Well, today is the day some guy is supposed to pull off the mask and yell TADA! Then Biden will announce that that inaugural thing was just for laughs and hand over the keys. It’s a shame we have to put up with such nonsense, but here we are. I predict a Great Fizzle. We are ready this time, and I think the conspirators in the police and Guard have been exposed or are too terrified to show their traitorous faces.
In the meantime, there is Good News!
GOOD NEWS ABOUT CONGRESS
With Congress back in blue hands, they are doing heroic work. And they are doing it alone.
Late last night, the House passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. This act was passed by the House in the previous Congress, but met a grim reaper death in the Senate.
The policing reform bill aims to bolster police accountability and prevent problem officers from moving from one department to another by creating a national registry to track those with checkered records. It also would end certain police practices that have been under scrutiny after the deaths of Black Americans in the last year.
One Republican voted to do the right thing, but then he noticed his mistake and corrected the record. He almost was a decent person, but quickly backed out.
Passage in the Senate will require 10 Republicans or abolishment of the filibuster. However, House Leader Steny Hoyer says "I am confident that with Karen Bass' leadership, we are going to pass it through the Senate," Either he knows 10 Republicans or he has some foreshadowing about the filibuster. Hopefully he’s correct.
But they weren’t done yet. They had to stay late to get all of Thursday’s work done so they could retire to safety today.
Then the House passed HR1, the For the People Act. This will address corruption and clean elections. The link above goes to Congressman John Sarbanes’ web site where he discusses what the act is all about. Again, this will require 10 decent Republicans or nuking the filibuster in the Senate.
Then the House closed up shop for a day for their own safety because cults.
As for SCOTUS, they aren’t on the side of good, so we’ll have to see what happens next when we get there, but I’m so proud of our Democrats doing real good work for all Americans. I’m quite encouraged for the immediate future.
GOOD NEWS ABOUT THE VACCINE
This news just keeps getting better. We have a new provider and competing companies are cooperating to get the vaccine created and shipped.
Biden promises enough coronavirus vaccine for ‘every adult in America’ by the end of May
In spite of a couple of QOP asshat governors who are trying to screw it all up for everybody, things look really good for vaccines.
President Biden, facing mounting pressure on various fronts to gain control of the coronavirus pandemic, placed even more of his administration’s hopes in a “stepped-up” vaccine process, promising Tuesday that there will be enough coronavirus vaccine doses for “every adult in America” by the end of May — a two-month acceleration of his previous projection of July.
Biden stands by May timeline for vaccines for all US adults
When I scheduled myself, it was harder than getting tickets to Comicon, but things are definitely looking up. Here is the CDC’s website
VaccineFinder.org
I tested it today and learned that not only can I get a shot right now — today — I can choose from several locations near me, some even walkable. In many places, restrictions are coming down. Many places are allowing anyone 55 and older to get a shot. In some places, there is more vaccine then there are arms. Here is New York:
Can you believe we might actually have a summer? I can’t wait!
Don’t have your vaccine yet, but want to know if anyone in your bubble tested positive? There’s an app for that.
More than 160 million Americans have the ability to get pop-up notifications from local health authorities when they’ve personally spent time near someone who later tested positive for the coronavirus.
But exposure notifications only work if you and the people around you turn them on. Yes, you!
The alerts use software built by Apple and Google into iPhones and Android devices to detect when people (or the phones they’re holding) get into close contact with each other. That might sound like a privacy invasion, but they figured out how to track encounters between people in a way that’s anonymous — and doesn’t store your location — by using the Bluetooth wireless technology in phones.
You tell ‘em, Joe
Guess what? No flu this year
The flu killed nearly 200 children last season. This time, 1 has died.
The flu is circulating at such low levels that officials know of only one child in the United States who has died of it this flu season, a striking deviation from the dozens of pediatric deaths in other recent years.
This season’s death toll is a marked decline from the 2019-2020 flu season, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 195 children died of the flu. While influenza typically keeps circulating in March and April, experts say a combination of coronavirus precautions and existing immunity has so far nearly eradicated infection levels and, by extension, deaths.
