Trump has replaced the top leadership in the Pentagon with loyalists that will follow orders…why, wonder why…. with only two months left in his administration….
Bloomberg Opinion Today: Dog prices are rising as fast as Bitcoin, points out Andrea Felsted: < chart > Rescue animals are cheaper and love you just as much. Anyway, all pets are expensive in the long run, though they are also usually worth it. You just have to figure out what Andrea calls your Return on Invested Cat.
President Donald Trump’s mounting spitefulness toward allies within his own party has unnerved Republicans fretting about the prospect of a Trump 2024 bid.
In recent weeks, Trump has started attacking any Republican who has not fully embraced the false narrative that he won the 2020 election, leaving party officials, lawmakers and donors wondering about the repercussions they might face for not immediately endorsing a Trump 2024 White House run.
Other Republicans are growing concerned about an unfair scenario in which donors may feel pressured to support Trump right out of the gate — not because they believe he’s the best candidate, but to simply avoid drawing the ex-president’s ire.
Meanwhile, Trump has yet to make a decision on his own future. As recently as Wednesday, the president was mulling the idea of scheduling a campaign announcement on Jan. 20 to counterprogram Biden’s inauguration, according to two people familiar with the conversations.
He has also discussed an announcement ahead of Georgia’s two Senate runoff elections on Jan. 5, believing his base’s excitement would increase turnout in the all-important contests.
✁
The result is a party in a holding pattern — one incapable of starting its long-term planning for 2022 or beyond until Trump makes up his mind, according to interviews with 13 current or former administration officials, party operatives and Republican donors.
And even if Trump does make a swift decision to run, the GOP will then be beholden to the ex-president’s whims.
“If he starts holding grudges against sitting officeholders and donors who decline to throw their support behind him, it is going to put Republicans in a bind,” said Jon Thompson, a former Trump aide who left the president’s reelection campaign earlier this year.
In the “Leftists won’t be talking about Covid after the election” category, we have….
~
The U.S. Has Passed the Hospital Breaking Point
A new statistic shows that health-care workers are running out of space to treat COVID-19 patients.
✁
It is clearest in a single simple statistic, recently observed by Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
For weeks, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 had been about 3.5 percent of the number of cases reported a week earlier. But, he noticed, that relationship has broken down. A smaller and smaller proportion of cases is appearing in hospitalization totals.
“This is a real thing. It’s not an artifact. It’s not data problems,” Jha told us.
Why would this number change? As hospitals run out of beds, they could be forced to alter the standards for what kinds of patients are admitted with COVID-19.
The average American admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 today is probably more acutely ill than someone admitted with COVID-19 in the late summer. This isn’t because doctors or nurses are acting out of cruelty or malice, but simply because they are running out of hospital beds and must tighten the criteria on who can be admitted.
Many states have reported that their hospitals are running out of room and restricting which patients can be admitted. In South Dakota, a network of 37 hospitals reported sending more than 150 people home with oxygen tanks to keep beds open for even sicker patients. A hospital in Amarillo, Texas, reported that COVID-19 patients are waiting in the emergency room for beds to become available. Some patients in Laredo, Texas, were sent to hospitals in San Antonio—until that city stopped accepting transfers. Elsewhere in Texas, patients were sent to Oklahoma, but hospitals there have also tightened their admission criteria.
California certified its presidential election Friday and appointed 55 electors pledged to vote for Democrat Joe Biden, officially handing him the Electoral College majority needed to win the White House.
Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s formal approval of Biden’s win in the state brought his tally of pledged electors so far to 279, according to a tally by The Associated Press. That’s just over the 270 threshold for victory.
These steps in the election are often ignored formalities. But the hidden mechanics of electing a U.S. president have drawn new scrutiny this year as President Donald Trump continues to deny Biden’s victory and pursues increasingly specious legal strategies aimed at overturning the results before they are finalized.
Although it’s been apparent for weeks that Biden won the presidential election, his accrual of more than 270 electors is the first step toward the White House, said Edward B. Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University.
“It is a legal milestone and the first milestone that has that status,” Foley said. “Everything prior to that was premised on what we call projections.”
The electors named Friday will meet Dec. 14, along with counterparts in each state, to formally vote for the next president.
Most states have laws binding their electors to the winner of the popular vote in their state, measures that were upheld by a Supreme Court decision this year. There have been no suggestions that any of Biden’s pledged electors would contemplate not voting for him.
How John Adams Got Over Political Defeat Few presidents ever had more reason to sulk after an election than John Adams in 1800. The election took some time to call, in an era when states didn’t count their electoral votes on the same day. Adams lost by eight electoral votes after a long and bitter tally. Astute observers understood that Adams had been denied roughly 12 electoral votes—enough to flip the result—because of the votes given to the slave states through the notorious “three-fifths clause” of the Constitution. Twelve years after he left Washington, Adams sent a letter to his old rival, offering Jefferson best wishes. Jefferson wrote back immediately, remembering the long years in which “we were fellow laborers in the same cause.” The friendship that Adams and Jefferson formed in their old age showed the world that Americans could lose gracefully and find comfort in their commitment to shared principles. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-john-adams-got-over-political-defeat-11607093743
Some of the GOP, apparently do place Country over Party.
