urged people to “hunt” her. Freeman showed hundreds of menacing messages to police and called 911 three times.
But a year after Donald Trump and his allies falsely accused Freeman - along with her daughter and co-worker Wandrea “Shaye” Moss - of election fraud, the threats have not been investigated by local police or state authorities, according to a Reuters review of Georgia law enforcement records. Federal agents have monitored some of the threats, but made no arrests.
Offering the first detailed account of their ordeal, the two women told Reuters about threats of lynching and racial slurs, along with alarming visits by strangers to the homes of Freeman and her mother. The intimidation began last December, a month after the 2020 election, when the Trump campaign released surveillance video they falsely claimed showed the two women, who are Black, opening “suitcases” full of phony ballots to rig the vote count in predominantly Black Fulton County, which includes part of Atlanta.
With no one arrested for threatening them, and no police security detail, the women said their lives were thrown into chaos. Freeman told Reuters she moved from house to house out of fear for her safety. Moss, 37, avoided leaving her home except for work and said she remains wracked with anxiety and depression. Moss’s teenage son - also targeted by threats and racist messages - started failing in school.
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Will Biden Be Hoist By His Own Petard?
Ron DeSantis is building a campaign against Joe Biden — and he’s going to make the president pay for it.
The Florida governor on Thursday unveiled a $99.7 billion proposed spending plan that comes as DeSantis gears up for his 2022 reelection and continues to generate buzz as a top-tier potential 2024 White House hopeful. The governor’s budget is packed with federal stimulus funds from the Biden administration that DeSantis wants to use for his most politically popular programs, including a gas tax break and $1,000 bonuses for police and teachers.
The governor made it clear Thursday that he wants to use $3.5 billion from Biden's American Rescue Plan to help fund nearly every high-profile piece of his budget, setting up a scenario where the Biden administration could pay for policies DeSantis will use to campaign on during his reelection bid.
“I think the most ironic piece about his budget is that the governor wants to take $1.2 billion in American Rescue Plan money and use that for the gas tax break,” state Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando) told reporters after the budget announcement. “As the governor continually attacks President Biden, the reality is we could not balance this budget, or give out tax breaks without President Joe Biden.”
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The Economy Is Terrible!
Prices rose at the fastest pace in nearly 40 years last month, increasing 6.8 percent over the same period a year ago, as inflation continues to squeeze households and businesses nationwide and complicates the political environment for Congress and the White House.
Consumer price index data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that prices rose 0.8 percent in November compared with October, with inflation spreading further throughout the economy, including to areas that had not been as affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
The November data marked the largest 12-month increase since June 1982, during a period when inflation was more of a scourge on daily life than most millennials have ever known. Current inflation dynamics have been spurred by a devastating pandemic that roiled the global economy, upsetting the workforce and supply chains, while stimulus measures helped unleash high demand for goods.
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The Economy Is Great!
U.S. consumers' moods brightened unexpectedly in early December with an outsized increase in sentiment among lower-income households lifting overall sentiment from the lowest in a decade, a survey showed on Friday.
The University of Michigan's closely watched Consumer Sentiment Index rose to 70.4 this month from a final November reading 67.4, which had been the lowest since November 2011. Economists polled by Reuters had been expecting it to slip further, with a median estimate of 67.1.
Readings of both current conditions and future expectations also improved unexpectedly.
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The Pain In Maine, Falls Mainly on the Insane
Maine passed another grim milestone on Thursday when COVID-19 cases hit a new single-day record of 1,460.
This comes a day after the Maine CDC reported 1,275 additional cases, surpassing the previous single-day record.
It's Acute for the Utes
The number of Utahns hospitalized with COVID-19 jumped by 28 in the past day to a total of 549, according to the Utah Department of Health. And 209 of those patients are in intensive care.
A data analyst at one of Utah’s largest hospitals noted Thursday that the state’s current surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations rivals the peak of last winter’s surge, with one difference — the current one is longer.
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Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
CDC doesn't do a good job of reporting around holidays.
