Tracker

Sheep are gonna be sheared. The sales of yachts and BMWs are gonna spike. There was much speculation about the effectiveness of both the Chinese and Russian vaccines, and now the worst seems to have be confirmed.

Good on Mike/Michael to know when enough is enough. He has enough days ahead of him that having a body that functions is something to be desired.

Any time a substance is used to cope with a life issue, it has the potential to stop the growth and learning that come with weathering that storm. Many, if not most stressors are psychogenic in origin- that is, an individual feels unable to cope and resorts to medicating or self-medicating. The dictum "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger" still holds, within common-sense limits. A psychiatrist associate once told me that a cup of coffee (or tea) with a good friend and talking out what you are going through is often more effective than psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy. We are a lot more capable of dealing with stress and crises than most think, but we have been thoroughly indoctrinated into "A pill for every ill" with a promise of instant relief./gratification.

Before you go that route, consider getting a medical checkup, and if there are no medical concerns identified, you may wish to talk to someone to see if there are unresolved issues in your life that are cropping up. A short course of prescription sleep aids may break the pattern of insomnia.

If this is not illegal, it ought to be.

If he was to do that, we wouldn't have to worry about anyone roughing the punter.

Jones is off to a roaring (with laughter) start. Get the popcorn.

Trump instructed Michael Cohen to make sure Don Jr. went to jail instead of Ivanka According to a report from Business Insider, Michael Cohen admitted on Saturday that Donald Trump instructed him in 2012 to make sure that Don Trump Jr. be the one to take the fall instead of Ivanka Trump during an investigation by Manhattan's district attorney into lying about property sales. In an interview with MSNBC's Alex Witt, Cohen recalled that the former president was concerned about Ivanka's well-being if she was sentenced to jail and that Don Jr. would handle it better. According to the report, Cohen told the MSNBC host, "You may recall that there was the district attorney's case here for Trump Soho where it was either Don or Ivanka was in very big trouble as a result of lying about the number of units that had been sold." Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course. "And Donald said it to me – I mean I wouldn't say it if it wasn't said directly to me – he goes 'if one or the other has to go to prison, make sure that it's Don because Don would be able to handle it, " he continued. Cohen later said that he doesn't expect Ivanka to willingly appear before the House committee investigating the Jan 6th insurrection and claimed the first daughter would likely plead the 5th before explaining, "Ivanka is only interested in Ivanka." Trump instructed Michael Cohen to make sure Don Jr. went to jail instead of Ivanka | Salon.com

He got what he wanted and has paid the price,

Jan. 6 Investigators Zeroing In On Apparent Plot To Hijack Election With Fake Electors The House select committee investigating the Capitol riot is intensifying its probe into the filing of counterfeit election certificates signed by slates of fake Republican electors for the 2020 presidential election in five states. The Republican electors falsely declared themselves “duly elected and qualified,” and sent signed certificates to Congress and the National Archives claiming to affirm former President Donald Trump as the winner in five states he had actually lost: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin. All the states had legitimate Democratic electors for Joe Biden, reflecting residents’ votes. The brazen scheme involved Trump campaign officials in an operation coordinated by his former personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, both The Washington Post and CNN reported. “We want to look at the fraudulent activity that was contained in the preparation of these fake Electoral College certificates,” said House committee member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Politico reported. “And then we want to look to see to what extent this was part of a comprehensive plan to overthrow the 2020 election.” “There’s no doubt that those people were engaged in a constitutional fraud on the public and on the democracy,” Raskin told The New York Times, referring to the fake electors. The select committee is expecting new documents from the National Archives related to the fake electors scheme, according to chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who called the apparent involvement of members of Trump’s circle in the plot a “concern.” Committee member Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) called the submission of the fake electoral certificates a “dangerous precedent,” according to Politico. The fake elector slates were apparently intended to be a go-to line-up of Republicans in the event then-Vice President Mike Pence rejected the legitimate electors in states Trump lost, which Trump was pressing him to do on Jan. 6, 2020. Trump ally and right-wing attorney John Eastman, author of the so-called coup memos, had suggested that Pence, armed with “multiple” elector slates, could introduce the pro-Trump fakes to challenge the legitimate Biden electors in the seven states Trump lost. Fake documents were also filed in Pennsylvania and New Mexico, but those GOP counterfeits were referred to as “electors in waiting” in case court challenges to Biden’s win were successful. The certificates from the other five states falsely claimed that the pro-Trump electors were the rightful electors. Officials in some of the states are either investigating the operation, or have referred information to federal prosecutors. Michigan’s Attorney General Dana Nessel last week called the operation an “open-and-shut case of forgery of a public record.” She asked federal prosecutors to investigate the 16 Michigan Republicans who submitted false certificates. Jan. 6 Investigators Zeroing In On Apparent Plot To Hijack Election With Fake Electors | HuffPost Latest News

