1 in 1,000

Meteor Blades of Daily Kos quoted Elimy Cochrane of the New York Times who reported that the nasty guy signed the spending bill that provides some virus relief and funds the government through September. The signing was described as “abrupt” and “sudden.” Nobody expected him to sign and then he did. Blades went on to report the nasty guy demanded a list of changes to the bills, including raising the $600 relief checks to $2000. These demands will go nowhere – the Senate GOP isn’t going to raise the relief checks and we’re in the last week of this Congress. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, also quoted the NYT:

But [the nasty guy’s signing] also came after two critical unemployment programs lapsed, guaranteeing a delay in benefits for millions of unemployed Americans.

The states have to rework their computer systems to account for the lapse and restart, which could take a couple weeks. In some states recipients will have to reapply. Also, there was a date given for the end of federal benefits, which is now ten weeks instead of eleven. Joan McCarter of Kos has an overview. Ryan Struyk of CNN tweeted:

1 in 1,000 people in the United States have now died from coronavirus. US population: 330,752,923 US deaths: 330,844

Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer tweeted about the day the Electoral College votes will be accepted by Congress and the possibility that some GOP members will try to challenge the tally:

If Trump has anything resembling "a plan" right now, it's to cause massive political chaos and violence on January 6, as a pretense for God knows what. Not signing the relief bill, and jacking up anguish and despair, would fit right into that evil scheme, unfortunately. To be clear about the Jan. 6 date, I think there's zero chance Trump could get a positive result in Congress. What I'm worried about is violence in the streets of D.C. (which he's encouraging) as a pretext for his 11th-hour Pentagon lackeys to try and send in troops.

Then a series of threads by Ben Franklin. First, responding to New York Magazine that tweeted “It’s not going to succeed.”

A little early to declare that it hasn't succeeded until Biden is in office. If January 6th passes without any major incident the chances of that happening go up. But Trump himself calling his followers to DC for that date is not a great sign.

Then, in response to a nasty guy tweet of that call, he tweeted:

I think it's an effort to intimidate Congress, I think the previous rallies were building momentum and infrastructure for January 6th. Does he intend for them to do something beyond merely showing up? We don't know yet. Seems to be a coordinated effort to get people there:

That last bit quoted a map of someone organizing caravans of “patriots” from Michigan, Tennessee, Alabama, and Boston and points along each route. And a third thread:

There will definitely be some violence in DC. It’s normal for people to get stabbed at these rallies now. What we want to avoid is lots of people getting hurt, which will only inflame the general situation. I’m worried that the bad guys need this to happen. The worst case scenario IMO is some sort of false flag attack on the Trump supporters attending, to blamed on antifa of course. That would send the whole situation into dangerous territory. Given that Trump et al are perfectly willing to use their own supporters as a vector to worsen the pandemic, I’m not under the impression that these guys are pro life enough to not hurt their own for political gain.

Mark Felt replied:

There’s too many people on both sides that think standing in the streets taunting and blind siding each other is the way to solve the years of deceit AND the left WILL lose when you have the DC police backing the right.

Hunter of Kos reported that while COVID cases soar and the nasty guy is causing chaos in national politics and inviting chaos to come to Washington … the vice nasty, head of the COVID response team, is on an extended ski vacation with his family. He’ll appear in Washington to preside over the acceptance of the Electoral College vote on January 6. That same day he is scheduled to leave the country for a tour of the Middle East and Europe. In other words: hiding. We found something he’s good at.