200 Million Fully Vaccinated
Doses Administered 7-Day Average | Number of People Receiving 1 or More Doses | Number of People Fully Vaccinated | New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | |
| Dec 10 | 1,721,570 | 238,143,066 | 201,279,582 | ||
| Dec 9 | 1,583,662 | 237,468,725 | 200,717,387 | ||
| Dec 8 | 1,611,831 | 237,087,380 | 200,400,533 | 118,515 | 1,092 |
| Dec 7 | 1,781,389 | 236,363,835 | 199,687,439 | 117,488 | 1,097 |
| Dec 6 | 1,780,807 | 236,018,871 | 199,313,022 | 117,179 | 1,117 |
| Dec 5 | 2,264,301 | 235,698,738 | 198,962,520 | 103,823 | 1,154 |
| Dec 4 | 2,009,864 | 235,297,964 | 198,592,167 | 105,554 | 1,150 |
| Dec 3 | 1,700,056 | 234,743,864 | 198,211,641 | 106,132 | 1,110 |
| Dec 2 | 1,428,263 | 234,269,053 | 197,838,728 | 96,425 | 975 |
| Dec 1 | 1,116,587 | 233,590,555 | 197,363,116 | 86,412 | 859 |
| Nov 30 | 1,152,647 | 233,207,582 | 197,058,988 | 82,846 | 816 |
| Nov 29 | 937,113 | 232,792,508 | 196,806,194 | 80,178 | 804 |
| Nov 28 | No Data | 72,008 | 719 | ||
| Nov 27 | No Data | 72,139 | 721 | ||
| Nov 26 | No Data | 73,962 | 742 | ||
| Nov 25 | No Data | 82,440 | 887 | ||
| Nov 24 | 898,833 | 231,367,686 | 196,168,756 | 93,931 | 989 |
| Nov 23 | 1,126,545 | 230,669,289 | 195,973,992 | 94,266 | 982 |
| Nov 22 | 1,521,815 | 230,732,565 | 196,398,948 | 93,668 | 1,009 |
| Nov 21 | 1,774,196 | 230,298,744 | 196,284,442 | 91,021 | 985 |
| Nov 20 | 2,136,513 | 229,837,421 | 196,128,496 | 90,823 | 996 |
| Nov 19 | 1,952,717 | 229,291,004 | 195,920,566 | 92,852 | 1,047 |
| Nov 18 | 1,870,564 | 228,570,531 | 195,713,107 | 94,260 | 1,069 |
| Nov 17 | 1,811,047 | 228,175,638 | 195,612,365 | 88,482 | 1,032 |
| Nov 16 | 1,608,906 | 227,691,941 | 195,435,688 | 85,944 | 1,028 |
| Nov 15 | 1,582,519 | 227,133,617 | 195,275,904 | 83,671 | 1,029 |
| Nov 14 | 1,375,998 | 226,607,653 | 195,120,470 | 80,823 | 1,043 |
| Nov 13 | 1,370,279 | 226,157,226 | 194,951,106 | 80,590 | 1,049 |
| Nov 12 | 1,335,066 | 225,606,197 | 194,747,839 | 78,552 | 1,038 |
| Nov 11 | No Data | 73,218 | 999 | ||
| Nov 10 | 1,316,294 | 224,660,453 | 194,382,921 | 76,458 | 1,051 |
| Nov 9 | 1,316,228 | 224,257,467 | 194,168,611 | 74,584 | 1,078 |
| Feb 16 | 1,716,311 | 39,670,551 | 15,015,434 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | |
| % of Total Population | 71.7% | 60.6% |
| % of Population 12+ | 82.1% | 70.2% |
| % of Population 18+ | 84.1% | 71.9% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 87.1% |
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A Really Dumb Question
When they play Texas Hold'em in Israel, do they deal the cards on the flop, turn and river from right to left?
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Two Good Doses Deserve Another
Two doses of a Covid vaccine are not enough to stop you catching the Omicron variant, UK scientists have warned.
Early analysis of UK Omicron and Delta cases showed the vaccines were less effective at stopping the new variant.