The kids are not alright: Data suggests 10% of children with COVID-19 become "long-haulers". "We are definitely seeing long COVID in children," said Dr. Amanda Morrow, Co-Director of the Kennedy Krieger Institute's Pediatric Post-COVID-19 Clinic in Maryland. "It does exist. And it is impacting day-to-day lives significantly."" Because the data is preliminary, estimates thus far vary wildly on the prevalence of what is now known as "long Covid" in children and adolescents. Available studies have reported wildly varying numbers on the proportion of children who suffer long Covid, ranging from 0.8% to 66% of total pediatric COVID-19 cases. "We don't really know a whole lot," said Dr. Sindhu Mohandas, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. "We are just starting to learn over the past few months what long Covid in kids is." Recognizing its existence, Mohandas said, has been a big advance. While there is no official definition of pediatric long Covid at this time, the parameters typically include the persistence (or return) of symptoms 12 weeks following the initial infection. Some criteria look for new or persistent symptoms 30 days out from the acute infection. Another key is ruling out of alternative medical explanations — making the process of diagnosis lengthy and requiring a multi-disciplinary team. However, there is now growing consensus that somewhere around 10 percent of COVID-19 cases in kids turn into long Covid — at least according to the data collected for primarily pre-omicron and pre-vaccine cases. At this time, most of the studies come from other countries. In September 2021, the Israeli Health Ministry announced the results of a survey showing that 11.2% of kids reported symptoms of long Covid. "No one is certain exactly how many people who've had COVID-19 end up being long haulers," wrote Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Professor of Pediatrics Dr. Peter Rowe on the American Academy of Pediatrics' "Healthy Children" website. He continued: "One study showed that as many as 52% of teens and young adults between ages 16 and 30 may experience lingering symptoms 6 months after having COVID. The U.K. Office for National Statistics estimated that 12.9% of children 2 to 11 years of age, and 14.5% of children 12 to 16 years old, still experienced symptoms 5 weeks after infection." "It will end up being about 10% — is my guess," said Morrow. "We do not know at this point what risk factors predispose children to developing long COIVD. It could be a possible outcome for anyone. We just don't know."

Its not about the COVID, its about his pig-headedness.

Not the years in our lives that counts, but the life in our years.

The most explosive material so far is the executive order that Trump had prepared well in advance to seize the voting machines and ballots. Then, he planned to declare an extensive and prolonged review that would keep him in office for several months while he and his cronies figured out a way to abort the election results entirely.

Just Tories being Tories. Move along now, nothing to see here.

Is the tide continuing to turn against Trump? The Georgia DA is convening a special grand jury to hear the evidence that Trump illegally tried to corrupt the election there: Things Get Even Worse For Trump As Georgia DA Requests Special Grand Jury Into Criminal Election Interference (politicususa.com)

Voter suppression in action: Mail-in ballot rejections many times higher under new Texas law The number of rejected mail-in ballot applications is skyrocketing in Texas counties under new Republican-authored voting restrictions recently signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott. The Texas crackdown on mail-in voting appears to be hitting hardest in the state's most densely populated counties, which also tend to have more voters of color and predominantly vote Democratic. In Travis County, which includes Austin, about half of all mail-in ballot applications have been rejected ahead of the state's March primaries, up from a rate of about 11% in the 2020 election cycle, according to the county clerk's office. About half of applications were rejected in Hidalgo County as well, according to elections administrator Yvonne Ramon. Dallas County has rejected 43% of the applications it received, according to elections administrator Frank Phillips. In Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, more than half of the applications received on Monday were rejected under the "ridiculous" new law, said county elections administrator Jacque Callanen. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said the county is rejecting applications at a rate 700% higher than previous cycles because of the new "voter suppression laws that create a maze of technicalities." Harris County includes the city of Houston, and with 4.7 million residents has a higher population than 24 U.S. states. "Voters are being mistreated in this circumstance," Travis County election clerk Dana DeBeauvoir told reporters on Tuesday. "My friends, this is what voter suppression looks like." Many of the applications have been rejected because of the new identification requirements under Texas' new voting law, SB 1. Texas law already restricted mail-in voting by people under age 65 but the new law requires voters to include their driver's license or state ID number in their application, or the last four digits of their Social Security number. Counties must match those numbers against the information in each individual's voter file to approve their application. Counties have struggled to match ID information because they lack certain data, particularly because voters are not required to provide both their state ID and Social Security numbers when they register to vote. The Texas secretary of state's office last year said more than 2 million of the state's 17 million registered voters did not have one of the two ID numbers on file and more than 250,000 did not have either number on file. The numbers have declined since then, but more than 700,000 voters still do not have both numbers on file and more than 100,000 don't have either, according to the secretary of state's office. Nearly 500,000 Texas voters do not have a driver's license on file, which is the first number voters have to provide on their applications. Voter suppression in action: Mail-in ballot rejections many times higher under new Texas law | Salon.com

