Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

The Washington Post has an award- worthy special report on how Sore Loser Donald "Mango Mussolini" Trump and his band of incompetent sociopaths bungled the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  It's not a stretch to say this is what is meant by "a first draft of history."  A brief excerpt summarizes the main source of the problem that's caused so much unnecessary death and suffering:

The catastrophe began with Trump’s initial refusal to take seriously the threat of a once-in-a-century pandemic. But, as officials detailed, it has been compounded over time by a host of damaging presidential traits — his skepticism of science, impatience with health restrictions, prioritization of personal politics over public safety, undisciplined communications, chaotic management style, indulgence of conspiracies, proclivity toward magical thinking, allowance of turf wars and flagrant disregard for the well-being of those around him.

“There isn’t a single light-switch moment where the government has screwed up and we’re going down the wrong path,” said Kyle McGowan, who resigned in August as chief of staff at the CDC under Redfield, the center’s director. “It was a series of multiple decisions that showed a lack of desire to listen to the actual scientists and also a lack of leadership in general, and that put us on this progression of where we’re at today.”

Read it or bookmark it, please.  It's a damning, detailed history of a major part of Mango Mussolini's real "legacy" of death and catastrophic destruction.

Sticking with the Post, here's part of their summary of what's in the COVID-19 relief package expected to pass Congress today:

• The legislation includes $600 stimulus checks per person, including adults and children. That means a family of four would receive $2,400, up to a certain income threshold.
• The size of the payment decreases for people who earned more than $75,000 in the 2019 tax year. The check disappears altogether for those who earned more than $99,000. [snip]
• Congress will extend unemployment benefits of up to $300 per week. The benefit could kick in as early as Dec. 27 and run at least through March 14.
• An unemployment benefits program for contract and gig workers, which is set to expire at the end of the year, would be extended, too. [snip]
  The bill includes more than $284 billion for first and second forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans, expanded PPP eligibility for nonprofit organizations and news outlets, and modifications to the program to serve small businesses, nonprofits and independent restaurants. [snip]
  
• The agreement extends until Jan. 31 a moratorium on evictions that was slated to expire at the end of the year. The incoming Biden administration can extend the deadline further.
• The bill includes $25 billion in emergency assistance to renters, although it remains unclear how the money will be distributed.
  
  

The bill has some Republican dog's breakfast stuff in it, too, including more money for Mango Mussolini's border wall, tax breaks for three- martini business lunches, and zero funding for state and local governments struggling to cope with the fallout from the pandemic.  One other provision worth noting (and kudos to one of the best in the Senate, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-OH):

 

Always grateful for @SenSherrodBrown who fought to let ppl use earnings from 2019 to determine this year's EITC and (part of) Child Tax Credit. This helps workers whose wages fell in 2020 due to pandemic to get larger refund consistent with earnings from prior years.

— Amy Hanauer (@amyhanauer) December 21, 2020

Meanwhile, another risible effort by the Elite Strike Force Power Rangers to de- legitimatize the overwhelming victory of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is on its way to the Supreme Court:

Undeterred by dismissals and admonitions from judges, President Donald Trump’s campaign continued with its unprecedented efforts to overturn the results of the Nov 3. election Sunday, saying it had filed a new petition with the Supreme Court.

The petition seeks to reverse a trio of Pennsylvania Supreme Court cases having to do with mail-in ballots and asks the court to reject voters’ will and allow the [Republican] Pennsylvania General Assembly to pick its own slate of electors.

We have a musical response to that effort.

Watch the skies!

Jupiter and Saturn are due to converge in their orbits on Monday, appearing as a double planet in the night sky — the first such occurrence in almost 800 years.

The two planets have been near one another throughout the year, according to Rice University astronomer Patrick Hartigan. They will reach their closest approach, passing within 0.1 degrees of each other during the winter solstice on December 21, the longest night of the year.

The two celestial bodies pass one another about every 20 years, according to the Mount Wilson Observatory, in Los Angeles County, in what is referred to as a “great conjunction,” because they are the two largest planets.

But a passage as close as the one expected Monday has happened only a handful of times in the last two millennia. And two of those occurrences, one in 769 and one in 1623, happened too close to the sun to be seen with the unaided eye.

The last time a person could clearly see this event was on March 4, 1226.

As usual, we recommend a visit to Infidel 753's link round-up for a really comprehensive array of links to posts of interest around the Internet. You can thank us later!