We have about six hours of voting left in the quarterfinals for our Duke of Dukes competition.
These are some choice match-ups you won’t want to miss:
Cast your vote here by 6 p.m.
More than a dozen states are now expecting far fewer doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine next week, with no explanation from the Trump administration for why the shipments have been cut.
A group of Republicans including the Georgia state party, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) and David Perdue (R-GA) reacted to a legal defeat Thursday by quickly lodging another lawsuit in federal court attacking a different part of the state’s election system.
Continue reading “Republicans Attempt To Lay Groundwork To Get GA Ballots Tossed With New Lawsuit”
President Donald Trump has continued a pressure campaign directed at Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) to illegally overturn election results in the Peach State, even as the Republican governor has said those false claims have incited threats on his life and have turned his wife and three daughters into targets for angry conspiracy theorists.
Continue reading “Trump Again Targets Kemp As Georgia Guv Reveals Death Threats Aimed At His Family”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority said Friday the question of whether President Trump’s anti-immigrant apportionment policy is legal was not yet ready for its review. Continue reading “SCOTUS Keeps Alive Trump’s Hopes For His Anti-Immigrant Census Policy”
Members of Congress will be among the first to receive the coronavirus vaccine in the coming days under the banner of continuity-of-government requirements as laid out by intelligence experts.
Capitol physician Brian Monahan said in a letter to members of Congress and their staff on Thursday that the White House’s National Security Council told him Congress would be designated “a specific number of COVID-19 vaccine doses to meet long-standing requirements for continuity of government operations.”
Monahan said that once members of Congress are vaccinated, “continuity-essential” staff members will be next in line. Remaining doses will then be made available to other staff members “until the small vaccine supply is exhausted.”
Spouses and family members will not be eligible to receive a vaccine from the congressional supply, the physician said.
The physician urged lawmakers not to delay getting the vaccine, even after President Donald Trump suggested on Sunday said he would not rush to get the COVID-19 vaccine, also tweeting at the time that people working in the White House should receive the vaccine “somewhat later in the program, unless specifically necessary.”
“My recommendation to you is absolutely unequivocal: there is no reason why you should defer receiving this vaccine,” Monahan said. “The benefit far exceeds any small risk.”
Vice President Mike Pence received the COVID-19 vaccine on live television early Friday, touting the vaccine’s rapid development and the beginnings of its distribution as a “medical miracle.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) praised the vaccine in a floor speech Monday, before adding: “I will not skip the line.”
But both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) issued statements on Thursday confirming they would take the vaccine in the coming days with McConnell urging Americans to have faith in the vaccine and citing “government continuity requirements” for being offered the shot early.
Pelosi similarly noted that “with confidence in the vaccine” and at the direction of the attending physician she would get her first round of the vaccination in the next few days.
“It is imperative that we ensure that the vaccine will be free and delivered in a fair, equitable manner to as many Americans as soon as possible,” she added.
Here’s the most relevant part of Monahan’s letter, released by Pelosi’s office:
Availability of Pfizer/BioNTech COVID19 Vaccine for US Congress Continuity of Government Purpose
The Food and Drug Administration granted an Emergency Use Authorization to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID19 vaccine on December 12, 2020. I have been notified by the National Security Council that consistent with Presidential Policy Directive 40 (2016), Congress and the Supreme Court, along with Executive Branch agencies, will be provided with a specific number of COVID19 vaccine doses to meet long-standing requirements for continuity of government operations. These requirements are focused on essential operations and personnel. PPD-40 establishes continuity requirements for the Federal Government and states that continuity actions for the Executive Branch should be undertaken in parallel with the Legislative and Judicial branches of government. The small number of COVID19 vaccine doses we will be provided reflects a fraction of the first tranche of vaccines as it is distributed throughout the country.
The following are some questions and answer format that may be helpful to inform your individual judgment about participating in this voluntary vaccination. My recommendation to you is absolutely unequivocal: there is no reason why you should defer receiving this vaccine. The benefit far exceeds any small risk.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence was vaccinated for COVID-19 on Friday in a live-television event aimed at reassuring Americans the vaccine is safe. He celebrated the shot as “a medical miracle” that could eventually contain the raging coronavirus pandemic.
Pence, the highest profile official yet to receive the vaccine, has taken an increasingly visible role in highlighting the safety of the shot, including touring a vaccine production facility this week. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell both said Thursday that they will get vaccinated in the next few days. President-elect Joe Biden expects to receive his shot as soon as next week.