~
Republicans at the national level have mostly stayed quiet during President Trump’s monthlong baseless crusade against November’s election results. But at the state and county level, it has been a different story.
Local election administrators, most of whom are elected along partisan lines, are in charge of the nuts and bolts of voting in America’s decentralized elections system.
In many cases, it has been Republican officials who have held firm in their position that the results were not tainted by a widespread cheating scheme, despite a pressure campaign by the president unlike any in American history.
“This was unprecedented scrutiny,” said Martha Kropf, an elections administration expert at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. “For two reasons: the amount of pressure that Donald Trump has been putting on the election officials, but also for the unprecedented amount of things those officials had to do to prepare for this election.”
The officials Trump is targeting oversaw a shift toward more voting options this year to reduce the risk of people getting sick while voting during the pandemic.
For that reason, many see the president’s campaign against the election’s legitimacy as salt in the wounds of officials, many of whom have been working 12- to 16-hour days for months, in some instances seeing colleagues sickened and even killed by COVID-19 on the job.
“How un-American and how undemocratic it is that the actual individuals that are responsible for the process of this most sacred democratic institution of elections are the ones getting the blowback here,” said Chris Krebs, the Republican cybersecurity and election security official fired by Trump, at a Washington Post event this week.
Cheapskate0 almost 4 years ago
Best yet!
(Even if it is a month late)
pschearer Premium Member almost 4 years ago
I can’t wait to see how he plans to upstage the inauguration.
GiantShetlandPony almost 4 years ago
It could also be a coo coo clock as Trump is about as coo coo as they come.
feverjr Premium Member almost 4 years ago
Trump has replaced the top leadership in the Pentagon with loyalists that will follow orders…why, wonder why…. with only two months left in his administration….
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-army-christopher-miller-mark-esper-james-anderson-95f848b7cdaba116b7c09787edb4c839
William Robbins Premium Member almost 4 years ago
Did Stantis get that from Kip?
Bloomberg Opinion Today: Dog prices are rising as fast as Bitcoin, points out Andrea Felsted: < chart > Rescue animals are cheaper and love you just as much. Anyway, all pets are expensive in the long run, though they are also usually worth it. You just have to figure out what Andrea calls your Return on Invested Cat.
RobinHood almost 4 years ago
Time you left me standing there
Like a tree growing all alone
The wind just stripped me bare
Stripped me bare
Time the past has come and gone
The future’s far away
And now only lasts for one second, one second
Can you teach me ’bout tomorrow
And all the pain and sorrow, running free
‘Cause tomorrow’s just another day
And I don’t believe in time
Mark Bryan / Dean Felber / Darius Rucker / Jim Sonefeld
Silly Season almost 4 years ago
“Let them fight”
~
President Donald Trump’s mounting spitefulness toward allies within his own party has unnerved Republicans fretting about the prospect of a Trump 2024 bid.
In recent weeks, Trump has started attacking any Republican who has not fully embraced the false narrative that he won the 2020 election, leaving party officials, lawmakers and donors wondering about the repercussions they might face for not immediately endorsing a Trump 2024 White House run.
Other Republicans are growing concerned about an unfair scenario in which donors may feel pressured to support Trump right out of the gate — not because they believe he’s the best candidate, but to simply avoid drawing the ex-president’s ire.
Meanwhile, Trump has yet to make a decision on his own future. As recently as Wednesday, the president was mulling the idea of scheduling a campaign announcement on Jan. 20 to counterprogram Biden’s inauguration, according to two people familiar with the conversations.
He has also discussed an announcement ahead of Georgia’s two Senate runoff elections on Jan. 5, believing his base’s excitement would increase turnout in the all-important contests.
✁
The result is a party in a holding pattern — one incapable of starting its long-term planning for 2022 or beyond until Trump makes up his mind, according to interviews with 13 current or former administration officials, party operatives and Republican donors.
And even if Trump does make a swift decision to run, the GOP will then be beholden to the ex-president’s whims.
“If he starts holding grudges against sitting officeholders and donors who decline to throw their support behind him, it is going to put Republicans in a bind,” said Jon Thompson, a former Trump aide who left the president’s reelection campaign earlier this year.
~
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/03/trump-2024-election-republicans-442728
Silly Season almost 4 years ago
In the “Leftists won’t be talking about Covid after the election” category, we have….
~
The U.S. Has Passed the Hospital Breaking Point
A new statistic shows that health-care workers are running out of space to treat COVID-19 patients.
✁
It is clearest in a single simple statistic, recently observed by Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
For weeks, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 had been about 3.5 percent of the number of cases reported a week earlier. But, he noticed, that relationship has broken down. A smaller and smaller proportion of cases is appearing in hospitalization totals.
“This is a real thing. It’s not an artifact. It’s not data problems,” Jha told us.
Why would this number change? As hospitals run out of beds, they could be forced to alter the standards for what kinds of patients are admitted with COVID-19.