However, a third booster dose significantly increased protection to around 75%.
The UK Health Security Agency said vaccines were still likely to offer good protection against severe Covid that needed hospital treatment.
The concern since the heavily mutated Omicron variant first emerged was that it would make vaccines less effective.
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This is a Complicated Issue To Me. We Should Have the Right to Protect Secrets, But We Classify WAY TOO MUCH Stuff
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange can be extradited from the UK to the US, the High Court has ruled.
The US won its appeal against a January UK court ruling that he could not be extradited due to concerns over his mental health.
Judges were reassured by US promises to reduce the risk of suicide. His fiancee said they intended to appeal.
Mr Assange is wanted in the US over the publication of thousands of classified documents in 2010 and 2011.
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Is There a More Senseless Crime?
A Delta flight from Washington, DC, to Los Angeles required an emergency landing in Oklahoma City on Thursday night after a passenger allegedly assaulted two people, authorities said.
"The passenger assaulted a flight attendant," Oklahoma City Police Capt. Arthur Gregory told CNN. An air marshal on board Flight 324 also allegedly was assaulted while attempting to subdue the passenger, who was eventually restrained.
The Boeing 757-200 aircraft landed at Will Rogers World Airport at around 7:40 p.m. local time, Gregory said. The suspect, a man in his mid-30s, was removed from the flight and interviewed by the FBI.
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Maybe This Qualifies
A French woman has been fined €1,200 ($1,357; £1,028) for causing a huge crash at the Tour de France by waving a cardboard sign in the riders' path.
The peloton was 45km (28 miles) from the end of the first stage, when her sign clipped German rider Tony Martin.
He fell to the ground and caused dozens of other riders to follow suit, in one of the tournament's worst ever crashes.
The woman, 31, was also ordered to pay a symbolic one euro fine to France's professional cyclist association.
The identity of the woman, who was a spectator at the elite race, was withheld after she was targeted by a torrent of online abuse, the AFP news agency reported.
Several people eventually had to pull out of the race, including Spain's Marc Soler, who broke both arms.
The woman turned herself in to police custody days later.
Prosecutors had earlier requested a four-month suspended prison sentence for the woman, accusing her of endangering lives and causing unintentional injuries.
In court, prosecutor Solenn Briand acknowledged that she'd expressed regret, and recognised "how dangerous" her conduct had been, according to AFP.
I Would Like To See a Few Days in Jail. But Then, She Is White
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It's About Time
Have you ever seen a medical illustration featuring a Black body? Social media users admitted they hadn’t when an image of a Black fetus in a Black woman’s womb went viral this month.
Chidiebere Ibe, 25, is behind the image. The Nigerian medical student, who will enter Kyiv Medical University in Ukraine next month, describes himself as a self-taught medical illustrator. He said he’s spent at least a year learning to draw anatomy, focusing on Black skin every step of the way.
“I wasn’t expecting it to go viral,” Ibe, an aspiring pediatric neurosurgeon, said of the image in an interview. “I was just sticking up for what I believe in, advocating for equality in health through medical illustrations. I made a deliberate action to constantly advocate that there be inclusion of Black people in medical literature.”
He began publishing the images on social media, showing conditions like empyema thoracis and seborrheic eczema on Black skin. Many of the images show skin conditions prevalent with Black people, combating a misrepresentation that often leads to misdiagnosis. The fetus illustration went viral after a Twitter user shared the photo, writing, “I’ve literally never seen a black foetus illustrated, ever.” The post was retweeted more than 50,000 times, and the illustration garnered more than 88,000 “likes” on Instagram and even made its way to TikTok. Ibe drew praise from medical professionals far and wide.
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No, This is Not Allowing Undocumented Aliens to Vote (Except for Dreamers)
Noncitizens in New York City would gain the right to vote in municipal elections under a measure approved Thursday by the City Council that would give access to the ballot box to 800,000 green card holders and so-called Dreamers.
Only a potential veto from Mayor Bill de Blasio stood in the way of the measure becoming law, but the Democrat has said he would not veto it. It’s unclear whether the bill might face legal challenges.