GOOD NEWS ABOUT THE RESCUE PLAN
The Dems have the votes to pass the stimulus with zero QOP votes, albeit without the $15 minimum wage and with fewer people getting checks than we wanted, but the vote will pass.
Senate Democrats still finishing their COVID relief bill, agree to income limits for 3rd stimulus check
Despite every Democrats' huge leverage because all their votes are needed, none have so far threatened to sink the legislation if they don't get their way. All are aware of how that would rattle Biden's presidency and Democrats' ability to be productive during this Congress.
Dr Fauci Is Giving His Coronavirus Model to the Smithsonian
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci’s donation of his 3-D virus model to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History comes as museums are working to document the Covid-19 era.
The National Museum of American History said its curators had been collecting items from the pandemic for a future exhibition, called “In Sickness and in Health,” that will examine “more than 200 years of medicine in the U.S. including Covid-19.” The museum has also been accepting digital submissions from the public through the platform “Stories of 2020.”
GOOD NEWS ABOUT JUSTICE
There is so much activity about justice being served that there is an app to track them. Litigation Tracker: Pending Criminal and Civil Cases Against Donald Trump
On both the criminal and civil litigation fronts, former President Donald Trump faces a bevy of lawsuits and investigations, with more cases likely to follow. Some are civil suits stemming from his pre-presidential business dealings. Others are defamation claims from women he allegedly assaulted. More still are criminal probes and civil actions that scrutinize his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election
HR1, the For The People act is what is needed to fix our broken democracy.
The For the People Act Can Restore Our Democracy
Four years of baseless and unrelenting attacks by former President Trump have certainly weakened the public’s faith in our democracy.
H.R. 1, the For the People Act. This sweeping measure tackling voting, ethics and corruption was introduced in the House days before the January insurrection, and is set to pass in the House of Representatives [March 3]. It will soon be introduced in the Senate as S. 1, signifying its importance to Democrats in both chambers (it passed the House last session of Congress but was blocked in the Senate and denied a vote by then-Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell). The legislation represents the most far-reaching, comprehensive set of democracy reforms in a generation.
The bill would ensure our elections are accurate, secure and accessible by setting standardized rules for mail-in voting, expanding early voting and making it universal across states, implementing universal automatic, online, and same-day voter registration and eliminating partisan gerrymandering, while cracking down on voter intimidation and voter suppression tactics.
QOP IN DISARRAY!
'Ticked off' Republicans vote against Marjorie Taylor Greene after third attempt to adjourn House
Washington Post correspondent Paul Kane noted that Republicans are getting "ticked off" at the repeated stunts.
According to Kane, all Republicans voted with Greene on her first attempt to adjourn the House. But by the third vote on Wednesday, at least 18 Republican lawmakers had defected.
"She's increasingly irritating folks in her own conference," Kane explained. "Which, of course, she is fine with doing, she doesn't care."
Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina is suddenly facing a cascade of bad news that threatens to undermine the rising GOP star just as he begins to troll his way to the top. Amid a string of sexual misconduct allegations that resurfaced last week, Cawthorn has been accused of lying about the car crash that left him partially paralyzed years ago.
GOOD NEWS CONFETTI
Google says goodbye to individual user tracking
Google made clear Wednesday that after it finished phasing out third-party cookies over the next year or so, it won't introduce other forms of identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web.
Why it matters: The move comes amid increased scrutiny over the way tech giants use consumer data to reinforce their dominance, particularly around personalized advertising.
Details: At this point, most of the advertising industry is preparing for third-party tracking cookies, which allow advertisers to follow users with personalized ads from one website to another, to be phased out entirely.
Louvre recovers 16th-century armor, four decades after theft
The Louvre museum in Paris said Wednesday that it had recovered a set of gold and silver-encrusted Renaissance-era armor nearly 40 years after it was stolen.
A military antiques expert alerted police after being called in to give advice regarding an inheritance in Bordeaux in January and becoming suspicious about the luxurious helmet and body armor in the family's collection.
Police later identified the items from a database of stolen artworks as having been taken from the Louvre on May 31, 1983, in circumstances that remain a mystery.
This kid is awesome.
Well that’s it for me until April. The news just keeps getting better and better.