The kind of leadership we saw from @SenSanders and @EdMarkey today shouldn’t be an exception. We need more leaders willing to fight for everyday people. If your elected officials aren’t fighting for people during this historic crisis, then who exactly are they working for?

— Nina Turner (@ninaturner) December 30, 2020

1000% SAME. ✊🏼 Voting for Bernie Sanders each time was and always will be a joyous and proud thing I've done. https://t.co/tv9tfbVk6q

— The Bern Identity (@bern_identity) December 30, 2020

📣 New Podcast! "Ken Klippenstein – December 29, 2020" on @Spreaker https://t.co/KnsB8gBmZU

— The Young Turks (@TheYoungTurks) December 30, 2020

Send it out and get out of the way — make sure it gets to nursing homes, senior centers, and then ffs send it everywhere

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) December 30, 2020

Pence, who is in charge of Operation Warp Speed and the White House Coronavirus Task Force, is vacationing in Vail. https://t.co/P9aepDk9tv

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) December 30, 2020

McConnell introduces a bill to boost stimulus to $2,000, repeal Section 230 and set up a commission to investigate the 2020 election.

This all but assures $2K checks fail.

Notably, Trump didn’t demand these three be combined. He wanted 230 repeal in the NDAA, McConnell said no.

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) December 29, 2020

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced a bill Tuesday evening which would offer increased $2,000 direct payments to individuals sought by Democrats and President Donald Trump, but adds legislation pertaining to social media companies and election fraud studies.

McConnell introduced the parallel pandemic relief bill on Tuesday, S.5085, which would include the $600 to $2,000 increase in checks to individual Americans, but tacks on a repeal of section 230 of the Communications Act of 1996 and funding for a commission to investigate voter fraud. Both of these additions to McConnell’s surprise bill are demands which have been made by Trump for months. The Section 230 repeal would pull back protections for internet companies and allow such media companies as Twitter and Facebook to be sued if users feel wronged by messages on the platform.

McConnell has for months said he opposes added weekly unemployment benefits and only last week agreed with Democrats to add the $600 direct deposits for Americans struggling amid the pandemic.

Trump appeared to have predicted what McConnell’s move would be this week after the White House came out in support, alongside Democrats, of the $2,000 stimulus relief checks to individual Americans. “The Senate will start the process for a vote that increases checks to $2,000, repeals Section 230, and starts an investigation into voter fraud,” the president wrote in a Sunday statement, days before McConnell introduced nearly identical legislation.

“Big Tech must not get protections of Section 230!” Trump stated Sunday, in a request which McConnell appears to have granted by tacking the freedom of speech issue onto the $2,000 check stipulation. “Voter Fraud must be Fixed! Much more money is coming. I will never give my fight for the American people!”

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer responded to McConnell’s introduction of the bill as a “cynical gambit.” Unclear in what exactly McConnell’s legislative motives are, Schumer said the GOP Senate leader is attempting to undermine the $2,000 by adding Trump’s election
fraud and Section 230 repeal demands.

He's trapped. He doesn't want to support it, but he knows he can't oppose it. I'm not going to tell you the future of redistributive politics isn't bleak under this administration, but there will be other times he can be trapped this way. https://t.co/iWeYxwdNBB

— Respectable Lawyer (@RespectableLaw) December 30, 2020

He’ll be nice to R’s who are obstructing his transition team, but gets pissy when Bernie and Markey corner McConnell?

Why increasing the stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000 is a bad idea (by the WaPo PTB)

GIVEN HOW 2020 has gone, we probably should have known it would end with Congress and the president wasting their final days on one last bad idea: $2,000-per-person direct payments, supposedly to offset the hard economic times brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

As we have previously pointed out, there was a case for including modest “checks” to the hardest-hit, low-income segment of the population. In the $908 billion stimulus it did pass, however, Congress went well beyond that, providing $600 payments that will send up to $3,000 for families of five earning as much as $150,000 — and at least a few dollars to those earning up to $210,000, before phasing out entirely. The bill does this while extending unemployment benefits a mere 11 weeks. In short, the measure short-shrifted the neediest and showered billions on people who suffered little or no lasting hardship from the pandemic. This, at a time when the economy has healed significantly and coronavirus vaccinations are underway — unlike the chaotic days of April, when Congress sent checks (of only $1,200) to help people cope with economic free fall.

Yet a just-passed House bill would compound all of those errors by increasing the $600 payment to $2,000, at a total cost of $464 billion. It would phase out completely only for families of five earning above $350,000. Much of this is going to be saved, not spent, since restaurants are closed and air travel limited. The resources would be far better spent, in terms of both economic equity and economic growth, on longer extension of unemployment benefits, aid to state and local governments, and vaccines.
But if the $2,000 payout is a bad idea, it is a bad idea whose time has come because of politics, not economics. President Trump deserves primary blame, by criticizing the initial $600 per-person version as too small and threatening to veto the stimulus bill. That created an opening for Democrats in Congress, who seek to exploit the proposal’s simplistic appeal to help their party’s two candidates in Georgia’s Jan. 5 Senate runoff.

Especially wrongheaded in this regard is the progressive left, spearheaded by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who depicts the $2,000 as aid to “desperate” Americans despite the huge amounts destined for perfectly comfortable families. Then again, Republican would-be populists such as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) made common cause with Mr. Sanders; and now at least one other GOP politician with presidential ambitions, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), has jumped on the bandwagon, as have the two Republican Senate candidates in Georgia.