The Council’s vote was a historic moment for an effort that had long languished.
Councilman Francisco Moya, whose family hails from Ecuador, choked up as he spoke in support of the bill.
“This is for my beautiful mother who will be able to vote for her son,” said Moya, while joining the session by video with his immigrant mother at his side.
More than a dozen communities across the United States already allow noncitizens to cast ballots in local elections, including 11 towns in Maryland and two in Vermont. But New York City is the largest place by far to give voting rights to noncitizens.
Noncitizens still wouldn’t be able to vote for president or members of Congress in federal races, or in the state elections that pick the governor, judges and legislators.
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If A Tree Burns and Fox New Doesn't Talk About It, Does It Make a Sound?
The hosts and pundits of Fox News have been through suffering and adversity beyond what mere mortals can adequately convey this week … but they sure are working overtime to tell us about it.
The network’s large fake Christmas tree was set on fire early Wednesday morning in an apparent act of arson. A suspect faces multiple charges. But the personalities of Fox News have made the tree-burning, and their feelings about it, the subject of at least 36 hours of wall-to-wall news coverage. And holy crap, it is beyond parody. I mean, really, really, a classic “if this were intended as comedy, your editor would tell you to tone it way down” situation.
As of Thursday afternoon, Eric Boehlert counted nearly 100 mentions of the tree in Fox News coverage, adding, “and yes, that’s more coverage than Fox News gave to the deadly Michigan shooting last week.” Four people died in that shooting, but to hear Fox News’ people tell it, the hopes and dreams of America went up in flames along with the tree.
“Somebody asked me, ‘Why are you here?’ I’m here because these colors don’t run,” DeGraff said in comments televised live on “The Five.”
“Eighty years ago this week, they tried to extinguish the darkness in a place called Pearl Harbor,” DeGraff continued. “We didn’t fold then and we won’t fold now because we’ve come this far by faith. In our tradition, we say ’this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. And the red, the white, the blue and the light of America, we’re going to let it shine.”
Pearl Harbor. A Burnt Tree. Sound Equal?
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It's Not In Big D, Little A, Double L, Ab-Butt
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Is The University of Florida An Academic Powerhouse?
UF researchers felt pressure to destroy COVID-19 data, faculty report says
Faculty Senate panel alleges more violations of academic freedom. Says staff was told not to contradict state on pandemic issues.
Fear of upsetting state officials is pervasive among faculty at the University of Florida, to the point that race-related references have been edited out of course materials and researchers felt pressure to destroy COVID-19 data, according to a report released Monday by a Faculty Senate committee.
The six-person panel was convened three weeks ago to investigate academic freedom issues after the university decided to bar three political science professors from testifying in a lawsuit against the state. But its findings go well beyond that episode and were so disturbing — especially regarding COVID-19 research — that the group decided to speed up its work, said Danaya Wright, a constitutional law professor and former Faculty Senate chairperson who served on the committee.
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Is Missouri the "Show Me Dead People" State?
The Missouri attorney general has ordered county health departments statewide to “stop enforcing and publicizing” all quarantine orders.
Only 35 percent of the 35,000 people living Laclede County, Missouri, are vaccinated, but the county health department announced Thursday that it will stop all its COVID-19 mitigation efforts.
“Laclede County Health Department has been forced to cease all COVID-19 related work at the current time,” the southern Missouri agency said on Facebook. Roughly half of all Missouri residents are vaccinated.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, currently campaigning for a seat in the U.S. Senate on a platform of overturning coronavirus restrictions, told local health departments across the state on Dec. 7:
“Public health authorities and school districts have gone unchecked, issuing illegal and unconstitutional orders in their quest to aggregate, maintain, and exert their new-found power... You should stop enforcing and publicizing any such orders immediately,” referring to quarantine orders, mask mandates, and other COVID-19 mandates.
He threatened to take legal action against counties that don’t abide by his demands.
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Do The Ads Write Themselves?
