HELLO SOMEBODY: We're excited to announce our endorsement of @NinaTurner to represent #OH11 in Congress.
We know she'll be part of a mission-driven team in Congress to deliver relief, Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and racial justice.
Join us: https://t.co/hDvyCgXYmJ pic.twitter.com/cFme5WfJBU
— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) January 11, 2021
More news, videos, tweets, etc. in the comments.
Good day birdies!
I’ll start today’s thread with an op-ed in WaPo by Congresswoman Cori Bush.
This is the America that Black people know
My skin burned for 22 hours after I was pepper-sprayed. The memory of that burn stung with a new kind of pain on Wednesday as I, now a newly sworn-in member of Congress, watched in horror and disbelief as an insurrectionist mob overran the Capitol.
Back in July, we had been protesting at the police station in Florissant, Mo., where a police officer had recently run over a Black man with his car. The police had been beating protesters for weeks. They tear-gassed us to the point of suffocation for painting “Black Lives Matter” on a road, arrested us for putting our fists in the air and beat those who they’d taken into custody.
That night was no different from any other night. The officers rushed out of the station in riot gear, slapping their batons against their shields, holding shotguns loaded with rubber bullets and chanting commands. They chased us into the middle of the street, forcing us to backpedal blindly in the dark. The police were pushing with such force that people began falling to the ground all around me, finding themselves swarmed by officers who began hitting them with batons. I reached in to try to pull a woman away to safety.
They sprayed us with mace. It wasn’t your average mace, either. I used every trick in the book to try to make the pain stop — milk, water, dish detergent. But my skin did not stop burning for 22 hours.
On Wednesday, as I sat in the House gallery listening to my colleagues debate the certification of the electoral college votes, something prompted me to get up and leave. I left the chamber and quickly went to check on what was happening outside. The doors were locked, but as I stood on the second floor of the Capitol and looked out through windows in the doors, I could see Trump flags and Confederate flags gradually moving closer. I froze in disbelief. The next minute, my staffer was rushing me back to my office.
Once I was in my office and we secured the door, I felt a different kind of burn — this time inside. Watching on TV, we saw white supremacists stroll past Capitol Police, untouched and unscathed. Just minutes after we had locked our door, the mob entered the House Rotunda. The rioters broke windows, sat in the House speaker’s office and invaded the Senate floor.
There was no way to avoid the comparison or to duck the obvious answer: Would this have happened if the rioters were there to fight for Black lives rather than white supremacy? We’ve been tear-gassed for much less, beaten for much less and shot at for much less. We’ve been assaulted by law enforcement for much less.
But it’s clear to me that top law enforcement leaders on Capitol Hill had little interest in preventing this attempted insurrection. Videos have emerged of police taking selfies with protesters, walking them down the stairs and even opening gates for them. The front line of officers were not in riot gear, they were not wearing gas masks, they were not holding guns loaded with rubber bullets. And, above all else, there were no police dogs.
We faced police dogs when we fought for justice for Mike Brown in Ferguson in 2014. There were police dogs at protests for Black lives this year, from the East Coast to the West. The president himself tweeted in May that the “most vicious dogs” awaited protesters standing up for Black lives at the White House.
But there were no police dogs awaiting the white supremacists who gathered outside the Capitol. It was no coincidence that this tool of racial control was absent Wednesday, as rioters carried the flag of the slave-catcher’s Confederacy — and its modern manifestation, the Trump flag — through the House Rotunda.
Many have said that what transpired on Wednesday was not America. They are wrong. This is the America that Black people know. To declare that this is not America is to deny the reality that Republican members of the U.S. House and Senate incited this coup by treasonously working to overturn the results of the presidential election. It’s to deny the fact that one of my senators, Josh Hawley, went out of his way to salute the white supremacists before their attempted coup. It’s to deny that he appropriated the sign of Black power, the raised fist, into a white-supremacist salute — a fist he has never raised at a march for Black lives because he has never shown up to one. It’s to deny that what my Republican colleagues call “fraud” actually refers to the valid votes of Black, brown and Indigenous voters across this country who, in the midst of a pandemic that disproportionately kills us, overcame voter suppression in all of its forms to deliver an election victory for Joe Biden and Kamala D. Harris.
This is America, and it will continue to be America, until white supremacy is dismantled. Justice starts at removing each and every representative who incited this insurrection. I’ve unveiled my first piece of legislation that would do just that. We cannot denounce white supremacy and allow its endorsers to continue serving in our government.
image courtesy of Tulsa World
More news, tweets, videos in the comments. This also serves as an open thread.
Sen. Bernie Sanders late Thursday implored President-elect Joe Biden and the incoming Democrat-controlled Congress to make a robust coronavirus relief bill containing $2,000 direct payments the “first order of business” upon taking power, warning that failure to quickly deliver real material aid in the midst of devastating crises could lead to electoral backlash on the scale of the 2010 midterms.