The average American admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 today is probably more acutely ill than someone admitted with COVID-19 in the late summer. This isn’t because doctors or nurses are acting out of cruelty or malice, but simply because they are running out of hospital beds and must tighten the criteria on who can be admitted.
Many states have reported that their hospitals are running out of room and restricting which patients can be admitted. In South Dakota, a network of 37 hospitals reported sending more than 150 people home with oxygen tanks to keep beds open for even sicker patients. A hospital in Amarillo, Texas, reported that COVID-19 patients are waiting in the emergency room for beds to become available. Some patients in Laredo, Texas, were sent to hospitals in San Antonio—until that city stopped accepting transfers. Elsewhere in Texas, patients were sent to Oklahoma, but hospitals there have also tightened their admission criteria.
~
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/12/the-worst-case-scenario-is-happening-hospitals-are-overwhelmed/617301/
RobinHood almost 4 years ago
Freakies, part of a balanced breakfast.
Silly Season almost 4 years ago
California certified its presidential election Friday and appointed 55 electors pledged to vote for Democrat Joe Biden, officially handing him the Electoral College majority needed to win the White House.
Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s formal approval of Biden’s win in the state brought his tally of pledged electors so far to 279, according to a tally by The Associated Press. That’s just over the 270 threshold for victory.
These steps in the election are often ignored formalities. But the hidden mechanics of electing a U.S. president have drawn new scrutiny this year as President Donald Trump continues to deny Biden’s victory and pursues increasingly specious legal strategies aimed at overturning the results before they are finalized.
Although it’s been apparent for weeks that Biden won the presidential election, his accrual of more than 270 electors is the first step toward the White House, said Edward B. Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University.
“It is a legal milestone and the first milestone that has that status,” Foley said. “Everything prior to that was premised on what we call projections.”
The electors named Friday will meet Dec. 14, along with counterparts in each state, to formally vote for the next president.
Most states have laws binding their electors to the winner of the popular vote in their state, measures that were upheld by a Supreme Court decision this year. There have been no suggestions that any of Biden’s pledged electors would contemplate not voting for him.
~
https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-elections-electoral-college-3e0b852c3cfadf853b08aecbfc3569fa
William Robbins Premium Member almost 4 years ago
How John Adams Got Over Political Defeat Few presidents ever had more reason to sulk after an election than John Adams in 1800. The election took some time to call, in an era when states didn’t count their electoral votes on the same day. Adams lost by eight electoral votes after a long and bitter tally. Astute observers understood that Adams had been denied roughly 12 electoral votes—enough to flip the result—because of the votes given to the slave states through the notorious “three-fifths clause” of the Constitution. Twelve years after he left Washington, Adams sent a letter to his old rival, offering Jefferson best wishes. Jefferson wrote back immediately, remembering the long years in which “we were fellow laborers in the same cause.” The friendship that Adams and Jefferson formed in their old age showed the world that Americans could lose gracefully and find comfort in their commitment to shared principles. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-john-adams-got-over-political-defeat-11607093743
Silly Season almost 4 years ago
Some of the GOP, apparently do place Country over Party.
~
Republicans at the national level have mostly stayed quiet during President Trump’s monthlong baseless crusade against November’s election results. But at the state and county level, it has been a different story.
Local election administrators, most of whom are elected along partisan lines, are in charge of the nuts and bolts of voting in America’s decentralized elections system.
In many cases, it has been Republican officials who have held firm in their position that the results were not tainted by a widespread cheating scheme, despite a pressure campaign by the president unlike any in American history.
“This was unprecedented scrutiny,” said Martha Kropf, an elections administration expert at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. “For two reasons: the amount of pressure that Donald Trump has been putting on the election officials, but also for the unprecedented amount of things those officials had to do to prepare for this election.”
The officials Trump is targeting oversaw a shift toward more voting options this year to reduce the risk of people getting sick while voting during the pandemic.
For that reason, many see the president’s campaign against the election’s legitimacy as salt in the wounds of officials, many of whom have been working 12- to 16-hour days for months, in some instances seeing colleagues sickened and even killed by COVID-19 on the job.
“How un-American and how undemocratic it is that the actual individuals that are responsible for the process of this most sacred democratic institution of elections are the ones getting the blowback here,” said Chris Krebs, the Republican cybersecurity and election security official fired by Trump, at a Washington Post event this week.
~
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/04/941284401/as-trumps-election-pressure-campaign-hits-republican-officials-some-hit-back
Wichita1.0 almost 4 years ago
Like the banana weights.
Redd Panda almost 4 years ago
I have to hope, the threat of a coup has fizzled out.
Havel almost 4 years ago
Napoleon XIV time.
Bradley Walker almost 4 years ago
I see by the old clock on the wall someone’s time is nearly up…
GiantShetlandPony almost 4 years ago
Every act Trump makes to make Biden’s start in office more difficult is just another act of treason against all of the USA.
As his whole family is complicate:
Trumps for jail 2021!
sbwagner almost 4 years ago
What is the over/under at the rally in GA today that trump starts talking about himself? I’m saying under 30 seconds.
librarian4hire almost 4 years ago
Mr. Stantis has been hanging out with Stephen Pastis.