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Have Yourself a Karen Little Christmas
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The Insurrection Diet
Capitol rioter Jenna Ryan is likening her upcoming incarceration to a health retreat.
The notorious real estate broker and social media “influencer” — who will begin her 60-day prison sentence in three weeks for her role in the Jan. 6 attack — posted a disturbingly sincere TikTok earlier this week in which she detailed how she plans to get to her “ideal weight” while she’s incarcerated.
“The only thing that I can see that’s good about having to go to prison is that I’m going to be able to workout a lot, and do a lot of yoga and detox,” Ryan said while filming herself in a sports bra and leggings.
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The Media is Reporting This as a Loss For Trump
A U.S. appeals court on Thursday rejected a request by former President Donald Trump to withhold records from the House of Representatives probe of the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, saying he had provided "no basis" for his request.
"Former President Trump has provided no basis for this court to override President Biden's judgment," a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit wrote.
President Joe Biden had previously determined that the records, which belong to the executive branch, should not be subject to executive privilege and that turning them over to Congress was in the best interest of the nation.
"Both branches agree that there is a unique legislative need for these documents and that they are directly relevant to the Committee’s inquiry into an attack on the legislative branch and its constitutional role in the peaceful transfer of power," the court said.
The ruling marks yet another blow to the Republican former president, who has waged an ongoing legal battle with the committee over access to documents and witnesses.
Since This is Likely to Be Decided By SCOTUS, He Hasn't Lost Anything, Yet.
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Manatees Get Fed
Florida wildlife officials will undertake a manatee feeding and rescue operation involving hand-feeding the mammals romaine lettuce, amid unprecedented mortality among the gentle aquatic creatures affectionately known as “sea cows”.
Typically, manatees return to warm water winter feeding grounds, where they feast on plentiful seagrass.
But algal blooms from polluted waters have devastated seagrass beds, and thereby wiped out the important food source for the manatees. Algal blooms and manatee deaths have been especially pronounced along Florida’s Atlantic coast, leading to record-breaking mortality.
Afghans Starve
When the U.S. military pulled out of Afghanistan in August, the Taliban immediately seized control and the international community acted quickly – freezing Afghan assets and foreign aid to pressure the Taliban to negotiate. To date, those negotiations haven't happened.
Today, 38 million Afghans find themselves facing one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet with millions unable to pay for food or basic goods, putting half the country at risk of starvation this winter.
"I've been with WFP for a long time, 20-plus years, and I've never seen a crisis unfold and escalate at the pace and scale that we are seeing," Mary Ellen McGroarty told 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi.
Sharks Are Feeding
There are sharks prowling the waters off the Eastern Seaboard. A lot of them.
On any given day this week, the online Ocearch shark tracker, which follows the movements of sharks and other sea creatures that have been tagged for research, recorded more than 80 great white sharks stalking the western Atlantic Ocean. The predators could be seen hugging the East Coast from New York to Florida.
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It Took Them Three Years to Figure This Out. We Could Have Told Them.
Drugmakers have targeted the U.S. market to earn outsized profits from old medicines, according to a report released on Friday by the House Oversight Committee that highlighted Eli Lilly and Co, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi, which control the market for insulin.
The staff report also noted pricing and marketing tactics by Pfizer Inc that helped it earn billions of dollars from its now off-patent pain drug Lyrica.
The report, put out following a nearly three-year probe, took issue with assertions by the pharmaceutical industry that high drug prices were needed to fund innovation and research and development programs.
"The Committee's investigation also found that companies dedicated a significant portion of their R&D expenditures to research that was intended to extend market monopolies, support the companies' marketing strategies, and suppress competition," the report said.
The report, which focused on 12 drugs made by 10 companies, said that Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi own some 90% of the market for life-sustaining insulin, which was invented in the 1920s.
Medicare, the U.S. government health insurance program for those age 65 and older and the disabled, could have saved more than $16.7 billion from 2011 to 2017 on insulin purchases had it been allowed to negotiate discounts with drug companies, the report found.
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Who Would Want to Be An Election Worker?