“Remember what happened in 2010? Democrats got wiped out,” Sanders (I-Vt.), the incoming chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said in an appearance on CNN Thursday evening. “They had the power, but they did not deliver for the American people.”
To avoid a repeat of 2010—when Republicans won control of the House and gained seats in the Senate, ending a brief period of unified Democratic control during the Obama presidency—Sanders said the new Congress must urgently pursue “an aggressive agenda that says we understand that millions of people… are lining up in their cars in order to get emergency food, people can’t pay their medical bills, people are going deeper and deeper into debt, people are facing eviction.”
“We have to act and act now,” Sanders said, arguing that Democrats must be “bold in a way that we have not seen since FDR in the 1930s.”
“The first order of business, by the way,” the Vermont senator continued, “is to pass an emergency Covid-19 bill which, among many other things, says to working-class Americans, ‘We know you’re in pain, and we’re gonna get you a $2,000 check… We are on your side.'”
Watch:
"Let me just be very clear as the incoming chairman of the Senate Budget Committee: Remember what happened in 2010. Democrats got wiped out. They had the power, but they did not deliver for the American people. We must have an aggressive agenda." @BernieSanders #ChairmanSanders pic.twitter.com/QOB7rWwPrS
— People for Bernie (@People4Bernie) January 8, 2021
Sanders’ remarks came days after Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won their runoff races in Georgia, positioning Democrats to take control of the U.S. Senate by the narrowest possible margin.
The Democratic victories in Georgia were credited in part to a last-minute push for $2,000 direct payments in the days leading up to the pivotal runoffs, an effort led by Sanders and members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
While Senate Republicans ultimately blocked Sanders’ attempt to force a vote on a House-passed bill that would have provided one-time $2,000 payments to most Americans, Warnock and Ossoff both embraced the checks on the campaign trail and slammed their GOP opponents for standing in the way of desperately needed relief. President-elect Joe Biden also backed the demand, promising that the election of Warnock and Ossoff would “put an end to the block in Washington on that $2,000 stimulus check.”
Following the Democrats’ victories, soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters Wednesday that “one of the first things that I want to do when our new senators are seated is deliver the $2,000 checks to the American families.”
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that “it’s unclear how quickly Congress could actually vote on the checks. That depends on when the elections in Georgia are certified, which could be delayed by GOP challenges, making the timing uncertain.”
The certification deadline for Georgia counties is January 15, and the state deadline is January 22—two days after Biden’s inauguration.
“Additionally, it’s not clear whether the House and Senate would vote on the checks as stand-alone legislation, or as part of a larger package that could also include items like state and local aid and an extension of unemployment benefits,” the Post noted. “Congressional aides cautioned that discussions with the Biden team over how to proceed were in early stages.”
More news, tweets, videos in the comments. TGIF!
Benny’s Bar & Buds is Open.
Niño is one of the new bud tenders/bar backs.
See you in the comments. Play music if you like.
The GA special election is being held today and the polls close at 7ET / 6CT / 5 MT / 4 PT.
The stakes are high for the election. Alex Seitz-Wald of NBC News writes:
The stakes are clear, but the outcome is a tossup in Georgia’s twin Senate runoff elections Tuesday that will determine control of the Senate and the launch trajectory of President-Elect Joe Biden’s incoming administration.
Both parties have pulled out all the stops in the monumental clash between Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock and Republicans Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. Almost half a billion dollars has been spent on TV, radio and digital advertising since the November general election alone, easily making these the most expensive Senate races in history, and both Biden and outgoing President Donald Trump campaigned in the state Monday.
Many pollsters sat out the race as they take stock of misses in November, but experts and limited polling all point to close contests that will come down which party can do a better job turning out its voters.
“Georgia, the whole nation is looking to you,” Biden, the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state in decades, said at an Atlanta rally Monday.
What are some things to be looking for? The Atlanta Constitution-Journal suggests the following:
The polls are set to close at 7 p.m. ET on Election Day, and that’s when ballot counting can begin. Absentee ballots must be received by the close of polls to be counted. Military and overseas ballots postmarked by Tuesday and received by Friday will be counted, and absentee voters also have until Friday to fix any problems so their votes can be counted.
No ballots, including absentee ballots received in advance of Election Day, can be counted until the polls close. But a state election board rule requires county election officials to begin processing absentee ballots — verifying signatures on the outer envelope, opening the envelopes and scanning the ballots — before Election Day. That should speed things up on Election Night. Still, some absentee ballots received by mail or in drop boxes up until 7 p.m. on Election Day will still need to be processed.
WILL WE KNOW THE WINNER ON ELECTION NIGHT?
Just like in November, it’s possible Americans will go to bed without knowing who won. All indicators point to the likelihood of very tight margins in both races.
Media organizations, including The Associated Press, often declare winners on Election Night based on the results that are in, voter surveys and other political data.
But in a close race, more of the vote may need to be counted before the AP can call a winner.