Only the Senate can stop this wasteful policy. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blocked an immediate vote on the House bill Tuesday, while hinting that he might hold a vote on the $2,000, but linked to Trump-backed provisions that Democrats could not accept: repeal of a law that protects social media companies from liability and an investigation of purported fraud in the 2020 election. Mr. Sanders, meanwhile, threatens to delay a defense-bill veto override, which would keep senators in Washington for New Year’s Eve. Blowing the holiday for senators would be a small price to pay for keeping them from blowing nearly half a trillion taxpayer dollars.

Contrast that to Bernie-hater Jen Rubin’s Op-ed:

Here is why the stimulus check should be bigger

President Trump, who was never willing to step into negotiations for a covid-19 stimulus package when they were ongoing or publicly share his view that the bill’s $600 checks were too small, threw an inexcusable wrench into the efforts to send relief to Americans. Now that Trump has agreed to sign the bill, The Post reports, the Treasury Department is “scrambling” to get out the checks after Trump’s stalling. In addition, the “Trump administration is racing to distribute a wide array of funds, including those that aim to boost cash-strapped businesses and help unemployed workers at risk of losing their benefits.” Millions, in other words, could lose a week’s pay.

Democrats have been complaining about the size of the bill’s direct payments, which Republicans opposed until the 11th hour. If not for progressives such as independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and both Democratic senators of Massachusetts and Oregon (who wanted $1,200 checks), there would not be any direct payments in the bill at all. On Monday, the House passed on a 275-134 vote a measure to increase the stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000; 44 Republicans voted for the $2,000 amount. The measure goes over to the Senate.

McConnell blocks Senate Democrats’ attempt to increase stimulus checks to $2,000
After the House voted to increase stimulus checks to $2,000, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) blocked an initial attempt for approval on Dec. 29. (The Washington Post)
There are legitimate criticisms that the checks should not go out to households making as much as $150,000. Nevertheless, there is now more justification than ever for Congress to negotiate more generous checks — and more than just one.

Steven Rattner, former economic adviser in the Obama administration, writes: “At the end of last week alone, four important economic statistics came in weaker than expected and moving in the wrong direction. Consumer confidence fell to 88.6, well below the 97.0 that had been projected and down from a downwardly revised 92.9 in November (originally reported at 96.1).” He adds, “Similarly, consumer spending declined due to a big drop in auto sales as well as in services including food and hotels. The large drop in personal income was directly attributable expiring stimulus programs.” Finally, “after a strong summer and fall, new home sales fell sharply.”

In addition, we continue to add roughly 800,000 new unemployment claims each week. The New York Times reports: “More than 20 million Americans are collecting unemployment benefits and the unemployment rate stands at 6.7 percent. A year ago, before the pandemic hit, the jobless rate touched 3.5 percent, tying a 50-year low.”

This portrait of a decrepit economy explains why the Federal Reserve and businesses alike have been pushing for another stimulus bill for months. As Congress dawdled, distress and hardship for millions of unemployed or food-insecure Americans dragged on. Trump’s hissy fit drags this out even further, but the real outrage was the Republicans’ refusal to pass anything with direct payments for months.

Among other consequences of a prolonged recession and joblessness, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell warned in October that “once you’re permanently laid off, it’s just more difficult … to get back into the workforce.” In November, he was still warning, “My sense is that we will need to do more and that Congress will need to do more.”

The danger in trying to steer the economy through the recession was always in doing too little, not doing too much. Now is not the time to worry about spending restraint. Trump’s delay has caused more distress than needed. And the response will have to be bigger if we are to prevent even greater suffering and long-term economic damage. Congress should not wait any longer to get more money into the pockets of more Americans. Dragging their heels is a recipe for economic calamity.

Jamaal Bowman @JamaalBowmanNY & @CoriBush make @FoxNews Fox's @kilmeade & @CNN's @DanaBashCNN lose their minds. And it's beautiful. https://t.co/4gwskD5BP1

— Katie Halper (@kthalps) December 30, 2020

Feds decline charges against officers in Tamir Rice case

In a statement, Subodh Chandra, an attorney for the boy’s family, said the Justice Department’s “process was tainted” and the family has demanded prosecutors provide additional information about recommendations made during the probe.

“It’s beyond comprehension that the Department couldn’t recognize that an officer who claims he shouted commands when the patrol car’s window was closed and it was a winter day is lying,” Chandra said. “The Rice family has been cheated of a fair process yet again.”

In this case, the Justice Department said poor-quality surveillance video recorded in the area where the shooting took place prevented prosecutors from being able to conclusively determine whether Rice was reaching for his toy gun just before he was shot. The two officers who were investigated told authorities soon after the shooting that Rice was reaching for his toy weapon and was given multiple commands to show his hands before being shot.

But the video reviewed by federal prosecutors makes the sequence of events less clear. The grainy time-lapse video, which has no audio, “does not show detail or perspective” and the camera’s view is obstructed by a police patrol car, prosecutors said. In addition, they said, though the positioning of the boy’s arms suggests they were in the vicinity of his waist, “his hands are not visible in the video and it cannot be determined from the video what he was doing.”

The Justice Department says seven use-of-force experts — three retained by the family, four by local authorities — reviewed the recording, but the poor quality of the video on which they relied and their “conflicting opinions added little to the case.” The experts used by the family said the shooting was unreasonable while the four others said that it was reasonable.

The New York Times reported in October that the department had effectively shut down the investigation, but Tuesday’s announcement makes it official.

Inconsistent witness statements also complicated any prosecution, and neither person said they saw exactly what Rice was doing just before the shooting, according to the Justice Department.