Death threats from angry Trump supporters forced Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman, a 62-year-old grandmother, to flee her home of 20 years. Some messages called for her hanging; one urged people to “hunt” her. Freeman showed hundreds of menacing messages to police and called 911 three times.
But a year after Donald Trump and his allies falsely accused Freeman - along with her daughter and co-worker Wandrea “Shaye” Moss - of election fraud, the threats have not been investigated by local police or state authorities, according to a Reuters review of Georgia law enforcement records. Federal agents have monitored some of the threats, but made no arrests.
Offering the first detailed account of their ordeal, the two women told Reuters about threats of lynching and racial slurs, along with alarming visits by strangers to the homes of Freeman and her mother. The intimidation began last December, a month after the 2020 election, when the Trump campaign released surveillance video they falsely claimed showed the two women, who are Black, opening “suitcases” full of phony ballots to rig the vote count in predominantly Black Fulton County, which includes part of Atlanta.
With no one arrested for threatening them, and no police security detail, the women said their lives were thrown into chaos. Freeman told Reuters she moved from house to house out of fear for her safety. Moss, 37, avoided leaving her home except for work and said she remains wracked with anxiety and depression. Moss’s teenage son - also targeted by threats and racist messages - started failing in school.
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Will Biden Be Hoist By His Own Petard?
Ron DeSantis is building a campaign against Joe Biden — and he’s going to make the president pay for it.
The Florida governor on Thursday unveiled a $99.7 billion proposed spending plan that comes as DeSantis gears up for his 2022 reelection and continues to generate buzz as a top-tier potential 2024 White House hopeful. The governor’s budget is packed with federal stimulus funds from the Biden administration that DeSantis wants to use for his most politically popular programs, including a gas tax break and $1,000 bonuses for police and teachers.
The governor made it clear Thursday that he wants to use $3.5 billion from Biden's American Rescue Plan to help fund nearly every high-profile piece of his budget, setting up a scenario where the Biden administration could pay for policies DeSantis will use to campaign on during his reelection bid.
“I think the most ironic piece about his budget is that the governor wants to take $1.2 billion in American Rescue Plan money and use that for the gas tax break,” state Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando) told reporters after the budget announcement. “As the governor continually attacks President Biden, the reality is we could not balance this budget, or give out tax breaks without President Joe Biden.”
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The Economy Is Terrible!
Prices rose at the fastest pace in nearly 40 years last month, increasing 6.8 percent over the same period a year ago, as inflation continues to squeeze households and businesses nationwide and complicates the political environment for Congress and the White House.
Consumer price index data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that prices rose 0.8 percent in November compared with October, with inflation spreading further throughout the economy, including to areas that had not been as affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
The November data marked the largest 12-month increase since June 1982, during a period when inflation was more of a scourge on daily life than most millennials have ever known. Current inflation dynamics have been spurred by a devastating pandemic that roiled the global economy, upsetting the workforce and supply chains, while stimulus measures helped unleash high demand for goods.
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The Economy Is Great!
U.S. consumers' moods brightened unexpectedly in early December with an outsized increase in sentiment among lower-income households lifting overall sentiment from the lowest in a decade, a survey showed on Friday.
The University of Michigan's closely watched Consumer Sentiment Index rose to 70.4 this month from a final November reading 67.4, which had been the lowest since November 2011. Economists polled by Reuters had been expecting it to slip further, with a median estimate of 67.1.
Readings of both current conditions and future expectations also improved unexpectedly.
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The Pain In Maine, Falls Mainly on the Insane
Maine passed another grim milestone on Thursday when COVID-19 cases hit a new single-day record of 1,460.
This comes a day after the Maine CDC reported 1,275 additional cases, surpassing the previous single-day record.
It's Acute for the Utes
The number of Utahns hospitalized with COVID-19 jumped by 28 in the past day to a total of 549, according to the Utah Department of Health. And 209 of those patients are in intensive care.
A data analyst at one of Utah’s largest hospitals noted Thursday that the state’s current surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations rivals the peak of last winter’s surge, with one difference — the current one is longer.
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