Additionally, folks will be looking at certain counties, and especially at African-American turnout. Targetsmart, a polling firm NBC News is partnering with to examine the early vote posted this tweet last night:
How have Dems built an advantage in the early vote? Historic turnout from African-American voters. They increased their share of the early vote by 2.9 pts relative to the general election. White college voters increase by 0.1 pts. Meanwhile, white non-college turnout has lagged. pic.twitter.com/pABIJ6Xhkn
— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) January 5, 2021
Politico reports that the Biden camp is skeptical of the Dems prevailing there.
Privately, Biden’s team does not expect to win the races, according to Democratic officials, but they are more optimistic about their chances than they were weeks ago. Though the president-elect narrowly won the state in November, they attribute that to a powerful anti-Trump sentiment that did not translate down the ballot. Perdue received about 88,000 more votes than Ossoff, and the top two Republicans combined got more than 636,000 votes than Warnock in the special election.
Makes one wonder what the internal polling for the campaigns looks like.
It's @GabrielSterling! 3,093,376 early in person+absentee votes cast before Election Day, as of latest update.
Columbia County issues – looks like the county didn't fully do Logic and Accuracy testing. Couple polls open will stay open mins later.
A Tift Co poll open until 7:40
— stephen fowler covers Georgia's election! (@stphnfwlr) January 5, 2021
AJC Runoff Election Results will be posted beginning at 7:30 p.m. NYT will be following it (based on the AP). MSNBC (who will bring out Steve Kornacki), CNN, and TYT also will have special coverage.
https://youtu.be/y5srrSSXAY8
Let’s go Ossoff and Warnock!
Update: courtesy AP via NYT:
This will be a reason for great rejoicing. We may see Julian reunited with his family in short order.
Open Thread Jan.4, 2021
Happy New Year to everyone. This year may be crazier than last year based on the problems that are being carried over from last year so i dont have much optimism for a fresh start to the new year like normal.
One little tid bit locally
A pharmacist accused of tampering with over 500 doses of COVID-19 vaccine at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton was arrested Thursday.
Grafton police said the pharmacist, a Grafton resident, removed 57 vials from a refrigerator and left them out overnight last week. They said the man knew this would render the vaccines “useless” and make people who received them believe they were vaccinated when they were not.
Each vial contained about 10 doses of vaccine. Aurora discarded more than 500 doses and Thursday said it has determined 57 people were given less-effective or ineffective vaccines.
Police recommended felony charges of recklessly endangering safety, adulterating a prescription drug, and criminal damage to property. They estimated the cost of ruined vaccine at $8,000 to $11,000.
Police said they are still investigating the man’s motive and did not release his name. He is being held at the Ozaukee County Jail.
The FBI and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration were also investigating, police said.
Jail records show a Steven Brandenburg, 46, was booked Thursday on similar preliminary charges — criminal damage to property and second-degree recklessly endangering safety, both felonies.
Healthcare officials dont know what side effects the 57 people inoculated could have due to this.
Another Wi traditional drink after a long night out(for those who did) a Bloody Mary( It can be made with or W/O alcohol.
Daily Poster’s 10 Stats That Will Blow Your Mind
Read these ten stats related to the $2K checks and then you decide.
1. The total cost of $2,000 checks ($465 billion) is less than half the amount that American billionaires have made during the pandemic ($1 trillion). The total cost of the checks is less than the amount that just 16 American billionaires increased their net worth by during the pandemic ($471 billion).
2. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk gained more wealth during the pandemic ($158 billion) than Congress just authorized for additional unemployment benefits for millions of Americans ($120 billion).
3. Jeff Bezos’s personal wealth increased more every second of 2020 ($2,800) than Congress is considering giving Americans who are facing eviction, starvation and bankruptcy ($2,000).
4. Congressional lawmakers are being paid $3,300 of government money every week to come up with ways to block $2,000 checks to millions of Americans.
5. It took Congress less than a month to pass legislation giving a $700 billion bailout to bank executives during the financial crisis. It has taken Congress more than 8 months to even seriously consider a far less expensive bill to give $2,000 checks to millions of Americans during this economic crisis.
6. A $2,000 survival check would give the average soldier more money than the proposed 3 percent military pay increase that is included in defense legislation that Sens. Bernie Sanders and Ed Markey are filibustering in order to force a vote on the survival checks.
7. The richest 5 percent of Americans received more in Trump tax cuts in 2020 ($145 billion) than Congress is spending on increased unemployment benefits for millions of Americans during the economic crisis ($120 billion).
8. In 2016, “children, elderly, disabled people, and students made up around 70 percent of the poor,” according to the People’s Policy Project. Unlike unemployment benefits, $2,000 checks would help them.
9. About 60 percent of Georgia households make less than $75,000, meaning Georgia Republican senators allowing $2,000 checks to be blocked would deny aid to roughly 2 million of their state’s households as they run for reelection.
10. As Republicans try to block the $2,000 check legislation, a new national survey found that 78 percent of Americans support it, even as some pundits insist that the proposal is “divisive.”
News, tweets, videos in the comments section. Last Hump Day in 2020!