Continue reading “Pence Gets COVID-19 Vaccination On Live TV”
White House aides stepped in to stop President Donald Trump on Thursday from issuing a statement calling for much larger stimulus payments to millions of Americans in a move that would have undermined his own treasury secretary, the Washington Post reported late Thursday.
Two people with knowledge of the exchange told the Post that on a Thursday afternoon phone call to allies Trump said that he believes stimulus payments in the next relief package should be “at least” $1,200 per person and possibly as big as $2,000 per person — a drastic increase from the stimulus package underway in Congress after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin released a proposal last week calling for stimulus payments of $600 per person.
“There are a lot of people who like checks, including the President, and there’s a lot of support both among Republicans and Democrats,” Mnuchin told reporters in a video conference last week of the proposal which also included far less in federal unemployment benefits.
But the number on the proposed checks was apparently not big enough for Trump, who was in the middle of formally drafting his demand for the larger payments on Thursday when White House officials told him the effort could wreck negotiations over the economic relief package, according to the Post.
One person who heard the exchange described the aides as “frantic,” suggesting that the move would blow up negotiations.
The aides successfully discouraged Trump from calling for the larger stimulus payments which will likely he his last major piece of economic legislation before leaving office next month, the Post said. The first round of stimulus checks earlier this year featured the President’s name.
The demand for larger stimulus checks would likely have ballooned the package’s total to well over $1 trillion which Republicans in Congress have said is their ceiling.
The $600 checks are just half of what House Democrats approved in legislation this summer that included another round of $1,200 stimulus payments that were shelled out to Americans earlier this year.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) released a plan earlier this month that would have sent no additional stimulus checks. A $600 check per person was added back into negotiations following a push led by Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
White House spokesman Ben Williamson issued a statement to the Post regarding the revelation about Trump’s close call in making the demand, saying, the President had heard from Americans who are “hurting through no fault of their own, and he’s made clear he wants the next round of relief to include stimulus checks at a significant number.”
“We’re working with Congress to settle on an agreement that can pass as soon as possible,” he added.
The last round of matches was a bloodbath. Perhaps most notably, the expected champ of the “Sorry For (Tea) Partying” region, Rob Ford, was absolutely demolished by an underdog, Dinesh D’Souza. Our tight Tristate Area match-up between Anthony Weiner and Chris Christie saw Weiner squeak through. And another tight match between the armed Dick Cheney and Jack Abramoff saw Abramoff, a legend, gunned down by the former VP.
Now we land in interesting territory — the quarterfinals, which will determine the winner for each region.
You will decide.
Winning more than 88 percent of the vote, Duke Cunningham beat out James Traficant by a landslide, putting the OG Golden Duke legatee — lava lamps and all — in a head-to-head match up with Scooter Libby, another popular contender among the 3,000 of you who voted in the last round. Libby — the notorious Bush-era chief of staff convicted for obstruction of justice but promptly granted clemency before he could flip on his former White House colleagues — demolished Jeff Gannon with 77 percent of the vote.
The disgraced former governor of Illinois remains a fan favorite, beating out Mark Foley, infamous for his homophobia despite his flirtatious texts to pages, with 62 percent of the vote. Now we’ll know what behavior readers hate more — shooting your friend in the face and forcing that friend to apologize or selling the Senate seat of the first Black man elected as president.
This is going to be a tough one. Anthony Weiner beat out the beloved Chris Christie with nearly 55 percent of the vote. We guess there’s nothing quite as salacious, and maddening, as a good Twitter sexting scandal with such massive political ramifications. Why Dinesh D’Souza is still in the running and Rob Ford is not appalls us. Ford was the most brazen politician of our generation — twice caught smoking crack cocaine on camera and still refusing to resign from his job as the mayor of Toronto. Campaign finance fraud is child’s play in comparison to that kind of party!
Rudy won big against the evangelical Pandora’s box that is Jerry Falwell, Jr., pulling off 77 percent of the vote. That pits Rudy up against Paul Manafort ina fascinating match-up. Each is a Ukraine-connected GOP operative who tried to pull a series of astoundingly shady moves to get Trump elected. But who did it best? Will America’s wettest mayor, Giuliani — leering, aggressive and googly-eyed — bring the right sort of freneticism to win the day? Or will it be the comparatively chill Paul Manafort? He may be the more personally damaged, thanks to charges stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe. But his $15,000 ostrich skin coat is arguably his most egregious crime.
As the lights begin to flicker on President Donald Trump’s first and only term in the Oval Office, he and his political lowers are spending their final days apportioning gifts to those who’ve served them well.