The Klan Was the Original ‘Election Police’ Today’s Republican politicians are counting on ignorance of or apathy about that history as they try to create their own election-crime cop forces. Days after blocking the advancement of vital voting rights legislation and corrupting the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Republican politicians are advancing their undemocratic agenda by advocating for the creation of “election police.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is asking for $5.7 million to create an Office of Election Crimes and Security. In Georgia, former senator and gubernatorial candidate David Purdue promises a new Election Law Enforcement Division. Other Republicans pushing Trump’s Big Lie are sure to follow. They aren’t breaking new ground, but joining a long tradition of dressing up efforts to suppress and intimidate Black voters as somehow protecting the integrity of our American democracy. A tipping point of the 1960s voting rights movement was the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965. Dr. Martin Luther King, John Lewis, and voting rights activists marching from Selma, Alabama, to the state’s capital were infamously attacked on what’s come to be known as “Bloody Sunday” by Southern police led by Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor, the president of the Alabama Public Service Commission. Americans nationwide saw for themselves as Connor’s goons attacked citizens protesting non-violently with bully clubs, dogs, and militarized vehicles. Lewis nearly died in the confrontation. That August, the Voting Rights Act became law, and Black Americans could finally vote without the threat of government-sponsored or -sanctioned terrorism—that is, the voting police. This week, Senate Republicans voted against the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act that would have restored voting rights protections created by the 1965 legislation but removed by John Roberts’ Supreme Court in 2013, on the bizarre premise that racial disparities were no longer a problem. With those protections gone, conservative politicians in the South are again trying to militarize and police voting. This was all too predictable to anyone who knows American history, and part of the Republican Party’s anti-Democratic agenda is to ensure that much of that history is ignored or forgotten. It’s good that many Americans know about the Edmund Pettus Bridge, but more of them should know about Edmund Pettus, a white terrorist and politician from Alabama. Pettus, born in Alabama in 1821, was a brigadier general in the Confederate Army. Following the Civil War, he was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson along with thousands of other Confederates, and upon obtaining his freedom he became a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux Klan Was the Original ‘Election Police’ (thedailybeast.com)

And, as of January 18th, we have passed the midpoint of winter and weather will be moderating from here on.

Babylon 5 was the high-water mark for Sci-Fi series. The creator was given a 5-year contract to ensure the characters and plots could evolve naturally, and did. Good stuff- I still have the DVDs.

Bombshell draft order reveals a plan for Trump to seize voting machines after the 2020 election A draft executive order obtained by the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack reveals President Donald Trump had a plan, which he did not enact, to order the Secretary of Defense to seize voting machines in an attempt to stay in power after the January 20, 2021 inauguration of President Joe Biden. There was also a plan for Trump to deliver a conspiracy-theory filled speech announcing he was ordering the voting machines to be seized. It was titled “Remarks on National Healing.” “I hereby order,” reads the draft executive order, dated December 16, 2020 and published Friday by Politico. “Effective immediately, the Secretary of Defense shall seize, collect, retain and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information, and material records required for retention,” citing a federal law. Politico adds that “the draft order would have given the defense secretary 60 days to write an assessment of the 2020 election. That suggests it could have been a gambit to keep Trump in power until at least mid-February of 2021.” Bombshell draft order reveals a plan for Trump to seize voting machines after the 2020 election - Alternet.org

With Captain Burnham dripping empathy in almost every scene, muddled storylines, and an endless focus on who is sleeping with whom, the series ought to be euthanized. The only reasons the series is surviving is nostalgia and nothing better to replace it.

Trump WANTED a bloody riot at the Capitol. That would have given him the pretext to declare martial law, seize the ballots and voting machines and postpone further elections until it suited him. In times of confusion and threat, people usually flock to support the existing government unless it it is completely inept. This is when strongman dictators step up and p romise security at the (allegedly temporarily) price of loss of freedoms. It worked for BushII after 911, and Thatcher over the Falkland Islands.